$MNMD: Psychedelics are the Future of Psychiatry and Mental Health

When I read everyone's opinion on companies using mushrooms for psychiatric disorders I know that most people don't have medical or neuroscience backgrounds. The current work in therapeutic psychedelics has increased over the last ten years. Last year there was a record number of academic research articles regarding psychedelics, over 5,000 papers. (That decrease in 2021 is the current number of papers that have been accepted and published. I expect the number in 2021 to hit around 7,000 papers)

In 2021, there has already been two big articles published in the New England Journal of Medicine and Nature Medicine (two of the biggest academic journals). The NEJM article was regarding psilocybin and lexapro and there was an overall decrease in depression score when comparing the two groups. The results were not significant statistically, but the sample size wasn't that big. Small sample sizes affects the statistics greatly especially if 1 or 2 people falls outside 2-3 standard deviations. The Nature Medicine article which was posted on the 10th of May involved treating severe PTSD with MDMA (ecstasy). In this experiment the results were significant! This means that the findings showed a statistically significant decrease in PTSD symptoms when conducting a MDMA counseling session.

I am a medical student in my psychiatry clerkship and I've discussed this with all of my attendings and the residents. This is the future of psychiatry and mental health. Mindmed is currently looking at other areas where psychedelics could beneficial. Depression, anxiety, PTSD, chronic pain, ADHD, substance abuse, etc. This is just the beginning of areas where psychedelics can be applied. Further chemical manipulation can produce more therapeutic drugs.

For those who are not pharmacologists or chemists all psychedelics have a serotonergic backbone. Meaning that they are all similar to serotonin. Serotonin is our feel good neurotransmitter and is the clinical target for depression. The current medication regimen for depression is selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs). Their mechanism of action is to increase serotonin by blocking reuptake in our synapses. ALL PSYCHEDELICS ARE SEROTONIN ANALOGS! This is good! Depression and anxiety have not had any new breakthroughs since the 1980s, sertraline and fluoxetine (Prozac and Zoloft). With more and more people being diagnosed with depression and anxiety it is a 4.7 BILLION dollar market. Imagine getting into this breakthrough at $3.00 a share. The potential of this field of research and the current market is astronomical. This treatment will be the future of psychiatry and mental health. When including other areas like substance abuse and chronic pain you are looking at an even bigger market. These shares in a few years could be at $200 dollars a share.