Magic Mushrooms Make You Smarter, According To Science
Known their psychedelic effects, magic mushrooms are most commonly used as recreational drug. They have the power to turn your friends in stalking insidious characters with long limbs and flat smiles, or hilarious shape-shifting creatures which make you fall about with laughter. Either way, the emphasis is on hedonism (or mind expansion if you need a more meaningful excuse).
However, the results from a University of South Florida study suggest that psilocybin – the active ingredient in magic mushrooms – could help stimulate the growth of new brain cells. The research was conducted using mice which had been conditioned to fear certain stimuli.
The study made a connection between psilocybin and overcoming fear – something which other studies have also suggested. However, psilocybin also seemed to prompt cell growth and regeneration in the mice’s brains.
The leader of the study is Dr Briony Catlow, of the Lieber Institute for Brain Development. “Memory, learning, and the ability to relearn that a once threatening stimuli is no longer a danger absolutely depends on the ability of the brain to alter its connections,” Dr Catlow explained to Real Clear Science.
“We believe that neuroplasticity plays a critical role in psilocybin accelerating fear extinction,” he continues. “It is highly possible that in the future we will continue these studies since many interesting questions have come up from these experiments,” Dr Catlow said. “The hope is that we can extend the findings to humans in clinical trials.”
If you intend to wave this information in people’s faces or use it as justification for your actions, first give some thought to the poor little mice in this experiment. The mice were simultaneously subjected to an auditory tone and electrocuted at the same time. Yep – Dr Catlow is a mean bastard.
While continually feeding mice magic mushrooms then scaring the shit of them may sound pretty evil, the mad scientists involved in this experiment have got nothing on these guys.