The trials will be modelled after similar studies with psychedelic medicines, like psilocybin and ketamine, where patients go through several preparatory sessions as well as post-treatment psychotherapy.
Carol Routledge, chief scientific and medical officer at Small Pharma, said the treatment could have applications in a number of depressive disorders beyond major depression, including post-traumatic stress disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder. “The psychedelic drug breaks up all of the ruminative thought processes in your brain — it literally undoes what has been done by either the stress you’ve been through or the depressive thoughts you have — and hugely increases the making of new connections,” Routledge explained, adding that the psychotherapy sessions are meant to help the patients make sense of their thoughts and new connections.and can lead to seven years imprisonment for possession and life for production or trafficking.