研究表明，“神奇蘑菇”成分可以用来治疗抑郁症

研究表明，“神奇蘑菇”成分可以用来治疗抑郁症

"Magic mushrooms" may have moved one step closer to becoming a treatment for depression.

“神奇蘑菇”离治疗抑郁症又近了一步。

The active ingredient in psychedelic mushrooms is called psilocybin -- and a new British study suggests it could safely be used to treat depression when other drugs have failed, offering hope to millions of patients worldwide.

迷幻蘑菇中的活性成分被称为裸盖菇素，一项新的英国研究表明，当其他药物失败时，裸盖菇素可以安全地用于治疗抑郁症，这给全世界数百万患者带来了希望。

The study, conducted by King's College London and mental healthcare company Compass Pathways, administered psilocybin to 89 healthy adult volunteers.

这项由伦敦国王学院和心理保健公司Compass Pathways进行的研究，让89名健康的成年志愿者服用裸盖菇素。

The study compared the effects of 10mg and 25mg doses of psilocybin, and a placebo.

研究比较了10毫克和25毫克裸盖菇素与安慰剂的效果。

There were "no serious adverse events" and "no negative effects" on cognitive and emotional function among the volunteers that took psilocybin, according to a Compass Pathways press release. Instead, the volunteers experienced "changes in sensory perception and positive mood alteration" -- typical effects of psychedelic drugs.

Compass Pathways的一份新闻稿称，服用裸盖菇素的志愿者在认知和情感功能方面“没有严重的不良事件”，也“没有负面影响”。相反，志愿者经历了“感官感知的变化和积极情绪的改变”——典型的迷幻药效应。

"The results of the study are clinically reassuring and support further development of psilocybin as a treatment for patients with mental health problems that haven't improved with conventional therapy, such as treatment resistant depression," said James Rucker, one of the lead researchers from King's College London, in the press release.

伦敦大学国王学院的首席研究员詹姆斯·拉克在新闻发布会上说:“研究结果在临床上让人安心，并支持进一步开发裸盖菇素，将其用于治疗心理健康问题，而传统疗法并没有改善这些问题，比如难治性抑郁症。”

This is just the first of two phases in their testing -- the second phase trial will involve over 200 patients with depression across Europe and North America.

这只是他们测试的两个阶段中的第一阶段——第二阶段的试验将涉及欧洲和北美的200多名抑郁症患者。

More than 264 million people worldwide are affected by depression, according to the World Health Organization. The most common pharmaceutical treatment is to take antidepressants like Prozac, which increase levels of serotonin in the brain to improve mood.

根据世界卫生组织的数据，全世界有超过2.64亿人受到抑郁症的影响。最常见的药物治疗是服用像百忧解这样的抗抑郁药，它能增加大脑中血清素的水平来改善情绪。

But this type of antidepressant doesn't work for everyone, and is generally prescribed as a long-term treatment to maintain effectiveness.

但是这种类型的抗抑郁药并不是对每个人都有效，通常是作为一种长期治疗来保持疗效。

By contrast, psychedelic drugs quickly alter our brain function, and could therefore potentially treat patients in just a few doses when combined with therapy, researchers have suggested.

研究人员表示，相比之下，迷幻药会迅速改变我们的大脑功能，因此，在与治疗相结合时，只需几剂迷幻药就可能治愈病人。

Though research remains in the early stages, such a treatment could target a range of mental health conditions, including anxiety, addiction, and obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD).

虽然研究仍处于早期阶段，但这样的治疗可以针对一系列的精神健康状况，包括焦虑、成瘾和强迫症。

Here's how it works: theoretically, psilocybin helps "loosen" the deeply-rooted patterns of thinking and behavior behind many of these mental disorders, according to King's College London.

它是这样发挥作用的:根据伦敦国王学院的研究，理论上，裸盖菇素有助于“放松”这些精神障碍背后根深蒂固的思维和行为模式。

It could "relax" the parts of our brain that control these behaviors, thus allowing old patterns to change or fade. Patients who have received psilocybin have changed perspectives on their difficulties, said the university.

它可以“放松”我们大脑中控制这些行为的部分，从而让旧的模式改变或消失。该大学表示，接受裸盖菇素治疗的患者改变了他们对困难的看法。

A 2014 Imperial College London study supports this theory. After volunteers were injected with psilocybin, the parts of their brain associated with emotional thinking became more active, while the introspective, self-conscious part of their brain became less active.

2014年伦敦帝国理工学院的一项研究支持了这一理论。在给志愿者注射了裸盖菇素后，他们大脑中与情绪思考相关的部分变得更加活跃，而反省、自我意识的部分变得不那么活跃。

But psilocybin and other pschedelics are likely still a long way to being approved, developed, and rolled out as treatments. Only recently have US cities like Denver and Oakland moved to decriminalize psilocybin; nationwide, it's still listed as a controlled substance, meaning it has no medicinal properties under official US federal policy.

但是，裸盖菇素和其他致幻剂要被批准、开发并作为治疗手段推广，还有很长的路要走。直到最近，像丹佛和奥克兰这样的美国城市才开始将裸盖菇素合法化;在全国范围内，它仍被列为管制物质，这意味着根据美国联邦政府的官方政策，它没有药用价值。