A systematic review to assess the use of psilocybin in the treatment of headaches
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Introduction Psilocybin is a naturally occurring psychedelic compound whose effects have been seen in studies for treatment of depression, anxiety and pain management. Given its structural similarities to 5-hydroxytryptamine, a monoamine controlling brain modulation of pain input, preliminary studies sought to test serotonergic interactions of psilocybin with headaches. Objectives Explore efficacy of psilocybin as treatment for individuals with headaches, including migraines, essential headaches, cluster headaches and unclassified head pains. Methods Studies were found from six major databases, with inclusion criteria consisting of participants with any type of headache using psilocybin as a treatment. Each study was independently screened by two reviewers at two stages, with inconsistencies reviewed by a third, senior reviewer. Results The systematic review evaluated eight articles. Benefits of macrodosing were explored in one study which reported higher levels of pain relief in comparison to microdosing and conventional pain medications. Top benefits of microdosing as reported by participants included convenience, perceived safety and reduced side effects when compared to hallucinogenic doses of psilocybin. Participants across five studies reported improvements to their headaches as characterized by changes in frequency, intensity, duration and remission period. Reported improvements were clinically significant in the six studies and statistically significant in three papers. With psilocybin intervention, two studies reported a decrease in headache attack frequency, three studies reported a decrease in intensity, and one study indicated a decrease in duration. The greatest benefit reported was for psilocybin taken during a remission period, with the average length of that remission period between headaches extending for 91% of participants. One study focused on the dosages of psilocybin in relation to its efficacy, indicating that there was more headache pain relief amongst macrodosers, with a difference of 12.3% of participants experiencing pain reduction 3 days after dosage in comparison to microdosers. 18% of participants who experienced essential headaches also experienced hallucinations as a result of ingested psilocybin. Others showed a temporary increase in symptoms of anxiety and pain - 5.3% with microdosing and 14.1% macrodosing. One study observed an increase in average arterial pressure after ingestion. Conclusions Six of eight screened papers showed that psilocybin was clinically significant in the treatment of headaches as captured through self-reports. While the first controlled study for psilocybin use for headaches was detailed in this study, psilocybin remains illegal in many countries, presenting a need for further regulated research. Disclosure of Interest None Declared
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.016 | 0.068 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.015 | 0.011 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.018 | 0.016 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.004 | 0.005 |
| Open science | 0.003 | 0.002 |
| Research integrity | 0.003 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.010 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".