THE MAGIC OF MUSHROOMS

GOOD NEWS ABOUT THOSE FABULOUS FUNGI

I wasn’t intending to write about this particular subject, but then I came across two articles that just appeared about some new scientific studies. A couple of years ago, I watched an amazing documentary titled “Fabulous Fungi.” It’s on Netflix and I think you can check it out here Also, at my ripe old age, I took some psilocybin for the first time not long ago. It too was amazing. So here we go, with the latest on our fungal friends.

First, from the BBC’s Science Focus digest:

“Biologists have long argued over whether animals like fish and bats are conscious. But now brainless beings like plants, slime molds and fungi are getting caught up in the debate.

And there’s certainly more to mushrooms than meets the eye, as Cecelia Stokes, a PhD fungi researcher at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, in the US, explains.

Below ground, mushrooms are attached to a mycelium web of wire-like filaments, called ‘hyphae’ that stretch through the soil to seek out food and mates. The mushrooms, above ground, are the fruiting body – the fungi’s spore- spreading reproductive organs.

“[Fungi have] developed a really efficient and effective way of navigating minute changes in their environment,” says Stokes. “And that alone – doing it without a central nervous system or a brain – is amazing.”

Whether this kind of behavior demonstrates intelligence, she isn’t sure, but she says it might be “worth considering” a wider definition of the term, given that it’s already being applied to the non-living, as with artificial intelligence, for instance….

New studies imply fungi are capable of behaviors usually reserved for humans and other animals, such as learning, remembering and decision-making.

Dr Yu Fukasawa and his team at Tohoku University in Japan observed this behavior…. In one 2020 study, Fukasawa and UK colleagues saw the fungi ‘decide’ when to give up one block in favor of another, bigger piece of wood. The fungi also ‘remembered’ the direction they grew in to find the wood, even after being moved to new ground.

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NOW THIS, from the website IF SCIENCE: (The study is published in the journal npj Aging.)

“Magic mushrooms have been extensively studied for their potential mental health benefits, yet new research suggests that the psychoactive compound in these trippy fungi may also have powerful anti-aging properties. Using cultured human cells and live mice, the study authors showed that psilocybin appears to significantly slow down cellular aging while also keeping older rodents alive for longer.

Inspiration for this research came from the “psilocybin-telomere hypothesis”, which posits that the psychological effects of psilocybin may help to protect cellular DNA by preserving the integrity of telomeres. These are protective sequences of DNA that bookend each chromosome, but which degrade and shorten as we age.

The link between mental health and telomere length is well documented, with depression and other psychological conditions being associated with accelerated shortening of these protective caps. Because psilocybin has been shown to help treat mental health disorders, the authors of the new study wondered whether it might also have an impact on telomere length and cellular aging.

To investigate, they treated human fetal lung cells with psilocin, which is the active metabolite formed when psilocybin is digested in the gut. The results showed that cellular lifespan increased by an average of 29 percent when ten micrograms of the drug were administered, and by 57 percent when the dosage was upped to 100 micrograms.

Repeating the experiment using adult human skin cells, the researchers noted a 51 percent extension in cellular lifespan following treatment with 100 micrograms of psilocin. “Overall, these results suggest that the in vitro impacts of psilocin are dose-dependent, with higher dosing ultimately leading to greater cellular life extension,” they write.

Looking at the mechanisms behind this anti-aging effect, the study authors found that telomere shortening was notably reduced in treated cells compared to non-treated controls. The addition of psilocin also led to elevated levels of a protein called SIRT1, which plays a major role in regulating cellular aging and metabolism. At the same time, psilocin attenuated the release of a compound called Growth Arrest and DNA Damage-inducible 45 alpha (GADD45a), resulting in less degeneration of cellular DNA.

Taking things a step further, the researchers treated 19-month-old female mice – equivalent to 60 to 65 years of age in human terms – with psilocybin once a month for ten months. Overall, 80 percent of these mice survived until the end of the course, compared to just 50 percent of age-matched mice that didn’t receive treatment.

In addition to remaining alive for longer, mice that received psilocybin also looked younger than control mice, exhibiting “improvements in overall fur quality” and less graying. “In summary, we provide the first experimental evidence demonstrating that psilocybin treatment can enhance survival in aged mice,” write the study authors.

"This is a very exciting and clinically relevant finding that suggests that even when intervention is initiated late in life, it can have dramatic impacts," said study author Dr Kosuke Kato in a statement. Encouraged by their results, the researchers now call for further studies investigating the potential of psilocybin to aid in the treatment of various age-related diseases, including cancer….”

SO, for those of us who ain’t getting any younger, this bodes well, doesn’t it? And you get to see some great colors and geometric patterns too.