World’s scariest drug sheds light on depression treatment

Scopolamine, better known as “Devil’s breath”, is a unique hallucinogen that causes rapid and prolonged antidepressant effects. Researchers from Yale University recently shed light into the surprising effectiveness of this paradoxical drug, which VICE described as “the worst roofie you could ever imagine”.

Despite its noteworthy potential to help treatment resistant depression patients, the horror tales associated with scopolamine’s misuse cast a shadow of doubt over its safety.

“You fall into a zombie-like state, where you will do anything for your attacker, from empty out your bank account to pull a trigger on someone.” – The Guardian

Criminal organizations in countries such as Columbia and Ecuador reportedly use scopolamine in robberies, rape and even organ harvesting of incapacitated victims. Exposure causes severe memory loss.

The shocking documentary from VICE (below) covers this story in detail:

A path to Hope: clinical prospects of scopolamine

Current antidepressants face significant limitations in treating major depressive disorder (MDD), often with slow onset and limited benefits for many patients.  

Scopolamine blocks M1 acetylcholine receptors in the brain, which regulate other neurotransmitters e.g. GABA and glutamate. These neurotransmitters are often dysregulated in MDD, which is shown to cause causing neuron death.

Blocking M1 acetylcholine receptors has been shown to produce rapid and long lasting antidepressant effects in patients with MDD, and to form new, long-lasting neuronal connections.

The Yale study was the first to demonstrate how M1 receptor blockade in mice:  

·       Increased resilience to chronic unpredictable stress

·       Improved motivation in relation to stress

·       Decreased behaviours propagating further stress or harm

Similar to psychedelics, scopolamine’s history of misuse casts a dark shadow over its reputation. However, this drug is far from a foreign substance to western medicine. In low doses, it can be prescribed by your GP to treat motion sickness.

“The dose makes the poison” – “dosis sola facit venenum” – Paracelsus, 1538

Today, clinical trials are recruiting new cohorts to test scopolamine as a therapy for MDD and bipolar depression. More significantly, this new understanding of the locations and roles of neurotransmitters in depression offers new opportunities for antidepressant drug development with similar mechanisms of action to scopolamine.

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