Ok maybe not everything. But it's been a genuinely wild week in the fungi and psychedelic world, and one piece of news dropped this morning that I couldn’t wait to cover!
Let's get into it ⬇️
The Big One: Compass Pathways Just Made History
I'll lead with this because it deserves it.
Compass Pathways announced today that their second Phase 3 trial for COMP360, basically synthetic psilocybin, hit its primary endpoint. For patients with Treatment Resistant Depression, the trial showed a statistically significant reduction in symptoms.
Translation: a rigorously controlled, federally scrutinized trial just confirmed that synthetic psilocybin works for people whose depression has laughed off every other treatment.
Their stock jumped 40%+ on the news. They're now heading into conversations with the FDA about a rolling New Drug Application submission, which puts them on a very real path to becoming the first FDA approved classic psychedelic therapy.
Think about what that means. We've been watching this space build momentum for years, the studies, the state level legalization, the cultural shift, and now we're at the edge of it going full federal with an actual approved drug.
That's not nothing. That's huge!
How Psychedelics Actually Work (New Theory Just Dropped)
Here's where it gets interesting.
New research published this week suggests psychedelics work by basically shutting down reality. Not metaphorically, literally. The compounds quiet the visual input system in your brain, dampening the processing of real world sensory information. And when your brain stops getting that constant feed of "what's actually happening," it fills in the gaps with fragments from memory.
The mechanism involves increased 5-Hz oscillations in the visual cortex. Meaning your brain starts running on a different frequency, one that's more tuned into your internal archive than the outside world.
Here's why that matters ⬇️
It helps explain why psilocybin sessions allow people to access and reprocess deeply buried memories
It reframes the "hallucination" not as your brain glitching, but as your brain doing something intentional
It gives researchers a measurable, testable mechanism, which is what you need to convince the FDA types
What really gets me about this is the implication: psychedelics might not be adding something to your experience. They might be removing the noise so you can finally hear what's already in there.
Wild, right?
The Oregon Study We've Been Waiting For
OHSU just launched a federally funded study to actually track what's happening inside Oregon's legal psilocybin service program. They're recruiting 1,600 people over five years to look specifically at how real world psilocybin sessions affect substance use disorders like alcohol, nicotine, the usual suspects.
This one matters because it's not a controlled clinical trial with perfectly screened participants in a sterile room. It's the messy reality. Real facilitators, real clients, real outcomes. The data coming out of this over the next few years is going to be genuinely important for the rest of the country watching Oregon's experiment.
Legislative Updates (The Slow Grind Is Working)
A few states are moving ⬇️
Mississippi passed a House committee vote to allow clinical trials for Ibogaine — specifically to treat PTSD and addiction in veterans. This is notable because Ibogaine has been one of the most dramatic stories in psychedelic medicine: veterans traveling to Mexico or other countries for treatment that they can't access at home. A committee vote isn't law, but it's movement.
New Jersey is actually rolling out a two-year psilocybin pilot program across three hospitals right now, following a bill signed in late January. Three hospitals. Real patients. That's happening.
University of South Florida also officially joined the research ecosystem this week, announcing active studies on psilocybin for depression, anxiety, and addiction. Florida doing anything psychedelic adjacent still feels kinda surreal to me honestly 😅
The Death Cap Situation in California Is Getting Weird
California is having a shroom boom right now, wet winter, mushrooms everywhere and it's turning deadly. Between late November and early February, the Death Cap mushroom (Amanita phalloides) has killed 4 people and sent 40 to the hospital.
That's already alarming. But here's the part that really messed with me this week.
Researchers at UW-Madison just published a study showing that California's invasive Death Caps aren't just spreading, they're chemically evolving. These mushrooms have been producing new metabolites and toxins that don't even exist in their native European populations. They're basically becoming a chemically distinct species since arriving in North America.
Think about that. The fungus arrived, adapted to a new environment, and started making new poisons. The ones we don't have good tests for. The ones doctors don't know to look for.
Climate change is also pushing them into new areas where foragers have no reason to expect them. People who've foraged their whole lives in a spot that was always safe are now encountering them for the first time. That's a genuinely scary combination.
(I know this was covered last week but it reappeared the following day so figured it was still relevant)
Other Fungi Stuff Worth Knowing
Virginia is considering a Fungi Task Force. I know that sounds bureaucratic but it's actually kind of cool — the proposal recognizes that fungal networks are essentially a "canary in the coal mine" for forest health, and that invasive fungal pathogens (the kind attacking bat populations and tree species) need dedicated expertise to track. A state formally appointing a fungi expert? We love to see it.
Psilocybin vs. weed for OCD — a review in Psychiatric Times this week basically concluded that cannabinoids showed "little evidence of efficacy" for OCD while psilocybin is showing a strong signal. Specifically by disrupting the error and threat signaling loops that keep OCD patients stuck. Not a takedown of cannabis, just an honest look at what works for what.
The "Worldview Shift" study in Nature is worth reading if you want your brain stretched. It argues that psychedelics don't just reduce symptoms, they fundamentally change how a patient creates meaning. Their values shift. Their perception of reality shifts. That's categorically different from how antidepressants work, which mostly just... dull the edges. This study is asking a bigger question: are we treating symptoms or actually transforming something?
Harvard hosted a "Psychedelic Intersections" conference at the Divinity School this weekend. No clinical data discussed, just religion, law, and culture trying to figure out what a post legalization world actually looks like. Honestly sounds like a fascinating mess of a conversation.
UK's Drug Science group is formally submitting evidence that psilocybin is more cost-effective than current NHS depression treatments. They're running the numbers. If that lands, it could shift the entire European policy conversation.
And fungi are showing up in semiconductor manufacturing now. The Society of Chemical Industry released research on using fungi in chip production and converting mushroom waste into prebiotic sugars. The kingdom keeps expanding its job description. 🤯
The Bigger Picture
Here's what I keep thinking about as I go through all of this: we're watching two completely separate fungi stories run in parallel right now.
One is about mushrooms saving lives, treating depression no drug could touch, reshaping how veterans deal with PTSD, giving researchers a new window into how consciousness actually works.
The other is about mushrooms killing people because we're moving them into new territories faster than foragers and doctors can keep up, and they're changing their chemistry as they go.
Same kingdom. Radically different outcomes. Depends entirely on which species, which context, and whether we actually respect what we don't know yet.
That tension feels important to sit with.