Psilocybin Study

Lincoln, MA - November 2: From left, Dr. Alden Doerner Rinaldi, MD Hospice Physician and Study Therapist stands beside Dr. Caitlin Brennan, PhD APRN Study co-investigator and Director of Research and a Nurse Practitioner at Care Dimensions, Dr. Zachary Sager, MD Study Psychiatrist and Study Therapist with Dana Farber, Dr. Roxanne Sholevar, MD Psychiatrist and Study Therapist with Dana Farber, and Dr. Yvan Beaussant, MD Principal Investigator and Study Therapist with Dana Farber pose for a portrait inside one of the rooms the Care Dimensions "Hospice House" in Lincoln where dying patients receive the psilocybin. Sixty years after Harvard fired Timothy Leary over his experiments with psychedelic drugs, a hospital affiliated with the school has reopened the door on such research by testing whether magic mushrooms combined with talk therapy can relieve demoralization in cancer patients. The small trial by researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute's Psychedelic Assisted Therapy program is the first anywhere to test synthetic psilocybin, the active ingredient in magic mushrooms, in terminally ill patients in hospice care, according to experts. (Photo by Jessica Rinaldi/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)