How Psilocybin Reshapes Brain Pathways

…and other items from this week’s health science news:

Of mice and mushrooms

Recent research (yes, in mice so far, but the ethics board wouldn’t let the researchers slice up the brains of human volunteers) has shown how psilocybin-based drugs could stimulate the brain’s capacity to remodel neural circuits without producing psychedelic effects, which is promising for treating depression, PTSD, and more.

In the study, psilocybin rapidly increased the formation of new neural connections in mice, with new dendritic spines* appearing within 24 hours, while also accelerating their maturation into larger, more stable structures capable of supporting lasting communication between neurons.

^{*These sound scary but we assure you they are good things to have}

An interesting observation was that it had different effects in healthy and stressed brains: in healthy mice, new connection formation temporarily increased before gradually returning toward baseline over three weeks as some pre-existing connections were eliminated, whereas in chronically stressed mice, psilocybin produced a greater increase in new connections while preventing excessive loss of existing ones.

Read in full: How psilocybin reshapes brain circuits

Related: Taking A Trip Through The Evidence On Psychedelics

Hip fracture is a much bigger deal than most people think

Let’s start with a sombre statistic: nearly half of the older adults who sustain a hip fracture die within one year.

So it’s not quite “just a broken bone”; it’s not a mere (painful, but transient) inconvenience like a child falling off their bike.

The risk increase is not pure luck of the draw (although it can happen to anyone): depression, previous stroke, and subtrochanteric fractures were associated with increased mortality after hip fracture, while dementia was associated with increased mortality both alone and in combination with depressive symptoms throughout the three-year follow-up.

It’s also worth noting that even among those who survived a hip fracture, recovery during the first year involved progress and setbacks, with everyday activities, fear of falling again, family support, and efforts to regain independence shaping experiences; several participants continued to experience difficulties after one year.

So, really, please do be careful:

Read in full: Hip fracture in older adults is far more than an orthopedic injury

Related: The Most Dangerous Everyday Movement For Over-50s

Confirmed: antigen therapy indeed has benefits vs prostate cancer!

This has previously not had nearly enough research but a French early-access program enrolled 3,709 patients across 46 centers between December 2021 and April 2025, making it the largest real-world cohort of such patients studied to date, and it was quite comprehensive too; patients received up to six treatment cycles.

Further, subgroup analyses confirmed effectiveness in older patients, while outcomes were most favorable among those who had received fewer previous taxane-based chemotherapy treatments.

Another thing worth noting is that some patients experienced an initial rise in PSA after the first treatment cycle, followed by a decline after the second cycle, indicating that an early PSA increase did not necessarily mean actual treatment failure.

All in all, this is very promising:

Read in full: Real-world results confirm benefit of antigen therapy for prostate cancer

Related: Most Men Don’t Know How Much This Affects Prostate Cancer Risk (If They Know It At All)

Take care!