Overview

• Dr. Erin E. Mauney, an assistant professor at Tufts University and researcher at Massachusetts General Hospital, leads the first clinical trial testing psilocybin in patients with severe IBS unresponsive to standard therapies.
• Participants receive two psilocybin doses integrated with structured therapy sessions before and after dosing to probe changes in interoception and gut-brain communication.
• Functional MRI scans and detailed patient-reported outcomes are combined to track both neurobiological shifts and subjective symptom changes.
• Preliminary data shared by Mauney suggest reductions in abdominal pain and improved gut sensitivity among early participants.
• Psilocybin’s federal illegality outside research contexts poses an obstacle to wider adoption even as investigators work to refine scalable treatment protocols.