PSIPET Research Group

PSIPET is a research effort based at Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, run through Johan Lundberg's group within the Centre for Psychiatry Research, in collaboration with Region Stockholm and the Usona Institute. It centres on Sweden's first phase II randomised controlled trial of psilocybin for depression, pairing clinical outcomes with PET and MRI imaging to examine synaptic density as a possible biomarker of the drug's mechanism. Reported results were striking: in a trial of 35 participants, 53 per cent of the psilocybin group were in remission at six weeks against 6 per cent on active placebo, with meaningful symptom reduction within about eight days. The group's distinctive contribution is its focus on the biological changes that might underlie those effects, rather than symptom scores alone.