Empathy plays a crucial role in interpersonal relationships and mental health. It is decreased in a variety of psychiatric disorders including major depression. Psilocybin, a promising candidate for treating depression, has been shown to acutely increase emotional empathy in healthy volunteers. However, no study has investigated this effect and its relevance for symptom improvement in a clinical population. This study examines the enduring effects of psilocybin-assisted therapy on empathy in depressed patients using a randomized, placebo-controlled design. Fifty-one depressed patients were randomly assigned to receive a single dose of psilocybin (0215 mg/kg body weight) or a placebo embedded in a 4-week psychological support intervention. Empathy was measured using the Multifaceted Empathy Test at baseline and 2 days, 1 week, and 2 weeks after substance administration. Changes in empathy were compared between treatment conditions. Patients who received psilocybin showed significant improvements in explicit emotional empathy driven by an increase in empathy towards positive stimuli compared to the placebo group for at least two weeks. This study highlights the potential of psychedelics to enhance social cognition in individuals living with depression and contributes to a better understanding of the psychological mechanisms of action of psychedelics. Further studies are necessary to investigate the interaction between social cognition and clinical efficacy.

The trial is registered on clinicaltrials.gov (Identifier: NCT03715127) and KOFAM (Identifier: SNCTP000003139).

同理心在人际关系和心理健康中起着至关重要的作用。在包括重度抑郁症在内的各种精神疾病中，它都会降低。裸盖菇素是治疗抑郁症的有前途的候选药物，已被证明可以迅速提高健康志愿者的情感同理心。然而，没有研究调查这种效应及其与临床人群症状改善的相关性。本研究使用随机、安慰剂对照设计检查了裸盖菇素辅助疗法对抑郁症患者同理心的持久影响。51 名抑郁症患者被随机分配接受单剂量裸盖菇素 （0215 mg/kg 体重） 或安慰剂，嵌入为期 4 周的心理支持干预。在基线和物质给药后 2 天、1 周和 2 周使用多方面同理心测试测量同理心。比较不同治疗条件之间同理心的变化。与安慰剂组相比，接受裸盖菇素的患者在至少两周内表现出对积极刺激的同理心增加，从而在外显情感同理心方面表现出显着改善。这项研究强调了迷幻药在增强抑郁症患者的社会认知方面的潜力，并有助于更好地了解迷幻药的心理作用机制。需要进一步的研究来调查社会认知与临床疗效之间的相互作用。

该试验已在 clinicaltrials.gov（标识符：NCT03715127）和 KOFAM（标识符：SNCTP000003139）上注册。