- Mice given two doses of psilocybin were protected from chemotherapy-induced nerve damage for up to six cycles of treatment, according to research published in the journal Science on September 3, 2026.
- The side effect, peripheral neuropathy, causes tingling and numbness in the hands and feet, can last for life, and is currently regarded as largely unpreventable.
- The findings are limited to mice and laboratory cell models, and a clinical trial in patients with colorectal, breast, and head and neck cancers is due to begin within about a month.
A psilocybin chemotherapy study has found that two doses of the psychedelic protected mice from the nerve damage chemo leaves behind, through as many as six cycles of treatment.
Chemotherapy saves lives and takes a toll doing it. Hair loss, nausea and fatigue pass once treatment ends, but peripheral neuropathy often does not, and the tingling and numbness in the hands and feet can last for the rest of a patient’s life.
It can be managed with ice, painkillers or opioids, and that is roughly the extent of the options. There is no reliable way to stop it happening in the first place.
The research published in Science suggests there might be. Mice given two doses of psilocybin, an active ingredient in magic mushrooms, avoided nerve damage through as many as six rounds of chemotherapy.
“This is the first time where psilocybin has been used as a neuroprotective agent,” said Patrick Dougherty, a co-author of the paper and a professor at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, at a press conference ahead of its release. “It’s a brand-new finding.”
Earlier work had shown psilocybin could treat this kind of nerve damage in mice, but preventing it altogether is what is new.
The discovery came about more or less by accident. A colleague of co-author Moran Amit, a professor and neuroscientist at MD Anderson, noticed that mice given psilocybin were not developing neuropathy after chemotherapy, and Amit did not believe her.
“Do it again,” he recalled telling her. “So she did, again and again and again.”
The explanation appears to sit inside the nerve cells themselves. Chemotherapy attacks microtubules, the structures that move mitochondria around a cell like a railroad system, and in the mice given psilocybin that traffic kept moving.
“We did it so many times with tumor, without tumor, different types of chemotherapy. And consistently, we did not see the development of neuropathy, whether we gave those animals just one cycle or even six consecutive cycles,” Amit said. “This is unparalleled.”
None of this means a treatment exists yet for people. The results are limited to mice and cell models in the lab, and the team is due to start a clinical trial within about a month involving patients with colorectal, breast, and head and neck cancers who are going through chemotherapy. Anecdotally, researchers have heard from chemotherapy patients who joined psilocybin trials for other reasons and reported their nerve symptoms improving too.
With no other way for those patients to prevent the damage, Amit said, “I think that it’s definitely worth a shot.”
