Researchers at a company called CaaMTech think they’ve identified the molecule that influences positive psychedelic experiences.

At a small research lab in the North American city of Issaquah, Washington, a team of scientists is working towards an admirable goal: to create a strain of magic mushroom that never produces a bad trip.

The startup company, CaaMTech, has spent the past year analysing the properties of different compounds found in hallucinogenic shrooms in order to ascertain which fungal chemicals produce which effects. In doing so, it’s hoped that the team could find a way to make custom blends of mushrooms with “optimised properties,” thus increasing the likelihood of a positive psychedelic experience and increasing the potential for psilocybin to be used in therapeutic settings.

“We’re thinking that preventing bad trips could increase the patient success rate,” Andrew Chadeayne, CaaMTech’s founder and CEO, told online psychedelic magazine DoubleBlind. “We want to come up with a way to at least give people the option of increasing the probability for a euphoric experience versus a dysphoric experience.”

One ingredient that Chadeayne points to as a “really important molecule” is the naturally-occurring compound aeruginascin, which scientists believe could drastically reduce or even remove the potential of a bad trip.

While it’s known that the psilocybin molecule is predominantly responsible for producing a mushroom trip, Chadeayne believes a raft of other chemicals also interact with one another and contribute to the psychedelic experience—a phenomenon known as the ”entourage effect”. Aeruginascin is thought to be one of those chemicals. By isolating it, scientists at CaaMTech hope to eliminate the risk of negative psychedelic experiences and increase the chance of a blissful trip.
Read the full article at Vice