Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology
August 1, 2023
Sarah J Jefferson, Ian Gregg, Mark Dibbs et al.
57 citations
5-MeO-DMT, a short-acting psychedelic, produces a dose-dependent increase in head-twitch response in mice that is shorter in duration than psilocybin at all doses tested. It also substantially suppresses social ultrasonic vocalizations during mating behavior. The compound causes long-lasting increases in dendritic spine density in the mouse medial frontal cortex, driven by an elevated rate of spine formation, but unlike psilocybin, it does not affect the size of dendritic spines. These findings reveal behavioral and neural mechanisms of 5-MeO-DMT, highlighting similarities and differences with psilocybin.
bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology
November 23, 2024
Farid Aboharb, Pasha A Davoudian, Ling-Xiao Shao et al.
3 citations
preprint
A pipeline using light sheet fluorescence microscopy to measure immediate early gene expression in mouse brain tissues, combined with machine learning, can classify psychoactive drugs including psilocybin, ketamine, and MDMA. In one-versus-rest tests, the exact drug was identified with 67% accuracy, far above the 12.5% chance level. Psilocybin was discriminated from 5-MeO-DMT, ketamine, MDMA, or acute fluoxetine with over 95% accuracy in pairwise comparisons. Shapley additive explanation identified brain regions driving the predictions. The approach offers a novel way to characterize and validate psychedelic and related compounds.
Journal of natural products
July 28, 2017
Anil Yilmaz, Rachel Saylor Crowley, Alexander M Sherwood et al.
Columbin, a natural compound from plants used in traditional medicine, was modified to create derivatives that might activate the kappa-opioid receptor (KOR), a target for conditions like anxiety, depression, and addiction. The derivatives showed slightly improved activity at the KOR compared to the original columbin, but neither the parent compound nor its derivatives were potent KOR ligands. This study is the first to test columbin at the KOR and explores chemical modifications that can be made to the columbin molecule.