Psychedelics – News and Features

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Why Does Ketamine Fight Depression? Finding Answers at BNA 2019
A significant minority of major depressive disorder patients don’t respond to currently available antidepressant medication. A newly approved treatment, based on the "club drug" ketamine, could change that. In a session at the British Neuroscience Association’s Festival of Neuroscience 2019, the potential mechanisms of ketamine’s antidepressant action were put under examination.

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Ketamine Reverses Neural Changes Underlying Depression-related Behaviors in Mice
Researchers have identified ketamine-induced brain-related changes that are responsible for maintaining the remission of behaviors related to depression in mice – findings that may help researchers develop interventions that promote lasting remission of depression in humans.

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Psychedelic Drug MDMA May Reawaken ‘Critical Period’ in Brain to Help Treat PTSD
Johns Hopkins scientists have used MDMA to reopen a “critical period,” when the brain is sensitive to learning the reward value of social behaviors.

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Fast-acting Psychedelic Eases Depression and Anxiety
Researchers have discovered that use of the synthetic psychedelic, 5-methocy-N,-N-dimethyltryptamine, appears to be associated with unintended improvements in self-reported depression and anxiety when given in a ceremonial group setting.

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Residue in Your Fingerprints Could Reveal Drug Use
Drug abuse has become an increasingly serious problem all over the world. Could fingerprinting be an appropriate method for determining whether a person has taken drugs?

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FDA Approves Ketamine-derived Nasal Spray for Depression
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved Spravato (esketamine) nasal spray, in conjunction with an oral antidepressant, for the treatment of depression in adults who have tried other antidepressant medicines but have not benefited from them.

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Psychedelic Microdosing in Rats Shows Beneficial Effects
The growing popularity of microdosing – taking tiny amounts of psychedelic drugs to boost mood and mental acuity – is based on anecdotal reports of its benefits. Now, a study in rats by researchers at the University of California, Davis suggests microdosing can provide relief for symptoms of depression and anxiety, but also found potential negative effects.

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Not All Sleep is Equal When It Comes to Cleaning the Brain
New research shows how the depth of sleep can impact our brain’s ability to efficiently wash away waste and toxic proteins. Because sleep often becomes increasingly lighter and more disrupted as we become older, the study reinforces and potentially explains the links between aging, sleep deprivation, and heightened risk for Alzheimer’s disease.

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Antidepressant Based on Ketamine Gets Backing From FDA Advisory Group
A form of the hallucinogenic party drug ketamine has cleared one of the final hurdles toward clinical use as an antidepressant. During a meeting at the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in Silver Spring, Maryland, an independent advisory panel voted 14-2 in favor of recommending a compound known as esketamine for use in treating depression.

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Mega Docking Library Set to Speed Drug Discovery
Researchers have launched an ultra-large virtual docking library expected to grow to more than 1 billion molecules by next year. It will expand by 1000-fold the number of such “make-on-demand” compounds readily available to scientists for chemical biology and drug discovery.
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