Psychedelics – News and Features

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.

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.

Johns Hopkins scientists have used MDMA to reopen a “critical period,” when the brain is sensitive to learning the reward value of social behaviors.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.