Medical SciencesNovember 20, 2025Silvia Natoli, Arturo Cuomo, Maurizio Marchesini et al.
Background: Chronic pain affects nearly one in five adults worldwide and remains a major healthcare burden due to its persistence, multidimensional impact, and resistance to conventional therapies. The opioid crisis has further highlighted the urgent need for safer and more effective alternatives. Psilocybin, a serotonergic psychedelic compound, has re-emerged as a potential therapeutic option...
Although dopamine (DA) has been implicated in the psychostimulant properties of 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA), there is no detailed information on its modalities of action on single ventral midbrain dopaminergic neurons. We examined the actions of MDMA on intracellularly recorded dopaminergic neurons maintained in slices. At 1 micromol/L, MDMA depolarized and excited the cells; at 3...