Classical psychedelic drugs show promise as a treatment for major depressive disorder and related psychiatric disorders. This therapeutic efficacy stems from long-lasting psychedelic-induced neuroplasticity onto prefrontal cortical neurons and is thought to require the postsynaptic expression of serotonin 2A receptors (5-HT_2AR). However, other cortical regions such as the granular...
ABSTRACT Classical psychedelic drugs are thought to increase excitability of pyramidal cells in prefrontal cortex via activation of serotonin 2 A receptors (5-HT2 A Rs). Here, we instead find that multiple classes of psychedelics dose-dependently suppress intrinsic excitability of pyramidal neurons, and that extracellular delivery of psychedelics decreases excitability significantly more than...
Neurophysiologic complexity has been shown to decrease during states characterized by a depressed level of consciousness, such as sleep or anesthesia. Conversely, neurophysiologic complexity is increased during exposure to serotonergic psychedelics or subanesthetic doses of dissociative anesthetics. However, the neurochemical substrates underlying changes in neurophysiologic complexity are...