Psychedelics give mice second chance to learn social rewards

Abstract

Five different psychedelic drugs share the ability to restore the mature brain to a developmental state during which it can more easily adjust its connections and learn new information, a new study suggests.Mice treated with the psychedelics were better able to learn from social experiences and showed changes in the brain's reward center, the researchers found.The results hint at a common mechanism to account for psychedelics' "remarkable therapeutic effects," says lead investigator Gül Dölen, associate professor of neuroscience at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland.Pinpointing a shared mechanism could accelerate drug design for mental health conditions and shed light on their pathophysiology, says Gabriella Gobbi, professor of psychiatry at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, who was not involved in the work.