Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews
August 1, 2026
Fabrizio Ascone, Diletta Giangiacomo, Viviana Trezza
Classic psychedelics have re-emerged as compelling probes of neural plasticity, raising interest in their potential relevance for behavioral and circuit-level features associated with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Although only a limited number of studies have examined these compounds in validated animal models of ASD, a growing body of preclinical work has investigated their effects on...
Pharmacology, biochemistry, and behavior
August 1, 2026
Mengyang He, Zhifei Shi, Ruijie Zhan et al.
Depression is a complex mental disorder threatening global public health. Its pathophysiological mechanisms involve multidimensional dysfunctions including the emotional-cognitive circuit, Hypothalamic-Pituitary-Adrenal (HPA) axis, neurotransmitter systems and neuroplasticity. Current studies mostly analyze each system in isolation, lacking a unified integrated framework. This review proposes...
bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)
July 20, 2026
Neil K. Savalia, Ling-Xiao Shao, Cory A. Knox et al.
SUMMARY How psychedelics act on cortical dendrites to produce long-lasting structural plasticity remains poorly understood. Here, we characterize the effects of psilocybin on dendritic calcium dynamics in pyramidal tract neurons of the mouse medial frontal cortex. Psilocybin transiently increases calcium event rates in apical dendritic tufts over a time course that parallels the drug’s...
Translational Psychiatry
July 20, 2026
Yong-Yu Yin, Si-Rui Sun, Hui-Ying Zhang et al.
Ketamine, a non-competitive N-methyl-D-aspartate acid (NMDA) receptor antagonist, produces rapid and sustained antidepressant actions, but the underlying molecular mechanism remains unclear. The CX 3 CL1/CX 3 CR1 signaling is closely related to mood disorders, and this study aims to investigate its role in ketamine’s antidepressant actions. We pharmacologically (AZD8797, a selective CX 3 CR1...
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
July 18, 2026
Aziel Eliab
Post-Perturbation Integrative Neuroplasticity (PPIN) is a descriptive framework for sustained, non-pathological cognitive reorganization following significant perturbation events such as severe trauma, near-death experiences, or extreme stress. Unlike acquired savant syndrome, which typically produces narrow, domain-specific skill emergence, PPIN describes broad cross-domain integration,...
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
July 17, 2026
Bartosz Niciński, Magdalena Kloc, Ewa Wiench, Natasza Millan, Aleksandra Blicharz, Wojciech Kozdraś, Lidia Kozaczko, Gabriela Szewczyk, Elżbieta Bukowczan, Alicja Zając, Damian Broda, Alicja Benecka
Major depressive disorder is a highly burdensome psychiatric condition worldwide, and many patients do not achieve full remission after standard monoaminergic antidepressant treatment. This has contributed to growing interest in rapid-acting antidepressant interventionstargeting neurobiological pathways beyond traditional serotonin, norepinephrine, and dopamine mechanisms. This review...
Translational Psychiatry
July 15, 2026
Annette Johansen, Pontus Plavén-sigray, Martin K Madsen et al.
Psychedelics such as psilocybin have been linked to enhanced neuroplasticity and symptom relief in affective disorders, but the neurobiological mechanisms and impact of environmental context remain unclear. Here, we tested whether a single dose of psilocybin (0.3 mg/kg) alters synaptic density in healthy individuals and whether setting-dependent subjective experience shapes this effect. Fifteen...
Translational Psychiatry
July 11, 2026
Moira G. Semple, Sarah E. Mennenga, Ryan Smith et al.
Psychoplastogen compounds such as ketamine and MDMA have shown therapeutic promise for mood and trauma-related disorders, yet the molecular mechanisms underlying their effects remain poorly understood. Here, we applied a Brain-Epigenome-Wide Association Study (BEWAS) targeting brain-relevant genes to examine DNA methylation changes following treatment. Pre- and post-treatment blood (ketamine, N...
Brain and Cognition
July 9, 2026
Stephanie Clarke, Sonia Crottaz-Herbette, Simo Frestadius et al.
Several neuroimaging studies demonstrated that spiritual/religious beliefs and practices rely on the same brain regions as secular cognition. Several reviews shaped the framework within which religious and secular cognition interacts, emphasizing the need for a precise definition of religiousness and spirituality. Christian faith presents a well-defined theological context, characterized by...
Frontiers in Psychiatry
July 9, 2026
Alqassem Y. Hakami
Background Substance use disorders (SUDs) and treatment-resistant depression (TRD) remain a major global health challenge, marked by high relapse rates and limited long-term effectiveness of existing treatments. Ketamine, a glutamatergic modulator with rapid neuroplastic effects, has emerged as a novel intervention for TRD and is increasingly investigated as an adjunctive treatment for...
Nature Neuroscience
June 1, 2023
Rafael Moliner, Mykhailo Girych, Vera Kovaleva et al.
439 citations
Abstract Psychedelics produce fast and persistent antidepressant effects and induce neuroplasticity resembling the effects of clinically approved antidepressants. We recently reported that pharmacologically diverse antidepressants, including fluoxetine and ketamine, act by binding to TrkB, the receptor for BDNF. Here we show that lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) and psilocin directly bind to...
Science
February 16, 2023
Maxemiliano V. Vargas, Lee E. Dunlap, Chunyang Dong et al.
467 citations
Decreased dendritic spine density in the cortex is a hallmark of several neuropsychiatric diseases, and the ability to promote cortical neuron growth has been hypothesized to underlie the rapid and sustained therapeutic effects of psychedelics. Activation of 5-hydroxytryptamine (serotonin) 2A receptors (5-HT2ARs) is essential for psychedelic-induced cortical plasticity, but it is currently...
Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology
2023
Abigail E. Calder, Gregor Hasler
303 citations
Classic psychedelics, such as LSD, psilocybin, and the DMT-containing beverage ayahuasca, show some potential to treat depression, anxiety, and addiction. Importantly, clinical improvements can last for months or years after treatment. It has been theorized that these long-term improvements arise because psychedelics rapidly and lastingly stimulate neuroplasticity. The focus of this review is...
Nat Med
April 11, 2022
Richard E. Daws, Christopher Timmermann, Bruna Giribaldi et al.
432 citations
Psilocybin therapy shows antidepressant potential, but its therapeutic actions are not well understood. We assessed the subacute impact of psilocybin on brain function in two clinical trials of depression. The first was an open-label trial of orally administered psilocybin (10 mg and 25 mg, 7 d apart) in patients with treatment-resistant depression. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)...
Translational Psychiatry
November 8, 2021
Manoj K. Doss, Michal Považan, Monica D Rosenberg et al.
343 citations
Psilocybin has shown promise for the treatment of mood disorders, which are often accompanied by cognitive dysfunction including cognitive rigidity. Recent studies have proposed neuropsychoplastogenic effects as mechanisms underlying the enduring therapeutic effects of psilocybin. In an open-label study of 24 patients with major depressive disorder, we tested the enduring effects of psilocybin...
Scientific Reports
February 10, 2020
Frederick S. Barrett, Manoj K. Doss, Nathan D. Sepeda et al.
375 citations
Psilocybin is a classic psychedelic compound that may have efficacy for the treatment of mood and substance use disorders. Acute psilocybin effects include reduced negative mood, increased positive mood, and reduced amygdala response to negative affective stimuli. However, no study has investigated the long-term, enduring impact of psilocybin on negative affect and associated brain function....
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A
January 28, 2019
Katrin H. Preller, Adeel Razi, Peter Zeidman et al.
303 citations
Psychedelics exert unique effects on human consciousness. The thalamic filter model suggests that core effects of psychedelics may result from gating deficits, based on a disintegration of information processing within cortico-striato-thalamo-cortical (CSTC) feedback loops. To test this hypothesis, we characterized changes in directed (effective) connectivity between selected CTSC regions after...
Cell Reports
June 1, 2018
Calvin Ly, Alexandra C. Greb, Lindsay P. Cameron et al.
1,158 citations
Atrophy of neurons in the prefrontal cortex (PFC) plays a key role in the pathophysiology of depression and related disorders. The ability to promote both structural and functional plasticity in the PFC has been hypothesized to underlie the fast-acting antidepressant properties of the dissociative anesthetic ketamine. Here, we report that, like ketamine, serotonergic psychedelics are capable of...
Sci Rep
October 13, 2017
Robin Carhart-Harris, Leor Roseman, Mark Bolstridge et al.
590 citations
Psilocybin with psychological support is showing promise as a treatment model in psychiatry but its therapeutic mechanisms are poorly understood. Here, cerebral blood flow (CBF) and blood oxygen-level dependent (BOLD) resting-state functional connectivity (RSFC) were measured with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) before and after treatment with psilocybin (serotonin agonist) for...
Hum Brain Mapp
May 6, 2016
Alexander V. Lebedev, Mendel Kaelen, Martin Lövdén et al.
333 citations
Personality is known to be relatively stable throughout adulthood. Nevertheless, it has been shown that major life events with high personal significance, including experiences engendered by psychedelic drugs, can have an enduring impact on some core facets of personality. In the present, balanced-order, placebo-controlled study, we investigated biological predictors of post-lysergic acid...
PLoS One
September 2, 2014
Marwan N. Baliki, Ali Mansour, Alex T. Baria et al.
539 citations
Chronic pain is associated with neuronal plasticity. Here we use resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate functional changes in patients suffering from chronic back pain (CBP), complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS) and knee osteoarthritis (OA). We isolated five meaningful resting-state networks across the groups, of which only the default mode network (DMN) exhibited...
Journal of Neuroscience
October 31, 2012
Micah Allen, Martin Dietz, Karina S. Blair et al.
389 citations
Mindfulness meditation is a set of attention-based, regulatory, and self-inquiry training regimes. Although the impact of mindfulness training (MT) on self-regulation is well established, the neural mechanisms supporting such plasticity are poorly understood. MT is thought to act through interoceptive salience and attentional control mechanisms, but until now conflicting evidence from...
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences
July 23, 2012
Ronald S. Duman, Nanxin Li
361 citations
Molecular and cellular studies have demonstrated opposing actions of stress and antidepressant treatment on the expression of neurotrophic factors, particularly brain-derived neurotrophic factor, in limbic structures of the brain. These changes in neurotrophic factor expression and function result in structural alterations, including regulation of neurogenesis, dendrite length and spine density...
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
June 28, 2007
Julie A. Brefczynski-Lewis, Antoine Lutz, Hillary S. Schaefer et al.
988 citations
Meditation refers to a family of mental training practices that are designed to familiarize the practitioner with specific types of mental processes. One of the most basic forms of meditation is concentration meditation, in which sustained attention is focused on an object such as a small visual stimulus or the breath. In age-matched participants, using functional MRI, we found that activation...