Archives of Psychiatry Research
December 29, 2025
Darko Vlahović, D. Vlahovic
BPL-003 is a novel investigational psychedelic compound being developed for the treatment-resistant depression (TRD). Its active ingredient, 5-methoxy-N,N-dimethyltryptamine (5-MeO-DMT), is a serotonergic psychedelic with preferential agonism at 5-HT1A receptors and rapid pharmacokinetics, allowing for a brief, supervised in-clinic administration. Preclinical studies demonstrate that 5-MeO-DMT...
Journal of Psychopharmacology
December 26, 2025
Alice Caulfield, Allan H. Young, Mitul A. Mehta
2 citations
Psychedelics are gaining attention as putative treatments for a range of psychiatric conditions, and evidence suggests that they produce sustained behavioural and clinical change. Enhanced learning is an emerging candidate mechanism mediating these sustained effects. This narrative review synthesises evidence across behavioural, neural and computational levels to examine the current evidence...
bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)
December 19, 2025
Lucas Dwiel, Mackenzi L. Prina, Elise Bragg et al.
preprint
Abstract A leading theory for how psychedelics are able to produce robust clinical improvement and preclinical behavioral changes is that psychedelics act through neuroplastic mechanisms to induce lasting structural and functional alterations in neural circuits. However, psychedelics produce these effects across wide swaths of the brain. Based on our prior work, we hypothesized that engaging a...
Research Square
December 18, 2025
Alejo Acuña, Federico Billeri, Valentino Totaro et al.
preprint
Abstract Background: Psychedelics have emerged as powerful modulators of neural plasticity, yet whether the atypical psychedelic ibogaine can enhance plasticity remains poorly understood. Here, we investigated whether a single administration of ibogaine can reinstate juvenile-like experience-dependent plasticity in the adult mouse visual cortex, a canonical model for studying neuroplasticity....
Cell
December 5, 2025
Quan Jiang, Ling-Xiao Shao, Shenqin Yao et al.
15 citations
Psilocybin holds promise as a treatment for mental illnesses. One dose of psilocybin induces structural remodeling of dendritic spines in the medial frontal cortex in mice. The dendritic spines would be innervated by presynaptic neurons, but the sources of these inputs have not been identified. Here, using monosynaptic rabies tracing, we map the brain-wide distribution of inputs to frontal...
Frontiers in Pharmacology
December 4, 2025
Maya Nicolas
This article proposes that ibogaine’s induction of GDNF, modulation of glutamate and dopamine signaling, and reopening of plasticity represent a unified mechanism capable of restoring reward system fidelity across disorders. This includes addiction, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and eating disorders, amongst others. These conditions are labelled as...
Molecular Psychiatry
December 1, 2025
Ross J. Purple, Rahul Gupta, Christopher W. Thomas et al.
correction
In this article the author’s name Robin Carhart-Harris was incorrectly written as Robin Carhartt-Harris. The original article has been corrected.
Research Square
November 25, 2025
Nai‐kong V. Cheung
1 citation
preprint
Abstract Traditional monoaminergic medications often offer limited relief for the physical and cognitive symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and complex PTSD. Growing data now point to fast-acting, glutamate-based treatments that boost synaptic plasticity and interrupt fear-conditioned neural circuits. We report four sequential cases of hard-to-treat trauma-spectrum...
Nature Communications
November 20, 2025
Alaina M Jaster, Thomas M Hadlock, Belle Buzzi et al.
9 citations
Emerging evidence suggests that classical psychedelics may offer therapeutic potential for opioid use disorder (OUD) by alleviating key hallmarks such as altered reward processing and dependence. However, the mechanisms behind these effects remain unclear. Our data demonstrate that a single administration of the psychedelic psilocybin (PSI) reduces conditioned behavior and withdrawal induced by...
Neuron
November 19, 2025
Kyle A Brown, Musa I Ajibola, Gustavo C Medeiros et al.
6 citations
Recent antidepressant drug development focuses on a next generation of drugs to rapidly relieve symptoms. Yet, how ketamine, the prototype rapid-acting antidepressant, maintains symptom relief days after drug elimination, and how repeated doses sustain longer-lasting therapeutic effects, remains unclear. Derived from elements of metaplasticity (synaptic priming), this review discusses a...