Trends in Neurosciences
December 21, 2020
Neil K. Savalia, Ling-Xiao Shao, Alex C. Kwan
110 citations
Pilot studies have hinted that serotonergic psychedelics such as psilocybin may relieve depression, and could possibly do so by promoting neural plasticity. Intriguingly, another psychotomimetic compound, ketamine, is a fast-acting antidepressant and induces synapse formation. The similarities in behavioral and neural effects have been puzzling because the compounds target distinct molecular...
Pharmacological Reviews
December 16, 2020
Antonio Inserra, Danilo de Gregorio, Gabriella Gobbi
227 citations
Mounting evidence suggests safety and efficacy of psychedelic compounds as potential novel therapeutics in psychiatry. Ketamine has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration in a new class of antidepressants, and 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) is undergoing phase III clinical trials for post-traumatic stress disorder. Psilocybin and lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) are being...
Addiction Biology
November 2020
Daniela Neuhofer, Sade M Spencer, Vivian C Chioma et al.
Glutamatergic plasticity in the nucleus accumbens core (NAcore) is a key neuronal process in appetitive learning and contributes to pathologies such as drug addiction. Understanding how this plasticity factors into cannabis addiction and relapse has been hampered by the lack of a rodent model of cannabis self-administration. We used intravenous self-administration of two constituents of...
Behavioural Brain Research
October 1, 2020
Lukas Lenhart, Ruth Steiger, Michaela Waibel et al.
Based on the evidence that meditation is associated with numerous beneficial effects on well-being and reduced stress-related symptoms, mindfulness-based techniques were increasingly implemented into psychotherapeutic programs. However, different meditation styles and the cross-sectional nature of most previous analyses resulted in a great variety of morphometric findings. The present study...
Frontiers in Psychiatry
September 29, 2020
Silvia Sánchez-Ramón, Florence Faure
One of the fundamental questions in neuroscience is how brain activity relates to conscious experience. Even though self-consciousness is considered an emergent property of the brain network, a quantum physics-based theory assigns a momentum of consciousness to the single neuron level. In this work, we present a brain self theory from an evolutionary biological perspective by analogy with the...
Brain and Behavior
September 18, 2020
Gunes Sevinc, Jonathan Greenberg, Britta K. Hölzel et al.
24 citations
Abstract Introduction Mindfulness meditation has successfully been applied to cultivate skills in self‐regulation of emotion, as it employs the unbiased present moment awareness of experience. This heightened attention to and awareness of sensory experience has been postulated to create an optimal therapeutic exposure condition and thereby improve extinction learning. We recently demonstrated...
Frontiers in Psychology
September 15, 2020
Patama Gomutbutra, Nalinee Yingchankul, Nipon Chattipakorn et al.
Background: This systematic review aims to answer three questions. First, how much do mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) affect peripheral brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF)? Second, do mindfulness exercise–based interventions (exercise-MBIs) and mindfulness meditation–based interventions (meditation-MBIs) affect peripheral BDNF differently? Third, does the age of participants and the...
ACS Pharmacology & Translational Science
August 31, 2020
Nadia R. P. W. Hutten, Natasha L. Mason, Patrick C. Dolder et al.
134 citations
Despite preclinical evidence for psychedelic-induced neuroplasticity, confirmation in humans is grossly lacking. Given the increased interest in using low doses of psychedelics for psychiatric indications and the importance of neuroplasticity in the therapeutic response, this placebo-controlled within-subject study investigated the effect of single low doses of LSD (5, 10, and 20 μg) on...
Frontiers in Psychiatry
March 31, 2020
Kristin Heuschkel, Kim P. C. Kuypers
82 citations
Depression is a major public health problem that affects approximately 4.4% of the global population. Since conventional pharmacotherapies and psychotherapies are only partially effective, as demonstrated by the number of patients failing to achieve remission, alternative treatments are needed. Mindfulness meditation (MM) and psilocybin represent two promising novel treatments that might even...
bioRxiv Preprint Server
March 16, 2020
Steven F. Grieco, Xin Qiao, Xiaoting Zheng et al.
14 citations
preprint
Subanesthetic ketamine evokes rapid and long-lasting antidepressant effects in human patients. The mechanism for ketamine’s effects remains elusive, but ketamine may broadly modulate brain plasticity processes. We show that single-dose ketamine reactivates adult mouse visual cortical plasticity and promotes functional recovery of visual acuity defects from amblyopia. Ketamine specifically...