Depressive DisordersPTSDAnxiety DisordersSubstance Use Disorders (SUD)Medicinal Chemistry & Drug Development

Psychedelics promote structural and functional neural plasticity

This cell (in vitro) and animal (in vivo, larvae & rats) study shows the various ways (stimulation of the TrkB, mTOR, and 5-HT2A signaling pathways) through which psychedelics promote/increase plasticity in the brain.

Authors

  • Lindsay Cameron

Published

Cell Reports
individual Study

Abstract

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 robustly increasing neuritogenesis and/or spinogenesis both in vitro and in vivo. These changes in neuronal structure are accompanied by increased synapse number and function, as measured by fluorescence microscopy and electrophysiology. The structural changes induced by psychedelics appear to result from stimulation of the TrkB, mTOR, and 5-HT2A signaling pathways and could possibly explain the clinical effectiveness of these compounds. Our results underscore the therapeutic potential of psychedelics and, importantly, identify several lead scaffolds for medicinal chemistry efforts focused on developing plasticity-promoting compounds as safe, effective, and fast-acting treatments for depression and related disorders.

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Research Summary of 'Psychedelics promote structural and functional neural plasticity'

Introduction

Neuropsychiatric disorders such as depression, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and addiction are highly disabling and often refractory to existing antidepressant treatments, which typically require weeks to produce effects and fail in roughly one-third of patients. Converging evidence from imaging, postmortem and animal studies implicates atrophy of prefrontal cortex (PFC) neurons—manifest as dendritic retraction, loss of spines and synapses—in the pathophysiology of these disorders, and reversing such structural deficits is proposed as a therapeutic strategy. Ketamine, a dissociative anaesthetic, has renewed interest in rapid-acting antidepressant mechanisms because it promotes dendritic spine growth, synaptic protein synthesis and strengthened synaptic responses, and produces fast antidepressant and anxiolytic effects in some treatment-resistant patients. Ly and colleagues set out to test whether classical serotonergic psychedelics and related entactogens from diverse chemical classes (tryptamines, amphetamines, ergolines, and iboga alkaloids) also promote structural and functional plasticity in cortical neurons, potentially via shared downstream signalling with ketamine. The investigators introduce the term "psychoplastogen" for compounds that rapidly induce neuronal plasticity, and aim to characterise neuritogenesis, spinogenesis and synaptogenesis induced by representative psychedelics, to compare potencies with ketamine, and to probe underlying mechanisms including BDNF/TrkB, mTOR and 5-HT2A receptor involvement. The work spans in vitro primary cortical cultures, in vivo rodent experiments and invertebrate/vertebrate developmental models to assess evolutionary conservation of effects.

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Study Details

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