Psychedelics reopen the social reward learning critical period
Juvenile mice find social experiences more rewarding than do adults. The discovery [is] that psychedelics can re-engage the social neural circuits for varying durations in adults… Gül Dölen, M.D., Ph.D., associate professor of neuroscience at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.; …ibogaine, ketamine, LSD, MDMA, and psilocybin, can reopen the “critical periods” of brain development in mice, making them more receptive to learning from their environment… “The open state of the critical period may be an opportunity for a post-treatment integration period to maintain the learning state,” she adds. “Too often, after having a procedure or treatment, people go back to their chaotic, busy lives that can be overwhelming. Clinicians may want to consider the time period after a psychedelic drug dose as a time to heal and learn, much like we do for open heart surgery.”
The study also identified molecular mechanisms influenced by psychedelics, including 65 protein-producing genes that show expression differences during and after the critical period… for mice given ketamine, the critical period of social reward learning stayed open in the mice for 48 hours. With psilocybin, the open state lasted two weeks. For mice given MDMA, LSD and ibogaine, the critical period remained open for two, three and four weeks, respectively. The researchers say the length of time that the critical period stayed open in mice seems to roughly parallel the average length of time that people self-report the acute effects of each psychedelic drug. “This relationship gives us another clue that the duration of psychedelic drugs’ acute effects may be the reason why each drug may have longer or shorter effects on opening the critical period,” says Dölen. During specific periods of brain development, the nervous system exhibits heightened sensitivity to ethologically relevant stimuli, as well as increased malleability for synaptic, circuit and behavioural modifications. These mechanistically constrained windows of time are called critical periods and neuroscientists have long sought methods to reopen them…
Original Article (Neuroscience News & Nature):
Psychedelics unlock learning windows in the brain & Psychedelics reopen the social reward learning critical period
Artwork Fair Use: Phil Nash
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