You’ve known for a long time, of course, that substances like magic mushrooms and peyote are quite extraordinary. But did you also know that these powerful psychedelics might even have the potential to create new connections and promote so-called “neural plasticity” in the brain? That’s according to a study from the University of California. Sounds fascinating, doesn’t it?
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Neural plasticity
To give you an idea of exactly what this “neural plasticity” entails, let’s take a brief look at the medical world. Patients suffering from depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, for example, typically have reduced neurogenesis and neuroplasticity—their brain cells grow more slowly and are less adaptable. These structural changes can lead to atrophy in various brain regions, including the hippocampus (which is involved in tasks such as learning and memory) and the prefrontal cortex (which mediates personality and decision-making).
In short: impaired neural plasticity isn’t exactly good news for the brain. That is why scientists are increasingly looking for ways to strengthen the brain. According to many scholars, counteracting this damage by promoting structural and functional neural plasticity is one of the most promising ways to find new treatments. Ketamine, a dissociative anesthetic with hallucinogenic properties, is, for example, a strikingly effective treatment for such treatment-resistant disorders.
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DMT, psilocin, and LSD
The research team administered DMT, psilocin (one of the psychoactive compounds in magic mushrooms), MDMA, and LSD to flies and rats and discovered that they all promoted the growth of neurites. According to the researchers, however, LSD was particularly effective compared to the other substances. Surprisingly, the psychedelic ibogaine, a substance that is becoming increasingly popular, was “the only psychedelic tested that had absolutely no effect.”
“This was surprising,” the researchers wrote, “because we had hypothesized that ibogaine’s long-term anti-addictive properties might result from its psychoplastogenic [e.g., the ability to alter brain structure] properties.”
Although these tests were conducted only on neurons from flies and rats, the fact that the results were so clear across both invertebrate and vertebrate species suggests that the effects of these psychedelics on neurite growth “operate via an evolutionarily conserved mechanism.” In other words: it is not far-fetched to assume that similar effects could be found in the human brain.
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Don’t celebrate too soon...
Despite the promising results, however, the researcher does not believe that drugs that cause strong hallucinations will be widely used for conditions such as depression, though he does acknowledge that “a substance inspired by psychedelics could very well work.”
“These are some of the most powerful compounds known to influence brain function; it is very clear to me that we need to understand how they work,” said one of the researchers in a statement. “If we fully understand the signaling pathways that lead to neural plasticity, we may be able to target critical junctions along those pathways with drugs that are safer than ketamine or psychedelics.”
