Psilocybin is a serotonergic 5-HT2A R agonist that causes psychedelic and anxiolytic effects in human users. To delineate conservation of psilocybin pharmacology, we investigated behavioral effects of psilocybin in planarians ( Dugesia dorotocephala ), the simplest living animal with cephalization that also has a well defined serotonin (5-hydroxytryptamine [...
Psychedelic drugs are under active consideration for clinical use and have generated significant interest for their potential as anti-nociceptive treatments for chronic pain, and for addressing conditions like depression, frequently co-morbid with pain. This review primarily explores the utility of preclinical animal models in investigating the potential of ...
Psychedelic drugs that activate 5-HT receptors have been long used for cultural, medicinal and recreational purposes. Interest in psychedelics for treating psychiatric disorders has resurged recently and is well documented; less well recognised are their anti-inflammatory properties. Growing evidence now demonstrates that psychedelics modulate immune respons...
Background: Advanced Alzheimer's disease (AD) is generally regarded as a stage of irreversible functional decline. Psilocybin is known to transiently alter large-scale brain network dynamics and to induce plasticity-related mechanisms in preclinical models, yet clinical data in advanced dementia remain lacking. Case presentation: We report the case of an oct...
Background and objective: Anxiety disorders are among the most prevalent psychiatric disorders worldwide and affect all age groups. Current pharmacological treatments, such as selective serotonergic reuptake inhibitors (SSRI’s) and benzodiazepines, have limitations in terms of adverse effects and efficacy, which highlights the need for alternative therapies....
Psilocybin has emerged as a promising therapeutic agent for psychiatric disorders characterised by cognitive rigidity and disrupted reward processing, including anorexia nervosa. While its pro-cognitive effects have been mechanistically probed almost exclusively through serotonin receptor subtype antagonism, the downstream contributions of dopaminergic syste...
Non-human models, including fish, are increasingly important for investigating how pharmacological agents such as hallucinogens influence behavior, physiology, and cellular processes. These models help to reveal underlying mechanisms and to support assessments of toxicological impact, efficacy, and safety. In this study, we used isogenic lineages of the amph...
Depression is one of the most common mental health challenges people face today. It goes beyond just feeling sad - it shapes the way a person thinks, behaves, and experiences the world around them. The persistent low mood, the fading interest in things that once brought joy, the fog that makes even simple decisions feel overwhelming - all of it quietly chips...
Chronic pain states remain challenging to control with current drug therapies. Here, we demonstrate that a single dose of psilocybin produces a sustained anti-nociceptive effect in chronic neuropathic pain models in male and female mice, mediated primarily by 5-HT2A receptors. Critically, psilocybin significantly potentiates the analgesic efficacy of gabapen...
Psilocybin is studied as innovative medication in anxiety, substance abuse and treatment-resistant depression. Animal studies show that psychedelics promote neuronal plasticity by strengthening synaptic responses and protein synthesis. However, the exact molecular and cellular changes induced by psilocybin in the human brain are not known. Here, we treated h...
The therapeutic potential of psilocybin in treating psychiatric disorders has gained attention recently. While most research has focused on isolated psilocybin, evidence suggests that whole mushroom extracts exhibit greater efficacy, implicating a possible entourage effect of additional bioactive compounds. This study aimed to elucidate the holistic neuropha...
Psilocybin is the primary psychoactive compound in "magic mushrooms"; it has been used by humans for millennia, it is in promising clinical trials with humans and used in legalized psilocybin-assisted therapy, and researchers use and are further developing human-based methods with cutting-edge technologies.However, researchers are still allowed to conduct un...
Psychedelics, particularly psilocybin, have shown therapeutic potential across several psychiatric conditions, including depression, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and anorexia nervosa (AN). These disorders often share social deficits that may be effectively alleviated by psychedelics considering their use has been linked with emotional empathy and ...
The growing percentage of people suffering from drug-resistant depression increases interest in alternative therapies, particularly the usage of psychedelics such as psilocybin. The main source of psilocybin is the Psilocybe cubensis species. Due to the potential therapeutic benefits of psilocybin and the legal restrictions on its possession and use in the f...
Psilocybin-assisted interventions have shown rapid reductions in depressive symptoms in controlled clinical settings, raising questions about biological mechanisms supporting durability beyond the acute drug effect. [5,7] Mechanistic accounts increasingly focus on neuroplasticity as a candidate pathway linking transient serotonergic receptor activation to lo...
Clinical investigations into the therapeutic actions of psilocybin have been the focus of much attention in recent years as duly cited in the manuscript.The authors of the present manuscript discuss potential targets through which psilocybin may help prevent suicide using computational network pharmacology coupled with molecular docking investigations.Unfort...
This review examines the therapeutic efficacy of psilocybin for major depressive disorder by integrating findings from clinical trials, meta-analyses, and mechanistic research. A comprehensive literature search across major scientific databases identified empirical studies evaluating psilocybin’s effects on depressive symptomatology, safety, and underlying n...
The psychedelic psilocybin may have lasting therapeutic effects for patients with chronic pain syndromes. Some preclinical data suggest these putative benefits derive from direct analgesic effects; however, this possibility has not been comprehensively tested in preclinical models. Here, we evaluated the analgesic properties of a single exposure to psilocybi...
