Cargando…

Neural mechanisms underlying psilocybin’s therapeutic potential – the need for preclinical in vivo electrophysiology

Psilocybin is a naturally occurring psychedelic compound with profound perception-, emotion- and cognition-altering properties and great potential for treating brain disorders. However, the neural mechanisms mediating its effects require in-depth investigation as there is still much to learn about h...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Smausz, Rebecca, Neill, Joanna, Gigg, John
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: SAGE Publications 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9247433/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35638159
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/02698811221092508
_version_ 1784739163339227136
author Smausz, Rebecca
Neill, Joanna
Gigg, John
author_facet Smausz, Rebecca
Neill, Joanna
Gigg, John
author_sort Smausz, Rebecca
collection PubMed
description Psilocybin is a naturally occurring psychedelic compound with profound perception-, emotion- and cognition-altering properties and great potential for treating brain disorders. However, the neural mechanisms mediating its effects require in-depth investigation as there is still much to learn about how psychedelic drugs produce their profound and long-lasting effects. In this review, we outline the current understanding of the neurophysiology of psilocybin’s psychoactive properties, highlighting the need for additional preclinical studies to determine its effect on neural network dynamics. We first describe how psilocybin’s effect on brain regions associated with the default-mode network (DMN), particularly the prefrontal cortex and hippocampus, likely plays a key role in mediating its consciousness-altering properties. We then outline the specific receptor and cell types involved and discuss contradictory evidence from neuroimaging studies regarding psilocybin’s net effect on activity within these regions. We go on to argue that in vivo electrophysiology is ideally suited to provide a more holistic, neural network analysis approach to understand psilocybin’s mode of action. Thus, we integrate information about the neural bases for oscillatory activity generation with the accumulating evidence about psychedelic drug effects on neural synchrony within DMN-associated areas. This approach will help to generate important questions for future preclinical and clinical studies. Answers to these questions are vital for determining the neural mechanisms mediating psilocybin’s psychotherapeutic potential, which promises to improve outcomes for patients with severe depression and other difficulty to treat conditions.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-9247433
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2022
publisher SAGE Publications
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-92474332022-07-02 Neural mechanisms underlying psilocybin’s therapeutic potential – the need for preclinical in vivo electrophysiology Smausz, Rebecca Neill, Joanna Gigg, John J Psychopharmacol Review Psilocybin is a naturally occurring psychedelic compound with profound perception-, emotion- and cognition-altering properties and great potential for treating brain disorders. However, the neural mechanisms mediating its effects require in-depth investigation as there is still much to learn about how psychedelic drugs produce their profound and long-lasting effects. In this review, we outline the current understanding of the neurophysiology of psilocybin’s psychoactive properties, highlighting the need for additional preclinical studies to determine its effect on neural network dynamics. We first describe how psilocybin’s effect on brain regions associated with the default-mode network (DMN), particularly the prefrontal cortex and hippocampus, likely plays a key role in mediating its consciousness-altering properties. We then outline the specific receptor and cell types involved and discuss contradictory evidence from neuroimaging studies regarding psilocybin’s net effect on activity within these regions. We go on to argue that in vivo electrophysiology is ideally suited to provide a more holistic, neural network analysis approach to understand psilocybin’s mode of action. Thus, we integrate information about the neural bases for oscillatory activity generation with the accumulating evidence about psychedelic drug effects on neural synchrony within DMN-associated areas. This approach will help to generate important questions for future preclinical and clinical studies. Answers to these questions are vital for determining the neural mechanisms mediating psilocybin’s psychotherapeutic potential, which promises to improve outcomes for patients with severe depression and other difficulty to treat conditions. SAGE Publications 2022-05-30 2022-07 /pmc/articles/PMC9247433/ /pubmed/35638159 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/02698811221092508 Text en © The Author(s) 2022 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).
spellingShingle Review
Smausz, Rebecca
Neill, Joanna
Gigg, John
Neural mechanisms underlying psilocybin’s therapeutic potential – the need for preclinical in vivo electrophysiology
title Neural mechanisms underlying psilocybin’s therapeutic potential – the need for preclinical in vivo electrophysiology
title_full Neural mechanisms underlying psilocybin’s therapeutic potential – the need for preclinical in vivo electrophysiology
title_fullStr Neural mechanisms underlying psilocybin’s therapeutic potential – the need for preclinical in vivo electrophysiology
title_full_unstemmed Neural mechanisms underlying psilocybin’s therapeutic potential – the need for preclinical in vivo electrophysiology
title_short Neural mechanisms underlying psilocybin’s therapeutic potential – the need for preclinical in vivo electrophysiology
title_sort neural mechanisms underlying psilocybin’s therapeutic potential – the need for preclinical in vivo electrophysiology
topic Review
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9247433/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35638159
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/02698811221092508
work_keys_str_mv AT smauszrebecca neuralmechanismsunderlyingpsilocybinstherapeuticpotentialtheneedforpreclinicalinvivoelectrophysiology
AT neilljoanna neuralmechanismsunderlyingpsilocybinstherapeuticpotentialtheneedforpreclinicalinvivoelectrophysiology
AT giggjohn neuralmechanismsunderlyingpsilocybinstherapeuticpotentialtheneedforpreclinicalinvivoelectrophysiology