A number of drugs that are used recreationally are now being studied for their use in psychopharmacology. But while the ways in which these drugs are similar or different has been described anecdotally by recreational users, they haven’t been studied in comparison to one another. Dr. Matthias Liechti and his team of researchers recently published a study in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology, in which 28 healthy subjects, men and women, take doses of LSD, MDMA, amphetamines, and a placebo...

It’s known that there’s a relationship between post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, and a higher rate of opioid abuse. What isn’t understood, though, is what that relationship is. Does PTSD cause people to turn to opioids in particular among all the potential drugs of abuse, or is there something about opioid use that makes users particularly sensitive to trauma? This is just what Michael Fanselow, professor in the psychology and psychiatry departments at UCLA, and his colleagues...

The recreational drug MDMA, also known as Ecstasy or Molly, is particularly popular in social settings and raves, in large part because of how socially connected it makes the users feel. It's being studied for use in psychotherapy — there's a phase III clinical trial for the use of MDMA to treat PTSD. What's clear is that the drug affects how users experience social interactions. But there are questions: Does the drug make positive social interactions feel better, or reduce the negative...

Depression is an incredibly important disorder—according to Thomas Schlaepfer, head of the department of interventional biological psychiatry at the University of Freiburg, at least 20 percent of people have a depressive episode at least once in their lives. And while most patients' symptoms improve with a combination of psychotherapy and medicine, up to 20 percent of depressed patients do not improve from existing treatments. Dr. Schlaepfer and his colleagues have been conducting research on...

Research has demonstrated that, overall, women are more vulnerable to drug addiction than men are. They become addicted more quickly after first using, they have a harder time staying off drugs, and they relapse at higher rates. But most studies have focused on men, and models that have been developed nearly entirely focus on male subjects. Now, two things are changing the situation: scientists are realizing that women's experience and women's brains are different when it comes to addiction,...

Over the past decade, the use of the term 'food addiction' to describe an unhealthy approach to eating has grown. It refers to the idea that, for some people, their inability to control their food intake has similarities to that of a drug of abuse. Paul Kenny is the chair of the Department of Neuroscience at the Icahn School of Medicine in New York. He's one of two authors of a recent circumspective in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology. In the piece, Dr. Kenny and his colleague Dr. Paul...

As our environment becomes ever increasingly complex, understanding how sex differences impact disease risk and resilience will only become more critical. The 2019 , "Sex Matters," edited by Dr. Tracy L. Bale, highlights the causal and mechanistic value in cases where significant sex differences are found, as well as when they're not; where sex differences may arise at one period of life and disappear in another. Additionally, this podcast, as well as the special issue, reinforces the message...

Aggression is an evolutionary behavior seen throughout the animal world. When it comes to humans, however, some forms of aggression can be seen as pathological, dangerous, and quite costly to society. And yet there's a dearth of approved, effective treatments for aggression. Meghan Flanigan is a graduate student at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and one of the authors of a new article in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology, titled "Recent advances in the study of aggression," in...

While the influence of sweet taste on neurocognitive function has been widely studied, umami or savory has received less of a research focus. Animal models and even some small human studies seem to show that umami given in a broth before a meal can influence appetite and food intake. And this inspired Dr. Miguel Alonso-Alonso, Assistant Professor and Director of the Laboratory of Bariatric and Nutritional Neuroscience at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School. He and...

For years now, scientists have noticed a rather strange phenomenon in animal models: scientists would stimulate dopamine production in the brain, but once the stimulation was over, the dopamine would remain. Bita Moghaddam is chair and professor of behavioral neuroscience at Oregon Health and Science University. She says that when dopamine is released, dopamine transporters take the dopamine back up into cells so it can be synthesized and broken down. So scientists had assumed that the...

The question of whether neurogenesis persists in humans and for how long -- that is, whether and where humans grow new neurons in their brains, and how long into our lives -- is one that has engaged neuroscientists for decades. Some papers showed that humans did retain neurogenesis into adulthood, but the issue has been debated. That debate was reignited just recently with the publication of two new studies. The first one, published in Nature, is titled "Human hippocampal neurogenesis drops...

There's a technology that's proven to be increasingly useful in the past decade -- it's called DREADD, or "designer receptors exclusively activated by designer drugs." The current approach is to create a designer receptor that is unlocked by the drug, clozapine-n-oxide, or CNO. Researchers have used it to study the function of populations of neurons or of particular pathways in the brains in rodents, by using the DREADD technique to turn on and off these neurons or pathways. However, last...

The 2018 issue of Neuropsychopharmacology Reviews, "Cannabis and Cannabinoids: From Synapse to Society," showcases the remarkable advances in the biology of cannabinoids and cannabis in the past two decades, ranging from their impact at the synaptic level through to public health. Edited by Margaret Haney and Matthew N Hill, this issue represents current findings across several major research areas, contributing novel insights into psychiatric illness treatment and a data-driven perspective...

Many people who exercise regularly have experienced a so-called "runner's high," either a feeling of euphoria after exercise, or a feeling of happiness and well-being. Scientists have studied this and found that exercise does indeed improve mood and combat stress, for instance, but researchers at Finland's University of Turku wanted to know: Are endorphins being produced in and thus affecting the brain? To try to answer this question, the team labeled a drug that can bind to endorphin...

Studies have shown that stress and trauma early in life can lead to an increased risk for drug addiction later in life. In rat models developed to mimic and study this effect, some rats received normal maternal care, while others received enriched maternal care – extra grooming and attention from their mothers. Those with enriched maternal care have been shown to be less likely to return to a room in which the rats received a dose of morphine. But does that accurately represent drug use?...

One method of treating Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) involves extinction therapy, but researchers have found that the timing of such therapy is extremely important, and that it often doesn't work if the therapy is conducted too soon after the initial trauma. Stress itself may be harming the efficacy of the treatment. A team of researchers at Texas A&M University conducted research to determine whether there was a way to dampen stress and make extinction therapy more effective by...

Autism Spectrum Disorder is a disorder that has been defined by the medical community, but so far, none of the medications available for ASD treat the core symptoms of the disease, but rather secondary symptoms such as agitation or hyperactivity. Because ASD is genetically linked to Fragile X syndrome, researchers noticed that in a mouse model, the drug arbaclofen reduced what would be core symptoms of autism, such as combatting social avoidance and improving social function. A randomized...

The gateway hypothesis, that early use of drugs such as tobacco, alcohol, or marijuana during adolescence progresses to harder drugs such as cocaine and heroin, was first proposed in the 1970s. In a recent publication of the journal Neuropsychopharmacology, Yasmin Hurd, Professor of Neuroscience at Mount Sinai, co-authored a commentary evaluating the research to date that either supports or challenges the gateway hypothesis. Listen to the latest BrainPod, Neuropsychopharmacology's official...

The National Institutes of Health recently published a statement requiring sex as a biological variable in studies. This is in part simply because it's good science, and in part to correct for decades in which both animal and human studies were largely conducted with male subjects. In their review paper responding to this statement, Dr. Tracy Bale and Dr. Neill Epperson discuss how sex has a direct impact on brain development, and how it results in a sexually dimorphic brain: meaning there...

The 2017 issue of Neuropsychopharmacology Reviews, "The Immunology of Behavior focuses on the growing appreciation of the immune system in understanding brain and health illness. This podcast synthesizes this year's issue, which showcases a wide range of reviews about the relationship between immunology and brain and health illness, demonstrating how advances in our understanding of immunology have led to novel insights into psychiatric illnesses and their treatment. Hear more from Andrew H...

LSD is not only a well-known psychedelic drug, but it was also studied extensively for its potential in psychotherapy in the early days of its use, about fifty years ago. Those early studies didn't necessarily meet today's standards for clinical trials, and previous research ended in the 1970s, due to changing regulations and a prohibition against LSD. Today, LSD is once again being studied for its therapeutic use, this time in a carefully controlled clinical setting. In a recent study, a...

Smartphones have become nearly ubiquitous in the United States. These mini-computers that we carry around in our bags or pockets have the potential to dramatically influence the practice of medicine, including psychiatry. A team of researchers is currently investigating the use of smartphones for what's known as digital phenotyping, or the continuous monitoring of someone's status via a personal digital device, to enhance behavioral and mental health. Listen to this month's BrainPod to hear...

There has been a recent and notable increase in the non-medical use of new psychoactive substances (NPS), or "designer drugs." Unlike classic drugs of abuse, many NPS were initially developed for research purposes. In this podcast, Drs. Michael Baumann and Nora Volkow discuss the complexities of working with these substances and how, given their genesis, research with NPS could be considered "dual use;" or, potentially utilized for both beneficial and malicious purposes.

Marijuana use for medical purposes is becoming increasingly common in the U.S., and doctors prescribe it for ills ranging from headaches to insomnia. And yet, there is little scientific data supporting its medical use. In this podcast, Drs. Margaret Haney and Eden Evins discuss the relationship between cannabis use and two psychiatric disorders: post-traumatic stress disorder and psychotic illnesses, particularly schizophrenia.

"Impact of Stress on the Brain: Pathology, Treatment and Prevention," the 2016 issue of Neuropsychopharmacology Reviews, focuses on advances in our understanding of the impact of stress on the brain: From pathology to circuits, treatment to prevention. Emerging data from genetics, epigenetics, neural circuit and intergenerational models, animal models, and neuroimaging all suggest that stress affects the brain in a variety of dynamic and often long-lasting ways. The effects of these processes...