![]() A day after receiving a surge in serotonin, animals whose brain cells contained unnatural entry points didn’t give up as quickly as normal mice when forced to swim. It also induced antidepressant-like effects in mice. Further experiments showed that most cortical neurons’ 5-HT2A receptors are located inside the cell, not at the surface where scientists have mainly studied them.īut once serotonin gained access to the cortical neurons’ interior - via artificially added gateways in the cell surface - it too led to growth. Polar chemicals such as serotonin, which have unevenly distributed electrical charges and therefore can’t get into cells, didn’t induce growth. Instead, the team noticed that “greasy” substances, like LSD, that easily pass through cells’ fatty outer layers resulted in neurons branching out. But those better equipped to turn it on didn’t make neurons grow. To figure out why these two types of chemicals affect neurons differently, Olson and colleagues tweaked some substances to change how well they activated the receptor. ![]() That finding “was really leaving us scratching our heads,” says chemical neuroscientist David Olson, director of the Institute for Psychedelics and Neurotherapeutics at the University of California, Davis. But a study in 2018 determined that serotonin doesn’t make these neurons grow. This protein, called the 5-HT2A receptor, is also stimulated by serotonin, a chemical made by the body and implicated in mood. It was already known that, in cortical neurons, psychedelics activate a certain protein that receives signals and gives instructions to cells. But how they trigger cell growth was a mystery. The behavior might explain the drugs’ positive outcomes in research. ![]() Psychedelics - including psilocin, which comes from magic mushrooms, and LSD - do that repairing by promoting the growth of nerve cell branches that receive information, called dendrites ( SN: 11/17/20).
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