New from #UCDavisIPN Director @deolsonlab.bsky.social: R-MDDMA is a safer MDMA analogue that retains its therapeutic potential for promoting #neuroplasticity, facilitating fear extinction, and producing antidepressant-like effects, without the abuse liability, hyperthermia, or cardiac risks.
#UCDavisIPN Director @deolsonlab.bsky.social weighed in on the risks of these self-regulated "clandestine chemists": without adequate testing, consumers have no way of knowing whether these products are free from toxins.
A new The Philadelphia Inquirer investigation found that smoke shops in the Philadelphia area are selling unregulated #psychedelic products, and the results are alarming. Lab tests revealed fabricated safety reports, banned hallucinogens, and synthetic compounds with unknown health effects.
New research published in @natureportfolio.nature.com - Medicine out of @ucsanfrancisco.bsky.social reveals a shared brain signature across classic #psychedelics: flattened cortical hierarchy, increased subcortical-cortical coupling, and less "network disintegration" than previously thought.
Read about #UCDavisIPN Director @deolsonlab.bsky.social and his team's latest research published in @cellpress.bsky.social. With the labs of David Nagib and Mark Levin, the team utilized a new method of skeletal editing to convert LSD into a new analogue with lower hallucinogenic potential.
#UCDavisIPN Director @deolsonlab.bsky.social and Assoc. Director John Gray, are featured in a new @newyorker.com article exploring the science behind why mind-altering drugs (and non-hallucinogenic #psychedelic analogues) can have lasting therapeutic effects.
Read the story here:
A new clinical trial in JAMA Network Open compares psilocybin-assisted therapy vs. nicotine patches for smoking cessation. Participants who received a single dose of #psilocybin alongside CBT had over 6× greater odds of quitting smoking at 6 months compared with those using nicotine patches.
This week in neurotherapeutics and women's health: A new study in @natureportfolio.nature.com - npj Women’s Health used genetic approaches to test whether targeting estrogen receptors affects Alzheimer’s risk, brain structure, depression, or anxiety. Read what they found here:
In the phase 1 CuRe Trial, placenta-derived mesenchymal stem cells were applied during in utero repair of myelomeningocele. Among the first six patients, there were no cell-related adverse events, no abnormal tissue growth, and successful reversal of hindbrain herniation on MRI.
#UCDavisIPN affiliate Aijun Wang and his team have published first-in-human results in @thelancet.com demonstrating the safety of a novel stem cell therapy delivered before birth for spina bifida.
They developed a platform called VESSEL to build artificial nanovesicles displaying individual EV surface proteins, one at a time. By stripping away the usual protein complexity of native vesicles, they could directly test which proteins influence neuronal repair.
#UCDavisIPN Affiliate Aijun Wang and his team released a new study in @acs.org - Nano highlighting how engineering simplified extracellular vesicle mimetics can help uncover which surface proteins actually drive neuroprotective effects. 1/2
Out of @kingscollegelondon.bsky.social and @exeter.ac.uk comes new evidence that the intensity of the #ketamine “high” doesn’t predict treatment success for people with alcohol use disorder. What seems to matter more are the underlying neurobiological effects, not the subjective experience.
New research in @pnas.org offers fresh insight into how brain connections are lost in #Alzheimer’s disease. The study finds that C4d, a molecule linked to the immune system, increases with age and Alzheimer’s, and can directly trigger the removal of synapses, the connections between neurons.
#UCDavisIPN Director @deolsonlab.bsky.social on efforts to bring ibogaine therapy to WA State: The potential for treating #addiction, #PTSD, and #TBI is compelling, but federal legality and limited clinical data remain real barriers. Promising therapies still need rigorous science and safety first.
This week in #psychedelic science: A new @natureportfolio.nature.com paper disentangles how psychedelics work at the 5-HT2A receptor. The study shows that Gi signaling drives hallucination-like effects, while Gq signaling underlies therapeutic outcomes.
Read the study:
This work provides a clear structural framework for designing more precise ion-channel therapeutics. These insights are especially relevant for neurological disorders where KCa2.2 modulation holds clinical promise.
New in @natureportfolio.nature.com - Communications from #UCDavisIPN Affiliate Heike Wulff: Researchers report the first high-resolution cryo-EM structures explaining how small-molecule activators selectively target the KCa2.2 potassium channel.
#UCDavisIPN affiliate Danielle Stolzenberg spoke with the Mind & Matter podcast about the neurobiology of maternal care and her research on psilocybin exposure during the postpartum period. Check it out!
Check out the new research from #UCDavisIPN trainees Joseph Beckett and Trey Brasher, introducing a light-driven way to convert amino acids into psychedelic-inspired molecules. These compounds engage the serotonin system and may represent a new class of non-hallucinogenic neurotherapeutics.
Congratulations to #UCDavisIPN Affiliate and Brain and Behavior Research Foundation grant recipient Alex Nord and the team behind JRT, a non-hallucinogenic analogue of LSD. Their work has been named one of BBRF’s leading research achievements of 2025.
#UCDavisIPN affiliate Richard Maddock published a meta-analysis that identified a difference in brain choline levels in people with anxiety versus those without. Maddock's team found that brain choline levels in people with anxiety were 8% lower than their non-anxious peers.
Read the paper here:
Together, the findings highlight a promising new class of serotonin-targeting drugs that may preserve the benefits of psychedelics, such as antidepressant or neuroprotective effects, while minimizing perceptual changes.
These novel compounds resemble known psychedelics, engage the brain’s serotonin system, and show therapeutic potential without triggering hallucinogenic behaviors.
Their work introduces a new method to use UV light to convert simple amino acids—the building blocks of proteins—into previously difficult to access small molecules.
#UCDavisIPN Affiliates and Ph.D. students Joseph Beckett and Trey Brasher, together with their research advisor and senior author Mark Mascal, have published new research in the Journal of the American Chemical Society using a light-driven chemical reaction to make psychedelic-inspired molecules.
Check out NatGeo's story on LSD as a treatment for anxiety and #depression. In the piece, #UCDavisIPN Director, @deolsonlab.bsky.social, highlights how JRT, the IPN's non-hallucinogenic #psychedelic analogue of LSD, "could be a game-changer" for expanding access to mental health treatments.
@thetransmitter.bsky.social named #UCDavisIPN affiliate @doctheagrif.bsky.social and former affiliate @tinakim-neuro.bsky.social as rising stars in the field of #neuroscience for 2025. Read more about their work on voltage gated ion channels and #psychedelic -responsive neurons here:
Check out #UCDavisIPN Affiliate Danielle Stolzenberg on @drjodipawluski.bsky.social podcast "Mommy Brain Revisited." Danielle discusses just how much we have to learn about #psychedelics as a treatment for the mental health of new mothers and their offspring too. Listen here:
