Study Suggests Psychedelics Combat Anxiety by Exciting Cells in Hippocampus

Numerous studies have found that psychedelics hold the potential to treat mental-health conditions, including anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. Now new research has found that psychedelics activate cells in the brain that help reduce anxiety.

The research was conducted by a global team of investigators, including at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research and Cornell University. The researchers’ focus was on determining what types of cells and areas in the brain were involved when anxiety was suppressed using psychedelics. Associate professor Alex Kwan, the study’s senior author, explained that knowing the neurobiology involved would assist in the development of better medications.

For their research, the investigators used DOI (2,5-dimethoxy-4-iodoamphetamine), a psychedelic that’s similar to psilocybin and LSD. They used rats and mice for their experiments, which began by placing the rodents in a maze that had two sides: an exposed section above the ground and an enclosed area with walls.

The maze was designed to determine how anxious the rodents would be and how much they would explore. Investigators evaluated levels of anxiety based on time the animals spent in each area, observing that the animals spent most of their time in the closed wing. The scientists then administered the psychedelic into the bloodstream of the rodents and ran them through the maze. Once this was done, they infused the psychedelic into different regions in the brains of these rodents, and then observed any changes in their levels of anxiety.

The investigators found that the ventral hippocampus was the only region that could hold on to the psychedelic’s effect of decreasing anxiety. This research is based on prior studies that observed abnormal hyperactivity in the ventral hippocampus when animals are anxious.

Study’s coauthor assistant professor Antonio Fernandez-Ruiz also measured the electrical recordings of the brain. This helped identify interneurons that demonstrated increased firing following the psychedelic’s introduction. The study’s corresponding author, professor Vidita Vaidya, explained that the research offered a better understanding of cellular triggers for anxiety relief induced by psychedelics.

The investigators are now studying if the amygdala plays a role in this.

The research was supported by India’s Department of Atomic Energy, a Whitehall Research Grant, the Sree Padmavathi Venkateswara Foundation, the National Science Foundation, a Sackler Institute Award, a Klingenstein-Simons Fellowship, a Sloan Fellowship and the National Institutes of Health.

Other coauthors included scientists from the New York State Psychiatric Institute, Columbia University and Yale University. The research’s findings were reported in the “Neuron” journal.

The findings of this study can help to explain why startups such as Seelos Therapeutics Inc. (NASDAQ: SEEL) are focusing their R&D programs on developing psychedelic treatments targeting mental-health indications.

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