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Cellular and Molecular Antidepressant Actions of Psychedelics

PS2025

Mark Rasenick, Andrew Novick, Scott Thompson, Candace R Lewis

Conventional wisdom holds that most psychedelics act through 5HT2A receptors to achieve antidepressant effect. This panel will present 3 approaches to studying the antidepressant properties of psychedelics. Mark Rasenick will describe cellular and molecular facets of psychedelic action and demonstrate that the 5HT2A receptor is not the sole site of action. Scott Thompson will focus on rodents and demonstrate that the behavioral pharmacology of psilocybin action cannot be explained by psilocybin as a 5HT2A agonist. Andy Novick will describe ongoing clinical studies with psilocybin and discuss possible drug targets. Finally, Candace Lewis (ASU) will present exciting new data on DNA methylation from her breaking study Brain-epigenome wide association study (BEWAS) on the effects of two emerging psychedelics: ketamine & MDMA.

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