A View Inside: How Psychedelics Promote Neuroplasticity

Earlier this year, a team of researchers from the UC Davis Institute for Psychedelic and Neurotherapeutics revealed in Science that psychedelics spur cortical neuron growth by activating intracellular pools of 5-HT2A receptors. This neuroplasticity combats withering dendritic spines, a characteristic of several neuropsychiatric disorders.

Higher Conscientiousness Linked to Less Risk of Dementia Diagnosis

People with personality traits such as conscientiousness, extraversion and positive affect are less likely to be diagnosed with dementia than those with neuroticism and negative affect, according to a new analysis by researchers at the University of California, Davis and Northwestern University

$900K NSF Grant to Help Researchers Probe the Cognitive Brain Mechanisms Behind Free Will

Funded by a three-year $900,000 grant from the National Science Foundation, Distinguished Professor George R. Mangun, director of the UC Davis Center for Mind and Brain, is launching a project to better understand the cognitive mechanisms behind realistic voluntary attention, or attention directed by an individual’s free will. The project will be conducted in collaboration with engineering colleagues at the University of Florida.

How Do You Strip a Psychedelic of Its Hallucinogenic Properties? Chemical Evolution

While people have touted the therapeutic benefits of psychedelics for decades, it’s only been within the last five years that UC Davis researchers discovered that compounds like LSD, DMT and psilocybin promote neuroplasticity, spurring the growth and strengthening of neurons and their connections in the brain’s prefrontal cortex. But how do you strip a psychedelic of its hallucinogenic properties? David Olson, founding director of the UC Davis Institute for Psychedelics and Neurotherapeutics, walks us through this process.

Program Gives Jumpstart to Student Researchers

A program that gets students into labs as early as their first year at UC Davis transforms lives — leading many to pursue careers in research. Accelerating Success by Providing Intensive Research Experience, or ASPIRE, has begun reaching out to a wider pool of students. “We wanted to find the students who, given this opportunity, would go the farthest relative to where they started,” says co-founder Steve Luck, Distinguished Professor of Psychology.

Perception Inception: Exploring Decision-Making in the Brain with Rishidev Chaudhuri

Associate Professor Rishidev Chaudhuri’s research sits in the nexus of mathematics, physics and neuroscience. Chaudhuri studies processing strategies in the brain using mathematics and physics. One direction of his research concerns the neural underpinnings of decision-making, an avenue of research that’s making neuroscientists rethink longstanding narratives about how the brain functions.

David Olson Receives Rising Star Award in Neurobiology of Psychedelics

The Mahoney Institute for Neurosciences at the University of Pennsylvania recently gave David Olson, founding director of the UC Davis institute, its Rising Star Award in Neurobiology of Psychedelics. The award, according to Penn, honors a researcher “at the forefront of unraveling the mechanisms underlying the actions of psychedelics in the brain or translating these discoveries into interventions that preserve, restore and enhance brain function.”

Receptor Location Matters for Psychedelic Drug Effects

Location, location, location is the key for psychedelic drugs that could treat mental illness by rapidly rebuilding connections between nerve cells. In a paper published Feb. 17 in Science, researchers at the University of California, Davis, show that engaging serotonin 2A receptors inside neurons promotes growth of new connections but engaging the same receptor on the surface of nerve cells does not.

UC Davis Establishes Institute for Psychedelics and Neurotherapeutics

The University of California, Davis, has launched the Institute for Psychedelics and Neurotherapeutics to advance basic knowledge about the mechanisms of psychedelics and translate it into safe and effective treatments for diseases such as depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, addiction, Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease, among others.