Psychedelics reopen the social reward learning critical period
Nature June 14, 2023 Romain Nardou, Young Jun Song, Noelle Wright et al. 335 citations
Psychedelic drugs share the ability to reopen a critical period for social reward learning in adult mice, and the duration of this reopening matches the length of subjective effects in humans. The reinstatement of social reward learning is accompanied by a metaplastic restoration of oxytocin-mediated long-term depression in the nucleus accumbens. Analysis of gene expression in the open versus closed state indicates that reorganization of the extracellular matrix is a common downstream mechanism. These findings suggest a unifying mechanism for psychedelics' therapeutic properties and may guide clinical use and drug design for neuropsychiatric diseases.