“5-MeO-DMT Modifies Innate Behaviors and Promotes Structural Neural Plasticity in Mice”, 2022-11-03 ():
Serotonergic psychedelics are gaining increasing interest as potential therapeutics for a range of mental illnesses. Compounds with short-lived subjective effects may be clinically useful because dosing time would be reduced, which may improve patient access. One short-acting psychedelic is 5-MeO-DMT, which has been associated with improvement in depression and anxiety symptoms in early clinical studies. However relatively little is known about the behavioral effects and neural mechanisms of 5-MeO-DMT in animal models.
Here we characterized the effects of 5-MeO-DMT on innate behaviors and dendritic architecture in mice.
We showed that 5-MeO-DMT induces a dose-dependent increase in head-twitch response that is shorter in duration than that induced by psilocybin at all doses tested. 5-MeO-DMT also substantially suppresses social ultrasonic vocalizations produced during mating behavior.
5-MeO-DMT produces long-lasting increases in dendritic spine density in the mouse medial frontal cortex that are driven by an elevated rate of spine formation. However, unlike psilocybin, 5-MeO-DMT did not affect the size of dendritic spines.
These data provide insights into the behavioral and neural consequences underlying the action of 5-MeO-DMT and highlight similarities and differences with those of psilocybin.