Psychedelic Drugs Found To Have Remarkable Antidepressant Effects

Medical reports have specified the hallucination effects one can get from taking a hallucinogen. However, such a side effect could be avoided through a potent and fast-acting antidepressant, as indicated in new research based on virtual drug screening.

According to Stat News, psychedelic drugs are currently widely understood to have striking antidepressant effects so a team of computational biologists sought to determine if any new lysergic acid diethylamide-adjacent molecules "might have other medicinal powers."

In the recently published study, the researchers used silico modeling, producing 3D iterations of over 75 million related molecules that do not actually exist although they could.

Following virtual testing, the study authors discovered the therapeutic potential in a handful.

Found With Antidepressant Activity but Without Hallucinations

In their work published in the Nature journal, the researchers reported that further studies in mice demonstrated that such synthetic almost psychedelic molecules appeared to have distinctive antidepressant activity without the trademark hallucinations.

Scientist Brian Shoichet from the University of California, San Francisco, who co-led the study said, it was unknown what could happen. He added it was a "hope that it could happen."

There is a growing desire to dampen the psychology drugs' trippy nature, broadening their treatment potential.

Beginning in 2020, a few different study groups have shown that it is plausible to separate the psychedelic experience from psychedelics themselves, explained pharmacology researcher David Olson from the Univesity of California, Davis, who has completed this feat, himself.

This is the first time, though, that such drugs have been virtually conceived. Commenting on this recent work, Charles Nichols, a pharmacology professor at Louisiana State Univesity who, like Olson, was not part of the study and said that he thinks it is a certainly impressive "tour de force of screening capabilities."

Lysergic Acid Diethylamide

He added that it is not really limited to psychedelics and that this work could exhibit "proof-of-principle" for this massive in silico technique and paradigm.

The in silico movement for the discovery of drugs is in its nascence although researchers like Schoichet have advanced the field over the last four years.

Many, if not all major biopharma firms, are dabbling in this technique for drug development although no compounds derived this way have yet made it into the clinical setting.

The current arsenal of psychedelic drugs, including synthetic LSD, as well as the mushroom-derived psilocybin, is still in the clinical stage.

Beyond the colorful and strong hallucinations for which these drugs are commonly known, there is not much amount of noted toxicities linked to themes.

Hallucinogen Facts

The National Institute on Drug Abuse describes hallucinogens as a "diverse group of drugs" that changes the awareness of an individual of his surroundings, as well as his own thoughts and feelings.

Typically, they are split into two categories: the hallucinogens like LSD and dissociative drugs like PCP. Both categories can cause hallucinations or sensations and images that appear real although they are actually not.

Furthermore, dissociative drugs can lead users to feel out of control or disconnected from their bodies and environment.

Some hallucinogens are extracted from mushrooms or plants, and some are human-made or synthetic. Historically, people have used hallucinogens for healing or religious rituals.

More recently, people are reporting the use of these drugs for social or recreational purposes which include having fun, having spiritual experiences, dealing with stress, or simply feeling different.

Related information about hallucinogens is shown on ClickView's YouTube video below:

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