Psychedelics reopen the social reward learning critical period

This study demonstrates in mice that the ability to reopen the social reward learning critical period is a shared property across psychedelic drugs. The time course of critical period reopening is proportional to the duration of acute subjective effects reported in humans. This reinstatement of social reward learning is paralleled by metaplastic restoration of oxytocin-mediated long-term depression in the nucleus accumbens. Reorganization of the extracellular matrix is identified as a common downstream mechanism. These findings have implications for psychedelic therapies and the development of new treatments for neuropsychiatric diseases.

Romain Nardou, Edward Sawyer, Young Jun Song, Makenzie Wilkinson, Yasmin Padovan-Hernandez, Júnia Lara de Deus, Noelle Wright, Carine Lama, Sehr Faltin, Loyal A. Goff, Genevieve L. Stein-O'Brien, Gül Dölen