Scientists Just Tested Psychedelic Drugs on Lab-Grown ‘Mini-Brains’
Humans have used psychedelic drugs for hundreds of years, but we still don’t know an awful lot about what LSD, MDMA, DMT, psilocybin, and the whole galaxy of other psychedelic drugs do to our brains. That’s because it’s really hard — and really illegal — to lick toads. It’s also illegal to smoke DMT inside a fMRI machine. Fortunately, scientists have found a way around that problem: Now they can use mini-brains — known more formally as “organoids” — that can show us what happens in real time without having to get anyone high.
In a study published Monday in the journal Scientific Reports, a team of Brazilian scientists dosed mini-brains with 5-methoxy-N,N-dimethyltryptamine (5-MeO-DMT), a chemical similar to DMT that’s secreted by Incilius alvarius toads. They found that a single 24-hour treatment with 5-MeO-DMT downregulated pathways that are associated with inflammation and substance-use disorders, and they also observed how the psychedelic drug creates cellular changes in the brain.
Beyond their actual findings, this research represents an important step for organoid research on drugs.
“For the first time we could describe psychedelic related changes in the molecular functioning of human neural tissue”, says Stevens Rehen, study leader and a professor at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro and Head of Research at D’Or Institute for Research and Education.