Psychedelic for neurogenesis

The traditional decoction of the Amazon Indians stimulated the formation of neurons

Maria Krivochenko, Naked Science

Scientists have found that dimethyltryptamine contained in the ritual drink ayahuasca promotes the appearance of new neurons in the hippocampus and improves memory and spatial learning.

The study was conducted by a team from the Compulsente University in Madrid, Spain. Scientists took a group of laboratory mice and tested how dimethyltryptamine (DMT) affects their behavior and directly on brain cells.

The results of the work are published in the journal Translational Psychiatry (Morales-Garcia et al., N,N-dimethyltryptamine compound found in the hallucinogenic tea ayahuasca, regulates adult neurogenesis in vitro and in vivo).

In the first experiment, biologists took stem cells from the subgranular zone of the hippocampus of mice and placed them in culture plates. A week later, the cells in the tanks formed neurospheres, and scientists began to process them with DMT – some areas were pretreated with DMT-binding receptor antagonists, such as ritanserin and methitepine. The team then estimated the rate of cell division.

The results showed that dimethyltryptamine increased the number and diameter of neurospheres formed from hippocampal stem cells. In turn, treatment with serotonin and dopamine receptor antagonists reduced or even blocked the effect.

In the following experiments, mice received intraperitoneal injections of DMT or DMT in combination with antagonists for four or 21 days. Also at the beginning of the experiment, the animals were injected with bromodeoxyuridine to mark proliferating cells for future research. After a course of injections, some rodents were dissected and the number of new neurons was estimated. The remaining mice were monitored to check how their behavior had changed.

The experiment confirmed that dimethyltryptamine accelerates the formation of neurons and neuroglial cells: astrocytes and oligodendrocytes. In addition, small doses of DMT improved the learning and cognitive abilities of the animals.

"The study shows that DMT is able to activate neural stem cells and form new neurons," summed up Jose Angel Morales–Garcia, an employee of the Department of Cell Biology at Compulsente University and one of the authors of the work.

According to scientists, the compound can be used to treat patients with psychiatric and neurological disorders, including neurodegenerative diseases. A serious problem with the use of DMT-based drugs can be a hallucinogenic effect that causes the compound due to the activation of 5-HT2A receptors. But biologists believe that it will be possible to cope with this by using antagonists.

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