PSILOCYBIN MITIGATES BEHAVIORAL DESPAIR AND COGNITIVE RECOGNITION IMPAIRMENTS BY REGULATING THE HYPOTHALAMIC- PITUITARY-ADRENAL (HPA) AXIS VIA THE BRAIN-DERIVED NEUROTROPHIC FACTOR (BDNF) SIGNALING PATHWAY MEDIATED BY THE ENDOCANNABINOID SYSTEM (ECS)
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract Background Dr. George Engel introduced the biopsychosocial model into the field of psychiatry 40 years ago, highlighting the profound connection between social environment and mental health. Factors have been categorized into biological, psychological, and socio-environmental domains. Numerous animal models have been developed to investigate the pathophysiology and treatment of depression; however, none have effectively encapsulated the biopsychosocial model.Several studies have underscored the importance of the HPA axis in regulating mood and cognitive functions under stress. The Endocannabinoid System (ECS) is a well-studied neuromodulatory system that operates within the CNS, playing a central role in stress response. Hypothalamus contains cannabinoid CB1 receptors and synthesizes endocannabinoids, which facilitate rapid negative-feedback regulation of the HPA axis through retrograde release.In recent years, research efforts have focused on the therapeutic effects of psilocybin in psychiatric conditions, including depression. This has raised questions about whether psilocybin can serve as a mono therapy and what is the mechanism behinds it. Aims & Objectives 1) Compare the behavioral outcomes of psilocybin treatment in two distinct animal models of depression; 2) Investigate the regulation of stress hormones and the underlying mechanisms influenced by psilocybin. Methods The study employed two animal models: 1) The biopsychosocial animal model of depression, represented by introducing chronic social instability stress (SIS) to Wistar-Kyoto (WKY) rats - the model of treatment-resistant depression; 2) The stress-induced animal model of depression, generated by subjecting Wistar (WIS) rats, a wildtype control, to chronic SIS. Series of behavioral test have been conducted followed by postmortem analysis. Results In the OFT, 1.0mg/kg psilocybin notably increased the distance traveled and reduced immobility in stressed WIS rats but not in stressed WKY rats. The EPM showed no significant reductions in freezing time or time spent in the arms for both strains, yet risk assessment time was significantly reduced. In the FST, psilocybin reduced immobility and increased swimming and climbing in both strains. In the SPT, psilocybin elevated sucrose preference in stressed WIS rats. Lastly, in the NOR, psilocybin significantly enhanced recognition in both rat strains. Biochemical analysis of cardiac blood revealed that 1.0mg/kg psilocybin significantly downregulated ACTH and corticosterone levels in stressed WIS rats but not in stressed WKY rats. In contrast, it upregulated TSH and melatonin levels in both rat strains. Psilocybin also increased BDNF levels in blood and specific brain regions, affecting the PFC, amygdala, hippocampus, and hypothalamus. Psilocybin was found to upregulate the levels of CB1R and TrkB and activate Akt, ERK, and mTOR pathways. Additionally, psilocybin improved the level of 2-AG in all four brain regions in both rat strains. Discussion and Conclusion Psilocybin appears to mitigate stress-induced dysregulation of the HPA axis by modulating the BDNF signaling pathway mediated by the ECS. This contributes to the observed positive effects on depressive- like behavior and cognitive impairment. This study enhances our understanding of how psilocybin exerts antidepressant-like effects and offers insights into the development of depression treatment strategies by providing a biopsychosocial animal model of depression. References BECKER, M., PINHASOV, A. & ORNOY, A. 2021. Animal Models of Depression: What Can They Teach Us about the Human Disease? Diagnostics (Basel), 11. BOLTON, D. &GILLETT, G. 2019. The biopsychosocial model of health and disease: New philosophical and scientific developments, Springer Nature. LU, H. C. &MACKIE, K. 2016. An Introduction to the Endogenous Cannabinoid System. Biol Psychiatry, 79, 516-25. PAPADIMITRIOU, G. 2017. The "Biopsychosocial Model": 40 years of application in Psychiatry. Psychiatriki, 28, 107-110. PLANCHEZ, B., SURGET, A. &BELZUNG, C. 2019. Animal models of major depression: drawbacks and challenges. J Neural Transm (Vienna), 126, 1383-1408. WANG, Q., TIMBERLAKE, M. A., 2ND, PRALL, K. &DWIVEDI, Y. 2017. The recent progress in animal models of depression. Prog Neuropsychopharmacol Biol Psychiatry, 77, 99-109.
Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.
How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one teacher head, not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".