Boris D Heifets

Quite a challenge to figure out what’s going on- would be really good to know if inpatients usually behave this way with no intervention. Also, the pragmatic design here is great, seems less likely to select for responders, but ??

Psychedelic 5-HT2A receptor agonism alters neurovascular coupling and differentially affects neuronal and hemodynamic measures of brain function Nature Neuroscience - Padawer-Curry et al. show that the hallucinogenic 5-HT2A receptor agonist DOI alters neurovascular coupling in mice, with implications for the interpretation of human fMRI...

🚨 New science alert! Our cross-species study, now in Nature Neuroscience, demonstrates psychedelics distort how we should interpret functional brain imaging.
👇🧵

nature.com/articles/s41...
#Neuroscience #Psychedelics #BrainImaging

And I want to thank the wonderful reviewers (among them was @theborislab.bsky.social )who made the paper all that much stronger

Interested in bridging the translatability gap between mice and humans, specifically with regard to psychedelics? Have I got an opportunity for you! Join us for an interactive and stimulating pre-meeting before #SfN2025. @theborislab.bsky.social @bita37.bsky.social @fredbarrettphd.bsky.social

They would be bashed

Interested in bridging the translatability gap between mice and humans, specifically with regard to psychedelics? Have I got an opportunity for you! Join us for an interactive and stimulating pre-meeting before #SfN2025. @theborislab.bsky.social @bita37.bsky.social @fredbarrett.bsky.social

Amazing lineup! And I promise we won’t just bash forced swim tests

Psychedelic neuroplasticity of cortical neurons lacking 5-HT2A receptors - Molecular Psychiatry Molecular Psychiatry - Psychedelic neuroplasticity of cortical neurons lacking 5-HT2A receptors

Excited to share our latest publication -- psychedelic drugs can enhance synaptic connectivity of neurons not expressing 5-HT2ARs (but requiring 5-HT2AR expression in the input neurons -- lots in the supplementals too!)

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Meet one of the winning teams of our MapMySections challenge! 🧠📈

Daniel Rijsketic, Austen Casey, and @theborislab.bsky.social developed UNRAVEL, a tool that precisely maps fluorescent labels across the mouse brain.

Join us on 8/27 for a webinar and live demo: alleninstitute.org/events/mapmy...

🎯 Algorithm Accuracy Award 🎯

Daniel Ryskamp Rijsketic, Austen Casey, and @theborislab.bsky.social (StanfordMedicine.bsky.social) created UNRAVEL, a Python library for whole-brain fluorescent label mapping: b-heifets.github.io/UNRAVEL/

Thought this would be a useful baseline measure, perhaps predicting elements of the narratives people use to explain their experience, or possible predicting therapeutic outcome. Judging by what I see on other SM, many of these mythical statements are alive and well…

One reason this looks the way it does is we envisioned this survey as one of the (many) measures used in a research study- accurate info about possible risks and benefits would be in the consent form. Good idea re white space for other sourced claims

Yes, observation is rarely a passive process- I’m not sure what the answer is besides not asking,this seems low risk to me

Off-target effects of PLX5622 revealed: mixing microglial function in anesthesia and addiction withdrawal Microglia have gained increasing attention as important regulators in the brain. Acute microglial depletion using the colony-stimulating factor 1 receptor (CSF1R) inhibitor, PLX5622, has become a popu...

Hope this paper gets some recognition.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Basic pharmacological principles are kinda important for experimental design.

#GRCPsychedelics - What a blast! It was great to talk science with so many incredible people in the field. Can't wait to do it all over again!

So happy the first #GRCPsychedelics was such a success. It was great to see everyone and share all the amazing science and community. Thank you to all the speakers and congratulations to the travel awardees!!

So grateful to @alexkwan.bsky.social and @vyazovskiy.bsky.social for such a great program. Excited to plan for 2027 with @viditavaidya.bsky.social and new vice chairs @theborislab.bsky.social and @mikaelpalner.bsky.social

I’ve been really feeling down recently, feeling a lot of stress around my job situation + coming to terms with identity shift.

Being at the GRC has filled me with such love, such a sense of community and reminded me of my hard work and that I can continue to inspire people.

Thank you ❤️

We’ve got some with psilocybin and nicotine withdrawal that we really should publish!

Oh, we have sooooo many to report. Sometimes I do wonder if we’re doing science completely wrong….

The survey:

The Psychedelic Media Exposure Questionnaire: The development and validation of a new scale assessing psychedelic-related media exposure Rationale: A reliable and valid instrument is needed to measure exposure to psychedelic-related media to examine the impact of media and expectations on outcomes in psychedelic clinical trials. Object...

www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1...

The Psychedelic Media Exposure Questionnaire: The development and validation of a new scale assessing psychedelic-related media exposure Rationale: A reliable and valid instrument is needed to measure exposure to psychedelic-related media to examine the impact of media and expectations on outcomes in psychedelic clinical trials. Object...

How much is the psychedelic experience influenced by what we see, hear and read? We made a way to measure it: The Psychedelic Media Exposure Questionnaire - developed by Audrey Evers, Chris Kelly, @shaylalove.bsky.social , @tehseennoorani.bsky.social, validated on >600 respondents. Link below:

Psilocybin has no immediate or persistent analgesic effect in acute and chronic mouse pain models The psychedelic psilocybin may have lasting therapeutic effects for patients with chronic pain syndromes. Some clinical and preclinical data suggest these putative benefits derive from direct analgesi...

Preprint online! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

This seems relevant to psychedelic research, where expectancy is still often viewed only as a baseline variable. We should also consider its dynamic changes, how (psychedelic & other) treatment experiences influence them, and their impact on outcomes.

@psybalazs.bsky.social
@theborislab.bsky.social

Great lineup of speakers from preclinical to clinical, drug discovery to plasticity, and animals to human research. 🔥
@argelaguilarvalles.bsky.social @rcbagot.bsky.social @fredbarrettphd.bsky.social @theborislab.bsky.social @kepecslab.bsky.social @nuro-science.bsky.social @amykooz.bsky.social ...

bioRxiv

The final episode of Season 4 of Psychedelic Brain Science discusses a recent preprint that gets at the heart of reproducibility in science.

This body of work titled "A multi-institutional investigation of psilocybin's effects on mouse behavior" can be found on BioRxiv!

Unexpected results from a ketamine study might reshape depression research A new study suggests chronic opioid use may interfere with the brain’s natural ability to respond to placebo antidepressants. Surprisingly, ketamine’s antidepressant effects remained intact—raising in...

Does ketamine reset the placebo response? Some interesting links emerging between opioids, placebo antidepressant responses, and maybe a ketamine mechanism to links them. Thx PsyPost for the writeup, lead author Theresa Lii. PsyPost write up here:

What an afternoon! Never quite expected to have a serious conversation about drugs and dreaming, recorded no less - thank you Heather and Christof!

YouTube video by Unlikely Collaborators The Placebo Effect with Dr. Boris Heifets

Can altering cognitive states under anesthesia impact trauma?

@theborislab.bsky.social, Dr. Berlin, and Meritorious Investigator Dr. Christof Koch explore the latest research on Ketamine, the placebo effect, and the potential impact of anesthesia-induced dreams. 🧠✨

📺 youtu.be/ssbz0nKVw5Q

🧠📈