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Psychedelics reopen the social reward learning critical period
Open accessAbstract
Abstract Psychedelics are a broad class of drugs defined by their ability to induce an altered state of consciousness 1,2 . These drugs have been used for millennia in both spiritual and medicinal contexts, and a number of recent clinical successes have spurred a renewed interest in developing psychedelic therapies 3–9 . Nevertheless, a unifying mechanism that can account for these shared phenomenological and therapeutic properties remains unknown. Here we demonstrate in mice that the ability to reopen the social reward learning critical period is a shared property across psychedelic drugs. Notably, the time course of critical period reopening is proportional to the duration of acute subjective effects reported in humans. Furthermore, the ability to reinstate social reward learning in adulthood is paralleled by metaplastic restoration of oxytocin-mediated long-term depression in the nucleus accumbens. Finally, identification of differentially expressed genes in the ‘open state’ versus the ‘closed state’ provides evidence that reorganization of the extracellular matrix is a common downstream mechanism underlying psychedelic drug-mediated critical period reopening. Together these results have important implications for the implementation of psychedelics in clinical practice, as well as the design of novel compounds for the treatment of neuropsychiatric disease.
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“This window represents the opening of a critical learning period, that promotes plasticity in thought, emotion, behavior, and interpersonal relationships that lasts for approximately two weeks after an MDMA session (87).”
From Psychoanalytically informed MDMA-assisted therapy for pathological narcissism: a novel theoretical approach (2025) · cites this paper as [87]
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“The two-weeks following MDMA administration is associated with increased neuroplasticity and psychological flexibility making it an important time for integration.”
From Psychoanalytically informed MDMA-assisted therapy for pathological narcissism: a novel theoretical approach (2025) · cites this paper as [87]
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“This critical period is context-dependent and has been linked to the ability to induce social reward learning, psychological flexibility, cognitive reappraisal and new patterns of behavior (46, 48, 49).”
From Ayahuasca-assisted meaning reconstruction therapy for grief: a non-randomized clinical trial protocol (2025) · cites this paper as [46]
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“Recent studies have shown that psychedelics reopen a critical period to induce metaplasticity, which dynamically regulates the potential for synaptic plasticity (46, 47).”
From Ayahuasca-assisted meaning reconstruction therapy for grief: a non-randomized clinical trial protocol (2025) · cites this paper as [46]
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Metadata
- Authors
- Nardou, R., Sawyer, E., Song, Y. J., Wilkinson, M., Padovan-Hernandez, Y., de Deus, J. L., Wright, N., Lama, C., Faltin, S., Goff, L. A., Stein-O’Brien, G. L., & Dölen, G.
- Affiliations
- Johns Hopkins University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Dölen, Gül
- ORCID
- Venue
- Nature
- Published
- 2023-06-14
- Volume
- 618
- Issue
- 7966
- Pages
- 790-798
- ISSN
- 0028-0836 (ISSN-L)
- 1476-4687
- PMC
- PMC10284704
- OpenAlex
- W4380684709
- Cited by
- 358
- References
- 72
- Citations by year
- 2026: 100 · 2025: 147 · 2024: 80 · 2023: 30
- FWCI
- 104.08
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Locations
- Nature (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Johns Hopkins University
- National Institutes of Health
- National Institute on Aging (R01AG066768, R01AG072305)
- National Institute of Mental Health (R01MH117127)
- National Institute on Drug Abuse
- National Institute of General Medical Sciences (R25GM109441)
- National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (K99NS122085, R00NS122085)
- Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (R01HD098184)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Psychedelics and Drug Studies
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience › Neurotransmitter Receptor Influence on Behavior
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience › Neuroscience and Neuropharmacology Research
- Keywords
- psychedelics, metaplasticity, oxytocin, long-term depression, nucleus accumbens, extracellular matrix remodeling, subjective effects, altered states of consciousness
- MeSH terms
- Animals, Consciousness, Critical Period, Psychological, Extracellular Matrix, Hallucinogens, Humans, Learning, Nucleus Accumbens, Oxytocin, Reward, Time Factors, Long-Term Synaptic Depression, Mice
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