SAN ANTONIO —
Psychedelics for anxiety
Researchers are finding that substances similar to LSD are proving to reduce anxiety.
They're called psilocybin and mescalin and according to international researchers and those at Cornell University they activate a cell type in the brain that silences other neighboring neurons, a result that provides insight into how such drugs reduce anxiety, according to a new study in mice and rats.
Not only did they find they would help with general anxiety, they also found they could help with panic attacks.
Researchers have also found that a medication used for conventional anxiety therapy called benzodiazepine can damage the brain and lead to dependence.
“It hasn’t been known what brain areas and cell types are involved when psychedelics suppress anxiety,” said Alex Kwan, associate professor of biomedical engineering at Cornell Engineering and a senior author of the study, which published Sept. 24 in the journal Neuron. “The idea is that if we know the neurobiology involved, we can design some better drug that would target these pathways.”
Read more on this research from Cornell University here.
Melatonin and sleep
If you remember talking about REM sleep...that rapid eye movement in phsycology you might want to listen up.
Scientists are looking at how melatonin affects that moment of sleep. They've located the first molecule capable of selectively acting on REM sleep without altering non-REM sleep.
This discovery will have an impact on the development of new therapies for serious disorders associated with REM sleep dysfunction, such as Parkinson’s disease and Lewy body dementia—which currently lack effective treatments, according to McGill Health E-news.
The publication sites that in a new study published in the Journal of Neuroscience, a team of scientists led by Dr. Gabriella Gobbi at the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre (RI-MUHC) and Dr. Stefano Comai at the University of Padua pinpointed this crucial regulator of REM sleep.
Jet streams in a black hole
In a galaxy far, far away scrientists have found the longest pair of jets streaming from a black hole in a distant galaxy.
According to AP news these jets are the largest ever spotted and spew hot plasma.
The discovery, made using images from a European radio telescope, was reported Wednesday in the journal Nature.
Black holes eat most space debris that falls their way. Sometimes, heated-up plasma makes a narrow escape by spewing out in thin, high-energy jets.
