Evidence map›Paper›PMID 34671279›Full record

ReviewFrontiers in psychiatry2021

Psychedelics and Other Psychoplastogens for Treating Mental Illness.

Maxemiliano V Vargas, Retsina Meyer, Arabo A Avanes, Mark Rus, David E Olson

Open access · goldAbstract readReview
PubMed Full text at PMC Publisher
In one paragraph

Review in Frontiers in psychiatry, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 86 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
86citing papers in PubMed, 3 pooled it
16.2field-weighted citation impact, top 1% of its field
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

86 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 152 citations in OpenAlex.

  1. Pooled it
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  6. Review
  7. Deconstruction of lysergic acid diethylamide.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026
    Article
  8. Article
  9. Review
  10. The working lives of neuronal 5-HTRSC chemical biology · 2026
    Review
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  13. Post-traumatic stress disorder.Nature reviews. Disease primers · 2026
    Review
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26 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.

4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

5 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.

Maxemiliano V VargasNeuroscience Graduate Program, University of California, Davis, Davis, CA, United States.
Retsina MeyerDelix Therapeutics, Inc., Concord, MA, United States.
Arabo A AvanesBiochemistry, Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology Graduate Program, University of California, Davis, Davis, CA, United States.
Mark RusDelix Therapeutics, Inc., Concord, MA, United States.
David E OlsonDelix Therapeutics, Inc., Concord, MA, United States.
Epix Pharmaceuticals (United States) · USUniversity of California, Davis · US

Funding

Learning, Memory, and Plasticity (LaMP) Training ProgramT32MH112507 · NIMH · UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT DAVIS · PI Karen Zito · 2017 to 2026
$2.4M
Design, Synthesis, and Evaluation of Neural Plasticity-Promoting Analogs of Iboga and Ergoline AlkaloidsR01GM128997 · NIGMS · UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT DAVIS · PI OLSON, DAVID E · 2018 to 2022
$1.8M
NIGMS NIH HHS R01 GM128997NIMH NIH HHS T32 MH112507
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Psychedelics have inspired new hope for treating brain disorders, as they seem to be unlike any treatments currently available. Not only do they produce sustained therapeutic effects following a single administration, they also appear to have broad therapeutic potential, demonstrating efficacy for treating depression, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), anxiety disorders, substance abuse disorder, and alcohol use disorder, among others. Psychedelics belong to a more general class of compounds known as psychoplastogens, which robustly promote structural and functional neural plasticity in key circuits relevant to brain health. Here we discuss the importance of structural plasticity in the treatment of neuropsychiatric diseases, as well as the evidence demonstrating that psychedelics are among the most effective chemical modulators of neural plasticity studied to date. Furthermore, we provide a theoretical framework with the potential to explain why psychedelic compounds produce long-lasting therapeutic effects across a wide range of brain disorders. Despite their promise as broadly efficacious neurotherapeutics, there are several issues associated with psychedelic-based medicines that drastically limit their clinical scalability. We discuss these challenges and how they might be overcome through the development of non-hallucinogenic psychoplastogens. The clinical use of psychedelics and other psychoplastogenic compounds marks a paradigm shift in neuropsychiatry toward therapeutic approaches relying on the selective modulation of neural circuits with small molecule drugs. Psychoplastogen research brings us one step closer to actually curing mental illness by rectifying the underlying pathophysiology of disorders like depression, moving beyond simply treating disease symptoms. However, determining how to most effectively deploy psychoplastogenic medicines at scale will be an important consideration as the field moves forward.

Indexed as

depressionhallucinogenicketamineneuroplasticityprefrontal cortexpsilocybinpsychedelicpsychoplastogen

Identifiers

PMID34671279
PMCPMC8520991
OpenAlexW3204230901

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
LicenceCC BY
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.