STANLEY MOUSE? –

Oct. 5, 2022 – The new drug comes from a large team of scientists who did not start out looking for an antidepressant.

They had been building a virtual library of 75 million molecules that include an unusual structure found in a number of drugs, including the psychedelics psilocybin and LSD, a migraine drug (ergotamine), and cancer drugs including vincristine.

The team decided to focus on molecules that affect the brain’s serotonin system, which is involved in regulating a person’s mood. But they still weren’t looking for an antidepressant.

Roth recalls that during one meeting, someone asked, “What are we looking for here anyway? And I said, well, if nothing else, we’ll have the world’s greatest psychedelic drugs.” 

As their work progressed, though, the team realized that other researchers were showing that the psychedelic drug psilocybin could relieve depression in people. And the effects could last a year or more, perhaps because the drug was helping the brain rewire in a way that was less prone to depression.

“There [were] really interesting reports about people getting great results out of this after just a few doses,” says Brian Shoichet, an author of the study and a professor in the pharmaceutical chemistry department at the University of California, San Francisco.

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