Johns Hopkins neuroscientists have found that the psychedelic drug MDMA reopens a kind of window, called a “critical period,” when the brain is sensitive to learning the reward value of social behaviors.
Johns Hopkins neuroscientists have found that the psychedelic drug MDMA reopens a kind of window, called a “critical period,” when the brain is sensitive to learning the reward value of social behaviors. The findings, reported April 3 in Nature, may explain why MDMA may be helpful in treating people with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Critical periods were first described in the 1930s in snow geese. About 24 hours after a gosling hatches, if mother goose is nowhere to be found, the hatchling will bond with an object, including non-living ones. Yet, if mother goose disappears 48 hours after her gosling hatches, the critical period is over, and the hatchling won’t bond to an object.
There is evidence for critical periods that smooth the way for development of language, touch and vision.
For the current study, neuroscientist Gül Dölen says, “We wanted to know if there was a critical period for learning social reward behaviors, and if so could we reopen it using MDMA, since this drug is well-known to have prosocial effects.”
Dölen and her team studied groups of mice in enclosures with different bedding. They put several mice together in one enclosure with one type of bedding for 24 hours and, in the next 24 hours, put the same mice by themselves in another enclosure with a different type of bedding. The mice began to associate certain types of bedding with isolation or companionship. Then, they let the mice wander between enclosures with the two types of bedding and tracked how long the mice spent in each enclosure. The more time the mice spent in the bedding linked to their companions indicated more social reward learning.
Read more at Johns Hopkins Medicine
