Psilocybin mushrooms are going mainstream, but scientific research and regulation lag behind
Amid a renaissance in the science of psychedelics, public interest in psilocybin—or magic mushrooms, as they've long been known—is surging.
Apr 9, 2026
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Organic Chemicals: News and Research on Biogenic Monoamines
MeSH tree: D02.092.211.215
This is your brain on psychedelics: Neuroimaging study sheds light on cortical network effects
Psychedelic drugs are being investigated as scientific and clinical tools, but the brain mechanisms behind their effects remain unclear. Earlier brain imaging studies in small cohorts from single centers produced inconsistent ...
Apr 6, 2026
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Astrocytes in the amygdala may play a key role in anxiety
In a study published in Neuron, Ciaran Murphy-Royal, researcher at the Center de recherche du Center hospitalier de l'Université de Montréal (CRCHUM), and his team show that astrocyte activity in the brain's fear center, ...
Mar 26, 2026
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Gut-to-brain pathway explains how the immune system triggers loss of appetite during parasitic infection
Anyone who has weathered a bad stomach bug knows the feeling: a loss of appetite that sets in and lingers, even after the initial illness. For the millions of people around the world who are chronically infected with parasitic ...
Mar 25, 2026
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Neuroscientists find 'blink of an eye' timing in how we use our brains to learn and move
Scientists have long studied the role of dopamine, a chemical in the brain that helps control learning and movement, in order to better understand Parkinson's disease, schizophrenia, and depression—afflictions caused, in ...
Mar 25, 2026
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Newly-discovered dopamine signal may help the brain steer us in the right direction
A Boston University-led research team has discovered a dopamine signal in the brain that helps determine whether you are moving toward or away from a goal, potentially shedding new light on how the brain uses visual information ...
Mar 19, 2026
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AI helps to evaluate skin lesions in rare disease more accurately
There is a promising new drug for the rare disease mastocytosis, which is associated with skin lesions, among other things. Researchers at the University of Basel have now been able to use artificial intelligence to quantitatively ...
Mar 19, 2026
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Study offers single explanation for two major symptoms of schizophrenia
Scientists have long known that dopamine helps the brain learn from rewards, but a new computational model shows how for people with schizophrenia this learning system can break down and simultaneously produce two very different ...
Mar 18, 2026
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Brain's reward system may be about energy, not pleasure, study finds
We have long been told a simple story about reward: Dopamine is the "wanting" molecule that drives us toward goals, and opioids are the "liking" molecules that provide the hit of pleasure once we get there. But this pleasure-centric ...
Mar 17, 2026
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How serotonin can be hijacked in the brain
Scientists have uncovered a powerful strategy that the brain uses to coordinate chemical signaling. In a new study, researchers found that in the striatum, a brain region central to learning and moving, one chemical signaling ...
Mar 16, 2026
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