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KCRA3 recently visited the IPN to learn more about our work developing next-generation depression treatments. IPN Director David Olson walked the crew through JRT, an LSD-inspired molecule created by flipping two atoms in LSD's structure, which promotes neuroplasticity in animal studies while showing reduced hallucinogenic potential.

University of California, Davis, researchers have stripped down LSD to the base features responsible for its hallucinogenic and therapeutic effects. 

Sulfonimidamides have become popular in the past decade or so as chemists explore novel motifs for drug candidates. They feature a central sulfur atom with a double bond to oxygen, a double bond to nitrogen, a single bond to another nitrogen, and a single bond to carbon. Cyclic sulfonimidamides, which have distinct properties from standard heterocycles, are particularly intriguing, but there aren’t many ways to make them.

nerve cell resembles a vast tree with branches that communicate with thousands of other cells. To function, it depends on a motor protein that walks on two legs, hauling urgent cargo from the center of the cell to the faraway tips of every branch. Scientists have unveiled a new structure of this walking protein, showing how cells control it.

David E.

Sarah Solar always wanted to help people. As a student at UC Davis, they majored in global disease biology, diving into the intricacies of disease spread and prevention, and its impacts on the health of human society and the environment at large.

UC Davis researchers have developed a new method that uses light to transform amino acids — the building blocks of proteins — into molecules that are similar in structure to psychedelics and mimic their interaction with the brain. Like psychedelics, these molecules activate the brain’s serotonin 5-HT2A receptors, which promote cortical neuron growth, and could be candidates to treat a host of brain disorders, such as depression, substance-use disorder and PTSD. However, they don’t trigger hallmark hallucinogenic behavior in animal models.

(SACRAMENTO) People with anxiety disorders have lower levels of choline in their brains, according to research from UC Davis Health.

University of California, Davis, researchers have developed a new, neuroplasticity-promoting drug closely related to LSD that harnesses the psychedelic’s therapeutic power with reduced hallucinogenic potential.

Magic mushrooms may not be the answer to postpartum depression, new research from the University of California, Davis, suggests.