uniMIND Central Session #13 – Towards an understanding of psychedelic-induced neuroplasticity

Join us in January to discuss Towards an understanding of psychedelic-induced neuroplasticity with first author PhD candidate Abigail Calder.

Find the open access article in Neuropsychopharmacology:

About the format:

uniMIND Central Sessions are part of the global uniMIND journal club network. During the semester, the Central Sesssions take place monthly, each fourth Wednesday of the month, usually at 7 pm CET/CEST.

For each session, we invite authors of research papers from a wide variety of disciplines. While the session is mostly guided by a moderator, all attendees are invited to actively partake through comments or questions. This is a great opportunity to learn about the processes behind and between the literary lines and to get in touch with researchers!

Come one, come all – but please prepare the assigned paper.

About the author:

Abigail Calder joined the medical faculty at Fribourg University as a PhD student in January 2021 after completing a Master’s degree in Neuroscience at the University of Bonn. Her research focuses on the effects of the psychedelic substance LSD in healthy volunteers, with a particular focus on substance-induced changes in cortical neuroplasticity. Neuroplasticity refers to the brain’s ability to grow, change and reorganize. This ability is impaired in many psychiatric disorders, such as depression, and is necessary for recovery in others, such as stroke. Animal studies suggest that serotonergic psychedelics, including LSD, rapidly increase cortical plasticity through their activity at serotonin 2A receptors. However, it is not yet proven whether this also happens in humans; and if so, what consequences these particular changes in neuroplasticity have for cognition, emotion and behavior. Abigail’s research projects aim to answer these questions.