Psychedelic Medicine 101 is a series investigating the past, present and future medical uses of some taboo substances. Here we examine the curious story of ketamine, initially developed to be an anesthetic before researchers and psychonauts discovered its unique and unusual effects on the brain.
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Antibiotics aren’t very picky, indiscriminately wiping out both good and bad bacteria and upsetting the balance of your microbiome. Now, researchers at Penn State have developed a new approach to make a drug that can single out a specific, opportunistic bacteria known as C. difficile.
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Psychedelic Medicine 101 is a series investigating the psychedelic renaissance in medical research, examining the past, present and future clinical uses of these formerly taboo substances.
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A study has found a link between long-term use of antidepressants and sustained weight gain. The research, collating medical data from over 300,000 adults monitored over a decade, suggests that widespread, and increasing, antidepressant use could be contributing to growing obesity levels worldwide.
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After successful and safe clinical trials, the FDA has approved a first-of-its-kind migraine preventative medicine. It's the first in an entirely new class of drugs designed to block the activity of a specific peptide known to activate migraines that has been cleared for public use by the agency.
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Scientists exploring the potential of transcranial magnetic stimulation to tackle drug addiction have found that it can dampen brain activity in response to common triggers, with implications for both the development of new substance abuse treatments and our understanding of neuroscience.
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A new study has found that simply measuring a depressed person’s brain activity using an electroencephalogram (EEG) can effectively indicate whether or not an SSRI (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor) antidepressant would be an effective treatment for their condition.
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The results of a clinical trial in MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for the treatment of PTSD have just been published in the journal The Lancet Psychiatry. These impressive results led to the FDA expediting the new treatment and last year granting it Breakthrough Therapy Designation.
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As if it’s not bad enough that bacteria are increasingly becoming resistant to our best antibiotics, some bugs are even eating the drugs. Scientists have now examined just how the bacteria disarm and consume the antibiotics as food, uncovering new potential ways to fight back against resistance.
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Researchers at UC Berkeley have now mapped out the structure of telomerase – an enzyme known to play a key role in aging and cancer – in more detail than ever before, and the breakthrough could inform a new generation of highly-targeted drugs.
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