{"id":268726,"date":"2025-10-01T08:42:22","date_gmt":"2025-10-01T08:42:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/268726\/"},"modified":"2025-10-01T08:42:22","modified_gmt":"2025-10-01T08:42:22","slug":"psilocybin-may-present-unique-risks-during-the-postpartum-period","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/268726\/","title":{"rendered":"Psilocybin May Present Unique Risks During the Postpartum Period"},"content":{"rendered":"

Magic mushrooms may not be the answer to postpartum depression, new research from the University of California, Davis, suggests.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In a first-of-its-kind study appearing in Nature Communications<\/a>, an interdisciplinary team from the university\u2019s\u00a0Institute for Psychedelics and Neurotherapeutics<\/a> (IPN) dosed mouse mothers with psilocybin and found that the drug amplified anxiety and depressive-like symptoms associated with perinatal mood disorders \u2014 mental health conditions that can arise during or after pregnancy. \u00a0<\/p>\n

While psilocybin and its ability to promote neuronal growth have been previously shown to benefit those with mental health conditions, the new research indicates that it\u2019s not a one-size-fits-all therapy.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe IPN has done a lot of work demonstrating that a single dose of a psychedelic can lead to long-lasting, beneficial effects,\u201d said study co-author\u00a0David E. Olson<\/a>, director of the IPN and a professor of chemistry, biochemistry and molecular medicine at UC Davis. \u201cBut it\u2019s a little more nuanced than that in terms of who can really benefit and who might be at risk. There are different patient populations.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

With mental illness being the leading cause of pregnancy-related deaths in the United States, the research lays a critical foundation in the search for a viable therapeutic.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is an urgent need for treatments in the postpartum period,\u201d said study co-author and IPN affiliate\u00a0Danielle Stolzenberg<\/a>, an associate professor of psychology at UC Davis. \u201cI think most importantly what we\u2019ve learned is that the effects of psychedelics can differ based on the ovarian hormone context and that is a critically important finding.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Not only were psylocibin\u2019s negative impacts long-lasting in mouse mothers (persisting for two weeks after a single dose), but the researchers also found that offspring raised by psylocibin-treated mothers also exhibited anxiety and depression-like symptoms long into adulthood.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The finding suggests that the mothers passed on those negative effects via lactation, permanently stunting the offspring\u2019s neurodevelopment.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A one-of-a-kind mouse model for postpartum depression<\/strong><\/p>\n

The study was built around Stolzenberg\u2019s innovative mouse model of postpartum depression.<\/p>\n

In the model, mouse mothers live with their offspring in a two-cage system that allows them to escape from the demands of motherhood. Stolzenberg found that repeated exposure to a social threat (a male mouse) destabilizes maternal behavior, leading to infant avoidance and triggering other stress responses. These symptoms are hallmarks of postpartum depression in humans.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the things that\u2019s discussed consistently in the clinical literature is that moms often feel like they have trouble bonding with their infants when they\u2019re experiencing depressive symptoms,\u201d Stolzenberg said. \u201cThe mouse moms in the social stress paradigm spend significantly more time in the cage without the pups. They will often run back and forth to check on them but tend to actively avoid their infants for long periods of time.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The team initially thought the treatment might help alleviate postpartum depression symptoms.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cPsilocybin was of such interest for us because it\u2019s been demonstrated to be useful across a whole host of mental disorders, including addressing anxiety and depression,\u201d said study first-author\u00a0Cassandra Hatzipantelis<\/a>, a postdoctoral fellow at the IPN. \u201cWe thought it could have the ability to address things that go wrong in postpartum depression like parent-infant connection.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Instead, psilocybin induced the opposite effect, having both negative behavioral impacts on mothers and their offspring. Mouse mothers continued avoiding their offspring and displaying anxiety and depressive-like symptoms. These symptoms persisted after mice were separated from their offspring.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cTwo weeks after a single dose of psylocibin, the mothers were dramatically impaired,\u201d Hatzipantelis said. \u201cWe were shocked.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Psilocybin-treated mice, the researchers found, were at higher risk for behavioral impairments and depressive-like symptoms.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI was very surprised that we saw the moms getting worse,\u201d Olson said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Virgin female mice did not show such effects. The findings indicate that there may be distinct neurochemical differences in the brains of mouse mothers that led to psilocybin producing adverse effects.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know that ovarian hormones regulate serotonergic signaling, but we understand very little about the interaction between ovarian hormones and drugs that impact serotonin,\u201d said Stolzenberg, noting that the latter is critical to how psychedelics affect the brain.<\/p>\n

Passing on negative effects to offspring<\/strong><\/p>\n

The team also found that behavioral effects were passed to the offspring. Nine weeks after weaning, both male and female offspring exhibited pronounced measures of anxiety and depression compared to the control groups. Their brains also showcased traces of psilocin \u2014 a metabolite of psilocybin.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe now know that even low doses of exposure can impact offspring for long periods of time,\u201d Stolzenberg said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The study highlights the IPN\u2019s commitment to studying both the positive and negative effects of psychedelics.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThese could be really important therapeutics, but we also realize they have limitations, and we have to conduct rigorous science to understand what those limitations are,\u201d Olson said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Since its launch in 2023, the IPN has attracted nearly 80 UC Davis faculty affiliates spanning diverse fields from anthropology and chemistry to neuropharmacology and genomics.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cUC Davis has incredible experts across a breadth of fields and in specialized domains,\u201d Olson said. \u201cThat\u2019s why we can do this type of high impact, interdisciplinary science. It\u2019s really the people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Additional study authors include Min Liu, Adam Love, Sadie J. Leventhal, Hero Maera, Srinidhi Viswanathan, Emily Avetisyan, Liana Belinsky, McKenna M. Rangel, Nina J. Jain, Max Kelly, Claire Copeland, Yara A. Khatib\u00a0and Oliver Fiehn..<\/p>\n

The research reported here was supported by funding from the National Institutes of Health (R01HD087709, R35GM148182), the W. M. Keck Foundation, the University of California at Davis Pilot Project Program Award from the Perinatal Origins of Disparities Center, and the University of California at Davis Academic Senate Large Grant Award.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Magic mushrooms may not be the answer to postpartum depression, new research from the University of California, Davis,…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":268727,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[139907,139909,210,139908,139906,16588,26121,39648,939,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-268726","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-animal-research","9":"tag-college-of-letters-and-science","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-institute-for-psychedelics-and-neurotherapeutics","12":"tag-mouse-models","13":"tag-postpartum-depression","14":"tag-psilocybin","15":"tag-psychedelics","16":"tag-trending","17":"tag-united-states","18":"tag-unitedstates","19":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115298025190560511","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268726","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=268726"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268726\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/268727"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=268726"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=268726"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=268726"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}