The Heifets Laboratory
Welcome to the Heifets Lab
Our research group is dedicated to understanding and improving on powerful, rapid-acting therapies for psychiatric disease, such as ketamine, MDMA and psilocybin. We bridge basic science and clinical trials, connecting neuroscience, psychiatry and anesthesiology in pursuit of highly effective, safe treatment strategies scalable to the millions of patients who need them.
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Excited to share the full work! Many thank to Pascal and the team for their tremendous guidance and support 🥂✨
Norepinephrine and dopamine sensor crosstalk depends on local innervation density
Nature Neuroscience - This study shows that GPCR-based norepinephrine and dopamine sensors display crosstalk in several ...
www.nature.com
Using imaging in mouse brains, we find that norepinephrine and dopamine cross-activate the respective sensors.
Norepinephrine and dopamine sensor crosstalk depends on local innervation density
Nature Neuroscience - This study shows that GPCR-based norepinephrine and dopamine sensors display crosstalk in several ...
www.nature.com
We're really excited for this event with @michaelpollan and Christof Koch, in partnership with @calperformances, on October 13th. Tickets go on sale August 11th to the general public - mark your calendars!
Michael Pollan & Christof Koch: A Journey into Consciousness | Cal Performances
Author Michael Pollan returns for a discussion on the most intriguing questions at the intersection of psychedelics and consciousness.
calperformances.org
What does psychedelic science have to learn from social sciences and humanities?
We were concerned about reinventing the wheel, but now also about importing historical baggage through outdated theories and under-validated measures.
Book event Wednesday in Washington, DC + Zoom
Our new study⬇️inspired by the question: does psilocybin influence meta-learning and cortical processing of unexpected uncertainty?
Meta-learning may be critical for therapeutic effects of psychedelics and how the trip creates a window that facilitates clinical intervention
Interested in #psychedelics and/or veteran mental health? Please join our webinar on 7/23 4-5pm ET
Excited to be moderating this panel with @Stanford's @TheBorisLab, @DeptVetAffairs's Paula Schnurr, PRA's Duane France & @RANDCorporation's Michelle Priest
Veterans and Psychedelics
Join the RAND Epstein Family Veterans Policy Research Institute for a discussion on U.S. veterans’ use of psychede...
www.rand.org
New preprint led by @christineliuart! How do psychedelics improve cognitive flexibility? Psilocybin prevents inflexibility caused by aberrant mesocortical error signaling (but not other mechanisms); this is tied to plasticity of PFC-MD thalamus neurons:
Psilocybin selectively rescues cognitive flexibility impairments caused by aberrant prefrontal...
Psychedelic drugs show remarkable potential for treating psychiatric disorders, but the mechanisms underlying their therap...
www.biorxiv.org
@Psyched_Alpha This is amazing —there is broad support on both sides of this issue. It would be wonderful if a small % was devoted to understanding how they work
#psychedelics