Structural plasticity and enhanced fear extinction following psilocybin in chronically stressed mice

Abstract

The classic psychedelic psilocybin elicits long-lasting neural plasticity and behavioral effects, but prior studies largely examined stress-naive animals. Using longitudinal imaging, we show that psilocybin increases dendritic spine density in frontal cortical neurons and facilitates fear extinction after chronic restraint stress, demonstrating psilocybin's effects in a translationally relevant mouse model.