Reopening Critical Periods: Psychedelics and Brain Plasticity

This chapter examines the potential of psychedelics to reopen critical periods in brain development, enabling adaptive learning in response to environmental stimuli. It discusses the implications of sensory deprivation on language acquisition, the interaction between psychedelics and neurobiology across species, and highlights the differences between addictive substances and psychedelics in terms of brain plasticity. Additionally, the chapter considers the therapeutic potential of psychedelics in disorders like autism, advocating for a cautious yet innovative approach in clinical applications.

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Dr. Gül Dölen is an associate professor of Neuroscience at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and a pioneer and world leader of psychedelics research. Her laboratory has discovered a novel mechanism that could account for the broad range of therapeutic applications that psychedelics are currently being tested for. Her lab has discovered a novel critical period for social reward learning and shown that this critical period can be reopened with psychedelic drugs, such as MDMA, LSD, psilocybin, ketamine, and ibogaine. Building on this discovery, she has formulated the hypothesis that psychedelics may be the long sought “master key” for unlocking critical periods across the brain. To test this hypothesis, she has initiated a nationwide collaborative effort to determine whether psychedelics reopen critical periods for ocular dominance plasticity, bird song learning, anatomical plasticity in the barrel cortex, serotonergic neuronal regeneration, dendritic spinogenesis, and motor learning.

Importantly, understanding psychedelics through this framework dramatically expands the scope of disorders (including autism, stroke, and allergies) that might benefit from adjunct therapy with psychedelics, an approach she has dubbed the PHATHOM project (Psychedelic Healing: Adjunct Therapy Harnessing Opened Malleability).

Dr. Dölen earned her MD, PhD at Brown University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where she carried out seminal work on critical periods, learning and memory, and the pathogenesis of autism.

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[06:25] How Gül designed her own major as an undergrad.

[09:03] Philosophy of mind and theory of mind.

[13:33] What theory of mind in non-human species suggests.

[16:45] The origin of Gül's interest in autism.

[21:37] Autism facts vs. fiction.

[28:31] Critical periods.

[37:59] How critical periods apply to therapies for autism.

[43:37] Why might psychedelics allow us to reopen shut critical periods?

[49:25] MDMA and the octopus.

[52:40] Challenging popular notions about psychedelic research.

[54:52] Plasticity.

[1:00:26] Favorite neurotransmitter receptors.