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THE EFFECTS OF PSILOCYBIN ON THE EXTINCTION OF LEARNED FEAR IN ADOLESCENT RATS
Elizabeth Virakornand 2 co-authors
University of New South Wales
FENS Forum 2026 (2026)
Barcelona, Spain
Board PS07-10AM-277
Presentation
Date TBA
Board: PS07-10AM-277
Event Information
Poster Board
PS07-10AM-277
Poster
View posterAbstract
Anxiety is the most common mental disorder in adolescence and is increasing in prevalence. Exposure therapy is the gold-standard treatment for anxiety that aims to inhibit fear through extinction. Adolescents, however, are impaired at inhibiting fear through extinction, especially after chronic stressor exposure. Furthermore, treatments that typically improve extinction retention in non-stressed adolescent rodents are ineffective in those exposed to stress, a likely characteristic in those seeking treatment. Recent work suggests that a moderate dose of psilocybin, a serotonergic psychedelic with rapid anti-depressant actions, enhances fear extinction learning and retention in adult rodents, but whether it has similar effects in adolescents, particularly after chronic stress, is unknown. Here, we report that a single dose of psilocybin (at 1.5 mg/kg, i.p.) given 24 hours before fear extinction training increased fear expression during both extinction training and a subsequent test in non-stressed male adolescent Sprague-Dawley rats. These findings suggest that psilocybin impaired extinction learning and retention in non-stressed adolescents, opposite to its reported enhancing effects in adults. Although psilocybin did not enhance extinction in the male adolescent rats with prior exposure to the hormone corticosterone, it did not cause the impairment that was observed in the non-stressed adolescents. Our findings suggest that the effect of psilocybin in adolescence on fear extinction is different to that observed in adulthood, and is influenced by exposure to chronic stress. If non-hallucinogenic psilocybin derivatives are tested in the future, the effects of age and dose should be carefully examined before clinical studies are conducted.
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