Wesley Zhao

Why? I’d like to know.

[Wesley Zhao @wesleyzhao]

@nikillinit Would love student discount please!

[Wesley Zhao @wesleyzhao]

@McguierMoriah hey! Missed your presentation but would love to ask you more about your results. I’m doing MDMa for cued fear extinction at Heifets Lab and we’re trying to figure out a few things. Coffee while at SfN?

[Wesley Zhao @wesleyzhao]

@anammostarac Yes please!

[Wesley Zhao @wesleyzhao]

Dogs into potential issues using effect size as a proxy for whether or not something (eg antidepressants) is really helpful for patients. Simulates if 60% of treatment group completely cured, effect size is still 0.4

https://t.co/5YSpwBgvmc

[BryanRoth @zenbrainest]

In our latest paper we discover, literally, 100's of thousands of new 5-HT2A chemotypes as potentially structural novel psychedelics
#psychdelics
https://t.co/LKaPfBC2yR

[Wesley Zhao @wesleyzhao]

Deeply appreciate @RickDoblin position that MAPS should “be the expert on the benefits AND the risks” of psychedelics so they could ultimately be trusted and people could reliably trust their conclusions. Key in mental health space. (1h20 https://t.co/adI4PMtqB5)

[Wesley Zhao @wesleyzhao]

And PTSD + PTSD/MDD comorbid groups tend to have higher sensitive to negative-feedback system of HPA (which hippocampus contributes to). MDD tend to have lower sensitivity to the negative-feedback system

[Wesley Zhao @wesleyzhao]

Interesting to find despite cortisol’s link to stress, PTSD patients and offspring often have lower cortisol. Minireview presents evidence this may be due to increased GC receptor density, decreased metabolism of GCs, increased neg feedback sensitivity https://t.co/7A0r0NieAB

[Wesley Zhao @wesleyzhao]

In a diff review on PTSD/MDD comorbidity, also by @RachelYehuda, they consider how PTSD patients differ biologically from those comorbid w MDD or MDD on own. All three tend to have reductions in hippocampal volume, but diff connectivity patterns. https://t.co/BKwnPutbij

[Wesley Zhao @wesleyzhao]

Review also mentions lower cortisol in 9/11 PTSD offspring seemed to pass on critically only in third trimester exposure to 9/11

[BryanRoth @zenbrainest]

Overview of psychedelic drug action from @RothLabUNC by @rgumpper in Cell today!
https://t.co/12PX034hCa

[Wesley Zhao @wesleyzhao]

Both somewhat support idea 5ht may be related to behavioral inhibition: Zhong’s mice are better off “waiting” for reward after cue is learned, so more serotonin released after cue; Matias’ mice better off not doing the thing they initially learned to do (lick vs blink)

[Wesley Zhao @wesleyzhao]

Is there any experimental data simultaneously measuring serotonin and dopamine activation during reward or punishment learning?

[Wesley Zhao @wesleyzhao]

It does not appear these experiments directly contradict each other as they used mostly different methods (Zhong et al did traditional reward learning and separately stress + reward, Matias et al used reversal learning generating greater prediction errors).

[Wesley Zhao @wesleyzhao]

And of course the viral paper on serotonin/depression that suggests major flaws in much of interpretation in serotonin data https://t.co/0ZOTeXdthr

[Wesley Zhao @wesleyzhao]

Investigating differences between serotonin/dopamine in reward learning. According to multiple reviews it’s very complicated. 2 things seem likely: serotonin increases with both unexpected reward and punishment, dopamine increases with unexpected reward. https://t.co/TjmnwYgJ25

[Wesley Zhao @wesleyzhao]

Other papers that dive deeply into serotonin’s complex effects with uncertainty: tale of two receptors https://t.co/xsokdgY5tZ double edged sword of plasticity https://t.co/WlzOqt2kjS 2020 annual review https://t.co/rxmoLfX3Ze