According to a scientific study published Wednesday in Nature, a group of computational biologists might have found therapeutic potential in a handful of LSD-adjacent molecules. They generated 3D iterations of more than 75 million related molecules that don’t actually exist but could, reported STAT. They found that these “synthetic, near-psychedelic molecules seemed to have distinct antidepressant activity” in mice, without the hallucinations traditionally associated with psychedelics.

The research was first discussed at a conference by Brian Shoichet, a scientist at the University of California, San Francisco, who co-led the research, and Yale chemist Jon Ellman. They contacted Roth, who received $26.9 million in funding from DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency - DOD) to develop better psychiatric medications for depression, anxiety and substance use disorder.

“We were very surprised the compound had any anti-depressant activity similar to ketamine and psilocybin, both rapidly acting antidepressant psychedelic drugs,” added Roth who is also Michael Hooker Distinguished Professor of Pharmacology at the UNC School of Medicine. “We were basically running a chemistry experiment to see if we could create a compound to activate 5-HT2A. Once we achieved that, we decided to run experiments in mice."

"Two of these seemed to actually interact with the serotonin receptors and were tested in mice. The molecules had antidepressant activity: They were just as effective in mice as fluoxetine, or Prozac, but at a dose that was 40 times lower. And despite the small quantity that was administered, the antidepressant effect (...) lasted several weeks,” STAT reported. “Scientists are now trying to make the molecules better, and more selective for serotonin. They’re also trying to carve away unnecessary portions that could have off-target effects or toxicities.”