Authors:

Adele Bauer

Date Created:

Not specified

Course Title:

Professor:

Not specified

About Paper:

Psychedelics have shown great promise in the treatment of mental health conditions. However, the mode of action of these drugs is largely unknown. Genetically tractable model organisms are particularly advantageous for identifying the genetic pathways involved in drug responses. We characterized the 96 UNIVERSITY OF OREGON • 2024 UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH SYMPOSIUM behavioral effects of a psychedelic in one such organism, the nematode worm C. elegans. One critical behavior of C. elegans is egg-laying, which is regulated by serotonin and its corresponding receptors. Psychedelics have a particularly high affinity for serotonin receptors. We hypothesized that a psychedelic drug would have the same effect on egg-laying as serotonin. To test this hypothesis, we incubated wildtype C. elegans for 30 minutes in a 1 mM solution of the psychedelic drug 2,5-Dimethoxy-4-iodoamphetamine (DOI), a 5 mg/mL solution of serotonin (5-HT), or the control buffer solution (M9). After 30 minutes, we transferred the contents of the incubation tube, including worms and any eggs laid, to an agar plate and counted the number of worms and eggs. As expected, we found that 5-HT-incubated animals laid more eggs than the control. Surprisingly, animals incubated in DOI laid eggs at a similar rate to those incubated in the buffer solution. These results indicate that DOI does not stimulate egg-laying behavior at a 1 mM concentration. In future experiments we will map the full dose-response for DOI and egg-laying in C. elegans.

Source:

University of Oregon / 2024

Topics:

No topics listed

Co-authors:

Adele Bauer