The British "Nature" magazine published a pharmacology paper on the 28th, reporting that two chemical molecules have antidepressant effects in mice, but no hallucinogenic side effects. While further testing is needed to determine whether they are drug candidates in humans, the discovery of these drugs could lead to future drug development for the treatment of mental disorders.
Scientists know that hallucinogens such as psilocybin can target specific serotonin receptors and are considered as alternative treatments for mental disorders such as schizophrenia, depression and anxiety The psychedelic and therapeutic compounds of this class are not known. The development of therapeutic drugs without hallucinogenic effects is an attractive target for the treatment of mental disorders. Virtual screening, a computational method for predicting drug activity, can be used to find interesting compounds that target the serotonin receptor.
The California State University research team created a custom virtual library of 75 million molecules of the tetrahydropyridine family and tested them virtually to identify whether they could interact with the serotonin receptor. They found two molecules that activate serotonin receptors and tested them in mice. Both molecules had antidepressant but no hallucinogenic effects in mice. Furthermore, these molecules were as effective as the antidepressant fluoxetine, but at 40 times lower doses. The authors note that these molecules require further study and optimization before they can be considered as drug candidates.
The findings demonstrate the potential of custom screening libraries to identify leads for new drugs, the researchers said.
(Original title "Testing 75 million kinds of molecular beauty uses "virtual drug library" to screen out potential antidepressants")