Best Marina Ostankovitch Podcasts (2025)

1
Rapid and sustained antidepressant effects of vaporized N,N-Dimethyltryptamine: A Phase 2a clinical trial in Treatment-Resistant Depression. 9:52

1M ago9:52

9:52

Draulio Araujo, professor at the Brain Institute in the University of Rio Grande Norte in Natal, Brazil, has been studying ayahuasca for more than 20 years. It’s a psychedelic plant used in rituals in South America that has also been researched for its potential to treat depression. The effects of ayahuasca can last for hours and also lead to side …

1
Endocannabinoid contributions to the perception of socially relevant, affective touch in humans 9:13

3M ago9:13

9:13

New drugs that target the endocannabinoid system are being proposed for disorders that are usually characterized by the dysregulation of social processing, like social anxiety disorder and autism spectrum disorder. Researchers have been trying to understand the mechanisms for how these drugs work. Leah Mayo is assistant professor at the University …

1
Sex differences in sensitivity to dopamine receptor manipulations of risk-based decision making in rats 9:46

5M ago9:46

9:46

The scientific literature has shown that females demonstrate more aversion to risk-taking than males. Studies have also demonstrated that the basal lateral amygdala, or BLA, is a critical hub for processing risk and reward information. And yet further research has shown that activity in the amygdala differs between males and females, and that the e…

1
Biomarker development for menstrual Cycle affective change: the need for greater temporal, mechanistic, and phenotypic specificity. 9:39

6M ago9:39

9:39

The menstrual cycle is known to affect things like mood and changes in pain. But there can also be symptoms that have a serious impact on a person’s function, ability to work, ability to maintain friendships and romantic relationships. This is a rare condition known as premenstrual dysphoric disorder. But it’s not the only psychiatric condition tha…

1
Genome-wide association studies of coffee intake in UK/US participants of European ancestry uncover cohort-specific genetic associations 9:39

9M ago9:39

9:39

Researchers are interested in understanding the biology of why some people are more likely to overconsume substances. Some substances are difficult to study—people might not admit to illegal substance abuse or to how much alcohol they drink. But Americans are more likely to accurately recall and share how much coffee they drink—which is related to …

1
C-reactive protein moderates associations between racial discrimination and ventromedial prefrontal cortex activation during attention to threat in Black American women 9:56

11M ago9:56

9:56

Scientists have been amassing an increasing amount of evidence about the impact of racial discrimination and racial trauma, including how it can have an impact on brain regions involved with threat vigilance and emotional regulation. At the same time, there’s evidence that increased engagement in those areas has been linked to increased risk of men…

1
Ghrelin decreases sensitivity to negative feedback and increases prediction-error related caudate activity in humans, a randomized controlled trial 9:06

1y ago9:06

9:06

There’s a hormone called ghrelin that’s secreted in the stomach, and when someone is hungry it contributes to that feeling of hunger and the need to search for food. But neurological studies have suggested that ghrelin might also play a role in compulsivity and impulsivity, and it might be related to substance use disorders. Rebecca Boeme is an ass…

1
Spotlighting SHAPERS: Sex hormones associated with psychological and endocrine roles 9:08

1y ago9:08

9:08

Dr. Nicole Petersen is an assistant professor in the department of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at UCLA. Her commentary is a new paper in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology, called “Spotlighting SHAPERS: sex hormones associated with psychological and endocrine roles.” Dr. Petersen starts the paper describing an unnamed signaling molecule tha…

1
Comparable roles for serotonin in rats and humans for computations underlying flexible decision-making 9:33

1+ y ago9:33

9:33

Serotonin is a critical chemical when it comes to a number of psychiatric conditions, such as OCD, where it seems to play a particular role in cognitive flexibility. That is, serotonin levels are related to the fact that someone is perseverating on intrusive thoughts or compulsions and isn’t able to be as flexible as otherwise would be necessary. T…

1
Integrating public health and translational basic science to address challenges of xylazine adulteration of fentanyl 9:58

1+ y ago9:58

9:58

The drug naloxone, otherwise known as Narcan, is a critical tool in reversing fentanyl overdoses and reducing mortality. But now fentanyl is appearing on the streets adulterated with a drug called xylazine. Justin Strickland, assistant professor at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and Cassandra Gipson-Reichardt, associate professor in t…

1
The why, when, where, how, and so what of so-called rapidly acting antidepressants 8:29

1+ y ago8:29

8:29

Sanjay Mathew is a professor and vice chair for research at Baylor College of Medicine and director of the Mood and Anxiety Disorders Program. He’s one of the two authors of a recent review paper in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology, “The why, when, where, how, and so what of so-called rapidly acting antidepressants.” With his colleague Alan Scha…

1
AI-based analysis of social media language predicts addiction treatment dropout at 90 days 9:09

2y ago9:09

9:09

In-person treatment for substance use disorders is an incredibly important tool, but there’s a high failure rate — more than 50 percent of people who enter drop out within the first month. There hasn’t been a highly accurate method of identifying who might leave and who might succeed, and knowing this could help centers allocate resources to give t…

1
Oxytocin effects on amygdala reactivity to angry faces in males and females with ASPD 9:27

2y ago9:27

9:27

Antisocial personality disorder, or ASPD, is a difficult disorder to study. There have been studies on psychopathic individuals, and on youth with psychopathic traits, but most studies on ASPD to date have been on incarcerated adults. A team of researchers at Heidelberg University wanted to study individuals who are not incarcerated and see what th…

1
To dismantle structural racism in science, scientists need to learn how it works 9:54

2+ y ago9:54

9:54

It’s clear there are diversity issues in science, both in terms of who does or doesn’t receive research grants, as well as who is or isn’t represented at the highest levels of scientific research. When Caleb Weinreb and Daphne Sun began their PhD program at Harvard University Medical School in systems biology, they took this on as an issue. They le…

1
Low doses of lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) increase reward-related brain activity 9:59

2+ y ago9:59

9:59

Psychedelic drugs have received attention recently for their potential use as treatments for psychiatric disorders. Single, high doses of LSD have shown promise for treating depressive disorders. But there’s another way in which people have been using LSD, and it’s what’s known as micro-dosing, taking LSD at below noticeable levels, where it doesn’…

1
Sex-dependent risk factors for PTSD: a prospective structural MRI study 9:29

2+ y ago9:29

9:29

After a traumatic event, women are more likely to be diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD. Research has been conducted on what might be causing this higher rate of diagnoses; for instance, perhaps women had more cumulative trauma in their lives than the men in question. But scientists say that even taking prior childhood trauma in…

1
Sex differences in appetitive and reactive aggression 9:47

2+ y ago9:47

9:47

Maladaptive aggression, while not a diagnosable neuropsychiatric disorder on its own, often presents as an important comorbid condition with other neuropsychiatric disorders. But while both men and women can and do display aggression, there’s been a bias to thinking of aggression, in both its adaptive and maladaptive forms, as a male behavior. Sam …

1
What’s wrong with my experiment?: The impact of hidden variables on neuropsychopharmacology research 9:34

3y ago9:34

9:34

Sometimes, when researchers are conducting an experiment, the results are confusing. Maybe the control group of animals doesn’t behave the way a control should in theory be behaving. Maybe a researcher repeats a study and sees results that are unusually different from the first time around. The answers to these issues might lie in something called …

1
A scientific approach to navigating the academic job market 7:04

3y ago7:04

7:04

Kirstie Cummings and Sofia Beas are both new assistant professors in the department of neurobiology at the University of Alabama, Birmingham. When they met, they discussed the job application process, their support network, and their own personal processes, and they decided to write an article that could serve as a resource for candidates from diff…

1
Identification of THC impairment using functional brain imaging 9:17

3+ y ago9:17

9:17

Driving while under the influence of THC, known as drugged driving, is becoming more of an issue as more states legalize cannabis for both medical and recreational use around the country. THC is known to impair cognitive and psychomotor performance and thus impair driving. Jodi Gilman is a neuroscientist and an associate professor of psychiatry at …

1
Evolution of prefrontal cortex 9:22

3+ y ago9:22

9:22

In the past, there had been a school of thought that looked at evolution linearly — that is, you could in theory draw a line among mammals as they evolved, and so, say, rodent brains would basically be less evolved primate brains. That turns out not to be true; evolution is much more like a branching tree, and each branch then goes on to develop in…

1
Astrocyte-neuron signaling in the mesolimbic dopamine system: the hidden stars of dopamine signaling 9:43

3+ y ago9:43

9:43

Star-shaped cells called astrocytes are the most abundant cells to be found in the human brain. In the past, they’d been thought to play a supporting role to neurons, such as providing metabolic support, but recently they’re also emerging as stars of information processing. They can respond to neurotransmitters and release neuroactive substances th…

1
Neurobiology of loneliness: a systematic review 8:11

3+ y ago8:11

8:11

Loneliness is a subjective experience, but neuroscientists define it as a distress that arrives from a discrepancy between perceived and desired social relationships. There may be an evolutionary benefit to the feeling of loneliness; we’re a social species, and feeling lonely might have sent us to seek out other humans, which has been very importan…

1
Medial orbitofrontal cortex dopamine D1/D2 receptors differentially modulate distinct forms of probabilistic decision-making 8:58

4y ago8:58

8:58

It’s known that dopamine transmission in the brain, particularly in the frontal lobes, can affect decision-making and can regulate choices when it comes to actions and rewards. But the effect of dopamine transition in the medial orbital frontal cortex hasn’t yet been studied, and dysfunction in that region has been implicated in a variety of mental…

1
Addiction as a brain disease revised: why it still matters, and the need for consilience 9:54

4y ago9:54

9:54

Nearly 25 years ago, a paper was published about addiction that transformed the field. The director of the US National Institute on Drug Abuse at the time called addiction a “brain disease,” and he wrote a paper articulating this position and the agenda that it implied. It led to a focus on researching the brain to understand the mechanisms behind …

1
Big data in psychiatry: multiomics, neuroimaging, computational modeling, and digital phenotyping 9:51

4y ago9:51

9:51

The world of medicine has been changing rapidly due to the increasing use of ‘big data.’ And there’s been a major revolution in this approach in neuroscience and psychiatry as well: computing power, sample sizes, neuroimaging technologies, digital approaches to phenotyping, and computational modeling all are already starting to unleash dramatic new…

1
Acute dose-dependent effects of lysergic acid diethylamide in a double-blind placebo-controlled study in healthy subjects 9:44

4+ y ago9:44

9:44

Interest is growing in the use of the psychedelic drug LSD for psychiatric research and even potentially for treatment. But placebo-controlled studies conducted to date have used just one dose of the drug—none have investigated the impacts of a variety of dosages within the same subjects. In addition, past studies did not use pharmaceutically-defin…

1
Big behavior: challenges and opportunities in a new era of deep behavior profiling 9:31

4+ y ago9:31

9:31

Scientists who study neuropsychiatric conditions and treatments often use rodent models to do so. From depression to anxiety to memory impairment and impulsivity, there are certain rodent behaviors that are used to represent these types of conditions in humans. And to use these models, researchers have had to watch the animals live or on video and …

1
Leveraging large genomic datasets to illuminate the pathobiology of autism spectrum disorders 9:49

4+ y ago9:49

9:49

The application of the study of genetics and the use of big data to identify patterns of inheritance as well as de novo mutations has had a dramatic impact on the field of Autism Spectrum Disorder research, and it offers pathways to a greater understanding of biological mechanisms, even potentially treatments. Matthew State, chair of the department…

1
Pubertal adversity alters chromatin dynamics and stress circuitry in the pregnant brain 9:28

5y ago9:28

9:28

It’s understood in epidemiological research that women who experience trauma during puberty are at significantly higher risk for affective disorders such as depression and anxiety when they become pregnant. And so Tracy Bale, a professor in the departments of psychology and psychiatry at the University of Maryland in Baltimore, has done several stu…

1
Social networking and mental health: looking beyond frequency of use and towards mechanisms of action 9:32

5y ago9:32

9:32

Over the past decades, there’s clearly been a dramatic increase in the amount of time people spend online using social networking sites. For instance, Facebook and Instagram have literally billions of users. At the same time, there’s been a rise in mental health issues for young people from teens through their mid 20s. The rise in these issues has …

1
Distinct acute effects of LSD, MDMA, and D-amphetamine in healthy subjects 9:07

5y ago9:07

9:07

A number of drugs that are used recreationally are now being studied for their use in psychopharmacology. But while the ways in which these drugs are similar or different has been described anecdotally by recreational users, they haven’t been studied in comparison to one another. Dr. Matthias Liechti and his team of researchers recently published a…

1
Chronic opioid pretreatment potentiates the sensitization of fear learning by trauma 9:18

5+ y ago9:18

9:18

It’s known that there’s a relationship between post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, and a higher rate of opioid abuse. What isn’t understood, though, is what that relationship is. Does PTSD cause people to turn to opioids in particular among all the potential drugs of abuse, or is there something about opioid use that makes users particularly s…

1
Effects of MDMA on attention to positive social cues and pleasantness of affective touch. 9:34

5+ y ago9:34

9:34

The recreational drug MDMA, also known as Ecstasy or Molly, is particularly popular in social settings and raves, in large part because of how socially connected it makes the users feel. It's being studied for use in psychotherapy — there's a phase III clinical trial for the use of MDMA to treat PTSD. What's clear is that the drug affects how users…

1
Superolateral medial forebrain bundle deep brain stimulation in major depression: a gateway trial. 9:34

6y ago9:34

9:34

Depression is an incredibly important disorder—according to Thomas Schlaepfer, head of the department of interventional biological psychiatry at the University of Freiburg, at least 20 percent of people have a depressive episode at least once in their lives. And while most patients' symptoms improve with a combination of psychotherapy and medicine,…

1
Cues play a critical role in estrous cycle-dependent enhancement of cocaine reinforcement 9:34

6y ago9:34

9:34

Research has demonstrated that, overall, women are more vulnerable to drug addiction than men are. They become addicted more quickly after first using, they have a harder time staying off drugs, and they relapse at higher rates. But most studies have focused on men, and models that have been developed nearly entirely focus on male subjects. Now, tw…

1
Food Addiction: A Valid Concept? 9:34

6y ago9:34

9:34

Over the past decade, the use of the term 'food addiction' to describe an unhealthy approach to eating has grown. It refers to the idea that, for some people, their inability to control their food intake has similarities to that of a drug of abuse. Paul Kenny is the chair of the Department of Neuroscience at the Icahn School of Medicine in New York…

1
Sex Matters 9:34

6+ y ago9:34

9:34

As our environment becomes ever increasingly complex, understanding how sex differences impact disease risk and resilience will only become more critical. The 2019 , "Sex Matters," edited by Dr. Tracy L. Bale, highlights the causal and mechanistic value in cases where significant sex differences are found, as well as when they're not; where sex dif…

1
Recent advances in the study of aggression 9:34

6+ y ago9:34

9:34

Aggression is an evolutionary behavior seen throughout the animal world. When it comes to humans, however, some forms of aggression can be seen as pathological, dangerous, and quite costly to society. And yet there's a dearth of approved, effective treatments for aggression. Meghan Flanigan is a graduate student at the Icahn School of Medicine at M…

1
Neurocognitive effects of umami: association with eating behavior and food choice 9:34

6+ y ago9:34

9:34

While the influence of sweet taste on neurocognitive function has been widely studied, umami or savory has received less of a research focus. Animal models and even some small human studies seem to show that umami given in a broth before a meal can influence appetite and food intake. And this inspired Dr. Miguel Alonso-Alonso, Assistant Professor a…

1
Burst activation of dopamine neurons produces prolonged post-burst availability of actively released dopamine. 9:34

7y ago9:34

9:34

For years now, scientists have noticed a rather strange phenomenon in animal models: scientists would stimulate dopamine production in the brain, but once the stimulation was over, the dopamine would remain. Bita Moghaddam is chair and professor of behavioral neuroscience at Oregon Health and Science University. She says that when dopamine is relea…

1
Considerations for the Use of DREADDs in Behavioral Neuroscience 9:18

7y ago9:18

9:18

There's a technology that's proven to be increasingly useful in the past decade -- it's called DREADD, or "designer receptors exclusively activated by designer drugs." The current approach is to create a designer receptor that is unlocked by the drug, clozapine-n-oxide, or CNO. Researchers have used it to study the function of populations of neuron…

1
Neuropsychopharmacology Reviews: Cannabis and Cannabinoids: From Synapse to Society 9:39

7+ y ago9:39

9:39

The 2018 issue of Neuropsychopharmacology Reviews, "Cannabis and Cannabinoids: From Synapse to Society," showcases the remarkable advances in the biology of cannabinoids and cannabis in the past two decades, ranging from their impact at the synaptic level through to public health.Edited by Margaret Haney and Matthew N Hill, this issue represents cu…

1
Opioid Release after High-Intensity Interval Training in Healthy Human Subjects 6:15

7+ y ago6:15

6:15

Many people who exercise regularly have experienced a so-called "runner's high," either a feeling of euphoria after exercise, or a feeling of happiness and well-being. Scientists have studied this and found that exercise does indeed improve mood and combat stress, for instance, but researchers at Finland's University of Turku wanted to know: Are en…

1
Opioid Self-Administration is Attenuated by Early-Life Experience and Gene Therapy for Anti-Inflammatory IL-10 in the Nucleus Accumbens of Male Rats 8:18

7+ y ago8:18

8:18

Studies have shown that stress and trauma early in life can lead to an increased risk for drug addiction later in life. In rat models developed to mimic and study this effect, some rats received normal maternal care, while others received enriched maternal care - extra grooming and attention from their mothers. Those with enriched maternal care hav…

1
Beta-Adrenoceptor Blockade in the Basolateral Amygdala, But Not the Medial Prefrontal Cortex, Rescues the Immediate Extinction Deficit 8:47

8y ago8:47

8:47

One method of treating Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) involves extinction therapy, but researchers have found that the timing of such therapy is extremely important, and that it often doesn't work if the therapy is conducted too soon after the initial trauma. Stress itself may be harming the efficacy of the treatment. A team of researchers a…

1
Arbaclofen in Children and Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder 9:36

8y ago9:36

9:36

Autism Spectrum Disorder is a disorder that has been defined by the medical community, but so far, none of the medications available for ASD treat the core symptoms of the disease, but rather secondary symptoms such as agitation or hyperactivity. Because ASD is genetically linked to Fragile X syndrome, researchers noticed that in a mouse model, the…

1
The Gateway Hypothesis of Addiction 8:47

8y ago8:47

8:47

The National Institutes of Health recently published a statement requiring sex as a biological variable in studies. This is in part simply because it's good science, and in part to correct for decades in which both animal and human studies were largely conducted with male subjects. In their review paper responding to this statement, Dr. Tracy Bale …

1
Sex as a Biological Variable: Who, What, When, Why, and How 9:41

8+ y ago9:41

9:41

The National Institutes of Health recently published a statement requiring sex as a biological variable in studies. This is in part simply because it's good science, and in part to correct for decades in which both animal and human studies were largely conducted with male subjects. In their review paper responding to this statement, Dr. Tracy Bale …

1
Neuropsychopharmacology Reviews: The Immunology of Behavior - Exploring the Role of the Immune System in Brain Health and Illness 9:47

8+ y ago9:47

9:47

The 2017 issue of Neuropsychopharmacology Reviews, "The Immunology of Behavior focuses on the growing appreciation of the immune system in understanding brain and health illness.This podcast synthesizes this year's issue, which showcases a wide range of reviews about the relationship between immunology and brain and health illness, demonstrating ho…

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