An intriguing editorial in the Psychedelics journal announces an expanded focus beyond traditional psychedelic compounds to include the full spectrum of consciousness-altering substances. Editor-in-Chief Dr. Julio Licinio frames this approach as part of humanity's ongoing quest to transcend our inherent incompleteness.

In a groundbreaking Genomic Press interview, Dr. Michael Wheeler of Harvard Medical School reveals how psychedelics like psilocybin can reverse stress-induced fear behaviors by modulating neuroimmune pathways. His recent Nature publication demonstrates that psychedelics reduce immune cell accumulation in brain meninges while simultaneously reducing fear behaviors, opening new therapeutic possibilities.

This study introduces a deep-learning system for rapid, automated detection and classification of tiny calcium deposits (microcalcifications) in mammograms to aid early breast cancer diagnosis. Leveraging a multi-center dataset of 4,810 biopsy-confirmed mammograms, our pipeline uses a Faster RCNN model with a feature-pyramid backbone to detect and classify microcalcifications—the pipeline requires no hand-tuned rules and provides both the overall cancer risk and highlighted lesion regions in seconds per image. On unseen test data, it achieved overall classification accuracy of 72% for discriminating between benign and malignant breasts and 78% sensitivity of malignant breast cancer prediction, marking a significant step toward AI-assisted, cost-effective breast-cancer screening that can run on standard radiology workstations.

Depression imposes a staggering global socioeconomic burden. Current pharmacotherapies face major limitations, including slow efficacy, adverse effects, and non-response rates of up to 55%, necessitating novel therapeutic modalities. This study introduces terahertz (THz) photoneuromodulation as an innovative physical intervention for depression, offering several advantages over conventional pharmacological or optogenetic approaches. Mild THz photoneuromodulation circumvents the need for exogenous agents or genetic modifications, mitigating potential risks while precisely modulating neurotransmitter levels and neuronal excitability to alleviate depression-like behaviors. In a chronic restraint stress (CRS) mouse model, THz photostimulation rapidly attenuated hyperactivity and increased serotonin levels by 107.5% ± 45.3% in lateral orbitofrontal cortex glutamatergic neurons (OFC^Glu) compared to those treated with antidepressants. This led to marked improvements in depressive-like behaviors and cognitive function. Furthermore, THz modulation of OFC activity recapitulated the effects of chemogenetic inhibition, underscoring the OFC's pivotal role in regulating depressive states. This research unveils THz photoneuromodulation as a promising, safe, rapid-acting, and durable neurotherapeutic strategy addressing persistent unmet needs in depression treatment.