Alex Kwan PsychedelX 2024 Keynote - Psychedelic drug action on neural circuits

PsychedelX 2024 Day 2: STEM Keynote Address
Alex Kwan, PhD

Psychedelic drug action on neural circuits:
Numerous drugs have the ability to alter our perception, cognition, and mood. Some of these compounds, such as ketamine and serotonergic psychedelics, have also shown promise as treatment for mental illnesses. The behavioral effects are often long-lasting, presumably because the drugs act on synapses and dendrites to induce plasticity in the brain. In this talk, I will describe a series of studies from my lab aimed at understanding the mechanism of action of psilocybin, using subcellular-resolution two-photon imaging, in vivo electrophysiology, and other molecular and behavioral approaches in mice. The results provide insights into the drug action of psychedelics on neural circuits.

Alex Kwan is an Associate Professor in the Meinig School of Biomedical Engineering at Cornell University. He is broadly interested in the neurobiology of drugs for treating depression. His work has revealed how compounds such as ketamine and psychedelics impact dendrites and cortical microcircuits to enhance neural plasticity. Alex supports open science by posting preprints and sharing data and code for all of the lab’s recent studies. He received a B.A.Sc. in Engineering Physics at Simon Fraser University in 2003 and a Ph.D. in Applied Physics at Cornell University in 2009. From 2013 to 2022, he was a faculty member in the Department of Psychiatry at Yale School of Medicine. Outside of the lab, Alex enjoys drinking a good cup of espresso and rock climbing with his kids.