Karolina Noworyta

Institute of Pharmacology Polish Academy of Sciences, Poland, Kraków · Pharmacology

Background: Inflammation-induced microglia activation and increased oxidative stress have been observed in neurodegenerative disorders, such as Parkinson's disease. The aim of our study was to determine the appropriate dose and route of LPS administration to study hydroxyl radical generation and extracellular level of dopamine (DA), glutamate (GLU...

Background According to the European Drug Report, the use of novel psychoactive substances (NPS) is constantly growing. NPS are widely abused by human adolescent subjects. 5-Methoxy-N,N-diisopropyltryptamine (5-MeO-DIPT) is one of the most frequently used hallucinogenic NPS. 5-MeO-DIPT intoxication results in hallucinations, vomiting, and tachycard...

Depressive disorder accounts for a substantial proportion of psychiatric problems across the globe and has a devastating impact on quality of life and occupational function. Psychological models of depression emphasize the causal role of cognitive distortions in this disease, and cognitive problems have been included in the diagnostic criteria for...

Rationale According to psychological theories, cognitive distortions play a pivotal role in the aetiology and recurrence of mood disorders. Although clinical evidence for the coexistence of depression and altered sensitivity to performance feedback is relatively coherent, we still do not know whether increased or decreased sensitivity to positive o...

Aberrant cognition plays a pivotal role in the development and maintenance of depression. One of the most important cognitive distortions associated with depression is aberrant sensitivity to performance feedback. Under clinical conditions, this sensitivity can be measured using the probabilistic reversal learning (PRL) test, which has also been re...

One of the most important yet still underappreciated mechanisms of depression is distorted cognition, with aberrant sensitivity to negative feedback being one of the best-described examples. As serotonin has been identified as an important modulator of sensitivity to feedback and because the hippocampus has been implicated in the mediation of learn...

Introduction The rise of social media users and the explosive growth in misinformation shared across social media platforms have become a serious threat to democratic discourse and public health. The mentioned implications have increased the demand for misinformation detection and intervention. To contribute to this challenge, we are presenting a s...

In this study, we examined whether trait sensitivity to negative feedback (NF) can interact with the effects of chronic stress and antidepressant treatment on anxiety and stress-induced coping strategies in rats. Results of the conducted experiments indicated that animals displaying trait insensitivity to NF were more prone to develop stress-induce...

Background: Alcohol use disorder is one of the most common psychiatric disorders, and it is a leading cause of mortality worldwide. It has been demonstrated previously that people with alcohol use disorder are less sensitive to the negative outcomes of their actions and less able to use negative feedback to guide and adjust their ongoing behaviour...

Misinformation on social media poses a serious threat to democracy, sociopolitical stability, and mental health. Thus, it is crucial to investigate the nature of cognitive mechanisms and personality traits that contribute to the assessment of news items' veracity, failures in the discernment of their truthfulness, and behavioral engagement with the...

Although gambling disorder is a serious social problem in modern societies, information about the cognitive traits that could determine vulnerability to this psychopathology is still scarce. In this chapter, we describe a behavioral protocol for preclinical experiments in rats that can be used for the assessment of the interaction between cognitive...

This selective review aims to summarize the recent advances in understanding the neuromolecular underpinnings of biased cognition in depressive disorder. We begin by considering the cognitive correlates of depressed mood and the key brain systems implicated in its development. We then review the core findings across two domains of biased cognitive...

Introduction Misinformation is a complex concept and its meaning can encompass several kinds of different phenomena. Liang Wu et el. consider a wide variety of online behavior as misinformation: 1 unintentionally spreading false information, intentionally spreading false information, disseminating urban legends, sharing fake news, unverified inform...

Rationale 4-Iodo-2,5-dimethoxy-N-(2-methoxybenzyl)phenethylamine (25I-NBOMe) is a potent serotonin 5-HT 2A/2C receptor agonist with hallucinogenic activity. There is no data on the 25I-NBOMe effect on brain neurotransmission and animal performance after chronic administration. Objectives We examined the effect of a 7-day treatment with 25I-NBOMe (...

Alcohol use disorder (AUD) is one of the most common but still poorly treated psychiatric conditions. Developing new treatments requires a better understanding of the aetiology of symptoms and evaluation of novel therapeutic targets in preclinical studies. Recent developments in our understanding of the reinforcement‐based cognitive biases (RBCBs)...

4-Bromo-2,5-dimethoxy-N-(2-methoxybenzyl)phenethylamine (25B-NBOMe) is a hallucinogen exhibiting high binding affinity for 5-HT2A/C serotonin receptors. In the present work, we investigated its effect on dopamine (DA), serotonin (5-HT), acetylcholine (ACh), and glutamate release in the rat frontal cortex, striatum, and nucleus accumbens. Hallucinog...

Alcohol use disorder (AUD) is one of the most common but still poorly treated psychiatric conditions. Developing new treatments requires a better understanding of the aetiology of symptoms and evaluation of novel therapeutic targets in preclinical studies. Recent developments in our understanding of the reinforcement-based cognitive biases (RBCBs)...

One of the biggest threats to modern societies is the increasing prevalence of mood disorders. Cognitive deficits associated with depressive and bipolar disorders are a major driver of functional impairment and the ensuing disability of the suffering individuals. Growing evidence has indicated strong inter-individual differences in the vulnerabilit...

Hallucinogens are psychoactive agents which alter perception and mood but do not produce dependence and addiction. 4-Iodo-2,5-dimethoxy-N-(2-methoxybenzyl)phenethylamine (25I-NBOMe) is a N-benzylmethoxy derivative of the hallucinogen 2C family that has a high binding affinity for 5-HT2A/2C and 5-HT1A serotonin receptors. The aim of this study was t...

4-Iodo-2,5-dimethoxy-N-(2-methoxybenzyl)phenethylamine (25I-NBOMe) is an iodine representative of synthetic hallucinogens’ group – NBOMes. It exhibits a high binging affinity mainly for 5-HT2A/C serotonin receptors being their potent agonist. 25I-NBOMe is known to alter perception and mood in human. The aim of this study was to investigate the effe...

Acknowledgments: This study was supported by the Grant No 2013/09/B/NZ7/04104 from the National Science Center (Poland).

Introduction 1MeTIQ (1-methyl-1,2,3,4-tetrahydroisoquinoline) is a neuroprotective compound synthesized in the mammalian brain which exhibits antioxidative, antiaddictive and antidepressive properties. Schizophrenia is a mental disorder which significantly lessen patients’ quality of life. Positive, negative and cognitive symptoms can be distinguis...

According to the European Drug Report (2016), the use of synthetic cathinones, such as mephedrone, among young people has rapidly increased in the last years. Studies in humans indicate that psychostimulant drug use in adolescence increases risk of drug abuse in adulthood. Mephedrone by its interaction with transporters for dopamine (DAT) and serot...

Purpose Tryptamine hallucinogen 5-methoxy-N,N-diisopropyltryptamine (5-MeO-DIPT) is a serotonin transporter inhibitor with high affinity for serotonin 5-HT1A and 5-HT2A/C receptors. We showed previously that 5-MeO-DIPT in a single dose increased neurotransmitter release in brain regions of rats and elicited single- and double-strand DNA breaks. Her...

Background: Preclinical and clinical studies have suggested a beneficial effect of combination treatment with atypical antipsychotic drugs and antidepressants (ADs) in schizophrenia and in drug-resistant depression. Methods: In the present study, we investigated the effect of chronic administration of risperidone and ADs (escitalopram or mirtaza...

5-Methoxy-N,N-diisopropyltryptamine (5-MeO-DIPT, 'foxy') is one of the most popular tryptamine hallucinogens in the illicit drug market. It produces serious adverse effects, but its pharmacological profile is not well recognized. In vitro data have shown that 5-MeO-DIPT acts as a potent serotonin transporter (SERT) inhibitor and displays high affin...

Background: Schizophrenia is a psychiatric disorder characterized by positive and negative symptoms often accompanied by depression and cognitive deficits. Positive symptoms, like delusions and hallucinations are caused by an excess of dopamine (DA) signaling and are treated with the second generation antipsychotic drugs. Negative symptoms of schi...

Objectives: The study aims to verify whether alterations in the level of neurotransmitters have occurred in prenatally stressed rats (animal model of schizophrenia), and whether aripiprazole (ARI) and olanzapine (OLA) modify this level. Methods: The effects of ARI (1.5mg/kg) and OLA (0.5mg/kg) were studied by means of microdialysis in freely mov...

New psychoactive "designer drugs" are synthetic compounds developed to provide similar effects to illicit drugs of abuse, but not subjected to legal control. The rapidly changing legal status of novel psychoactive drugs triggers the development of new compounds, analogs of well-known amphetamine or mescaline. New designer drugs used as substitutes...

Our previous study showed that dietary zinc restriction induces depression-like behavior with concomitant up-regulation of the N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor (NMDAR). Because metal ions, oxidative stress, and inflammation are involved in depression/NMDAR function, in the present study, bio-elements (zinc, copper, iron, magnesium, and calcium), oxida...

Background: The psychostimulant 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) with a strong addictive potential is widely used as a recreational drug. Neurotoxicity of MDMA is related with the generation of highly reactive free radicals. Methods: MDMA was given in doses of 20 and 40mg/kg ip alone or in combination with caffeine (CAF) 10mg/kg ip. Extr...

Rationale: Diverse preclinical studies suggest the potential therapeutic utility of the modulation of the glutamatergic system in brain via metabotropic glutamate (mGlu) receptors. Lu AF21934, a positive allosteric modulator of the mGlu4 receptor, was previously shown to reverse behavioral phenotypes in animal models thought to mimic positive, neg...

The study shows effects of the nonselective adenosine A(1)/A(2A) receptor antagonist caffeine and the selective A(2A) receptor antagonist KW6002 on LPS-induced changes in the extracellular levels of dopamine (DA), glutamate, adenosine, hydroxyl radical, and A(2A) receptor density in the rat striatum. Intrastriatal LPS (10 μg) injection decreased ex...