PaCT lab’s new study aims to raise awareness on how stress affects behavioural adaptability
By Ben Read, March 25 2026—
Psychedelics and Cannabinoid Therapeutics (PaCT) lab is a lab at the University of Calgary which aims to uncover how psychedelics and cannabis can be used to combat mental illness. Keira Aubin, a PhD student working at PaCT lab, is currently organizing a study on how stress affects behavioural adaptability in Dr. Leah Mayo’s lab. Aubin spoke to the Gauntlet about her study and how it can be used to help people whose lives are affected by stress and understand how people adapt to change.
“I would describe this research as looking at how humans are able to adapt to changing circumstances before and after a social stressor,” said Aubin.
PaCT lab believes it is important to get data on how healthy people react and adapt to short term stresses, that way they can understand what the typical reaction to a new stressor would be. Aubin explains that this data will be useful for determining how to help people with mental illnesses. By having a baseline for how healthy people deal with stress, she believes that the research will be able to help people who don’t have optimal mental health.
For example, a person who suffers from depression is more likely to be mentally rigid. This makes adapting to stress much harder for them. By examining how a healthy brain responds more easily than the brain of a depressed person, the research aims to help depressed people grow adaptive under stressors.
Another means by which the PaCT Lab is hoping to examine how people with cognitive rigidity can adapt easier to stress is through psychedelics. In another one of their upcoming studies, they are aiming to administer psychedelics alongside hallucination-blocking drugs to help combat how mentally unwell people take rigid approaches for dealing with stress.
“We are examining the stress response as well during the psychedelic experience, so that we can characterize that and see how important it might be for these different outcomes,” said Aubin.
Aubin explains that the process through which they are hoping to use psychedelics will be heavily monitored and scrutinized. She and the team at PaCT Lab recognize the risks that come with psychedelic use. However, they also do not shy away from using psychedelics for the benefits it can provide its users. The team aims to examine how one can undergo a difficult experience and how people adapt to come out of the experience better off.
“The general long-term goal would be to determine what’s actually important in the psychedelic trip in predicting, or in influencing long-term positive outcomes; whether those be behavioural adaptability or well-being,” said Aubin.
By establishing what parts of a psychedelic trip contribute to long-term positive outcomes, PaCT Lab can examine how they were useful for people to work through short-term stressors. This will also help to tackle long-term stress, as some who may be unable to dose themselves with the psychedelics in the future would be conscious of what important steps they could take to improve their mental health thanks to this research.
“If it’s manageable stress or if it’s a short-term stressor, then it’s possible that there are different aspects of certain stress that if you engage in those aspects of the stressor, that you could actually have these beneficial outcomes in your life,” said Aubin.
Aubin mentions how having some level of stress could possibly be important to increase behavioural adaptability. She mentions that short-term stressors are often in people’s control. By developing the strategies needed to handle these stressors, such as normalizing them rather than worrying about them, people are able to improve their mental health. It is also important for creating strategies for behavioural adaptability. By having the skills to efficiently manage stress, you are able to find ways to adapt to new situations better than you otherwise would have been.
“We’re looking at behavioural adaptability in many different ways, and it’s entirely possible and very likely that acute stress enhances some aspects and inhibits or worsens other aspects of behavioural adaptability,” said Aubin.
It is equally important to look at how short-term stress can be both helpful and detrimental to behavioural adaptability. A study published by the National Library of Medicine details that short-term stress could both impede with and improve memory. It states that stress positively affects memory after encoding, or gaining new knowledge, while stress negatively affects memory if it occurs before encoding or while retrieving memories. Aubin explains that the research could be something of interest for young adults who are navigating through life while dealing with their stressors.
The study aims to reach 100 participants and has gotten halfway through their goal. For any who would like to participate, you can learn more about the study on PaCT Lab’s instagram, or email Aubin at keira.aubin@ucalgary.ca