Out of This World — The Podcast

Nicotine kills 8 million people per year. Nicotine replacement therapy achieves 13% abstinence. Then psilocybin-assisted therapy produced 80% verified quit rates at 12 months. Here is the neuroscience of how psychedelics dissolve the most addictive substance on earth.

Anxiety disorders affect 284 million people worldwide. Most treatments provide partial relief at best. Then psilocybin produced 80% sustained response rates after a single session. Here is the neuroscience of how it works.

Anxiety disorders affect 284 million people worldwide. Most treatments provide partial relief at best. Then psilocybin produced 80% sustained response rates after a single session. Here is the neuroscience of how it works.

Adult neurogenesis was supposed to be impossible. Then researchers watched psilocybin produce 3.9× more hippocampal neurons in a single study. The molecular mechanism behind psychedelic brain repair.

80% 6-month smoking abstinence. 83% reduction in heavy drinking days. No pharmaceutical has produced results like this. Here’s the neuroscience of why psilocybin works where everything else fails.

They call them suicide headaches — 10 attacks per day, each rated 10/10 pain, lasting up to 3 hours. No pharmaceutical has reliably stopped them. Psilocybin does.

Chronic inflammation is not just a physical problem — it drives depression, fractures sleep, erodes cognition, and accelerates neurodegeneration. Psilocybin targets the upstream immune switches directly.

Insomnia isn’t a mood problem. It isn’t a willpower problem. It is a broken neural architecture problem — and psilocybin may be the most precise tool neuroscience has yet found to restore it.

Chronic pain rewires the brain's default mode network in the same way addiction does — trapping millions in a cycle that no opioid can break. Psilocybin may be the first compound that directly targets that architecture.

Chronic pain rewires the brain's default mode network in the same way addiction does — trapping millions in a cycle that no opioid can break. Psilocybin may be the first compound that directly targets that architecture.

Ketamine is FDA-approved. Psilocybin is still in trials. Ketamine acts in hours. Psilocybin’s effects last months. They target completely different neurotransmitter systems. Yet both are producing the most dramatic antidepressant results in modern psychiatry. Here is the complete clinical comp

Not all psilocybin experiences are created equal. A 1g mushroom trip and a 5g heroic dose are different universes. Clinical trials use precise protocols. Here is the complete science of dosing — from microdose to macro, and what the research says about each tier.

Not all psilocybin experiences are created equal. A 1g mushroom trip and a 5g heroic dose are different universes. Clinical trials use precise protocols. Here is the complete science of dosing — from microdose to macro, and what the research says about each tier.

In 2022, the New England Journal of Medicine published the first large randomised controlled trial of psilocybin-assisted therapy for alcohol use disorder. 83% reduction in heavy drinking days. Two sessions. The neuroscience of why the cycle finally breaks.

A Johns Hopkins pilot study recorded 80% smoking abstinence at 6 months — the highest quit rate in addiction research history. Here is the full neuroscience of how psilocybin dissolves one of the most chemically entrenched addictions known.

Millions of people practise it. The peer-reviewed evidence is more nuanced — and ultimately more interesting — than either the advocates or the sceptics suggest.

Millions of people practise it. The peer-reviewed evidence is more nuanced — and ultimately more interesting — than either the advocates or the sceptics suggest.

The Science of the Mystical State — and Why the Molecule Is Only the Key

A single psilocybin session triggers a 10% increase in dendritic spine density within 24 hours. The structural brain changes persist for weeks. Here is the neuroscience behind what researchers now call the most significant plasticity finding in psychiatry.

A single psilocybin session triggers a 10% increase in dendritic spine density within 24 hours. The structural brain changes persist for weeks. Here is the neuroscience behind what researchers now call the most significant plasticity finding in psychiatry.

Anorexia nervosa carries the highest mortality rate of any psychiatric disorder. For the first time, clinical science is showing that psilocybin may address the very mechanisms that make it so difficult to treat.

Grief is supposed to end. For 7–10% of bereaved individuals, it does not — it becomes prolonged grief disorder, a locked neural state of yearning and avoidance that resists conventional treatment. Clinical trials suggest psilocybin can break that lock. Here is what the evidence shows.

Grief is supposed to end. For 7–10% of bereaved individuals, it does not — it becomes prolonged grief disorder, a locked neural state of yearning and avoidance that resists conventional treatment. Clinical trials suggest psilocybin can break that lock. Here is what the evidence shows.

MDMA floods the brain with serotonin, triggers a surge of oxytocin, and silences the amygdala’s threat response — simultaneously. Two Phase 3 trials have now tested what this neurochemical state enables for treatment-resistant PTSD.

For 7 to 10 percent of bereaved individuals, grief does not end — it loops. A DMN prediction machine that cannot update. Here is the neuroscience of why psilocybin may help the brain complete what cannot be forced.