Psychedelic Brain Science

Join us for this special episode featuring discussion from the Richmond, VA annual Mushroom Mania festival presented by the RVA Moon Market. Alaina is joined by fellow panelists: Will E. Nelson, Co-founder of Decriminalize Nature RVA Isa Boliver, South American Medicine Woman Dr. Harrison Elder, postdoctoral researcher at Johns Hopkins researching cannabis and psychedelics Alistaire McKemy MSW, li...

Alaina and Zarmeen are BACK BABY! In this short episode, they wanted to give some updates on their lives, explain what the heck is going on with the podcast and preview a couple exciting upcoming episodes.

Alaina and Zarmeen announce their hiatus for YBOS while they finish up their PhDs! Time flies when you're running a podcast and being a scientist full time... That being said, listen to them briefly chat about what they've been up to, where you can find them in the next few months and a few papers that recently came out (because even if they're busy, they still have to talk science DUH...

To bring this series full circle, Alaina does a quick summary of some of the current clinical and preclinical literature supporting using psychedelics for the treatment of various substance use disorders. Links to the studies references will be posted on our blog at psychedelicbrainscience.com/blog.

Alaina is joined by Dr. Albert Garcia-Romeu, a clinical researcher and associate professor at Johns Hopkins. They discuss some historical considerations of psychedelics, patterns of use, and how these compounds can be useful in treating unhealthy patterns in folks with Substance Use Disorders.

Alaina gives a quick and dirty breakdown about all things drug use. She breaks down the different definitions of drug abuse and drug use, discusses how psychedelics are different from other drugs and then talks about the possible ways psychedelics may be helping people with substance use disorders.

This week A & Z do a journal club style episode where they briefly discuss the rationale, methods and results of a recent psychedelic paper. The paper titled "Comparing neural correlates of consciousness from psychedelics to hypnosis and meditation" by Moujaes et al. at the university of Zurich explores the differences and similarities between pharmacological and non-pharmacological...

Alaina is joined by fellow PhD candidate Abigail Calder to discuss her ongoing work on psychedelics including neuroplasticity and how we can measure that in humans, as well as the importance in understanding how subjective effects can be positive, negative, both or neither. Abigail is currently studying all of this and more at the University of Fribourg in Switzerland. To learn more about her ongo...

In this episode of YBOS, Zarmeen chats with former NHL player and now co-founder of Athletes for Care, Riley Cote. In their conversation Zarmeen and Riley talk about the unique challenges of being an NHL enforcer and what that meant for Riley during and after the sport. In their conversation, Riley details the healing he sought after his career and the role that psychedelics played in all of it. S...

Happy fourth everyone!! Join Zarmeen as she kicks of her psychedelics and sports series with former professional athlete and now director of the Etheridge foundation, Anna Symonds. This series explores the use of psychedelics in the lives of athletes. The utility of these drugs during an athletic career, and beyond. This is the first episode in an ongoing series! Be sure to check out all of our ep...

Join Alaina and Dr. Charles Nichols, professor of pharmacology and researcher at Louisiana State University, as they discuss how psychedelics may be useful in treating inflammation. They dive into inflammatory processes, the interaction of serotonin and serotonergic agonists in these pathways and how psychedelics could be used as a potential treatment for inflammation-related pathology. All conten...

This week's episode of Your Brain on Science, Alaina is going to try and get some answers to the question everyone is dying to know: If you give a mouse DMT, do they see mouse god? Alaina is joined by two VCU professors and preclinical researchs, Dr. Jennifer Wolstenholme and Dr. Peter Hamilton, who will assist in breaking down the term anthropomorphism and what that means for preclinical research...

Alaina is joined by colleague and friend, Dr. Mario de la Fuente Revenga to discuss the popular psychedelic preclinical experiment - head twitch response. Mario talks about the automation of the procedure, what head twitch really means, and if there are any similarities between this behavior in mice and some human behaviors when taking psychedelics. All content published by YBOS is solely the opin...

A & Z catch you up on all the things that have happened in the last few months! We also feature a new sound artist this season: Charlie Hausfeld. Welcome to season 3 of Psychedelic Brain Science! All content published by YBOS is solely the opinions of the authors and does not reflect the opinions of any parties affiliated with the authors or any additional third parties.

Welcome to a special episode with A & Z, where they are joined by US Congressman Earl Blumenauer to discuss his fight against criminalization of addiction. They discuss the many things Blumenaur has accomplished in his career in regards to cannabis reform, as well as the ongoing fight to pass the Right to Try Act in Oregon. All content published by YBOS is solely the opinions of the authors an...

Happy 420! Join Alaina and Zarmeen for this special episode about cannabis, where they discuss how its different and similar from classical psychedelics both in pharmacology and subjective effects. The content of YBOS is the opinion of the authors and does not reflect the opinion of others or author affiliations.

Happy Bicycle Day!!! To celebrate, A & Z have brought you a very special episode of Your Brain on Science. Join them both as they talk with Leonard Pickard about the current state of psychedelics, his fascinating past and his new book: The Rose of Parascelsus: On Secrets & Sacrements. All content published by YBOS is solely the opinions of the authors and does not reflect the opinions of a...

Alaina & Zarmeen do a crash course in LSD, discussing the pharmacology, subjective effects and history of the drug. All content published by YBOS is solely the opinions of the authors and does not reflect the opinions of any parties affiliated with the authors or any additional third parties.

Join A & Z as they discuss a recent journal article focused on the safety and tolerability of LSD microdosing in a naturalistic setting. This research was funded by MindBio Therapeutics and is the peer-reviewed version of what we discussed on our previous microdosing episode. All content published by YBOS is solely the opinions of the authors and does not reflect the opinions of any parties af...

In this episode, Zarmeen speaks with Russell Hausfeld of Psymposia about psychedelics and the corporate world. Their conversation dives into the current corporate landscape and the implications of corporatization into every aspect of psychedelic field growth. Check out our website for more on this episode! psychedelicbrainscience.com All content published by YBOS is solely the opinions of the auth...

Alaina is joined today by Dr. Jacob S. Aday, first author of a recent publication surveying psychedelic therapists about their use of psychedelics. This paper raised the question to many: Should therapists providing psychedelic-assisted therapy be required to have a psychedelic experience? Whatever your answer may be, this episode dives into the paper and the pros and cons of having experience wit...

Alaina sits down with Dr. Neşe Devenot, a psychedelics and bioethics researcher to talk about their work with understanding different aspects of phenomenon associated with ego-dissolution and self-concept. Dr. Devenot & colleagues recent paper, analyzing outcomes and the research manual from the Johns Hopkins smoking cessation study, identifies some common themes of self-concept or identity sh...

In this weeks episode Zarmeen tackles predictive coding! She chats about what this neuroscientific framework is and how it relates to evidence in the psychedelic field.  All content published by YBOS is solely the opinions of the authors and does not reflect the opinions of any parties affiliated with the authors or any additional third parties.

This week Alaina is joined by Dr. Natalie Gukasyan, a psychiatrist and clinical researcher at Johns Hopkins University. They discuss the common factors of psychotherapy and how they are affected in the psychedelic-assisted therapy models. From the "myth" or rationale of the treatment to the ritual of the practice, they cover all things related to the double-blind placebo-controlled clinical trial....

Join Zarmeen and Alaina this week as they discuss a recent research article challenging the currently accepted mechanism of psychedelic action. This paper titled "Psychedelics promote neuroplasticity through the activation of intracellular 5-HT2A receptors" by Vargas and colleagues uses several techniques in neuroscience and chemistry to understand just how psychedelic tryptamines, but not seroton...