Inside the psychedelic experience: brain, mind, and medicine

This talk will overview the nuances of trying to understand the profound changes in subjective experience under psychedelics and what happens to the brain during these experiences. I will also present new results and theories exploring a role for psychedelics in managing symptoms of autoimmune disorders.

Psychedelics are showing some promise across a range of neuropsychiatric disorders. A person’s response to psychedelics is likely to involve a complex and multifactorial web of processes. This makes the topic very interesting, but good research very tricky. In this talk, I will highlight some of the complexities of psychedelic research, centring on the important factors beyond pharmacology. I will discuss the trans-diagnostic implications, focussing on my own study of psilocybin in functional neurological disorder