Ali Nazar: [00:00:00] You’re listening to KALX, Berkeley, 90. 7 FM, University of California and community supported radio. And this is Berkeley Brainwaves, a 30 minute public affairs show dedicated to sharing stories from the Cal experience.
I’m your host, Ali Nazar, and today I’m here with Imran Khan from the Berkeley Center for the Science of Psychedelics, or BCSP, we’ll just say for short. Thanks for coming in today, Imran. What’s the mission of BCSP?
Imran Khan: Sure, so the mission of the BCSP is to explore the potential of psychedelics, and we’re doing that in three main ways. Uh, one is through research, so you know, we know that psychedelics do work, but we don’t know how they work, so we’re trying to figure out what are they doing in the brain, what are they made of, how do they interact with society, uh, and with medicine and policy and law and all that kind of fun stuff.
Um, then we’re training psychedelic facilitators, so if you’ve [00:01:00] seen news in the headlines that say something like, psychedelics are being used to cure depression or cure PTSD. What’s actually often going on is it’s psychedelics alongside a form of talk therapy that’s helping treat those severe mental health conditions. So we’re training some of the people that will be able to do that kind of work in future.
Uh, and then lastly, we have a mission around public education. So we know that psychedelics are, you know, experiencing a huge resurgence right now in terms of public interest and interest in a whole range of sectors.
And a lot of the information out there isn’t really set up to kind of feed that demand for more information and thirst for knowledge. So so we run public education programs and support journalism to make sure that the public dialogue and the public conversation around psychedelics is really well supported by the best evidence and the most up to date and informative information about these important substances.
Ali Nazar: Okay, so if I was to paraphrase. It’s kind of like an academic view of psychedelics in modern society.
Imran Khan: Yeah, that’s a really good way to put it. So, you know, we recognize [00:02:00] that there’s all sorts of people and organizations, uh, doing really important work in psychedelics right now, whether that’s advocacy or treatment, um, or, you know, a whole range of other stuff.
Uh, but because we’re here at UC Berkeley, you know, we’re able to take advantage of the fact that we’re at one of the world’s foremost public universities, you know, it’s a research university with a really core public service mission. And we’re trying to make sure that in service of that public mandate, um, we’re making sure that we’re creating the knowledge about psychedelics, but we’re also sharing it in a really open way.
Ali Nazar: Okay, and how is it founded? Like, how does a new center get founded? It’s not that old, right?
Imran Khan: Correct. Yeah, it was founded basically during the pandemic. So, you know, listeners may know all about, um, the very famous book on this topic, How to Change Your Mind. So that came out a number of years ago. It was written by Michael Pollan, uh, who’s gone on to make a, you know, Netflix show of the same name.
So if you, if you want to learn more about that, do look up the show.
Ali Nazar: Berkeley resident Michael Pollan.
Imran Khan: Berkeley resident Michael Pollan, also faculty at Berkeley Journalism School. So, you know, he wrote that book and that [00:03:00] was just a game changer in terms of how society at large views and thinks about psychedelics.
I think it really opened up the conversation about these substances in a way that wasn’t really possible before. I think, you know, there’s probably still some lingering stigma, um, when people want to discuss psychedelics, but I think Michael’s book de-stigmatized psychedelics in a huge way. Um, and particularly in the Bay Area, you know, I feel like it was, uh, it led a lot of people to, you know, uh, do what we call, you know, coming out of the medicine cabinet in terms of how they’re prepared to talk about psychedelics and their own relationship with it.
Um, so there’s just a ton of interest in, in the field and, you know, my understanding is that questions were asked, well why isn’t Berkeley doing more work on this? And, you know, there’s such a hotbed of both current contemporary but also historical relationship with psychedelics. Um, it was kind of a no brainer that there should be a research and educational institution at Berkeley studying these.
So, um, so we were really lucky in terms of having some really generous philanthropic support for the mission. You know, a ton of people were excited about it and said, Yeah, we want to [00:04:00] invest to make this kind of stuff happen. We think there should be more legitimate, dedicated research into psychedelic substances at Berkeley.
And thus the center was founded about four or five years ago.
Ali Nazar: And what is the composition of the center right now? Like, what does the staff look like and what are the programs right now?
Imran Khan: Yes, we’ve got a small kind of core staff team of, um, four or five people, but really the, um, the most important part of the center is all of the, the different faculty and academic relationships we have.
So we have researchers who are at the neuroscience department. We’ve got people in molecular biology. Uh, we have folks in the journalism school that are thinking about how to kind of, you know, kind of critically inquire, interrogate what’s happening in the field. Um, we just launched a new program in arts and humanities.
So, you know, so much of the research that’s gone on in psychedelics in the last few years has been focused on kind of the scientific and the therapeutic questions about psychedelics, which are really important, you know, hence the inclusion on our name. But often people report that psychedelics help them understand, you know, what it is to be human, you know, well, what’s the meaning of life and what’s our role in society and in relation to each other.
And, [00:05:00] you know, these are questions of, you know, artistic and humanistic inquiry as much as scientific ones. So we’ve just launched a program to explore, um, scholarship into those fields as well. So it’s, it’s starting to become this really diverse set of academic collaborations, all focused on this question of what are psychedelics? How do we relate to them? What do they mean for society?
Ali Nazar: I’m curious, is there like a policy component? I mean, there’s all, there’s still a, you know, a legal question about many of these substances. Is that part of your purview?
Imran Khan: Correct. Yeah. You know, the kind of the federal status is that most psychedelics are still controlled, controlled substances.
And that means they’re still illegal for most people to take most of the time. There are some exceptions. So for instance, if you’re taking part in a study, uh, then that’s, that’s different. Um, but the landscape is changing, you know, starting to see different states change their legislation on psychedelics.
So Oregon, Colorado, I think there’s talk about California changing, uh, psychedelic legislation in the coming year or two. Um, and then separately the FDA, the U.S. Food and Drug [00:06:00] Administration. Um, there’s a lot of speculation that later this year they might, um, authorize, um, MDMA to be used as a treatment for PTSD, so the legal landscape is changing really quickly.
Um, we at Berkeley don’t have a kind of policy advocacy position. So, you know, I think the closest we would come is say we think there needs to be more research and research should be easier. There’s a ton of red tape when it comes to doing research around these substances, which, you know, just stymies really important knowledge.
Um, but we’re not going to come out here and say that either the U. S. government or California should change legislation, but we are interested in reporting on it and studying those changes as they happen. So we do, in fact, I think we’re just about to launch, um, a policy tracker on our website. So if you go to psychedelics.berkeley.edu, you can find information there on how to figure out what is the latest legal landscape.
Ali Nazar: Okay, great. Well, we’re talking to Imran Khan. He’s the Executive Director of the Berkeley Center for Science of Psychedelics, or BCSP, right here in the UC Berkeley campus. This is Berkeley Brainwaves, right here in KALX Berkeley, 90.7 FM. I’m your host, Ali Nazar.
[00:07:00] Imran tell us, how did you come to be interested in this field of research and lead the BCSP?
Imran Khan: Yeah, great question. Thank you. Um, so I got my, uh, bachelor’s degree in biology. Uh, this is back in the UK, as you can tell from my accent, uh, and I remember, you know, as a kind of, you know, 20 something undergraduate that the, the thing that fascinated me most about biology, the kind of topic that intrigued me most was this question of, you know, we’re all walking around with this, you know, two pound lump of jelly in our, skulls.
And somehow this, this blob manages to make us hallucinate this kind of vivid technicolor experience of kind of walking around the world and experiencing and interacting with things and being able to try and make sense of it. Um, and it always seemed like a mystery to me, how on earth that could be possible.
Like it just seems kind of beyond imagination. Um, and yet people are studying it and people are starting to figure out, uh, how, um, how the brain does create our lived experience of the world. Um, [00:08:00] so I remember doing some research back then on what was known at the time about how different parts of the brain, different, you know, neuronal structures create our lived experience of consciousness.
Um, and you know, I didn’t go into research. I ended up going into, um, science journalism and science policy and kind of helping create a better relationship between science and society. That was my career. But I always had this kind of lingering curiosity about, um, about the brain-mind connection and how it works.
Um, and of course, when later in life you start learning about psychedelics and the influence they play in changing how, um, you experience consciousness, uh, how, how the, the relationship with the brain and the mind work and can be manipulated in different ways. And it, it seemed like a really important, um, lens to view that question through, you know, particularly as, uh, again, research on psychedelics is now legitimate again, places like Berkeley are doing it.
Um, I feel like it really reopens that question of how do we understand ourselves and our minds and our brains better. Um, and, uh, [00:09:00] and, and yeah, we were also in this time when there’s immense public interest and, um, medical and therapeutic interest in psychedelics. Um, and they are touching almost every part of society, you know, we just talked about the kind of law and political angle, you know, you have sports stars like Aaron Rodgers talking about how it improves sports performance, um, there’s questions about how it’s going to change structures around religion, you know, how, um, you know, when people can experience, people report experiencing, kind of direct personal revelations through psychedelics, is that going to challenge kind of traditional, um, ways in which organized religion works. Um, and it just seems like this kind of enormous sea change of, uh, all across society.
Uh, and as someone that’s interested in society, interested in science, interested in how those things interact, it just seemed like too interesting a question not to, not to want to get involved in.
Ali Nazar: And I’m, I’m curious, you’ve, you mentioned the brain versus the mind a couple of times. They’re like, what is the difference? That’s, uh, I’m not sure I know the definition, so I thought I’d ask you.
Imran Khan: [00:10:00] Uh, that’s a great question. I’m not sure I know the difference either, uh, but I, so I think there’s clearly a relationship between the two. So the brain is a three dimensional object that you can touch, like you, you know, you can, uh, probably shouldn’t touch your own brain, but you can, uh, you know, uh, see what it’s like.
You can see pictures of it. You can, um, people dissect them, people do experiments in them. You can have brain surgery. You can have all these physical interactions with your brain. You can’t really do that with your mind. You know, the mind is, seems to be, most people would probably agree, a product of the brain.
Like you can’t have a mind if you don’t have your brain. Some people would disagree with that, but I think that’s probably the scientific consensus and social consensus. Um, and yet clearly the mind seems to be, um, something that can’t just be explained by, um, the physical stuff we know about the brain, right?
Just looking at a 3D object of the brain, you wouldn’t necessarily know that that brain is itself having an experience of being alive. And yet, [00:11:00] clearly, we all have that experience. Um, so the question of how it does that is one of the big unknowns, um, not just in psychedelics or neuroscience, but probably in all of science, it’s one of the biggest questions out there, along with how did the universe come to be?
Um, so yeah, you’re asking kind of probably one of the deepest, most fundamental questions that researchers anywhere are asking, how, how does the mind exist and why does it exist?
Ali Nazar: Especially in the age of AI with AGI and this idea that we’ll have computers that are equivalent to us, but like, that’s, I think, somewhat trying to unpack what the mind is and how it works, which is not an easy thing to unpack.
Imran Khan: Exactly. Exactly. Um, yeah, I think it’s, it’s a question that you can attack through science, through philosophy, through religion, through just kind of deep introspection and all of these will lead you to subtly different places. Um, but again, one of the things that’s exciting about having a psychedelics research center at Berkeley is that it is possible now to start to use psychedelics to try and unpick that relationship.
So one of the studies that we’re doing, it’s led by our, um, our faculty director, Professor [00:12:00] Michael Silver. So, uh, Professor Silver is a visual neuroscientist. So he studies how the bit of your brain that’s kind of at the back, so, you know, above your neck, around the back of your skull, um, that’s the visual cortex.
So when light hits your eye and hits the retina at the back of your eye, signals get transmitted from your eye to the visual cortex, and then something happens in the visual cortex that means that those signals can then be translated into a visual image that you perceive. of the world. Um, but how exactly that happens is still, you know, we start to understand a little bit of it, but we don’t know a ton.
Um, but one of the things we know about psychedelics is that they alter people’s visual experience of the world. You know, people report really interesting visual, um, uh, not quite necessarily hallucinations, but you know, affects and changes in how things like colors and shapes and lines all appear.
So it seems to be the case that there could be, um, a way of looking at how psychedelics are affecting the visual cortex and how that’s creating visual images and [00:13:00] potentially, um, thinking about what that means for the rest of the brain and how the brain constructs our visual, uh, our conscious experience.
Ali Nazar: Yeah, I was going to ask a little bit more about the science of psychedelics. That’s one example of, you know, a particular, um, type of research being done. What are some interesting other, are there clinical trials happening or what are some other things happening as this psychedelic renaissance is happening in America right now? Or is it worldwide, this phenomenon?
Imran Khan: Yeah, I mean, it’s, it’s definitely worldwide, uh, you know, there’s, there’s a ton of research going on, um, in various places across Europe, you know, in the UK, where I’m from. Um, Canada’s definitely, uh, kind of a pioneer in some of the research and also, um, the legislation.
Um, but, um, but yeah, you know, the, the US is probably one of the kind of the foremost countries where it’s taking place. Um, I think what, you know, the, the, your listeners probably will have heard most of is around the clinical trials. So the areas where this is most advanced is in, um, conditions like depression and PTSD.
Um, and you know, PTSD is a kind of, you know, [00:14:00] awful disorder where, you know, it really affects people’s quality of life, their relationships with the people, you know, the kind of incidence of death by suicide amongst people with PTSD is kind of extraordinarily high. You know, people experience trauma from all sorts of things like military service or sexual abuse or, you know, um, uh, lots of really tragic things. And then are unable to really recover from that and it really haunts them in a real way. Um, and one of the saddest things about PTSD is there basically aren’t any good treatments for it So, you know, you can have talk therapy, you know have an exposure therapy which can make a difference over time. But if your trauma is so deep that you can’t be exposed to your trauma even through a conversation with your therapist um, without basically shutting down, then there’s not much you can do.
You know, you can be given antidepressants to help cope with the symptoms of PTSD. Um, but unfortunately there’s a lot of people who are just very treatment resistant for PTSD. So, you know, people have known for a long time, both kind of in, um, in scientific [00:15:00] circles and in, you know, underground psychedelic practice, that one of the ways in which people can be helped is through using psychedelics, again, alongside, um, talk therapy, um, to potentially get past that barrier.
And one of the things, one of the studies that’s, um, furthest along is a study led by MAPS, which is the, um, Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, MAPS. And they’ve been running this really long series of trials looking at whether you can use MDMA, Um, you know, sometimes it’s called ecstasy, but MDMA is the kind of the, um, shorthand for the chemical name.
Um, and, uh, if you administer MDMA and while people are under the influence, MDMA, uh, also have them, um, sit with therapists and talk to them. And experience the therapy while they’re under the influence of the psychedelic. Does that lead to a different outcome? And the results are really staggering.
They’re kind of the, the, the levels of improvement amongst people in those, um, treatment groups are way, way, way above, um, what they would be for, for therapy alone. [00:16:00] Um, so that’s the studies that potentially we’re hoping gonna uh, you know, convince the FDA that people should be able to access this treatment.
Um, and then there’s various studies that are not too far behind. So, um, similarly, people are looking at using psilocybin, which is the active ingredient in magic mushrooms. Um, using psilocybin alongside therapy for treatment of depression. So whether that’s major depression or, you know, treatment that isn’t depression, people are starting to look at, um, substance use disorder.
So alcohol, opiates to, um, nicotine, you know, people who have a really hard time, um, disengaging from their, um, their reliance on their substances. It’s been found, again, this is earlier stage clinical trials. So definitely not been proven yet, but really promising results, suggesting that psychedelics alongside therapy there can help people, you know, reimagine that relationship with, with the substance.
Um, and the theory about what might be going on here is that one of the things that psychedelics do is basically, um, you know, if you imagine your, your brain is a snow globe, not literally, [00:17:00] but kind of metaphorically. One of the things that psychedelics do is kind of shake it all up and they allow, um, the snow to resettle in a way that allows you to not be stuck in old patterns and old grooves, but to kind of, um, create new ways of thinking about the world and new ways relating to, again, whether it’s relationships or substances or, or yourself.
Um, so again, all that is still very, um, tentative, you know, some of it’s further along than others, and we don’t understand the mechanisms yet, but the results are really promising.
Ali Nazar: Yeah, that’s really interesting the snow globe metaphor. I mean my experience of psychedelics is something along the lines of when truth reveals itself, it’s much clearer because maybe like the, the general buzz we have in our mind from the day to day life is just gone because you’re living on kind of like, that’s what they call it a trip because you’re like in a special place. You’re in a different place So when truth reveals itself, it’s a lot easier to accept it, understand it, and then it’s, it stays present in your brain long after the trip is over.
Imran Khan: One of the, um, the exciting things that’s [00:18:00] happening at Berkeley right now is we’ve just recruited, uh, this very cool, um, neuroscientist, uh, by the name of Gül Dölen.
Um, so she, uh, is kind of famous for having done, uh, work administering MDMA to octopuses. So she’s she’s found that just as with humans when octopuses are under the influence of MDMA They become really social. Um, and these are octopuses that spend most of their lives, basically not wanting to be near another octopus, they’re like, they only, they come together to mate and that’s it.
They don’t really like each other. But that changes when you give them MDMA. Um, so that’s one of the things she does. But the other thing that, um, she’s exploring is this concept called critical periods in the brain. So a critical period, um, is the idea that at certain times the brain is much more plastic, so you’re much more able to learn and adapt, than at others.
Um, classic examples of that are, for instance, it’s way easier to learn a new language when you’re a kid than when you’re, you know, our age. Um, the other example that people often talk about is immediately following a stroke. Um, [00:19:00] if you deliver, you know, rehab, um, in the, kind of the days and weeks following, um, a stroke, you’re much more likely to be able to recover the lost function than if you wait several months.
Um, so it seems to be that there’s, you know, these periods that are, um, important for learning and adaptation. Um, and you know, one of the questions that Gül asks is, well, you know, a lot of different drugs, um, induce plasticity in the brain. So the ability to change, you know, something like even cocaine induces plasticity.
So what’s different about, um, psychedelics? They therefore then have these, um, really different effects and potential healing effects. Uh, and one of the theories she’s looking at is that maybe what psychedelics are doing is reopening, critical periods in the brain. Um, so that whereas as adults, you know, our ability to, um, be kind of adaptable and, um, you know, learn new ways of relating is, is lower than it was when we were children.
One of the things that psychedelics are doing is kind of reopening that ability and maybe the experience of the trip is actually [00:20:00] the subjective experience of what it likes to have a critical period reopened. So, again, really fascinating lines of inquiry, and we’re just at the very beginning of, of this.
And, you know, if anything, it’s a shame we’ve not been able to ask these questions for, for so long.
Ali Nazar: Well, thankfully we can now.
Imran Khan: We can.
Ali Nazar: And, uh, you know, maybe it’ll be, an application will be learning languages, because, like, if you create, you introduce the plasticity, then I’m like a two year old again, and I can learn a language real quickly.
Imran Khan: That’s, that’s, that’s some of the questions that people have been asking. Yeah, I mean, one of the, one of the ways in which it’s come up most is, um, is actually around the question of substance use. So, um, you know, Gül’s shown that different psychedelics have different, um, uh, periods which they’re active for.
So, you know, something like, for instance, psilocybin, people would usually report, you know, a few hours, something like, um, uh, DMT would be, you know, potentially minutes. Um There’s a little known psychedelic called Ibogaine, It’s derived from the Iboga plant, um, and where, and there, the kind of the subjective experience lasts sometimes kind of over a [00:21:00] day.
Um, and, uh, Google’s been looking at how does the, the length of the subjective experience on psychedelics affect the potential validity for different treatments. And, you know, one of the lines of inquiry is that maybe, um, the, the length of the trip also indicates the length of the critical period reopening.
Um, and, uh, you know, this is a suggestion there that, uh, by administering psychedelics, you’re creating not just the period of the trip itself, but potentially days or weeks or even sometimes months afterwards, where your brain is more open to, again, re-imagining your relationship with something like an opioid.
Um, so yeah, there’s, there’s definitely direct, um, implications for, um, things like important medical conditions, but the questions are things like, you know, could we learn new schools and new languages? So I feel those, those are questions that hopefully write for future inquiry.
Ali Nazar: Interesting. Well, we’re talking to Imran Khan He’s Executive Director of Berkeley Center for Science of Psychedelics.
That’s a center right here in the UC Berkeley [00:22:00] campus This is Berkeley brainwaves, 30 minutes show on KALX Berkeley 90. 7 FM.
Um, I wanted to ask you a little bit about, you mentioned a lot of different psychedelics and many of them I think have a commonality where they’ve been used as sacraments for, you know, in ancient religions.
But MDMA is not that because it’s a man made as I understand it. So what’s the definition of a psychedelic?
Imran Khan: Great question. So, uh, uh, I think one of the interesting thing is there isn’t a kind of universally agreed on definition of psychedelics. Um, there is certainly some substances, which I think almost everyone would agree was a psychedelic.
So things like psilocybin, again, you know, magic mushrooms, um, LSD, um, uh, also substances like, you know, ayahuasca. Um, and then there’s others which, you know, some people would say are psychedelic. So things like MDMA, things like ketamine, um, and then there’s others where people would say, you know, some people would say they’re psychedelic, you know, even something like cannabis or marijuana.[00:23:00]
Um, and what that points to is a kind of a vague definition of what psychedelic is. So, if you look at where the term comes from, I think it’s from the Greek, Psyche, Delos, and it’s, um, mind manifesting or mind opening, which is not a chemical definition. It’s a kind of experience. It’s a subjective experience, right?
Ali Nazar: Yeah.
Imran Khan: Do you feel like your mind has been manifested or opened? Um, so that’s where the kind of the definition originally came from. Um, and, one of the things that people often talk about is the difference between what’s called the serotonergic psychedelics versus the non-serotonergic ones. So for instance something like again, psilocybin or LSD are the classic examples.
The way they work is that the, those specific molecules LSD, psilocybin. They bind to a serotonin receptor in your brain. So serotonin is a um, uh neurotransmitter that’s really important for brain signaling. Um, and it turns out that [00:24:00] those psychedelic compounds actually bind more strongly to a certain type of serotonin receptor than even serotonin does.
So they’re basically kind of, um, I don’t want to say hijacking. It sounds like a kind of almost pejorative term, but they’re, they’re, they’re really latching on in a very strong way to uh, a, a receptor in your brain that is um normally used for something else. Um, and a number of psychedelics basically operate on the same pathway.
So the chemical, the molecules are different, but they’re doing the same kind of thing on the same receptor. Um, and there’s a whole class of those psychedelics again, LSD, psilocybin, DMT, um, and then there’s other substances. which don’t operate on that pathway. So for instance, MDMA has its effect by stimulating the release of serotonin in your brain.
So it’s not that the MDMA is binding to your serotonin receptor, but it’s causing a flood of serotonin to be released. So, um, that’s the way that that has the effect. Ketamine is another example where that doesn’t really work in the serotonin [00:25:00] pathways for as far as we know, it’s a disassociative. It’s used for anesthetic, but at low doses, it has these kind of what people talk to, talk about as like psychedelic like effects.
Um, so there’s a real spectrum of different substances operating in, in different ways. Um, and you know, we, we talk about psychedelics as if they’re kind of one class of substances, but there’s really a lot of diversity. Um, and there’s also, you know, different benefits, but also different risks and, and, uh, and different things to be aware of.
Um, both in a kind of medical and a research setting.
Ali Nazar: Yeah, I did want to ask, before we wind up here, can you speak to the risks a little bit of, you know, you spoke to underground usage, which is like what’s been around for decades. Um, it’s getting easier to access some of this stuff now. What are some of the risks?
Imran Khan: Sure. Um, well, there’s, there’s two things I really want to highlight. One is that, again, the legal status of psychedelics is still that they are by and large controlled substances, um, often in their own schedule one. Um, so I think the most important thing for anyone to know is, is really the legal state of these substances.
[00:26:00] And even when, um, individual states or cities change legislation or decriminalize federally, that’s, this, they’re still illegal. Um, so the most important thing to know is, you know, uh, is that, that type of risk, kind of legal risk, and I’d encourage people to be fully aware of that. But then there’s also, you know, kind of different biopsychosocial risks too.
People often say that, um, psychedelics are not addictive and not habit forming. And, you know, by and large, that’s true. They don’t have the same habit forming potential as many other substances we regularly use. For instance, alcohol or caffeine or nicotine, um, other illegal substances like, you know, cocaine or heroin, um, they’re not quite as habit forming as those, but, you know, we’ve seen recently instances where ketamine, um, you know, it is habit forming, people develop really, you know, potentially harmful relationships with it.
There’s a high profile case recently with Matthew Perry that was very tragic. Um, so there’s definitely, uh, you know, [00:27:00] it’s not zero potential for, for, um, habit formation or addiction. Um, there’s also, as with any substance that is psychoactive or can, um, essentially lead you not to be sober, you can be in a really vulnerable state, you can be in a state where you take risks that you wouldn’t normally take.
Um, uh, so one of the things that we do at the BCSP is try and make sure that all this information about how you can, um, manage risks and kind of reduce risks is freely available and accessible. So if people go to our website, um, so that’s psychedelics dot berkeley dot edu. Um, you can find um, you know, views from experts on how people in, um, in different contexts have done their best to reduce those risks.
Ali Nazar: That’s great. Great service for the community. Um, our last question. We have a couple minutes left. BCSP is a new center on campus. Um Really exciting area of research. Five years from now, like if everything went really, really great, what would it look like? What kind of impact is [00:28:00] BCSB making?
Imran Khan: Oh, I love that question.
Um, so in five years, I’d love it to be the case that we not only have a more nuanced understanding of what psychedelics are doing in the brain and the body and how they’re doing it, but also, um, the knock on changes for how that affects different elements of our society that they’re studied and considered carefully, you know, even the level of kind of health economics, like how, how is it going to be the case that we can ensure that people Hopefully when these treatments are available can access them in a safe and equitable and a way that feels really important.
Um, and then on the kind of the, you know, the social side, we really want it to be the case that we understand how to do psychedelic facilitation well. You know, it’s, it’s, it’s a really, um, nuanced skill. There’s, there’s, uh, instances of it being done really well in clinical settings. Uh, but we also know that there’s a kind of, um, a bit of a wild west that’s springing up in terms of people offering it in, um, unlicensed, unregulated context.
Ali Nazar: I’ve heard about in the business scenarios, people like executives [00:29:00] going to weird places where they, I don’t know if they’re licensed or not, these people.
Imran Khan: Exactly. And I’m sure in some cases there’s people gaining important benefits there. In other cases there’s people operating in a, in a, in a kind of sector that’s, again, just under the radar and you don’t have any recourse for, um, for help, um, if things go wrong.
So, helping shed light on that and helping train people to do that well. Um, and then the third thing, you know, I feel like, again, something I see is that because there’s such this, there’s such a huge demand for information, in some cases, that’s being met by misinformation and bad actors, you know, people really promoting, um, sometimes often quite dangerous ways to either obtain psychedelics or have psychedelic experiences or improper advice on how to use them.
You know, um, there’s so many things we don’t know. Like, you know, one of the things we didn’t talk about much is this question on micro-dosing, which some people really swear by, but there isn’t a lot of research in terms of what are the long-term implications of that, whether that’s in terms of, you know, potentially harmful effects in the brain or there’s some [00:30:00] evidence of cardiotoxicity.
So, you know, harmful effects on your heart from sustained use. Um, and yet there are people who are kind of, advocating for that in a really, um, un-nuanced way. So I hope that in five years time, um, the Berkeley Center has helped set the standard for what thoughtful, evidence-led communication around psychedelics looks like.
Ali Nazar: Well, it’ll be exciting to watch the journey. Thanks for coming in. We’ve been speaking to Imran Khan. He’s the Executive Director of the Berkeley Center for the Science of Psychedelics (BCSP). You can learn more about them at psychedelics.berkeley.edu. And this is Berkeley Brainwaves, a 30 minute show dedicated to telling stories from the Cal campus. I’m your host, Ali Nazar, and you’re listening to KALX Berkeley 90.7 FM. Thanks for listening, everybody.
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