April 11, 2025 • 50 mins
The opioid epidemic continues to devastate families and communities across America, leaving researchers and clinicians desperately searching for new treatment approaches. What if a compound found in mushrooms could help break the cycle of addiction? In this riveting conversation, Alex Dorr welcomes Dr. Stephanie Daves from Temple University's Center for Substance Abuse Research to discuss her groundbreaking work exploring how psilocybin might combat heroin addiction.
Dr. Daves shares her personal journey into addiction research, motivated partly by witnessing the devastating impacts of substance use disorders firsthand. She explains the science behind addiction as a chronic disease—not simply a matter of willpower—where individuals prioritize obtaining and using substances despite severe negative consequences to their lives and relationships.
The heart of their conversation revolves around fascinating research showing how psilocybin targets the serotonin 2A receptor, which changes in the brains of rats exposed to heroin. While psilocybin didn't prevent rats from taking heroin when available, it significantly reduced drug-seeking behavior during simulated relapse scenarios. Dr. Daves hypothesizes that beyond psychedelic experiences, psilocybin may work through anti-inflammatory pathways in the brain, potentially offering a new mechanism for addiction treatment.
They explore the distinctions between two therapeutic approaches: high-dose sessions producing profound psychedelic experiences versus microdosing protocols where individuals take sub-perceptual amounts. Each approach may benefit different individuals or conditions, highlighting the need for personalized treatment strategies. The discussion also touches on how environmental factors and social connections play crucial roles in recovery, drawing parallels to the famous "Rat Park" experiments.
Despite promising results, the conversation reveals significant challenges in addiction research, including lengthy study timelines and difficulties securing consistent funding. As communities continue fighting the opioid crisis, this research offers hope through innovative approaches that might help address both the biological and psychological aspects of substance use disorders.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Welcome, welcome.
You are listening to theMushroom Revival podcast.
This is your host, alex Dorr,and we are absolutely obsessed
with the wonderful, wacky,mysterious world of mushrooms
and fungi.
We bring on guests and expertsfrom all around the globe to
geek out with us and go downthis mysterious rabbit hole to
try to figure out what the heckis going on with these fungal
(00:33):
friends of ours.
So today we have StephanieDawes to come on to talk about
psilocybin, potentially reducingheroin-seeking behavior in rats
and the potential for maybethat to translate into humans
later on and addiction overall.
So, stephanie, how are youdoing?
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Good Hi, Alex.
Thank you for inviting me.
It's great to be here.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
Yeah, thanks for coming on.
Where are you tuning in from?
And for people who don't knowyou and your work who are you?
What are you up to?
Speaker 2 (01:12):
Okay, I am at the Center for Substance Abuse
Research at Temple University inPhiladelphia.
I am at the Lewis Katz Schoolof Medicine here we're in North
Philadelphia and my work focuseson understanding mechanisms
that might reduce or help peopleto stop taking drugs.
So we work with preclinicalmodels and I have a research lab
(01:35):
here at the School of Medicineand I work with graduate
students and postdocs and we dopreclinical work as well as some
clinical studies, trying tounderstand what are the
mechanisms that contribute todrug seeking behavior.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
And how did you?
Did you get into addiction anddrug use before you got into
psilocybin as a as a potentialtreatment, or did you get into
mushrooms first?
How did your journey begin?
Speaker 2 (02:09):
Well, my journey began many years ago as a
graduate student.
I'm an assistant professorright now, but it took many
years for me to get to thispoint.
Originally, I studied molecularand microbiology at the
University of Central Florida asan undergraduate student and I
(02:29):
decided I wanted to be able tounderstand more deeply about
mechanisms that contribute tomental health, and I went on to
graduate school at VanderbiltUniversity and there I was very
fortunate to work withresearchers that were working
with human samples from peoplethat had bipolar disorders
schizophrenia and there was alot of overlap between these
(02:51):
mental health conditions anddrug use.
When I was finished withgraduate school, I then went on
and did extra training.
It's called a postdoctoralfellowship.
I did two of them, one at theMount Sinai School of Medicine
in New York City, and he alsohad mental health conditions.
(03:30):
So it was really important forme to be able to engage in
research that not only studiedaddiction, but also mental
health, mood disorders, majordepressive disorder, bipolar
disorder.
I really wanted to understandabout the connections and the
comorbidities that exist betweenthese conditions.
Now that I have my own lab, I'mreally focused on trying to
(03:53):
understand mechanisms that mighthelp people stop taking drugs,
and it's very, very complicatedbecause oftentimes people have a
very long journey of sobriety.
It can take many, many years tohave full recovery and
addiction is really a chronicdisease.
(04:13):
A lot of people don't realizethat.
But being able to havemedications that can help
maintain sobriety, maintainabstinence, is really what I'm
hoping I'll be able tounderstand one day.
So the psychedelics andpsilocybin came into this
because I had done some geneexpression profiling of the
(04:34):
brains of rats that had beenexposed to heroin and we
determined that a receptor thatpsilocybin binds to the
serotonin 2A receptor, whichchanged in the brains of rats
that had been exposed to heroin.
I really didn't know very muchabout psychedelics before this
point, but I just knew that thisgene was changed and the
(04:57):
strategy that my lab uses is weidentify gene expression changes
that are a result of drugexposure and then we use either
pharmacological or genetic toolsto manipulate those genes and
see if that can then reverse thedrug taking or the drug seeking
behavior.
So we started injecting ratswith psilocybin and looking to
(05:19):
see how it impacted their herointaking behavior.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
Well, I have to say I'm really sorry to hear about
your brother.
The opioid epidemic is soinvasive One of my best friends
in high school died from an oxyoverdose as well and I know so
many people who it it.
It's so severe, it's, it's um,yeah, it.
(05:47):
It takes a hold of of so manypeople's lives and and everyone
that they're they're connectedwith.
So I think this research is isincredibly important to help um,
not only the the person takingthe opioids, but also all their
friends and family.
And it really it really has aripple effect on so many
(06:07):
people's lives.
And I'm really curious about.
You know the mechanisms ofaddiction.
I, you know, I've heard that,you know, you just said it.
It's a disease.
Maybe people throw around theword addiction too loosely.
(06:27):
I know people are like, oh, I'mso addicted to my phone, you
know, and is that a differentaddiction than heroin?
Or is it the same mechanisms inthe brain?
Is it a gene that someone has,if, if, that they can pass on to
their kid, and those specificgenes or that specific gene um
(06:50):
makes them into a more addictedpersonality person?
Can you just kind of give anoverview of, like, what
addiction is?
Speaker 2 (06:59):
That's a really good question.
Thank you, alex, and uh, you'llhave to remind me if I forget
some of those questions, becausethere's a lot.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
Yeah, I rapid fired them, Sorry.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
That's okay.
I think it's very important toacknowledge the suffering that
addiction causes families,communities, and it's not
something that just happens tothe individual that has the
addiction.
It really impacts so much oftheir life, their quality of
(07:30):
life, their friends, theirfamily.
And when addiction is diagnosed, there is a DSM-5, which is a
handbook that psychiatrists orclinicians can use in order to
be able to diagnose somebodywith a mental health disorder,
and there was a great reviewthat was published a few years
(07:51):
ago in the New England Journalof Medicine by Nora Volkow.
She is currently the directorof the National Institute on
Drug Abuse and she really wentthrough what are the different
degrees of severity of substanceuse disorder and what causes
someone to be addicted.
So oftentimes we use addictionand we refer to anybody that's
(08:13):
using drugs as being addicted,and that's really not true.
There is a big change in thelegislature in this country.
There's different laws that arehappening in different states,
so using some drugs can be legalin some states and people can
use them recreationally and thenin other states it might still
(08:34):
be illegal.
So we do know that there arepeople that are using drugs
recreationally or medically, andto say that all those people
using drugs are addicts isreally not true and it wouldn't
be a correct characterization.
So, in terms of the severity ofsubstance use disorder, there
(08:54):
are different grades of it andat the very basic level,
somebody can be using a drug andthey continue taking more and
more in order to produce a senseof euphoria.
They might be developingtolerance, they might be
escalating their use, but peoplethat become addicted, they then
(09:18):
place more emphasis on gettingthe drug and being able to have
access to the drug than they doother responsibilities in their
life, so they could be not goingto work or not taking care of
their families, for example.
They're using all of theirmoney in order to procure more
drugs and they're reallycontinuing to take the drug
despite there being severenegative consequences.
So that really is a big factorin what would cause someone to
(09:43):
be diagnosed with addiction.
And there's other criteria aswell in that DSM-5 manual that
go through.
What are all of the differentcharacteristics and how severe
do they have to be?
In terms of the tolerance, interms of the amount of effort
and resources that someonedevotes to trying to get more of
(10:04):
the drug, and then also thewithdrawal and the physical
dependence on the drug, so tosay people that use drugs are
addicted, that wouldn't reallybe the correct characterization.
Now, can people be addicted toother things?
Definitely, I am a mom of fourand I have children that like to
(10:26):
play video games, and sometimesthey don't care what the
consequences are.
They can get a bad grade inschool, they can be grounded, it
doesn't matter, they want toplay the video game.
So they might give up all ofthese other things that normally
they might enjoy being able tohave a reward like a food reward
(10:46):
or being able to go outsidewith friends, things that they
might normally enjoy.
They might be willing to giveup those things in order to play
more of the video games.
So you can think of that as ananalogy for how somebody might
be addicted to a drug.
They might be willing to giveup spending time with their
family, going on vacation, beingable to have a car, a house,
(11:11):
things that might normally causesomeone to be happy and have
pleasure, all at the expense ofgetting the drug or in you're
talking about the, the HTR2Areceptor, and I'm not exactly
(11:33):
sure how to eloquently ask thisbecause it's a little beyond my
domain, but basically that geneis related to addiction for
certain things.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
I read at the end of the paper that maybe it's
unclear about nicotine andcocaine and maybe there's
another gene, if I'm correct,but I think alcohol and opiates
are related to that gene, if I'mcorrect.
And so, speaking of genes, nomatter what the name is, it
seems to me and please correctme if I'm wrong no matter what
the name is, it seems to me, andplease correct me if I'm wrong
(12:04):
if there's certain genes relatedto certain chemicals that, if
I'm understanding correctly,make someone have harder
withdrawals and make them seekout that drug more.
And I'm curious if certainpeople have those genes and
certain people don't, oreveryone has those genes and the
(12:27):
drug just flicks them on, so tospeak.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
That's a good question.
Yes, so that reminds me Ididn't answer your question
about whether addiction issomething that can be inherited.
We do know, based on GWASstudies, which is sequencing of
DNA in people that haveaddiction.
We do know what genes they have, what genes are expressed, and
(12:51):
it's not very simple in that wecan just look at their genes and
say these are the addictiongenes.
We know that there arebehavioral traits that might
cause someone to be moreimpulsive or have other
behavioral tendencies that areassociated with drug-seeking
behavior, or people that mightbe more responsive to drugs.
(13:13):
And we do know that addictioncan run in a family, so there
might be some people that haverelatives, parents, grandparents
that were using drugs oralcohol for much of their
upbringing, and there areincidences in which people also
(13:34):
then develop drug use orcigarette smoking as a result of
that.
It's hard to say whether it'senvironmental or it's all
genetic, because both of thethings go hand in hand.
But we do know that there aresome genes that are likely to be
expressed in people that aredrug seeking.
(13:56):
However, it's not the same foreverybody.
So we don't know the addictiongene.
It's not just one gene or a fewgenes, and it's definitely not
the serotonin 2A receptor,because if it was, then it would
be very simple and we couldprobably cure addiction.
But it's not that simple.
But HTR2A is the gene thatencodes the serotonin 2A
(14:21):
receptor.
So the serotonin 2A receptor isa protein, and it is a protein
that can interact withpsilocybin, and there have been
studies that have been done withDNA from people who had opioid
use disorder, and it wasdetermined that there were
variants in the DNA levels orthe DNA expression profiles of
(14:44):
the serotonin 2A receptor thatwere associated with opioid
dependence.
So that means that there's justslightly different expression
patterns of these genes thatmight be related to whether or
not somebody has heroin oropioid dependence.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
So this is not my domain and I'm sure that a lot
of our listeners these words arepretty foreign to them.
Like what is the serotonin 2Areceptor?
I've heard that thrown aroundso many times in relation to
psilocybin and it sounds great,but I still don't know what it
means.
I could copy and paste it andregurgitate it, but don't have a
(15:26):
deep understanding, and I'msure a lot of our listeners do
not as well.
So, like what does a protein doin the body?
And when someone says thatpsilocybin is an agonist to the
serotonin 2A receptor, what doesthat actually mean in layman's
terms?
Like if you're talking to likea golden retriever or like a
five-year-old?
Speaker 2 (15:48):
Okay.
So the serotonin 2A receptor isa protein that typically is at
the surface of a cell and whendrugs like psilocybin are a
match for that receptor, theycan bind to the receptor and
then they cause changes in otherprotein pathways or other genes
(16:09):
within that cell.
In the case of the serotonin 2Areceptor, when psilocybin
interacts with it, it can alsoinduce hallucinations, delusions
or psychedelic experiences, andwhen we think about this
receptor as a protein, you canthink of proteins as really
(16:32):
things that do work within thecell.
The central dogma of molecularbiology is that DNA is made into
RNA and then RNA is made intoprotein, so proteins are really
a reflection of our DNA.
Now we have tons of proteinsall over the body.
They have different functions.
(16:52):
There's some within the heartthat are important for the heart
to be pumping.
There are some within ourmuscles that help our muscles to
allow us to move and walk, andthen there's some within our
brain that control all of ourthinking, our cognition.
So when psilocybin gets intothe brain, it's binding to this
(17:13):
receptor, this protein in thebrain, and then it's causing not
only some of the effects ofpsychedelics the psychedelic
experience, but also otherthings as well, and part of my
research is looking at some ofthe things in addition to
activation of that serotonin 2Areceptor that could be important
(17:35):
.
One hypothesis we have is thatpsilocybin might be causing
anti-inflammatory effects, andlooking at some of those things
in addition to the serotonin 2Areceptor might be another way to
understand how psilocybin couldbe therapeutic so I also read
in the paper and I would lovesome more clarity on this that,
(17:58):
um, you wrote that psilocybindid not affect heroin taking,
but blunted heroin seekingbehavior during relapse.
Speaker 1 (18:08):
Um, so I'm curious, if you can, if you can, uh,
divulge on that a little bitmore, on what exactly the
effects on these rats in yourstudy were on relapse, and also,
yeah, what effects did it have?
Speaker 2 (18:24):
Sure, we measure rat self-administration of heroin.
And when we gave psilocybin tothe rats, they still took the
same amount of heroin.
So we concluded that psilocybinto the rats, they still took
the same amount of heroin.
So we concluded that psilocybindidn't impact heroin.
Taking Now our model that weuse it allows each rat to
(18:45):
control their own drug intake.
They have a catheter in theirjugular vein and they're trained
to press a lever and get aninfusion of heroin right into
their body.
So when we gave them locibin,they still made that choice,
that they still wanted theheroin.
However, we also do what'scalled a relapse test, and it's
(19:06):
really not relapse, but we putthe rat back in their home cage
that they live in and then weallow them to go through
abstinence, which means theyhave no heroin
self-administration sessions,they have no access to the drug.
We put them back inside thechamber where they had
previously taken the drug, maybethree weeks later, and we gave
(19:30):
them psilocybin and we measuredhow much they pressed that lever
, but we didn't give them anyheroin.
Psilocybin, and we measured howmuch they pressed that lever,
but we didn't give them anyheroin.
So we used that as a measure ofrelapse because we're looking.
Do they go for the lever thathad the heroin?
Are they seeking the heroin?
And we concluded that the ratsthat had psilocybin before that
relapse test, they didn't haveas much of a desire to press the
(19:52):
lever.
This is very different from howwe might measure relapse or
recurrence of drug use in humans, because if you previously had
drank a lot of alcohol, you wentthrough sobriety and then maybe
you saw a sign for a bar.
You stopped at the bar, youwent in and had one drink.
Maybe that one drink led tofive more drinks, so that might
(20:15):
be considered recurrence of useor relapse.
We are not really measuringtrue relapse because the rats
don't get more heroin, but it'sthe closest thing that we
typically do with ourpreclinical studies.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
Have you heard of.
It's been a few years sinceI've actually read um both these
papers.
But there's one paper, I thinkin the 60s, that came out um
that they they had rats.
The same thing it was, but itwas with two water bottles, one
with with, I think, regularwater and one I think it was
(20:51):
heroin water if I'm maybe it'scocaine or some drug, and they
gave him a choice and but theywere locked in a cage and they
always took the, the druginfused water, and so the
publish was was closed andthey're like, drugs are bad, you
know.
And then some of the rats likekept, you know, drinking it
(21:12):
until they died and refuse food,and you know.
And so they're like oh, drugswill make you not eat and starve
yourself and kill yourself andblah, blah, blah.
Someone redid the study andplease stop me if you know this
study.
But they said well, if I was arat trapped in a small cage, of
course I would also pick thedrugs, because that's kind of a
(21:34):
miserable life.
What if I introduced like a ratpark?
Speaker 2 (21:39):
And yes, yeah yeah, so they.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
For people who don't know this study, I'll give a
very quick recap.
But they introduced a rat parkand they had them all play
together and they got tosocialize and got to run around,
they had a wheel and everythingand then they put them back in
the cage and they gave them achoice and they shot.
They saw a?
Um, a really high reduction ofof drug seeking behavior after
(22:05):
the introduced introduction of apark, um, and socialization.
So it kind of gave them more tolook forward to.
And I think this is going backto your statement of like.
Is it nature versus nurture orlike environment versus
predestination in your genes orDNA?
I think yeah, I think it's both.
(22:27):
And environment plays a bigfactor, especially when it comes
to relapse.
If you go back to old friendsthat are also abusing drugs and
they're like, hey, come on, man,take a little bit, you know, or
you're just like in a roughenvironment, like it's hard to
recover from addiction if youdon't also change your
environment as well.
Speaker 2 (22:48):
Yes, and there's a lot of research that's been done
on the impact of socialexperience and how that can
reduce relapse behavior or drugseeking.
There are even drugself-administration chambers
that have been developed, wherea rat can press the lever for
the drug, but then they can alsopress another lever and a door
will open up and they can playwith another rat.
(23:10):
So they can choose do I want toplay with a friend or do I want
to get the drug?
And usually the rats willchoose to go play with the
friend.
And it's hard because it makesyou wonder are we really
modeling the correct behaviorwith rats and mice?
Is there something that we'remissing?
We know there's a lot thatwe're missing with some of these
(23:31):
models.
So I would argue it'sdefinitely more important that
we look at how rats are changingtheir drug taking behavior
instead of some of these relapsebehaviors.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
Yeah, I think relapse is also incredibly important,
because it's where I think a lotof people who struggle with
addiction get stuck in is thatconstant relapse and just kind
of getting stuck in the loop andhoping they can get better and
then they relapse.
And if during a relapse,they're seeking that drug less,
(24:07):
I think that's a huge win.
Of course it's not that simpleand, like you said before, if we
figured it out we would havecured addiction by now.
But I think, like one step at atime, and each win is a major
win against this battle, forsure.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
Right and environment is so important, and that's one
of the concepts behind some ofthe 12 Steps programs.
You can go to meetings, you canbe around other people that are
on a similar journey with youand you can have a sense of
community, of people also tryingto support your goals, as
opposed to say, hanging out withpeople that are continuing to
use drugs.
(24:44):
But it can be reallychallenging because some of the
people that you're closest withyour family members they've
watched you do the drugs overand over again and they may
start to lose faith or they maybecome tired of hearing about it
.
So environment is just soimportant.
If you don't have a goodsupport system, then it can
really impact whether you'resuccessful in your sobriety the
(25:19):
biochemistry.
Speaker 1 (25:20):
I saw two words in your paper that I wasn't
familiar with and I was hopingthat you could explain what they
are.
I'm going to try to pronouncethem Ketanserin and volananserin
, if I'm pronouncing thosecorrectly.
Speaker 2 (25:30):
Yes, that's correct.
So those are drugs or compoundsthat would really do the
opposite of psilocybin.
The way that we designed ourstudy is that we wanted to test
our hypothesis that when weactivated the serotonin 2A
receptor with psilocybin wecould reduce drug seeking.
But then if we blocked theactivity at that serotonin 2A
(25:54):
receptor, we would hypothesizethat the opposite would happen.
And that's exactly what we sawthat catanserin and bolinanserin
.
They really do the oppositefrom psilocybin and we saw an
increase in drug-seekingbehavior with rats that had been
treated with those compounds.
So they would be causing theserotonin 2A receptor to have
(26:16):
different signaling pathways andit would really be antagonizing
some of the effects thatpsilocybin would be
accomplishing.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
And I know I brought up that I briefly stated at the
end in the conclusion of yourpaper.
You briefly talked about hownicotine and cocaine potentially
might be acting on a differentreceptor or gene.
Is that correct?
Speaker 2 (26:46):
There's been a lot of studies that have been done
with the serotonin 2A receptorand HTR2A with nicotine, alcohol
, cocaine and HTR2A withnicotine, alcohol, cocaine, and
we do know that there are someassociations between that
receptor with other drugs.
But we know that psilocybin hasa lot of different targets.
(27:07):
So one other target is theserotonin 2C receptor, for
example, and we know that thatreceptor, when we use drugs that
specifically target thatreceptor, sometimes, example,
and we know that that receptor,when we use drugs that
specifically target thatreceptor, sometimes there can be
the opposite effect of theserotonin 2A receptor.
So we don't exactly know all ofthe mechanisms of how
psilocybin is functioning witheach of these different drugs.
(27:32):
But I will say there's been alot more clinical research with
nicotine and alcohol andpsilocybin.
There's clinical trials that aregoing on right now to test the
efficacy of psilocybin forreducing nicotine use or alcohol
use and even opioids.
But the nicotine and thealcohol studies are much further
(27:53):
along and some of these studieshave been published.
The alcohol studies are muchfurther along and some of these
studies have been published.
It's really fascinating.
There's a group at JohnsHopkins that has been studying
nicotine and alcohol use and howpsilocybin could be reducing it
, and they've shown that, if youtake patients that have tried
to quit smoking for many, manyyears, when they've been given
(28:14):
psilocybin, they really have areduction in their cigarette use
over time.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
And I just think that that's amazing, because these
are not people that justcasually smoke, these are heavy
smokers and it's really changingtheir behavior you know, I've
(28:42):
always wondered if it's more ofa a purely kind of chemical
interaction happening in thebody in in terms of psilocybin
and its effect on addiction.
I'm sure it's also just likewe're talking about nature
versus nurture.
I'm sure it's always acombination.
But, um, also the just theinsight of looking at your life
and saying, oh, I've beensmoking a lot of cigarettes,
it's not the best for me, Ishould probably stop or cut it
back.
And having that kind of likeout-of-body experience to
(29:04):
process your life, I'm sure it'sboth.
But is your theory that most ofthe benefits of psilocybin is
the anti-inflammatory effects,which lowers our seeking
behavior when it comes to, say,opioids or nicotine and alcohol,
and we're just not like on edgeas much.
(29:28):
And that anti-inflammatoryresponse would you say that is
your hypothesis?
Or I'm just curious, likewhat's going on, what exactly is
psilocybin doing to help usalleviate some of our addiction
cravings?
Speaker 2 (29:44):
Right, and really that's the $1 million question.
Can we really figure out whatpsilocybin is doing?
Because then we can alsodevelop other compounds that are
like psilocybin or maybe morespecific?
As I mentioned, psilocybintargets a number of different
proteins within the brain and Ithink that there might be people
(30:05):
that may never take apsychedelic.
They have a negativeconnotation of it.
They may not be willing to.
So understanding how psilocybinis impacting the brain to
reduce drug seeking is reallythe major goal.
In my lab, our initialhypothesis is that psilocybin
was impacting inflammatorysignaling, and in our paper that
(30:28):
you referenced at the beginningof the podcast, we had used a
compound that wasanti-inflammatory.
We injected it into the brainand we saw the very same effect
that psilocybin produced, thatit reduced the drug-seeking
behavior.
So we're going to study this inmore detail, look at more
anti-inflammatory compounds.
It would be nice if we couldfind something else that
(30:51):
functioned, that did the samething as psilocybin, but maybe
there wasn't any effect whensomebody took it.
And that also brings up anotherpoint that I wanted to mention.
There are two differentprotocols for how people are
using psilocybin clinically.
So one is that an individualcould take psilocybin under the
care of a clinician, a medicalprovider, and that person would
(31:15):
be there to make sure that thepatient is safe.
And they're taking a relativelylarge dose and they have a
psychedelic experience and, asyou said, it allows them to
really look inside and determinedo I want to continue taking
the drugs, what is my motivationhere, and really have a change
of mind about what they want todo in the future.
(31:37):
But the other way is microdosing, and people microdose all the
time for different reasons.
But from what I have heard andI've spoken with I had the
chance to speak with somebodyrecently who is a life coach who
helps people with microdosingprotocols.
When you microdose, you don'thave any psychedelic experience,
(32:00):
you don't even know that you'retaking a drug.
There's no hallucinations,there's no delusions, nothing.
And it would be very similar tohow people are taking any other
medication, where you may nothave any feeling.
It's almost like just taking asmall white pill.
Right, you don't feel it, butthere are small changes that are
(32:22):
happening in your brain and,with a combination of cognitive
behavioral therapy, you're ableto go on a journey like what you
described and able to changeyour behavior.
One of the things that we'reworking on in my lab is trying
to understand if microdosing canalso have a similar effect on
drug taking.
But right now, as far as I knowall the clinical studies, the
(32:45):
clinical trials with psilocybinand drugs, they're using very
large doses and they're givingthe patients one, maybe two
doses and then they're lookingat the long-term outcomes of
drug-seeking and drug-takingbehavior.
So it will be reallyinteresting to see if
microdosing also has an impacton drug-taking.
Speaker 1 (33:09):
I just read a paper and actually brought them on the
podcast, jack and Albert Dahan.
They they released a metaanalysis on seeing, you know,
the correlation betweensubjective and objective effects
of psilocybin and ketamine umon various things and they had
the most interesting findings onum substance abuse versus other
(33:34):
things, um, and they found thatthe subjective effects or, like
you know, any trippyhallucinations or visuals or
insights or things like thataccounted for 54 to 60% of the
healing for substance abuse, asopposed to only 5 to 24% when it
(33:56):
came to depression.
And I thought that was reallyinteresting.
Like, depending on what you'reusing it for, having more of the
kind of hallucinations or thetrippiness accounted for more of
the healing of of you know,whatever it is Um, and that's
for me.
(34:17):
I, when I microdose, I actuallylike to feel it a little bit.
To me, I feel like that's theonly time I actually get true
benefit Um, and I done it formany, many years and only when
I'm like riding the edge of likedid I take too much, you know?
And I'm like definitely feelingit, but but it's enough to kind
(34:40):
of ride that wave Um or it'sjust just below the amount where
I can comfortably ride thatwave, um, and just like edging
that uncomfortability.
You know, um, that's when youknow I'm, I can operate my daily
life but also get thoseinsights and you know, like new
perspectives on my life, of kindof like shakes the routine and
(35:05):
gets me out of my normal, likerigidity, if that makes sense,
which is really helpful for likeaddiction.
You know when you're just likein a habit loop or like
addiction.
You know when you're just likein a habit loop for me
personally but it for otherpeople, you know.
I know a lot of scientists areworking on.
You know how do we get thebenefits of psilocybin without
the trip for people who theyjust don't have time, they're
(35:29):
busy, they have five kids andtwo jobs and you know they're
like I don't, I can't do that.
You know I can't have like asix hour session and then the
full day integration the nextday.
I'm like I don't, yeah, like Iwish, but you know I can't have
that.
So I'd rather just pop a pilland, you know, stop my, my oxy
(35:51):
addiction, and without the trip,you know.
Speaker 2 (35:55):
I would think, though , if you had the ability to
spend one day having a trip andbeing able to cure your opioid
addiction, wouldn't that beworth it?
Maybe one day I think so Rightyeah I think so, as opposed to
taking a pill chronically for along period of time.
Speaker 1 (36:15):
It is kind of the Western medical system to have
your bottle of magic pills thatyou pop every morning.
It's definitely the system thata lot of people are used to.
So having a journey or thisceremony and this day that you
(36:35):
take to really process a lot ofthings is very foreign for a lot
of people.
It's not really in a lot ofpeople's cultures, or yeah,
they're just not used to that.
Speaker 2 (36:48):
Right and I think, as you mentioned, there might be
different protocols that workbetter for different people for
different conditions, and thenthere might be some people that
don't want to experience thefull psychedelic experience.
So I don't think it's a onesize fits all and I think there
can be benefits for people for avariety of different conditions
(37:10):
.
Is that the clinical trialswith psilocybin?
It can be really difficult tohave a placebo effect, because
patients like with that placebopill, they might know that
they're not having anypsychedelic experience.
Speaker 1 (37:28):
Right, a lot easier for microdosing, for sure.
But yeah, that's the one of thebig flaws of large dose
psychedelic studies is it's kindof impossible to do a placebo
and you know pretty soon afterif you've gotten the placebo or
not, which is a thing, but Idon't.
(37:49):
Yeah, you know, nothing'sperfect and you know the more
data that comes out, the moreevident that these results will
get.
And I'm curious I've never donea, you know, like an actual
published study.
I've done little experimentsbut and I've interviewed so many
people and it seems likeeveryone has a different
(38:12):
struggle, either from gettingfunding, or you know if they're
working with a scheduledsubstance like psilocybin, or
you know you're working withheroin, like getting the permits
from the DEA is like they'relike the red tape is a nightmare
and we have to like keep it ina safe and blah, blah, blah.
Or you know working with peopleor, in your case, animals, like
(38:36):
what was the hardest part ofdoing this study for you?
Speaker 2 (38:40):
Well, we didn't have any problems getting the heroin.
I do have a safe right next tome right now.
Actually, I think the hardestpart is maintaining the
motivation to continue the study.
It takes years and years to dothis work.
We started the study in 2019,and it was only published in
(39:00):
2024.
It started off as a very smallidea that I had when I first
started my lab in 2018.
I got a very small grant inorder to start doing some of the
gene expression analysis, butwe've been applying for funding
ever since 2020, and we stillhaven't gotten it, despite the
fact that we've published ourwork.
(39:22):
So it's been really, reallyhard to continue this project
and wondering should we give up?
Are we going to get funding?
I think maintaining thatmotivation is really challenging
.
We've had a couple of differentpeople come through the lab that
have worked on this project thelead author, gabriel Flores.
He's now a research assistantprofessor at Yale.
(39:44):
He worked on this project for along time, but there were a
number of other people within mylab that helped him, and people
that oftentimes work in labs,either graduate students or
postdocs.
It's a transition period forthem.
They're getting training andthen they're moving on to the
next step of their career, so itcan be transitional and it
(40:04):
really takes so much effort toput everything together and get
it published and I think havingthat waiting period of going
through the steps forpublication and getting funding
is really the hardest part.
Speaker 1 (40:18):
Yeah, and it's getting harder and harder now
that we're stripping a lot offederal funding from.
Speaker 2 (40:25):
Right.
The uncertainty of not knowingwhat will happen is just
excruciating.
Speaker 1 (40:30):
Yeah, I have a my best friend works in restoration
and biodiversity conservationand things like that.
And, yeah, getting federalgrants and funding has just
gotten a ton harder as of recentbecause these huge grant pools
have just been stripped almostovernight.
(40:52):
So, yeah, it's gotten a littletricky navigating.
It's always been tricky, butespecially as of recent, it's
gotten a little trickynavigating.
It's always been tricky, butespecially as of recent, it's
gotten a little harder,depending on what field you're
in, to get certain grants orcertain funding, which is
unfortunate.
There's a lot of great researchand projects that I think
(41:14):
should be really easy to getfunded right.
But yeah, it's alsocountry-based as well.
I think, you know, certaincountries are just really into
funding certain things.
Um, I am curious like, if youknow, say, portugal, who
decriminalize all drugs, or ifcertain countries are easier to
(41:36):
get funding for drug abusethings.
It seems like, maybe foropioids.
It seems like the US reigns,unfortunately, supreme for the
opioid epidemic.
Speaker 2 (41:49):
Right, and we do have a lot of prescriptions for
opioids that we give out herethat other countries are not
giving out.
So have we created the problemourselves, right?
I mean you mentioned OxyContinat the beginning.
Yeah, giving out prescriptionsfor OxyContin led to a lot of
people overdosing, and now weknow that there's TV shows and
(42:11):
dramas that are being made thatare talking about what happened
back in the early 2000s.
Have we created part of thisproblem ourselves?
Have you seen?
Speaker 1 (42:21):
the show Painkiller.
Speaker 2 (42:23):
I can't watch anything about that.
It's just it's really hard afterhaving lived an experience with
somebody who's suffering fromaddiction, and for so long too.
But what I wanted to emphasizeI do hope that I can get funding
to continue my lab, but I justwant to help people that have
(42:45):
addiction.
If there's people that want toquit and they can't, I just want
to be able to help people gothrough that journey.
There's people that don't wantto quit and you really have to
be in a position where you'remotivated to don't want to quit
and you really have to be in aposition where you're motivated
to.
Here in Philadelphia, we havethe Kensington neighborhood,
where there's open-air drugmarkets, and the rate of opioid
(43:06):
overdose has been really high inthis area for a long time.
During COVID there was a bumpin opioid overdose deaths in
many parts of this country, butreally in Philadelphia it didn't
change by that much because itwas already so high, and this is
something that this communityhas faced for a long time, which
was one of the reasons why Iwanted to come here to Temple.
(43:28):
So I'm hoping that in thefuture, even if the funding
situation is not very good, thatI can at least do something to
help people who are sufferingfrom addiction.
Speaker 1 (43:41):
Well, on the complete opposite side, what has been
the most rewarding aspect ofdoing this research and was it
the day you published?
Was it something during theprocess that, yeah, just felt
like a huge relief?
Or what was your biggestaccomplishment?
(44:03):
Or it could be an everydaything, it could be just getting
up in the morning.
Yeah, something you likedthroughout the whole process.
Speaker 2 (44:14):
I do really like the team of people that I work with.
I've been very fortunate towork with people that are very
dedicated to their research andbeing able to see a project from
the beginning where we startwith absolutely nothing, just
some ideas, and able to see allthe way through to the end, that
now we have this published bodyof work, we have protocols that
(44:36):
we can implement and work withother people on, and being able
to try to understand some of themechanisms that we can't study
in humans.
That's always been my goal isto try to have the human data
inform what we do in our lab.
So we know that psilocybin isalready in clinical trials, but
we don't really know how it'sworking in the brain.
(44:57):
Being able to give some insightinto what might be happening is
really the most rewarding.
Speaker 1 (45:05):
So what future research would you like to do?
Say you got all the grants inthe world, you had a billionaire
.
A group of billionaires werelike we'll give you a blank
check, whatever you want to do,and you had all the team
resources available to you.
(45:25):
What would you like to do?
And or vice versa, if it's notyou, what would you like to see
done in the field?
Speaker 2 (45:33):
Wow, there's a lot of ideas.
As a professor, I think weprobably have many, many ideas
for grant applications anddifferent things that we would
like to pursue if we could.
One thing that I would reallylike to pivot into is clinical
research, and I've started doingsome of that with the team here
(45:56):
at Temple.
We have some amazing doctors inthe emergency department and
pediatrics who are working withpatients that have either been
exposed to opioids in utero orare coming into the hospital
with opioid use disorder, andthey treat them on an everyday
basis.
So being able to work with someof those patient samples
whether it's peripheral bloodsamples or tissue samples and
(46:19):
trying to understand differentmechanisms that are changing as
they go through their road torecovery or associated with
their treatment outcomes that isa primary goal that I have.
Work in our animal models intohumans, because, like I had
mentioned before, how we'redoing our relapse tests and
(46:42):
modeling abstinence isn't reallythe same as what patients are
going through.
So I want to be able to doresearch that's as close to the
human condition as I possiblycan, and then a really big goal
if I had all the money in theworld, I would really like to do
some intervention work withchildren that are exposed to
(47:02):
drugs in their household at avery young age, maybe from
communities that don't have thebest education system or the
best resources, to try to helpthose children to have a
different outcome long term,because I do think that a lot of
our societal problems startwith children and if we can
(47:24):
change the path, the trajectorythat they're on, that we can
help them to be able to have abetter future.
Speaker 1 (47:32):
So where can people follow your work?
I don't know if you primarilyuse ResearchGate or Twitter or
have a website or whatever, orif you're going to release a
paper in the future.
Where can people see thatsubstance abuse?
Speaker 2 (48:01):
research.
I don't have social media.
I don't really like to bragabout the work that we do.
I'm very proud of the peoplethat do the work in my lab, but
I try to be more humble.
We do use PubMed, which is agovernment-funded website that
has publications, and all of ourpublications are on there and
they're free to the public.
So if you click on my website,then you're able to get a link
(48:25):
to all of my publications onPubMed, and that's probably the
best source to go throughBeautiful Well.
Speaker 1 (48:32):
Thanks, stephanie, and thanks for your work.
I think this has huge potentialand, as the opioid epidemic is
increasing unfortunately, Iwould love to see these natural
solutions be implemented andpeople to have access to the
help that they need, and alsokids, you know, and family
(48:54):
members everyone affectedgetting some support.
That, I think, is crucial.
So, thank you.
Speaker 2 (49:00):
I agree.
Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (49:03):
And thank you for everyone tuning in and trimming
in wherever you are in the world, if you like this episode and
you want to support the show.
We don't have a Patreon or anyway that you can directly donate
, but we do have a mother brandmushroom revival and we have a
whole line of organic,functional mushroom products,
(49:23):
from capsules, gummies, powders,tinctures and we have a special
coupon code just for listenersof the podcast this pod treat
for a surprise discount.
We, we change it, so, uh, whoknows what you're gonna to get?
And if you don't want to spendany money, that's totally fine.
We have a giveaway going onwhere you pick a winner once a
(49:45):
month and you get a box ofmushroom goodies.
And we also have a bunch of freeresources on our website from
e-books that you can downloadfor free and a ton of
educational blog posts withrecipes and educational content,
and my newest book, the LittleBook of Mushrooms, is on there
(50:06):
as well.
And also, you know, if youlearned something cool during
this episode or even anotherepisode, spread the word, you
know, tell your friends andfamily and just let people know
about how cool mushrooms are andthe benefits of psilocybin, etc
.
Tell a random person at thegrocery store, whatever keep the
(50:29):
mycelium spreading.
So with that, thank youeveryone.
Much love and may the spores bewith you.
Welcome, welcome.
You are listening to theMushroom Revival podcast.
This is your host, alex Dorr,and we are absolutely obsessed
with the wonderful, wacky,mysterious world of mushrooms
and fungi.
We bring on guests and expertsfrom all around the globe to
geek out with us and go downthis mysterious rabbit hole to
try to figure out what the heckis going on with these fungal
(00:33):
friends of ours.
So today we have StephanieDawes to come on to talk about
psilocybin, potentially reducingheroin-seeking behavior in rats
and the potential for maybethat to translate into humans
later on and addiction overall.
So, stephanie, how are youdoing?
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Good Hi, Alex.
Thank you for inviting me.
It's great to be here.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
Yeah, thanks for coming on.
Where are you tuning in from?
And for people who don't knowyou and your work who are you?
What are you up to?
Speaker 2 (01:12):
Okay, I am at the Center for Substance Abuse
Research at Temple University inPhiladelphia.
I am at the Lewis Katz Schoolof Medicine here we're in North
Philadelphia and my work focuseson understanding mechanisms
that might reduce or help peopleto stop taking drugs.
So we work with preclinicalmodels and I have a research lab
(01:35):
here at the School of Medicineand I work with graduate
students and postdocs and we dopreclinical work as well as some
clinical studies, trying tounderstand what are the
mechanisms that contribute todrug seeking behavior.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
And how did you?
Did you get into addiction anddrug use before you got into
psilocybin as a as a potentialtreatment, or did you get into
mushrooms first?
How did your journey begin?
Speaker 2 (02:09):
Well, my journey began many years ago as a
graduate student.
I'm an assistant professorright now, but it took many
years for me to get to thispoint.
Originally, I studied molecularand microbiology at the
University of Central Florida asan undergraduate student and I
(02:29):
decided I wanted to be able tounderstand more deeply about
mechanisms that contribute tomental health, and I went on to
graduate school at VanderbiltUniversity and there I was very
fortunate to work withresearchers that were working
with human samples from peoplethat had bipolar disorders
schizophrenia and there was alot of overlap between these
(02:51):
mental health conditions anddrug use.
When I was finished withgraduate school, I then went on
and did extra training.
It's called a postdoctoralfellowship.
I did two of them, one at theMount Sinai School of Medicine
in New York City, and he alsohad mental health conditions.
(03:30):
So it was really important forme to be able to engage in
research that not only studiedaddiction, but also mental
health, mood disorders, majordepressive disorder, bipolar
disorder.
I really wanted to understandabout the connections and the
comorbidities that exist betweenthese conditions.
Now that I have my own lab, I'mreally focused on trying to
(03:53):
understand mechanisms that mighthelp people stop taking drugs,
and it's very, very complicatedbecause oftentimes people have a
very long journey of sobriety.
It can take many, many years tohave full recovery and
addiction is really a chronicdisease.
(04:13):
A lot of people don't realizethat.
But being able to havemedications that can help
maintain sobriety, maintainabstinence, is really what I'm
hoping I'll be able tounderstand one day.
So the psychedelics andpsilocybin came into this
because I had done some geneexpression profiling of the
(04:34):
brains of rats that had beenexposed to heroin and we
determined that a receptor thatpsilocybin binds to the
serotonin 2A receptor, whichchanged in the brains of rats
that had been exposed to heroin.
I really didn't know very muchabout psychedelics before this
point, but I just knew that thisgene was changed and the
(04:57):
strategy that my lab uses is weidentify gene expression changes
that are a result of drugexposure and then we use either
pharmacological or genetic toolsto manipulate those genes and
see if that can then reverse thedrug taking or the drug seeking
behavior.
So we started injecting ratswith psilocybin and looking to
(05:19):
see how it impacted their herointaking behavior.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
Well, I have to say I'm really sorry to hear about
your brother.
The opioid epidemic is soinvasive One of my best friends
in high school died from an oxyoverdose as well and I know so
many people who it it.
It's so severe, it's, it's um,yeah, it.
(05:47):
It takes a hold of of so manypeople's lives and and everyone
that they're they're connectedwith.
So I think this research is isincredibly important to help um,
not only the the person takingthe opioids, but also all their
friends and family.
And it really it really has aripple effect on so many
(06:07):
people's lives.
And I'm really curious about.
You know the mechanisms ofaddiction.
I, you know, I've heard that,you know, you just said it.
It's a disease.
Maybe people throw around theword addiction too loosely.
(06:27):
I know people are like, oh, I'mso addicted to my phone, you
know, and is that a differentaddiction than heroin?
Or is it the same mechanisms inthe brain?
Is it a gene that someone has,if, if, that they can pass on to
their kid, and those specificgenes or that specific gene um
(06:50):
makes them into a more addictedpersonality person?
Can you just kind of give anoverview of, like, what
addiction is?
Speaker 2 (06:59):
That's a really good question.
Thank you, alex, and uh, you'llhave to remind me if I forget
some of those questions, becausethere's a lot.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
Yeah, I rapid fired them, Sorry.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
That's okay.
I think it's very important toacknowledge the suffering that
addiction causes families,communities, and it's not
something that just happens tothe individual that has the
addiction.
It really impacts so much oftheir life, their quality of
(07:30):
life, their friends, theirfamily.
And when addiction is diagnosed, there is a DSM-5, which is a
handbook that psychiatrists orclinicians can use in order to
be able to diagnose somebodywith a mental health disorder,
and there was a great reviewthat was published a few years
(07:51):
ago in the New England Journalof Medicine by Nora Volkow.
She is currently the directorof the National Institute on
Drug Abuse and she really wentthrough what are the different
degrees of severity of substanceuse disorder and what causes
someone to be addicted.
So oftentimes we use addictionand we refer to anybody that's
(08:13):
using drugs as being addicted,and that's really not true.
There is a big change in thelegislature in this country.
There's different laws that arehappening in different states,
so using some drugs can be legalin some states and people can
use them recreationally and thenin other states it might still
(08:34):
be illegal.
So we do know that there arepeople that are using drugs
recreationally or medically, andto say that all those people
using drugs are addicts isreally not true and it wouldn't
be a correct characterization.
So, in terms of the severity ofsubstance use disorder, there
(08:54):
are different grades of it andat the very basic level,
somebody can be using a drug andthey continue taking more and
more in order to produce a senseof euphoria.
They might be developingtolerance, they might be
escalating their use, but peoplethat become addicted, they then
(09:18):
place more emphasis on gettingthe drug and being able to have
access to the drug than they doother responsibilities in their
life, so they could be not goingto work or not taking care of
their families, for example.
They're using all of theirmoney in order to procure more
drugs and they're reallycontinuing to take the drug
despite there being severenegative consequences.
So that really is a big factorin what would cause someone to
(09:43):
be diagnosed with addiction.
And there's other criteria aswell in that DSM-5 manual that
go through.
What are all of the differentcharacteristics and how severe
do they have to be?
In terms of the tolerance, interms of the amount of effort
and resources that someonedevotes to trying to get more of
(10:04):
the drug, and then also thewithdrawal and the physical
dependence on the drug, so tosay people that use drugs are
addicted, that wouldn't reallybe the correct characterization.
Now, can people be addicted toother things?
Definitely, I am a mom of fourand I have children that like to
(10:26):
play video games, and sometimesthey don't care what the
consequences are.
They can get a bad grade inschool, they can be grounded, it
doesn't matter, they want toplay the video game.
So they might give up all ofthese other things that normally
they might enjoy being able tohave a reward like a food reward
(10:46):
or being able to go outsidewith friends, things that they
might normally enjoy.
They might be willing to giveup those things in order to play
more of the video games.
So you can think of that as ananalogy for how somebody might
be addicted to a drug.
They might be willing to giveup spending time with their
family, going on vacation, beingable to have a car, a house,
(11:11):
things that might normally causesomeone to be happy and have
pleasure, all at the expense ofgetting the drug or in you're
talking about the, the HTR2Areceptor, and I'm not exactly
(11:33):
sure how to eloquently ask thisbecause it's a little beyond my
domain, but basically that geneis related to addiction for
certain things.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
I read at the end of the paper that maybe it's
unclear about nicotine andcocaine and maybe there's
another gene, if I'm correct,but I think alcohol and opiates
are related to that gene, if I'mcorrect.
And so, speaking of genes, nomatter what the name is, it
seems to me and please correctme if I'm wrong no matter what
the name is, it seems to me, andplease correct me if I'm wrong
(12:04):
if there's certain genes relatedto certain chemicals that, if
I'm understanding correctly,make someone have harder
withdrawals and make them seekout that drug more.
And I'm curious if certainpeople have those genes and
certain people don't, oreveryone has those genes and the
(12:27):
drug just flicks them on, so tospeak.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
That's a good question.
Yes, so that reminds me Ididn't answer your question
about whether addiction issomething that can be inherited.
We do know, based on GWASstudies, which is sequencing of
DNA in people that haveaddiction.
We do know what genes they have, what genes are expressed, and
(12:51):
it's not very simple in that wecan just look at their genes and
say these are the addictiongenes.
We know that there arebehavioral traits that might
cause someone to be moreimpulsive or have other
behavioral tendencies that areassociated with drug-seeking
behavior, or people that mightbe more responsive to drugs.
(13:13):
And we do know that addictioncan run in a family, so there
might be some people that haverelatives, parents, grandparents
that were using drugs oralcohol for much of their
upbringing, and there areincidences in which people also
(13:34):
then develop drug use orcigarette smoking as a result of
that.
It's hard to say whether it'senvironmental or it's all
genetic, because both of thethings go hand in hand.
But we do know that there aresome genes that are likely to be
expressed in people that aredrug seeking.
(13:56):
However, it's not the same foreverybody.
So we don't know the addictiongene.
It's not just one gene or a fewgenes, and it's definitely not
the serotonin 2A receptor,because if it was, then it would
be very simple and we couldprobably cure addiction.
But it's not that simple.
But HTR2A is the gene thatencodes the serotonin 2A
(14:21):
receptor.
So the serotonin 2A receptor isa protein, and it is a protein
that can interact withpsilocybin, and there have been
studies that have been done withDNA from people who had opioid
use disorder, and it wasdetermined that there were
variants in the DNA levels orthe DNA expression profiles of
(14:44):
the serotonin 2A receptor thatwere associated with opioid
dependence.
So that means that there's justslightly different expression
patterns of these genes thatmight be related to whether or
not somebody has heroin oropioid dependence.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
So this is not my domain and I'm sure that a lot
of our listeners these words arepretty foreign to them.
Like what is the serotonin 2Areceptor?
I've heard that thrown aroundso many times in relation to
psilocybin and it sounds great,but I still don't know what it
means.
I could copy and paste it andregurgitate it, but don't have a
(15:26):
deep understanding, and I'msure a lot of our listeners do
not as well.
So, like what does a protein doin the body?
And when someone says thatpsilocybin is an agonist to the
serotonin 2A receptor, what doesthat actually mean in layman's
terms?
Like if you're talking to likea golden retriever or like a
five-year-old?
Speaker 2 (15:48):
Okay.
So the serotonin 2A receptor isa protein that typically is at
the surface of a cell and whendrugs like psilocybin are a
match for that receptor, theycan bind to the receptor and
then they cause changes in otherprotein pathways or other genes
(16:09):
within that cell.
In the case of the serotonin 2Areceptor, when psilocybin
interacts with it, it can alsoinduce hallucinations, delusions
or psychedelic experiences, andwhen we think about this
receptor as a protein, you canthink of proteins as really
(16:32):
things that do work within thecell.
The central dogma of molecularbiology is that DNA is made into
RNA and then RNA is made intoprotein, so proteins are really
a reflection of our DNA.
Now we have tons of proteinsall over the body.
They have different functions.
(16:52):
There's some within the heartthat are important for the heart
to be pumping.
There are some within ourmuscles that help our muscles to
allow us to move and walk, andthen there's some within our
brain that control all of ourthinking, our cognition.
So when psilocybin gets intothe brain, it's binding to this
(17:13):
receptor, this protein in thebrain, and then it's causing not
only some of the effects ofpsychedelics the psychedelic
experience, but also otherthings as well, and part of my
research is looking at some ofthe things in addition to
activation of that serotonin 2Areceptor that could be important
(17:35):
.
One hypothesis we have is thatpsilocybin might be causing
anti-inflammatory effects, andlooking at some of those things
in addition to the serotonin 2Areceptor might be another way to
understand how psilocybin couldbe therapeutic so I also read
in the paper and I would lovesome more clarity on this that,
(17:58):
um, you wrote that psilocybindid not affect heroin taking,
but blunted heroin seekingbehavior during relapse.
Speaker 1 (18:08):
Um, so I'm curious, if you can, if you can, uh,
divulge on that a little bitmore, on what exactly the
effects on these rats in yourstudy were on relapse, and also,
yeah, what effects did it have?
Speaker 2 (18:24):
Sure, we measure rat self-administration of heroin.
And when we gave psilocybin tothe rats, they still took the
same amount of heroin.
So we concluded that psilocybinto the rats, they still took
the same amount of heroin.
So we concluded that psilocybindidn't impact heroin.
Taking Now our model that weuse it allows each rat to
(18:45):
control their own drug intake.
They have a catheter in theirjugular vein and they're trained
to press a lever and get aninfusion of heroin right into
their body.
So when we gave them locibin,they still made that choice,
that they still wanted theheroin.
However, we also do what'scalled a relapse test, and it's
(19:06):
really not relapse, but we putthe rat back in their home cage
that they live in and then weallow them to go through
abstinence, which means theyhave no heroin
self-administration sessions,they have no access to the drug.
We put them back inside thechamber where they had
previously taken the drug, maybethree weeks later, and we gave
(19:30):
them psilocybin and we measuredhow much they pressed that lever
, but we didn't give them anyheroin.
Psilocybin, and we measured howmuch they pressed that lever,
but we didn't give them anyheroin.
So we used that as a measure ofrelapse because we're looking.
Do they go for the lever thathad the heroin?
Are they seeking the heroin?
And we concluded that the ratsthat had psilocybin before that
relapse test, they didn't haveas much of a desire to press the
(19:52):
lever.
This is very different from howwe might measure relapse or
recurrence of drug use in humans, because if you previously had
drank a lot of alcohol, you wentthrough sobriety and then maybe
you saw a sign for a bar.
You stopped at the bar, youwent in and had one drink.
Maybe that one drink led tofive more drinks, so that might
(20:15):
be considered recurrence of useor relapse.
We are not really measuringtrue relapse because the rats
don't get more heroin, but it'sthe closest thing that we
typically do with ourpreclinical studies.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
Have you heard of.
It's been a few years sinceI've actually read um both these
papers.
But there's one paper, I thinkin the 60s, that came out um
that they they had rats.
The same thing it was, but itwas with two water bottles, one
with with, I think, regularwater and one I think it was
(20:51):
heroin water if I'm maybe it'scocaine or some drug, and they
gave him a choice and but theywere locked in a cage and they
always took the, the druginfused water, and so the
publish was was closed andthey're like, drugs are bad, you
know.
And then some of the rats likekept, you know, drinking it
(21:12):
until they died and refuse food,and you know.
And so they're like oh, drugswill make you not eat and starve
yourself and kill yourself andblah, blah, blah.
Someone redid the study andplease stop me if you know this
study.
But they said well, if I was arat trapped in a small cage, of
course I would also pick thedrugs, because that's kind of a
(21:34):
miserable life.
What if I introduced like a ratpark?
Speaker 2 (21:39):
And yes, yeah yeah, so they.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
For people who don't know this study, I'll give a
very quick recap.
But they introduced a rat parkand they had them all play
together and they got tosocialize and got to run around,
they had a wheel and everythingand then they put them back in
the cage and they gave them achoice and they shot.
They saw a?
Um, a really high reduction ofof drug seeking behavior after
(22:05):
the introduced introduction of apark, um, and socialization.
So it kind of gave them more tolook forward to.
And I think this is going backto your statement of like.
Is it nature versus nurture orlike environment versus
predestination in your genes orDNA?
I think yeah, I think it's both.
(22:27):
And environment plays a bigfactor, especially when it comes
to relapse.
If you go back to old friendsthat are also abusing drugs and
they're like, hey, come on, man,take a little bit, you know, or
you're just like in a roughenvironment, like it's hard to
recover from addiction if youdon't also change your
environment as well.
Speaker 2 (22:48):
Yes, and there's a lot of research that's been done
on the impact of socialexperience and how that can
reduce relapse behavior or drugseeking.
There are even drugself-administration chambers
that have been developed, wherea rat can press the lever for
the drug, but then they can alsopress another lever and a door
will open up and they can playwith another rat.
(23:10):
So they can choose do I want toplay with a friend or do I want
to get the drug?
And usually the rats willchoose to go play with the
friend.
And it's hard because it makesyou wonder are we really
modeling the correct behaviorwith rats and mice?
Is there something that we'remissing?
We know there's a lot thatwe're missing with some of these
(23:31):
models.
So I would argue it'sdefinitely more important that
we look at how rats are changingtheir drug taking behavior
instead of some of these relapsebehaviors.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
Yeah, I think relapse is also incredibly important,
because it's where I think a lotof people who struggle with
addiction get stuck in is thatconstant relapse and just kind
of getting stuck in the loop andhoping they can get better and
then they relapse.
And if during a relapse,they're seeking that drug less,
(24:07):
I think that's a huge win.
Of course it's not that simpleand, like you said before, if we
figured it out we would havecured addiction by now.
But I think, like one step at atime, and each win is a major
win against this battle, forsure.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
Right and environment is so important, and that's one
of the concepts behind some ofthe 12 Steps programs.
You can go to meetings, you canbe around other people that are
on a similar journey with youand you can have a sense of
community, of people also tryingto support your goals, as
opposed to say, hanging out withpeople that are continuing to
use drugs.
(24:44):
But it can be reallychallenging because some of the
people that you're closest withyour family members they've
watched you do the drugs overand over again and they may
start to lose faith or they maybecome tired of hearing about it
.
So environment is just soimportant.
If you don't have a goodsupport system, then it can
really impact whether you'resuccessful in your sobriety the
(25:19):
biochemistry.
Speaker 1 (25:20):
I saw two words in your paper that I wasn't
familiar with and I was hopingthat you could explain what they
are.
I'm going to try to pronouncethem Ketanserin and volananserin
, if I'm pronouncing thosecorrectly.
Speaker 2 (25:30):
Yes, that's correct.
So those are drugs or compoundsthat would really do the
opposite of psilocybin.
The way that we designed ourstudy is that we wanted to test
our hypothesis that when weactivated the serotonin 2A
receptor with psilocybin wecould reduce drug seeking.
But then if we blocked theactivity at that serotonin 2A
(25:54):
receptor, we would hypothesizethat the opposite would happen.
And that's exactly what we sawthat catanserin and bolinanserin
.
They really do the oppositefrom psilocybin and we saw an
increase in drug-seekingbehavior with rats that had been
treated with those compounds.
So they would be causing theserotonin 2A receptor to have
(26:16):
different signaling pathways andit would really be antagonizing
some of the effects thatpsilocybin would be
accomplishing.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
And I know I brought up that I briefly stated at the
end in the conclusion of yourpaper.
You briefly talked about hownicotine and cocaine potentially
might be acting on a differentreceptor or gene.
Is that correct?
Speaker 2 (26:46):
There's been a lot of studies that have been done
with the serotonin 2A receptorand HTR2A with nicotine, alcohol
, cocaine and HTR2A withnicotine, alcohol, cocaine, and
we do know that there are someassociations between that
receptor with other drugs.
But we know that psilocybin hasa lot of different targets.
(27:07):
So one other target is theserotonin 2C receptor, for
example, and we know that thatreceptor, when we use drugs that
specifically target thatreceptor, sometimes, example,
and we know that that receptor,when we use drugs that
specifically target thatreceptor, sometimes there can be
the opposite effect of theserotonin 2A receptor.
So we don't exactly know all ofthe mechanisms of how
psilocybin is functioning witheach of these different drugs.
(27:32):
But I will say there's been alot more clinical research with
nicotine and alcohol andpsilocybin.
There's clinical trials that aregoing on right now to test the
efficacy of psilocybin forreducing nicotine use or alcohol
use and even opioids.
But the nicotine and thealcohol studies are much further
(27:53):
along and some of these studieshave been published.
The alcohol studies are muchfurther along and some of these
studies have been published.
It's really fascinating.
There's a group at JohnsHopkins that has been studying
nicotine and alcohol use and howpsilocybin could be reducing it
, and they've shown that, if youtake patients that have tried
to quit smoking for many, manyyears, when they've been given
(28:14):
psilocybin, they really have areduction in their cigarette use
over time.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
And I just think that that's amazing, because these
are not people that justcasually smoke, these are heavy
smokers and it's really changingtheir behavior you know, I've
(28:42):
always wondered if it's more ofa a purely kind of chemical
interaction happening in thebody in in terms of psilocybin
and its effect on addiction.
I'm sure it's also just likewe're talking about nature
versus nurture.
I'm sure it's always acombination.
But, um, also the just theinsight of looking at your life
and saying, oh, I've beensmoking a lot of cigarettes,
it's not the best for me, Ishould probably stop or cut it
back.
And having that kind of likeout-of-body experience to
(29:04):
process your life, I'm sure it'sboth.
But is your theory that most ofthe benefits of psilocybin is
the anti-inflammatory effects,which lowers our seeking
behavior when it comes to, say,opioids or nicotine and alcohol,
and we're just not like on edgeas much.
(29:28):
And that anti-inflammatoryresponse would you say that is
your hypothesis?
Or I'm just curious, likewhat's going on, what exactly is
psilocybin doing to help usalleviate some of our addiction
cravings?
Speaker 2 (29:44):
Right, and really that's the $1 million question.
Can we really figure out whatpsilocybin is doing?
Because then we can alsodevelop other compounds that are
like psilocybin or maybe morespecific?
As I mentioned, psilocybintargets a number of different
proteins within the brain and Ithink that there might be people
(30:05):
that may never take apsychedelic.
They have a negativeconnotation of it.
They may not be willing to.
So understanding how psilocybinis impacting the brain to
reduce drug seeking is reallythe major goal.
In my lab, our initialhypothesis is that psilocybin
was impacting inflammatorysignaling, and in our paper that
(30:28):
you referenced at the beginningof the podcast, we had used a
compound that wasanti-inflammatory.
We injected it into the brainand we saw the very same effect
that psilocybin produced, thatit reduced the drug-seeking
behavior.
So we're going to study this inmore detail, look at more
anti-inflammatory compounds.
It would be nice if we couldfind something else that
(30:51):
functioned, that did the samething as psilocybin, but maybe
there wasn't any effect whensomebody took it.
And that also brings up anotherpoint that I wanted to mention.
There are two differentprotocols for how people are
using psilocybin clinically.
So one is that an individualcould take psilocybin under the
care of a clinician, a medicalprovider, and that person would
(31:15):
be there to make sure that thepatient is safe.
And they're taking a relativelylarge dose and they have a
psychedelic experience and, asyou said, it allows them to
really look inside and determinedo I want to continue taking
the drugs, what is my motivationhere, and really have a change
of mind about what they want todo in the future.
(31:37):
But the other way is microdosing, and people microdose all the
time for different reasons.
But from what I have heard andI've spoken with I had the
chance to speak with somebodyrecently who is a life coach who
helps people with microdosingprotocols.
When you microdose, you don'thave any psychedelic experience,
(32:00):
you don't even know that you'retaking a drug.
There's no hallucinations,there's no delusions, nothing.
And it would be very similar tohow people are taking any other
medication, where you may nothave any feeling.
It's almost like just taking asmall white pill.
Right, you don't feel it, butthere are small changes that are
(32:22):
happening in your brain and,with a combination of cognitive
behavioral therapy, you're ableto go on a journey like what you
described and able to changeyour behavior.
One of the things that we'reworking on in my lab is trying
to understand if microdosing canalso have a similar effect on
drug taking.
But right now, as far as I knowall the clinical studies, the
(32:45):
clinical trials with psilocybinand drugs, they're using very
large doses and they're givingthe patients one, maybe two
doses and then they're lookingat the long-term outcomes of
drug-seeking and drug-takingbehavior.
So it will be reallyinteresting to see if
microdosing also has an impacton drug-taking.
Speaker 1 (33:09):
I just read a paper and actually brought them on the
podcast, jack and Albert Dahan.
They they released a metaanalysis on seeing, you know,
the correlation betweensubjective and objective effects
of psilocybin and ketamine umon various things and they had
the most interesting findings onum substance abuse versus other
(33:34):
things, um, and they found thatthe subjective effects or, like
you know, any trippyhallucinations or visuals or
insights or things like thataccounted for 54 to 60% of the
healing for substance abuse, asopposed to only 5 to 24% when it
(33:56):
came to depression.
And I thought that was reallyinteresting.
Like, depending on what you'reusing it for, having more of the
kind of hallucinations or thetrippiness accounted for more of
the healing of of you know,whatever it is Um, and that's
for me.
(34:17):
I, when I microdose, I actuallylike to feel it a little bit.
To me, I feel like that's theonly time I actually get true
benefit Um, and I done it formany, many years and only when
I'm like riding the edge of likedid I take too much, you know?
And I'm like definitely feelingit, but but it's enough to kind
(34:40):
of ride that wave Um or it'sjust just below the amount where
I can comfortably ride thatwave, um, and just like edging
that uncomfortability.
You know, um, that's when youknow I'm, I can operate my daily
life but also get thoseinsights and you know, like new
perspectives on my life, of kindof like shakes the routine and
(35:05):
gets me out of my normal, likerigidity, if that makes sense,
which is really helpful for likeaddiction.
You know when you're just likein a habit loop or like
addiction.
You know when you're just likein a habit loop for me
personally but it for otherpeople, you know.
I know a lot of scientists areworking on.
You know how do we get thebenefits of psilocybin without
the trip for people who theyjust don't have time, they're
(35:29):
busy, they have five kids andtwo jobs and you know they're
like I don't, I can't do that.
You know I can't have like asix hour session and then the
full day integration the nextday.
I'm like I don't, yeah, like Iwish, but you know I can't have
that.
So I'd rather just pop a pilland, you know, stop my, my oxy
(35:51):
addiction, and without the trip,you know.
Speaker 2 (35:55):
I would think, though , if you had the ability to
spend one day having a trip andbeing able to cure your opioid
addiction, wouldn't that beworth it?
Maybe one day I think so Rightyeah I think so, as opposed to
taking a pill chronically for along period of time.
Speaker 1 (36:15):
It is kind of the Western medical system to have
your bottle of magic pills thatyou pop every morning.
It's definitely the system thata lot of people are used to.
So having a journey or thisceremony and this day that you
(36:35):
take to really process a lot ofthings is very foreign for a lot
of people.
It's not really in a lot ofpeople's cultures, or yeah,
they're just not used to that.
Speaker 2 (36:48):
Right and I think, as you mentioned, there might be
different protocols that workbetter for different people for
different conditions, and thenthere might be some people that
don't want to experience thefull psychedelic experience.
So I don't think it's a onesize fits all and I think there
can be benefits for people for avariety of different conditions
(37:10):
.
Is that the clinical trialswith psilocybin?
It can be really difficult tohave a placebo effect, because
patients like with that placebopill, they might know that
they're not having anypsychedelic experience.
Speaker 1 (37:28):
Right, a lot easier for microdosing, for sure.
But yeah, that's the one of thebig flaws of large dose
psychedelic studies is it's kindof impossible to do a placebo
and you know pretty soon afterif you've gotten the placebo or
not, which is a thing, but Idon't.
(37:49):
Yeah, you know, nothing'sperfect and you know the more
data that comes out, the moreevident that these results will
get.
And I'm curious I've never donea, you know, like an actual
published study.
I've done little experimentsbut and I've interviewed so many
people and it seems likeeveryone has a different
(38:12):
struggle, either from gettingfunding, or you know if they're
working with a scheduledsubstance like psilocybin, or
you know you're working withheroin, like getting the permits
from the DEA is like they'relike the red tape is a nightmare
and we have to like keep it ina safe and blah, blah, blah.
Or you know working with peopleor, in your case, animals, like
(38:36):
what was the hardest part ofdoing this study for you?
Speaker 2 (38:40):
Well, we didn't have any problems getting the heroin.
I do have a safe right next tome right now.
Actually, I think the hardestpart is maintaining the
motivation to continue the study.
It takes years and years to dothis work.
We started the study in 2019,and it was only published in
(39:00):
2024.
It started off as a very smallidea that I had when I first
started my lab in 2018.
I got a very small grant inorder to start doing some of the
gene expression analysis, butwe've been applying for funding
ever since 2020, and we stillhaven't gotten it, despite the
fact that we've published ourwork.
(39:22):
So it's been really, reallyhard to continue this project
and wondering should we give up?
Are we going to get funding?
I think maintaining thatmotivation is really challenging
.
We've had a couple of differentpeople come through the lab that
have worked on this project thelead author, gabriel Flores.
He's now a research assistantprofessor at Yale.
(39:44):
He worked on this project for along time, but there were a
number of other people within mylab that helped him, and people
that oftentimes work in labs,either graduate students or
postdocs.
It's a transition period forthem.
They're getting training andthen they're moving on to the
next step of their career, so itcan be transitional and it
(40:04):
really takes so much effort toput everything together and get
it published and I think havingthat waiting period of going
through the steps forpublication and getting funding
is really the hardest part.
Speaker 1 (40:18):
Yeah, and it's getting harder and harder now
that we're stripping a lot offederal funding from.
Speaker 2 (40:25):
Right.
The uncertainty of not knowingwhat will happen is just
excruciating.
Speaker 1 (40:30):
Yeah, I have a my best friend works in restoration
and biodiversity conservationand things like that.
And, yeah, getting federalgrants and funding has just
gotten a ton harder as of recentbecause these huge grant pools
have just been stripped almostovernight.
(40:52):
So, yeah, it's gotten a littletricky navigating.
It's always been tricky, butespecially as of recent, it's
gotten a little trickynavigating.
It's always been tricky, butespecially as of recent, it's
gotten a little harder,depending on what field you're
in, to get certain grants orcertain funding, which is
unfortunate.
There's a lot of great researchand projects that I think
(41:14):
should be really easy to getfunded right.
But yeah, it's alsocountry-based as well.
I think, you know, certaincountries are just really into
funding certain things.
Um, I am curious like, if youknow, say, portugal, who
decriminalize all drugs, or ifcertain countries are easier to
(41:36):
get funding for drug abusethings.
It seems like, maybe foropioids.
It seems like the US reigns,unfortunately, supreme for the
opioid epidemic.
Speaker 2 (41:49):
Right, and we do have a lot of prescriptions for
opioids that we give out herethat other countries are not
giving out.
So have we created the problemourselves, right?
I mean you mentioned OxyContinat the beginning.
Yeah, giving out prescriptionsfor OxyContin led to a lot of
people overdosing, and now weknow that there's TV shows and
(42:11):
dramas that are being made thatare talking about what happened
back in the early 2000s.
Have we created part of thisproblem ourselves?
Have you seen?
Speaker 1 (42:21):
the show Painkiller.
Speaker 2 (42:23):
I can't watch anything about that.
It's just it's really hard afterhaving lived an experience with
somebody who's suffering fromaddiction, and for so long too.
But what I wanted to emphasizeI do hope that I can get funding
to continue my lab, but I justwant to help people that have
(42:45):
addiction.
If there's people that want toquit and they can't, I just want
to be able to help people gothrough that journey.
There's people that don't wantto quit and you really have to
be in a position where you'remotivated to don't want to quit
and you really have to be in aposition where you're motivated
to.
Here in Philadelphia, we havethe Kensington neighborhood,
where there's open-air drugmarkets, and the rate of opioid
(43:06):
overdose has been really high inthis area for a long time.
During COVID there was a bumpin opioid overdose deaths in
many parts of this country, butreally in Philadelphia it didn't
change by that much because itwas already so high, and this is
something that this communityhas faced for a long time, which
was one of the reasons why Iwanted to come here to Temple.
(43:28):
So I'm hoping that in thefuture, even if the funding
situation is not very good, thatI can at least do something to
help people who are sufferingfrom addiction.
Speaker 1 (43:41):
Well, on the complete opposite side, what has been
the most rewarding aspect ofdoing this research and was it
the day you published?
Was it something during theprocess that, yeah, just felt
like a huge relief?
Or what was your biggestaccomplishment?
(44:03):
Or it could be an everydaything, it could be just getting
up in the morning.
Yeah, something you likedthroughout the whole process.
Speaker 2 (44:14):
I do really like the team of people that I work with.
I've been very fortunate towork with people that are very
dedicated to their research andbeing able to see a project from
the beginning where we startwith absolutely nothing, just
some ideas, and able to see allthe way through to the end, that
now we have this published bodyof work, we have protocols that
(44:36):
we can implement and work withother people on, and being able
to try to understand some of themechanisms that we can't study
in humans.
That's always been my goal isto try to have the human data
inform what we do in our lab.
So we know that psilocybin isalready in clinical trials, but
we don't really know how it'sworking in the brain.
(44:57):
Being able to give some insightinto what might be happening is
really the most rewarding.
Speaker 1 (45:05):
So what future research would you like to do?
Say you got all the grants inthe world, you had a billionaire
.
A group of billionaires werelike we'll give you a blank
check, whatever you want to do,and you had all the team
resources available to you.
(45:25):
What would you like to do?
And or vice versa, if it's notyou, what would you like to see
done in the field?
Speaker 2 (45:33):
Wow, there's a lot of ideas.
As a professor, I think weprobably have many, many ideas
for grant applications anddifferent things that we would
like to pursue if we could.
One thing that I would reallylike to pivot into is clinical
research, and I've started doingsome of that with the team here
(45:56):
at Temple.
We have some amazing doctors inthe emergency department and
pediatrics who are working withpatients that have either been
exposed to opioids in utero orare coming into the hospital
with opioid use disorder, andthey treat them on an everyday
basis.
So being able to work with someof those patient samples
whether it's peripheral bloodsamples or tissue samples and
(46:19):
trying to understand differentmechanisms that are changing as
they go through their road torecovery or associated with
their treatment outcomes that isa primary goal that I have.
Work in our animal models intohumans, because, like I had
mentioned before, how we'redoing our relapse tests and
(46:42):
modeling abstinence isn't reallythe same as what patients are
going through.
So I want to be able to doresearch that's as close to the
human condition as I possiblycan, and then a really big goal
if I had all the money in theworld, I would really like to do
some intervention work withchildren that are exposed to
(47:02):
drugs in their household at avery young age, maybe from
communities that don't have thebest education system or the
best resources, to try to helpthose children to have a
different outcome long term,because I do think that a lot of
our societal problems startwith children and if we can
(47:24):
change the path, the trajectorythat they're on, that we can
help them to be able to have abetter future.
Speaker 1 (47:32):
So where can people follow your work?
I don't know if you primarilyuse ResearchGate or Twitter or
have a website or whatever, orif you're going to release a
paper in the future.
Where can people see thatsubstance abuse?
Speaker 2 (48:01):
research.
I don't have social media.
I don't really like to bragabout the work that we do.
I'm very proud of the peoplethat do the work in my lab, but
I try to be more humble.
We do use PubMed, which is agovernment-funded website that
has publications, and all of ourpublications are on there and
they're free to the public.
So if you click on my website,then you're able to get a link
(48:25):
to all of my publications onPubMed, and that's probably the
best source to go throughBeautiful Well.
Speaker 1 (48:32):
Thanks, stephanie, and thanks for your work.
I think this has huge potentialand, as the opioid epidemic is
increasing unfortunately, Iwould love to see these natural
solutions be implemented andpeople to have access to the
help that they need, and alsokids, you know, and family
(48:54):
members everyone affectedgetting some support.
That, I think, is crucial.
So, thank you.
Speaker 2 (49:00):
I agree.
Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (49:03):
And thank you for everyone tuning in and trimming
in wherever you are in the world, if you like this episode and
you want to support the show.
We don't have a Patreon or anyway that you can directly donate
, but we do have a mother brandmushroom revival and we have a
whole line of organic,functional mushroom products,
(49:23):
from capsules, gummies, powders,tinctures and we have a special
coupon code just for listenersof the podcast this pod treat
for a surprise discount.
We, we change it, so, uh, whoknows what you're gonna to get?
And if you don't want to spendany money, that's totally fine.
We have a giveaway going onwhere you pick a winner once a
(49:45):
month and you get a box ofmushroom goodies.
And we also have a bunch of freeresources on our website from
e-books that you can downloadfor free and a ton of
educational blog posts withrecipes and educational content,
and my newest book, the LittleBook of Mushrooms, is on there
(50:06):
as well.
And also, you know, if youlearned something cool during
this episode or even anotherepisode, spread the word, you
know, tell your friends andfamily and just let people know
about how cool mushrooms are andthe benefits of psilocybin, etc
.
Tell a random person at thegrocery store, whatever keep the
(50:29):
mycelium spreading.
So with that, thank youeveryone.
Much love and may the spores bewith you.
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