Mind & Matter

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Nick talks to Stanford psychiatrist and neuroscientist Dr. Karl Deisseroth. They discuss a range of topics about the brain, including autism, depression, bipolar disorder, dissociation, and more. They also talk about optogenetics, a technique Karl co-developed which uses light to control specific neurons in the brain, allowing neuroscientists to turn circuits in the brain on and off to reveal how the brain generates perception, emotion, and behavior. They also talk about Karl's new book, "Projections: A Story of Human Emotion."

*Not medical advice.

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Nick to talks to psychology student Rob Henderson about social status, social signaling, luxury beliefs, and related topics in social psychology and human behavior.

*Not medical advice.

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Nick talks to medicinal chemist Dr. David Nichols, who has spent decades studying the chemistry and pharmacology of psychedelics. Dr. Nichols shared his knowledge of psychedelic tryptamines, including LSD and DMT, as well as phenethylamines, such as mescaline and MDMA. He also discussed his relationship with the late Dr. Alexander "Sasha" Shulgin and how his thoughts on companies trying to make non-hallucinogenic drugs derived from psychedelics.

*Not medical advice.

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Nick talks with evolutionary biologist Dr. Sarah Otto about the evolutionary dynamics of SARS-CoV-2, the emergence of new variants, whether she thinks we will need shots every year (like with the flu), mRNA vaccines, and more.

*Not medical advice.

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Nick talks to neuroscientist Dr. Aaron Gruber about topics related to cognition and learning in the brain, including what we know about how the brain detects salience and assigns value, makes decisions, and constructs flexible models of the world, sometimes called ‘schemas.’ They also discuss how neuropsychiatric disorders like depression can influence the brain’s schemas, as well as how they can be impacted by psychoactive drugs, ranging from stimulants to psychedelics.

*Not medical advice.

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Nick talks to applied physicist and neuroscientist, Dr. Alex Kwan. His lab studies how neuropsychiatric drugs, such as psilocybin and ketamine, affect neural circuits in the brain’s of mice. They discuss how his lab actually conducts this research, what they have discovered so far, and look at some real data, images and movies of neurons in the brain, which you can see for yourself in the video version on YouTube.

*Not medical advice.

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Nick talks to neuroscientist Dr. Lisa Monteggia about research on psychiatric disorders of the brain. Lisa described how psychiatric disorders like depression manifest in the brain, how traditional anti-depressant drugs like SSRIs work in the brain, and her research on how the drug ketamine can have rapid depressant effects in treatment-resistant patients.

*Not medical advice.

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Nick talks to chemist Dr. Lee Cronin about life: how it originated on Earth, how we might detect signs of alien life in the universe, whether it can be created in the lab, and related topics. Lee talked about his work on "assembly theory," which provides a framework for thinking about these questions and providing an unbiased way to detect signatures of life in the universe. They also discussed how some of these ideas might relate to evolution, selection, consciousness, and time. 

*Not medical advice.

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Harvard-MIT geneticist George Church, PhD talks about advances in genome sequencing and editing technologies, interesting biotech startups using CRISPR genome editing to tackle human disease, and interesting areas in synthetic biology. Dr. Church also discussed how he has coped with both narcolepsy and dyslexia throughout his life, and became a successful scientist despite have these brain disorders. 

*This content is never meant to serve as medical advice.

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Nick talks to Dr. Berra Yazar-Klosinski, the Chief Science Officer for the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies  (MAPS). Berra talked about the results of MAPS' recent Phase III clinical trials for treating severe PTSD, how these studies are conducted, and what we know about the underlying biology of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and the drug MDMA.  

*Not medical advice.

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• Good Chemistry: Personalized, science-based health consulting. Work with Dr. Nick Jikomes directly.
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