Encore Episode: How Psychedelics Affect the Brain with Manesh Girn, PhD

About this episode

Dr. Manesh Girn discusses his research on how psychedelics affect the brain from a complexity science perspective.

In this encore episode of the Psychedelic Medicine Podcast, psychedelic science researcher and educator Dr. Manesh Girn discusses his studies investigating psychedelic brain action. Manesh earned PhD in neuroscience at McGill University and is an author on over a dozen peer-reviewed articles on psychedelics and related topics. He is also chief research officer at EntheoTech Bioscience and runs the YouTube channel the Psychedelic Scientist. In this conversation, Manesh discusses his recent article in Trends in Cognitive Sciences titled "A complex systems perspective on psychedelic brain action." He explains the complexity science approach used in the article, which emphasizes the brain is a holistic, interconnected system, rather than individual component networks that can be isolated. From this standpoint, Manesh critiques some simplistic explanations of the neural mechanisms of psychedelics which focus exclusively on interactions with the default mode network isolated from other brain systems. He also explains how individual some of the neural effects of psychedelics are, citing different findings from different studies and observed variations between brain scans of different…

People in this episode

Host: Lynn Marie Morski

Guest: Manesh Girn

Topics covered

• psychedelics
• brain action
• neuroscience
• complex systems
• individual differences
• psychedelic therapy

Keywords

• psychedelics
• brain
• neuroscience
• complex systems
• individual differences
• therapy

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: EntheoTech Bioscience, Trends in Cognitive Sciences, the Psychedelic Scientist

Places: McGill University

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