Dr. Gül Dölen on Rethinking Psychedelics, New Applications (Autism, Stroke, and Allergies), The Neurobiology of Beginner’s Mind, Octopuses on MDMA, and The Master Key of Metaplasticity (#667)

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“Psychedelics have this property, which William James pointed out over 100 years ago, of creating this sense of what he called the noetic property, this feeling that ‘Now that I’ve had this experience, I know the really real. The true truth has been revealed to me, and everything before this moment was just a facade or some lesser truth or some limited access to the truth. But now I really know.’ For a scientist, that’s pretty dangerous.”
— Dr. Gül Dölen



Dr. Gül Dölen  is an associate professor of neuroscience at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and a pioneer and world leader of psychedelics research. Her  laboratory  has discovered a novel mechanism that could account for the broad range of therapeutic applications that psychedelics are currently being tested for. Her lab has discovered a novel critical period for social reward learning and shown that this critical period can be reopened with psychedelic drugs, such as MDMA, LSD, psilocybin, ketamine, and ibogaine. Building on this discovery, she has formulated the hypothesis that psychedelics may be the long sought “master key” for unlocking critical periods across the brain. To test this hypothesis, she has initiated a nationwide, collaborative effort to determine whether psychedelics reopen critical periods for ocular dominance plasticity, bird song learning, anatomical plasticity in the barrel cortex, serotonergic neuronal regeneration, dendritic spinogenesis, and motor learning.



Importantly, understanding psychedelics through this framework dramatically expands the scope of disorders (including autism, stroke, and allergies) that might benefit from adjunct therapy with psychedelics, an approach she has dubbed  the  PHATHOM  project  (Psychedelic Healing: Adjunct Therapy Harnessing Opened Malleability). 



Dr. Dölen earned her MD, PhD at Brown University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where she carried out seminal work on critical periods, learning and memory, and the pathogenesis of autism. 



Please enjoy!



Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , Overcast , Podcast Addict , Pocket Casts , Castbox , Google Podcasts , Stitcher , Amazon Music ,  or on your favorite podcast platform . Watch the interview on YouTube here .



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#667: Dr. Gül Dölen on Rethinking Psychedelics, New Applications (Autism, Stroke, and Allergies), The Neurobiology of Beginner’s Mind, Octopuses on MDMA, and The Master Key of Metaplasticity













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Want to hear an episode with someone else who’s pushing us toward a greater understanding of how psychedelics can be used to heal us? Listen to my conversation with Dr. Suresh Muthukumaraswamy , in which we discussed how ketamine differs from other psychedelics, obstacles to getting ketamine labeled as an antidepressant, the difficulty of applying placebo controls to psychedelic research, avoiding another 50 years of psychedelic research darkness, where aspiring psychedelic researchers should focus their education, and much more .


#619: Dr. Suresh Muthukumaraswamy — LSD Microdosing, Classical Psychedelics vs. Ketamine, Science and Speed in New Zealand, Placebo Options, and The Infinite Possibilities of Studying Mind-Altering Compounds



What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments .



SCROLL BELOW FOR LINKS AND SHOW NOTES…







SELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODE




dölenLAB



PHATHOM project



Gul Dolen on Philosophy, Neuroscience, and the Study of Autism | Hopkins Medicine



What Is Theory of Mind in Psychology? | ThoughtCo.



Philosophy of Mind | Wikipedia



‘Theory of Mind’ in Autism: A Research Field Reborn | Spectrum Autism Research News



Psychopaths Can Empathize, but the Process Isn’t Automatic | Big Think



Octopus Shows Unique Hunting, Social, and Sexual Behavior | Berkeley News



What Is Fragile X Syndrome? | The National Fragile X Foundation



Biochemical Breakthrough: Fragile X Syndrome | CSHL DNA Learning Center



DSM-5: What It Is and What It Diagnoses | Cleveland Clinic



Motor Stereotypies | Johns Hopkins Medicine



What Is Autism Spectrum Disorder? | APA



FMR1 | Wikipedia



Facts about Down Syndrome | CDC



What is Schizophrenia? | APA



Konrad Lorenz’s Imprinting Theory | Simply Psychology



Critical Period In Brain Development and Childhood Learning | Simply Psychology



5 Questions for Gul Dolen | The Microdose



What the Research Says About Immersion | CARLA



Psychedelic Drug MDMA May Reawaken ‘Critical Period’ in Brain to Help Treat PTSD | Hopkins Medicine



Psychedelics 101: Books, Documentaries, Podcasts, Science, and More | Tim Ferriss



Rolling under the Sea: Scientists Gave Octopuses Ecstasy to Study Social Behavior | Scientific American



Introduction to fMRI | Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences



Patch Clamp Electrophysiology | Molecular Devices



Critical Period Plasticity as a Framework for Psychedelic-Assisted Psychotherapy | Frontiers in Neuroscience



Metaplasticity | Scholarpedia



NMDA Receptor | Wikipedia



AMPA Receptor | Wikipedia



Ketamine and Phencyclidine (PCP): Special Subjects | Merck Manuals Professional Edition



Contribution of NR2A and NR2B NMDA Subunits to Bidirectional Synaptic Plasticity in the Hippocampus in Vivo | Hippocampus



Metabotropic Glutamate Receptor (mGluR) | Wikipedia



Weil Says LSD Cured His Allergy | CBS News



Serotonin Antagonist and Reuptake Inhibitor | Wikipedia



Serotonin Antagonist: An Overview | ScienceDirect Topics



Extracellular Matrix Regulation in Physiology and in Brain Disease | International Journal of Molecular Sciences



The Kappa Opioid Receptor: A Promising Therapeutic Target for Multiple Pathologies | Frontiers in Pharmacology



Salvinorin A | Wikipedia



Arrestin | Wikipedia



Beta Arrestin: An Overview | ScienceDirect Topics



A Scientific First: How Psychedelics Bind to Key Brain Cell Receptor | Pharmacology



This Is LSD Attached to a Brain Cell Serotonin Receptor | Pharmacology



PiHKAL: A Chemical Love Story by Alexander Shulgin and Ann Shulgin | Amazon



TiHKAL: The Continuation by Alexander Shulgin and Ann Shulgin | Amazon



A Comparison of Serotonin and Lysergic Acid | SHODOR



Helicobacter Pylori: A Nobel Pursuit? | Canadian Journal of Gastroenterology



William James on Consciousness and the Four Features of Transcendent Experiences | The Marginalian



Stroke Center | The Johns Hopkins Hospital



Review: Advances and Challenges in Stroke Rehabilitation | The Lancet Neurology



Psychedelics for Brain Injury: A Mini-Review | Frontiers in Neurology



The Psychedelic Ibogaine Can Treat Addiction. The Race Is On to Cash In | The Guardian



Protecting Iboga and Indigenous Voices | Volteface



Hamilton Morris and Dr. Mark Plotkin — Exploring the History of Psychoactive Substances, Synthetic vs. Natural Options, Microdosing, 5-MeO-DMT, The “Drunken Monkey” Hypothesis, Timothy Leary’s Legacy, and More | The Tim Ferriss Show #605



Dr. Mark Plotkin on Ethnobotany, Real vs. Fake Shamans, Hallucinogens, and the Dalai Lamas of South America | The Tim Ferriss Show #469



Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS)



Can Video Games Help Stroke Victims? | The New Yorker



In Deep Water with Gül Dölen | Spectrum Autism Research News



Grants & Funding | National Institutes of Health (NIH)



How to Land an NIH Grant | ENTtoday



How a 1960s Discovery in Yellowstone Made Millions of COVID-19 PCR Tests Possible | USA Today



What Could Raising Taxes on the 1% Do? Surprising Amounts | The New York Times



Higher Taxes on the Rich Won’t Suffocate Innovation | The Atlantic



How to Set Top Tax Rates without Deterring Innovation | Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research



Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)



Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men by Caroline Criado Perez | Amazon



The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity by David Graeber | Amazon



Bullshit Jobs: A Theory by David Graeber | Amazon



The Immortality Key: The Secret History of the Religion with No Name by Brian Muraresku | Amazon



Midas Touch | Dogfish Head Craft Brewed Ales



Ephesus | UNESCO World Heritage Centre




SHOW NOTES




[06:25] How Gül designed her own major as an undergrad.



[09:03] Philosophy of mind and theory of mind.



[13:33] What theory of mind in non-human species suggests.



[16:45] The origin of Gül’s interest in autism.



[21:37] Autism facts vs. fiction.



[28:31] Critical periods.



[37:59] How critical periods apply to therapies for autism.



[43:37]  Why  might psychedelics allow us to reopen shut critical periods?



[49:25] MDMA and the octopus.



[52:40] Challenging popular notions about psychedelic research.



[54:52] Plasticity.



[1:00:26] Favorite neurotransmitter receptors.



[1:06:03] Can psychedelics cure allergies?



[1:14:00] Seeking a common pathway for the therapeutic effects of psychedelics.



[1:15:54] Potential applications for kappa-opioid agonists.



[1:17:02] Beta-arrestin developments.



[1:20:40] On Sasha Shulgin.



[1:26:19] Strokes.



[1:29:56] Cross-cultural considerations.



[1:33:26] What do these therapies look like 10 years from now?



[1:36:52] Gauging minimum effective dose.



[1:42:58] The funding frustrations that almost made Gül give up science.



[1:48:44] Taking risks.



[1:52:59] What would Gül change about the way research is funded today?



[1:55:57] Books most gifted.



[1:59:10] Parting thoughts.




MORE DR. GÜL DÖLEN QUOTES FROM THE INTERVIEW



“I worked with my professors in philosophy in neuroscience primarily to come up with a curriculum that would span all of the different elements that I wanted to incorporate in trying to ask the question, ‘What is the mind? What is consciousness? How do we know that from different perspectives?’ And so the major was called Comparative Perspectives on the Mind, and it was a combination of neuroscience, philosophy, linguistics, art, and religion.”



— Dr. Gül Dölen



“The first day I saw the photograph of the molecule of LSD sitting right next to the molecule of serotonin and the similarities between them, I was like, ‘This is it. This is how we’re going to crack it. This is how we’re going to get at those hard questions of neuroscience because here are chemicals that can alter our entire sense of reality, consciousness, perception, time, self, space, everything.’ And I am not alone. I think most neuroscientists who have tried psychedelics would have exactly the same response.”



— Dr. Gül Dölen



“Psychedelics have this property, which William James pointed out over 100 years ago, of creating this sense of what he called the noetic property, this feeling that ‘Now that I’ve had this experience, I know the really real. The true truth has been revealed to me and everything before this moment was just a facade or some lesser truth or some limited access to the truth. But now I really know.’ For a scientist, that’s pretty dangerous.”



— Dr. Gül Dölen



“I think there was an intuition a few years ago that, well, indigenous people have been using psychedelics forever. We don’t really need to understand their mechanisms, we don’t really need to dig into how it is these things work because we know they’re going to work because they’ve got this long history behind them. But I think that if this ends up being true—that this mechanistic explanation can really open up whole new avenues that people hadn’t been thinking of before—then I think that that’s a testament to the importance of always keep an open mind, always look for more answers, more questions, and keep searching.”



— Dr. Gül Dölen



“If we’re right and the critical period reopening explanation is this shift in the framework for how we understand these therapeutic effects, then in 10 years from now, the way that psychedelics are going to be used is going to be trying to identify that right context for the right disease. So while an inter-directed trip with a lot of psychotherapy makes a lot of sense for PTSD and addiction and depression, it’s probably the wrong context for stroke.”



— Dr. Gül Dölen



“I don’t think I’m unique for wanting to just see what happens when you give octopuses MDMA. In fact, I think the reason that everybody responded to that paper so well worldwide is because every single one of us has that curiosity, has that, ‘I wonder what would happen?’ It resonated with people, and I just think it mostly gets beaten out of us because of funding constraints.”



— Dr. Gül Dölen



PEOPLE MENTIONED




Roy L. Caldwell



Mark Bear



Cliff Abraham



Konrad Lorenz



Andrew Weil



Solomon H. Snyder



Bryan Roth



Alexander Shulgin



Barry Marshall



Robin Warren



William James



David Koresh



Steven Zeiler



John Krakauer



Thomas D. Brock



Caroline Criado Perez



David Graeber



Brian C. Muraresku



Midas



Hecate

The post Dr. Gül Dölen on Rethinking Psychedelics, New Applications (Autism, Stroke, and Allergies), The Neurobiology of Beginner’s Mind, Octopuses on MDMA, and The Master Key of Metaplasticity (#667) appeared first on The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss .