MGH Center for the Neuroscience of Psychedelics

Dick is proud to serve as Advisory Council Chair for the Center for the Neuroscience of Psychedelics at Massachusetts General Hospital.  For more information, visit the center’s website, read this Boston Globe article, and view the videos below.

Psychedelics and Mental Health: Harnessing the Potential for Change to End Suffering

Leaders of the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) Center for the Neuroscience of Psychedelics discuss the potential of psychedelics to enhance the brain’s capacity for change and ultimately, transform the care of individuals who suffer from psychiatric illness.

 

Psychedelics and Mental Health: Neuroimaging the Mind Brain Connection

The Center for the Neuroscience of Psychedelics presents the Director of the Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging at Massachusetts General Hospital and members of his lab, for a deep dive into the power of neuroimaging. Together they describe how cutting-edge tools like PET imaging, Hyperscanning and fMRI will help us understand the ways that psychedelic compounds facilitate lasting changes in mental health and well-being, and how that knowledge will be translated into new therapies and alleviate human suffering.

 

Psychedelics and Mental Health: Discovering the Therapeutic Potential of Psychoactive Plants

Join Dr. Steve Haggarty, Scientific Director of Neurobiology at the Center for the Neuroscience of Psychedelics for a deep dive into the botanical richness and medicinal power of the Amazon Rainforest and beyond. In this webinar, Dr. Haggarty describes the planned research of a library of approximately 100 psychoactive plants and fungi, curated by the late Dr. Richard Evans Schultes, Harvard Professor and a founding father of the field of ethnobotany. Dr. Haggarty demonstrates how the knowledge from this research will have the potential to give rise to new therapeutic psychedelics and how patient-derived and other cellular models can be used innovatively for the discovery of precision medicines targeting neuroplasticity.

 

Psychedelics and Mental Health: Neuroscience of the Self, Other and Human Connection

Please join Dr. Sharmin Ghaznavi, Associate Director and Director of Cognitive Neuroscience for the Center for the Neuroscience of Psychedelics for a unique look into how psychedelics might be used to facilitate positive, lasting changes in the brain that improve how we understand ourselves and relate to others. Individuals with mood and anxiety disorders tend to see themselves and others in a negative light, resulting in loneliness and poor relationships. By incorporating and leveraging knowledge about which brain regions are implicated in self and other related processing and how psychedelics facilitate neuroplasticity in these regions, there is immense potential to transform care and reduce, or even, eradicate suffering.