Research
PT416 – A New Chapter for Johns Hopkins Psychedelic & Consciousness Research
June 20, 2023
Featuring: Frederick Barrett, Ph.D.
In this episode, David interviews Frederick Barrett, Ph.D.: cognitive neuroscientist, Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and now, Director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Psychedelic & Consciousness Research.
In this episode, David interviews Frederick Barrett, Ph.D.: cognitive neuroscientist, Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and now, Director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Psychedelic & Consciousness Research.
With today’s news, Barrett officially takes over for the legendary Roland Griffiths, who has been in the role since the Center’s launch in 2019, and who will continue on as a member of the leadership team while dealing with the Stage 4 cancer diagnosis he has been remarkably candid about in recent interviews.
Dr. Barrett has been conducting research at Johns Hopkins for a decade, authoring or co-authoring some of the first studies on psilocybin’s enduring effects, and receiving the first federally funded human psychedelic research grant from the NIH since the 70s. He discusses the work and importance of Roland Griffiths; the history of the Center and current research he’s most excited about; the mystery of consciousness; and the power and sacredness of music: how we all use music to regulate our emotions, and how he wants to explore the brain mechanisms behind that connection.
Notable Quotes
“I came here in 2013, kind of starry-eyed and still a little green behind the ears, and I thought music is a great tool to study the mind, but psychedelic drugs must be such a more powerful tool to study the mind and the brain, and essentially that’s what’s driven me since. I see psychedelics, music, brain imaging, cognitive testing, qualitative interviews, questionnaires: all these things are all different types of tools in the kitchen of trying to study the mind. And that’s what motivates me; is really just trying to use whatever tools we have access to to understand this complex experience that we have as humans.”
“Roland has been one of the most influential and important mentors of my life, and he has mentored each of the faculty within the Psychedelic Research Center. …But his impact on the psychedelic world, I think, can’t be understated. He’s just a remarkable man. He is so precise and careful and piercing with his thinking, but yet so clear in being able to articulate complex ideas and really the most interesting and important nuggets of a finding. …I think that’s one of the reasons that he’s been a leading figure in psychedelic research, and I think those are some of the reasons that he was able to pull this off to begin with.”
“If you think of all of the variables that you can try to push around to manipulate set and setting, it’s not just a couple dials; it’s like a church organ. It’s like a concert organ, and I think that music is one of the biggest keys that we can press on, so I’m going to start pressing on it.”
Links
Johns Hopkins Center for Psychedelic & Consciousness Research
Johns Hopkins Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Researcher Names New Director
Hopkinspsychedelic.org: Frederick S. Barrett, Ph.D.
Hopkinsmedicine.org: ‘Magic Mushrooms’ Help Longtime Smokers Quit
Hopkinspsychedelic.org: Albert Garcia-Romeu, Ph.D.
Hopkinspsychedelic.org: Sandeep Nayak, MD
Hopkinspsychedelic.org: David Yaden, Ph.D.
Researchgate.net: Psychedelics and music: neuroscience and
therapeutic implications
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