Conor Murray

Nice modern history and overview of the science of consciousness: scientificamerican.com/article/what-i…

Congrats Indiana! Go Hoosiers!

@Josh__Hardman McKenna died from brain cancer…

🐁 Very concerning finding: Psilocybin promotes brain tumour growth Authors caution against use of 5-HT2A agonists like psilocybin in patients with glioma, "given the profound and sustained tumor growth-promoting effects observed." Extends to other serotonergic drugs like LSD.

@RCarhartHarris @singletonion Nice! Insight may be halfway to operationalize/distinguish psychedelic effect. Final step to contextualize/disentangle the visions from hallucinogenic effect ie, to operationalize what counts as bona fide observation into the nature of mind beyond mere features of drug.

A new pre-print from my lab + colleagues. Defining ‘psychedelic’ osf.io/preprints/psya… via @OsfFramework

@PaulAustin3w I wonder if these are more than just developmental windows. We see roughly the opposite neural mechanisms in models of rigid-type psychiatric disorders, where plasticity is compromised. So, what does this super-plastic state really mean for the mind? A broadened aperture of mind?

Psychedelics don’t just dissolve the ego... They actually reboot the brain, opening critical learning periods — rare developmental windows — when we learn how to bond, trust, and adapt. The experience ends, but the window stays open long enough to rewrite your entire OS. 🧵

Check out the latest DPN Deep Dive! This episode covers a recent study by @conormurray, Kaihan Danesh, & @zivacooper using mobile EEG devices to track putative biomarkers of cognitive and emotional wellbeing in people who use cannabis. youtu.be/IFfxen0LTaU?si…

New cannabis paper: we focused on key age groups to track recent trends in cannabis use and reviewed health effects on brain and behavior across the lifespan — is the public becoming more health conscious about cannabis use? liebertpub.com/doi/10.1177/25…

@canna_brain @hubermanlab @billmaher Yes! Organ-specific risks of exposures: the sun may be “worse” than alcohol, cannabis, or tobacco in terms of skin. The brain? Let’s do more research.

I consider it a sci comm win when something @hubermanlab and I discussed on his show gets disseminated on @billmaher. The biggest health risk with cannabis is psychosis and the best predictor of that is a family history of schizophrenia. If that’s in your genes, best to avoid.

@ExistWell The founder is also an unknown #Wundt

Historical psychologists: - Almost everyone has heard of Freud - Many have heard of Jung - But relatively few know about William James I wish that were reversed. WJ's thought provides a far better foundation for the science of the mind going forward! WJ's life was fascinating:

@ManojDoss Hang with @s_baglot when you go!

Hollaaaaaaa

@RubenLaukkonen Nice quote and nod to Hofstadter, I’ll be sure to cite this latest ToC

there’s a common thread between consciousness, agi, meaning, and mindfulness… and it’s beautiful

New paper! @UCLACannabis Using mobile EEG, we looked at markers of brain health in 140 individuals who use cannabis. Findings point to an “arrested development” of prefrontal function in young men, translating preclinical work by Kuei Tseng. nature.com/articles/s4427…

@juansergiopdl @andrewhopper What is it like to be a chatbot?

@andrewhopper Interesting "tests", except doing is not necessarily being...

The 'Godfather of AI' claims current models already show signs of consciousness. Controversial statement. So I designed specific tests to probe whether AI responses show genuine understanding or just pattern matching. What I found kept me up at night... A Thread🧵

4.Future laboratory studies should standardize settings across conditions, screen for expectancies, etc., to further test whether/which consciousness-modifying techniques are empirical tools for the science of consciousness.

3.ASC that are perceived as containing “authentic” observations/insights are also perceived as being more positive. Illusion/delusion/hallucination = negative experience, generally.

Breaking down our analysis of altered states of consciousness (ASC) and effort to empirically test “mind-manifesting” effects…🧵 akjournals.com/view/journals/…

@psybalazs Important finding! FYI the New Scientist article reads “daily” when I was referring to addressing acute effects - better if this read “as needed”

🔥💊🔥First RCT of #psychedelic #microdosing for #ADHD just dropped today, trial by Matthias Liechti and the Basel team. 💊🔥💊 - 6-week, multicenter, double-blind, placebo-controlled, parallel-group design with 53 subjects randomized. - Participants received either LSD (20μg) or placebo twice weekly for 6 weeks (total of 12 doses); note this 20 μg is very much on the higher end of MDing - Improvement on the Adult Investigator Symptom Rating Scale (= AISRS, the primary ADHD measure of the trial) was −7.1 / −8.9 in the LSD MD / placebo groups. Yes, patients improved more in the placebo group! - The difference between groups was not significant on either AISRS or in any domains of the self rated Conners’ Adult ADHD Rating Scale, i.e. LSD MD did not improve ADHD symptoms more than placebo on any ADHD related outcomes 💔 - Please no snarky comments about a failed MD trial: "Both groups presented significant improvements in the change from baseline over time across all outcome measures". Therefore, LSD MD significantly improved ADHD symptoms from baseline to endpoint, i.e. patients improved significantly. It is just that the magnitude of the improvements did not exceed the placebo effect, see my write-up on this nuance here: tinyurl.com/cj56bpb3 - Blinding was surprisingly good for such high MD dose with a correct guess rate of 63%. As usual, most of the unblinding happened in the active group (21/22 for the LSD group and 8/24 for the placebo group). - 124 / 64 adverse events in the LSD MD / placebo groups. No serious AEs in either group. The 5 most common treatment-related AEs were the usual: headache, nausea, fatigue, insomnia, and visual alterations. - 2 patients in the LSD MD group dropped out due to "uncomfortably strong acute effects or effects that impaired daily activities". I think this is notable, because it shows that even a 20μg dose is not compatible with daily activities for many. Thus, increasing the microdose dose (e.g. to 30μg) to see a between-treatment difference may not be a great idea as it kills the whole point of MDing that you can do it without impairing daily activities. New Scientist article: tinyurl.com/2sydhd7h Full paper: tinyurl.com/59dxsk3s

@iifoundanna I’d like to see more discussions on how to operationalize and measure, reproduce and validate, those effects Aldous Huxley described to Humphry Osmond in 1956

@conormurray Love that you're bringing conversations about psychedelics into college classrooms. What do you think is the #1 thing people in the space should be discussing right now?

I’ve really enjoyed lecturing at UCLA, from the risks of cannabis use to the potential for “psychedelics” in psychiatry. 🧠 Last week, a lecture in the law school. Next month, a sociology seminar titled Psychedelic Science: The Discovery of Mind Manifestation to Western Society