TrueLife - Iris Madrona PhD - The Synaptic Symphony of the Singing Brain

Episode Date: July 3, 2024

One on One Video Call W/George https://tidycal.com/georgepmonty/60-minute-meetingSupport the show:https://www.paypal.me/Truelifepodcast?locale.x=en_US🚨🚨Curious about the future of psychedelics? Imagine if Alan Watts started a secret society with Ram Dass and Hunter S. Thompson… now open the door. Use Promocode TRUELIFE for Get 25% off monthly or 30% off the annual plan For the first yearhttps://www.district216.com/Aloha and welcome, dear listeners, to another illuminating episode of TrueLife Media, where we explore the fascinating intersections of community, consciousness, and the ever-evolving frontiers of human potential. Today, we are privileged to be joined by a true pioneer in the realms of neuroscience and biotechnology, whose work bridges the scientific and the spiritual in profound and transformative ways.Our esteemed guest, Dr. Iris Madrona, is a distinguished neuroscientist and the visionary CEO of an innovative early-stage biotech firm. With a Ph.D. in Neuroscience from Dartmouth College, Dr. Madrona has made groundbreaking contributions in genetic engineering and regenerative medicine, evidenced by their impressive portfolio of provisional patents. As the founder and director of the Interdisciplinary Research Institute at Shasta, Dr. Madrona is dedicated to leveraging neuroscience to tackle real-world challenges, spearheading research initiatives that advance wellness solutions through the intersection of neuroscience, mental health, and molecular biology.Dr. Madrona’s research is as diverse as it is impactful, spanning the psychological and biological implications of music, the computational modeling of affective states, and the exploration of emotion, self, and psychometrics. Their interdisciplinary approach has significantly influenced early childhood program assessments and our understanding of emotional dynamics in the brain.Today, we delve into one of Dr. Madrona’s most intriguing projects: the neurogenesis of vocalization circuits in songbirds, inspired by the neurogenerative properties of psychedelic compounds like ayahuasca. This project not only seeks to enhance our understanding of neural plasticity and neurogenesis but also holds the potential to revolutionize therapeutic approaches for vocal and cognitive rehabilitation.Dr. Madrona’s work is a beautiful synthesis of science and spirituality, art and nature. Their dedication to integrating these realms is evident in their innovative study designs and their profound connection to the natural world. Inspired by personal experiences and a deep-seated belief in the healing power of music and psychedelics, Dr. Madrona’s research offers new hope for those suffering from neurological damage and chronic disease.As we journey through this conversation, prepare to be inspired by Dr. Madrona’s insights into the neurogenesis of song circuits, the ethical considerations of neural manipulation, and the future of psychedelic research. Their passion for pushing the boundaries of what we know about the brain and consciousness promises to leave us with much to ponder and reflect upon.Please join me in warmly welcoming the brilliant and innovative Dr. Iris Madrona.https://docs.google.com/document/d/12rB9J3ixrE-flDO0iJC4G_8tH2pUJCLASE8uGqdoJpA/edit?usp=sharingYou can find more of my work on my Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/irismadronaphd One on One Video call W/George https://tidycal.com/georgepmonty/60-minute-meetingSupport the show:https://www.paypal.me/Truelifepodcast?locale.x=en_USCheck out our YouTube:https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPzfOaFtA1hF8UhnuvOQnTgKcIYPI9Ni9&si=Jgg9ATGwzhzdmjkg

Darkness struck, a gut-punched theft, Sun ripped away, her health bereft. I roar at the void. This ain't just fate, a cosmic scam I spit my hate. The games rigged tight, shadows deal, blood on their hands, I'll never kneel. Yet in the rage, a crack ignites, occulted sparks cut through the nights. The scars my key, hermetic and stark. To see, to rise, I hunt in the dark. fumbling, furious through ruins

maze, lights my war cry born from the blaze. The poem is Angels with Rifles. The track, I Am Sorrow, I Am Lust by Codex Serafini. Check out the entire song at the end of the cast. Okay, cool. That will work. So we're on there?

Yep, okay. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the True Life podcast. I hope everybody's having a beautiful day. I hope that the birds are singing and the sun is shining and the wind is at your back. I have a long anticipated guest on the podcast. There's been a lot of buzz about this. And I have with me today, ladies and gentlemen, dear listeners,

another illuminating episode of the True Life Media podcast where we explore the fascinating intersection of community consciousness and the ever-evolving frontiers of human potential. Today we are privileged to be joined by a true pioneer in the realms of neuroscience and biotechnology, whose work bridges the scientific and the spiritual in profound and transformative ways. Our esteemed guest, Dr. Iris Madrona, is a distinguished neuroscientist and the visionary CEO of an innovative early-stage biotech firm. With a PhD in neuroscience from Dartmouth College, Dr. Madrona has made groundbreaking contributions in genetic engineering, regenerative of medicine, evidenced by their impressive portfolio of provisional patents.

As the founder and director of the Interdiscoplinary Research Institute at Shasta, Dr. Madrona is dedicated to leveraging neuroscience to tackle real-world challenges, spearheading research initiatives that advance wellness solutions through the intersection of neuroscience, mental health, and molecular biology. Dr. Iris' research is as diverse as it is impactful, spanning the psychological and biological implications of music, the computational modeling of effective states, and the exploration of emotion, self, and psychometrics.

Their interdiscoplinary approach has significantly influenced early childhood program assessments and our understanding of emotional dynamics in the brain. Today we delve into one of Dr. Iris' most intriguing projects, the neurogenesis of vocalization circuits and songbirds, inspired by the neurogenitorive properties of psychedelic compounds like ayahuasca. This project not only seeks to enhance our understanding of neuroplasticity and neurogenesis, but also holds the potential to revolutionize therapeutic approaches for vocal and cognitive rehabilitation. Dr. Madonna's work is a beautiful synthesis of science and spirituality, art and nature.

Their dedication to integrating these realms is evident in their innovative study designs and their profound connection to the natural world. Inspired by personal experiences and a deep-seated belief in the healing power of music and psychedelics, Dr. Madonna's research offers new hope for those suffering from neurological damage and chronic disease. As we journey through this conversation, prepare to be inspired by the insights into the neurogenesis

of song circuits, the ethical considerations of neural manipulation, and the future of psychedelic research. Dr. Iris, thank you for being here today. How are you? Thank you. Thank you. I'm doing well. Thank you so much for having me. The pleasure is all mine, and I'm excited for this. I've fleshed out a little bit of a background right there, but you are doing some interesting work, and it has to be based on some, some deep feelings and some deep experiences. I wonder, maybe you could share an experience

that kind of led you to be where you are today. Yeah, I mean, so, so many experiences. It's, it's, it's, the unfolding is always beautiful and surprising and interesting. And yeah, I mean, it's hard to know where to start on the journey, but just since we're focusing on this particular study that you just described, you know, one of my experience, when I first started to study psychedelics, you know, there's obviously there's like a lot of different compounds. There's a lot to it. You know, there's synthetic, there's natural, there's all kinds of different approaches to it. And I became particularly, you know, I became particularly. interested in ayahuasca as one of the psychedelics that had a special kind of resonance with me. And I had an experience where I was watching someone give a talk about ayahuasca. And it was the first time I had really learned about it. You know, I kind of, in some ways, was a little late to the game with psychedelic science. I mean, I studied neuroscience.

I studied other things. And I became intrigued by psychedelics because of their profound impact. on affective experience and emotional experience, which is what I study. And I went to this talk and I heard somebody talking about their experience, you know, going to Peru and what this particular psychedelic had shown them and had done for them. And it was just this kind of like immediate like focus where it was like, I care so much less about all the other psychedelics now. like this one this one is like calling to me you know it felt like this kind of spiritual experience of

like being invited you know as if like the spirit of ayahuasca was like oh like let me let me collaborate with you like i i share your research questions and um i'm i'm interested in showing you some answers and and so it just was super mystical and this was before you know before i had ever you know i had I never really planned to take psychedelics myself. You know what I mean? Like that was not like in the plan. But this was kind of that initial spark that that opened this kind of threshold of diving more deeply into the effects of psychedelics. You know, not just through observational studies or experimental studies, but also, you know, in my own body and mind.

So yeah. It's so fascinating. It's like the call to adventure and the hero's journey, you know, on some level. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And at that point, you know, it's just like, you know, there was like so much that was unknown to me, you know.

I really was interested in psychedelics. And I knew, you know, I had this deep intuition that psychedelics were key to answering some of my most important research questions that, that, you know, you know, have been, you know, something I've been focusing on for years and years and years and years and I just didn't see like how it fit in. And so it just continues to unfold. You know, it's a process of discovery. It's such a great way to look at it as it continues to unfold in front of you. And were you, did you receive like, like, maybe received not the right word, but was it interesting after your use with psychedelics that you begun to see maybe the world different or maybe you saw some different solutions for the problems you're working on or there

was different insights or was there a change in your awareness that allowed you to further pursue your scientific work. Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. It totally like shifted my methods and and and you know my research like went underground for a bit. You know, it was kind of like figuring out the new method and a lot of it had had to do with just like opening. myself up to different ways of knowing and kind of getting out of the rigidness that I had been trained with and really exploring these kind of more adventurous ideas of like how can we really tap into different sources of knowledge that are out there. Because in science, you know, there's like an infinite number of experiments you could run.

Right? Like there's an, so how, you know, we know how to run experiments. We know how to collect data, but like, how do you know which experiments to run, which data to collect, which questions to ask? So it was kind of like taking a step, like almost outside of all these methods I had been trained in and how can I connect to, particularly to the plant world and this like whole realm of plant spirits and allow that, allow that inspiration. to guide my research, not even, not just in terms of the practical things like, this is what experiment you should do, but just like this is what is possible. You know, and so it's like, you know, a lot of what the insights I received were around were just like this idea that healing is possible to a level, at a level and a pace that I just hadn't thought was possible before. And then it was also just like there's these different sources of information I can tap into that I didn't have access to before that are now kind of guiding me in terms of just almost like guiding

my attention. Like, hey, look at this. Hey, look at this. And as soon as I look at it, you know, it's like, okay, like I can see something else that's possible. I love it. It's, you know, sometimes when I think of solving a problem, you know, you think of the Pythagorean theorem, like the A squared plus B squared is C squared.

Okay, I can define these variables. Yeah. But isn't that limiting in it like, okay, there's all these other variables, but we're not even going to put them in the equation because we don't know how to define them. So like when you start putting in these other variables, you're like, I think X is this. Let's put it in the equation and see what happens. Like, whoa, no one was expecting that. You know, it's the, like you said, it's the infinite possibilities that are there if we're willing to

imagine different solutions. But science sometimes carries a big stick and it's like, no, no, no, you don't go there. You felt that presence of the master with the stick like Dr. Irish, you're getting close to this. Yeah. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. And that's part of, you know, it's definitely part of my process and this like, you know, I know I'm not the only one trying to integrate science and spirituality, but like there is a huge bias in science against certain methods. And I, I even think it's part of like the exclusion of indigenous worldviews, you know, where it's just like, it's, it's not just about like including these other cultures. and like, you know, giving them scholarships and bringing them into the system.

It's like, we need to actually, like, honor their worldview as, like, on par with ours. And as, you know, and it's just not like that in the system right now. And so for me to, like, give, like, a talk at an academic institution and for me to say, even a lot of the stuff I've already said here, you know, it would just be kind of like, you know, people wouldn't necessarily. know how to process it. And so and so it's like I'm trying to figure out, you know, I know that I can't like force feed people spirituality. Like we we've we've already figured out that doesn't work, you know. But so so how to really how to really communicate, you know, communicate the insights that I've,

you know, so, you know, there was one scientist I was talking to once and and he was just kind of like, yeah, like people will do psychedelics and they'll say, oh, I discovered like the meaning of the universe or whatever, but then they come back to, you know, this realm and they can't really articulate it or describe it or do anything with it. And so he was kind of like, can you bring something back that's actually like a solid finding or, you know, something that we can actually work with in science. And so that's more, that's kind of my goal. It's not so much.

I mean, I want to be able to be honest and authentic and just be like, hey, like, I'm using these methods. You don't have to disagree with them, but I think there's a fair amount of people who would be interested in them, even in the science world. But at the end of the day, you know, what I'm really looking to do is to translate the findings based on the insights. know, so that we can start to come up with real inventions, real inventions and real data that show how something works, you know, that's kind of been inspired by these interactions

on the spiritual level. That it's really well said. It's about understanding terrain and then bringing something back for the village to, you know, help expand them. Like, and it's fascinating to me. It brings up the first question I have from my. my audience here is that, so it's on the topic of integration of science and spirituality. It says your research aims to integrate science and spirituality. Like, how do you define the role of

spirituality in scientific research, particularly in the context of studying psychedelics and neurogenesis? Yeah. I mean, I mean, to me, you know, science, as a scientist, it's fundamentally a spiritual practice. It's like, it's a way of worshiping nature. I mean, it's, like devotion to nature, you know, and the life of a scientist, like when I was a grad student, you know, it's it's kind of monastic. You know, you're basically like living close to poverty. You're, you know, you're transcribing things and like, you know, dealing with these like, you know, in the libraries and stuff. And so to me, like, you know, like that, the essence of my scientific practice is to bow to the great mystery.

You know, like, that is what it is to be a scientist. And, you know, not all scientists see it that way or would describe it that way. But I think that that's part of how that integration would work. And then, you know, when it comes specifically to psychedelics, like one reason why psychedelics is so cool is because it kind of forces scientists to look at some of these spiritual phenomena because if you want to know the effects of psych you know you want to know the effects you want to know how it works it's like we can no longer really ignore these spiritual phenomena so like you know it's just a it's just a good way of getting scientists on board with talking about

this kind of stuff, you know, because it's relevant to like a literal molecular compound that does these things to the brain. And so you can get, you know, you can kind of get in grounded in the physical realm a little bit, which, which can be helpful for people. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's so fascinating that we, you know, we talk about science and spirituality and the language that we use. around science and spirituality, but on some level, maybe it helps to see some of these compounds as like exogenous neurotransmitters. You know what I mean? Like might that change the landscape a little bit?

Oh, yes, yes, yes. And that's so interesting. I actually gave a talk not too long ago where I was, I said something very similar to that where I was like, basically these psychedelic plants are like neurons. outside our brains. Love it. And they've learned how to communicate with nervous systems. I mean, we know that plants hack into nervous systems.

That's what a flower is. A flower is meant to hack into the pollinator's brain. Be like, you know, get it to come here. You know what I mean? And it's like over the course of evolution and humans interacting with these plants, you know, particularly the entheogens, you know, the plant, the, they have had time to learn how to communicate with us on this evolutionary time scale. So I, I definitely think that, and that's such a beautiful way to view it too, because it really highlights that interconnectedness

where we're, you know, we're not just in our skulls. Right. But we can access novel neurotransmitters outside of us that know how to interact, you know, our neurons know how to use those compounds. Yeah, it's fast. It's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, uh, it's so beautiful. Yeah. I agree. And isn't it interesting that often people feel this overwhelming sense of wholeness, of completeness when they take something like that. And wouldn't you feel whole if you were plugging into the nervous system of the planet and for the first time realizing you've been starved of this spiritual nature on some level like oh this is how it's supposed I'm supposed to have divine inspiration I'm supposed I'm not supposed to be a cog and a wheel I'm

supposed to be over here being the best version of me yeah yeah yeah it's quite the revelation and it's just I think that that revelation is it's like yeah it just the intensity of it speaks to the the kind of collective disconnect from nature that we find ourselves in as society is currently. Yeah. It's mind-blowing to me. The idea of creativity and neuroplasticity, the increase, let's jump into, maybe you could give us a little bit of a sort of an abstract of this particular project that you're working on. Maybe we can get into some questions about it. Yeah, yeah. Well, one of the things that I, I noticed observing people in ayahuasca communities is just like people who consume ayahuasca

regularly will start to sing a lot. It's like the singing behavior is quite obvious in this specific population that I don't necessarily see with people who are doing MDMA or like psilocybin. And so this is one thing that I kind of honed in on as like singing. specifically seems to be a behavioral effect of ayahuasca as a plant medicine. And interestingly, this is not something that would be picked up on with the kinds of measurement tools that we use to study psychedelics. Like, none of the measurement tools we're using in the field are asking, how much more often are you singing or like anything like that?

You know what I mean? But like the singing, it's a, it's a clear. behavioral change, you know, that happens and as people work with this, this particular psychedelic. So this was, and then, of course, we know a lot about singing and the neural underpinnings of singing from studying songbirds. And so then like another thing I put together was just like, oh, like animal, all almost like basically all animal studies of psychedelics, not all, but most of most of them are in rodents. There are some in primates from like a while ago, but like the vast majority are in rodents. And rodents don't vocalize. So like you literally, like there's a study

where they gave ayahuasca to rats. You know what I mean? But like you would never see this effect from that study because people aren't like looking for the right thing. So it was just kind of this this journey with the songs and noticing how singing evolved in other people and in this larger community that it was kind of this aha moment like like this is this is something this is a real behavior this is like a this is like a measurable behavior that's that's beyond just like you know like oh let me let me like throw you this like depression scale or this like anxiety scale or this like weird cognitive performance task that's unrelated to anything. you do in your real life, you know, just like these, you know, these silly measures that we use in

the field of psychology, like, as a standard, all of them would miss this phenomena, you know. And so, and it seems to be, like, in some ways, it's just, it's an obvious one because it's so, uh, like tangible, you know, it's not like, oh, uh, it's not like some abstract spiritual thing that's how. I mean, it is. But it's like you can see like the behavior. And, you know, it's like there are muscles that are coordinating this behavior that are controlled by specific neural circuits. And so by like honing in on this one behavior, it allows us to be more specific in our measurements.

And that to me is what's really, really exciting. It's super exciting. And on some level, it makes me think of, you know, while all of the world's creation, are beautifuls, if we're using rats to, you know, to be experiments for people, like, what are we treating the people like? You know what I mean? They're all glorious. I get it. But maybe there's a higher order instead of the lowest common than I. How do we do all these rats? You know, like, what are we looking at people like rats for? Like, maybe songbirds is such a beauty, like singing itself is such a beautiful thing. There's harmony and there's tenors and there's

base and there's all these different dimensions, much like psychedelics. Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. And in some ways, you know, singing, uh, singing is psychedelic. I mean, music is a way of changing our state of consciousness. Like, absolutely. And certainly there are a lot of practices out there with like mantras and stuff where people do induce these altered states of consciousness through vocalization and repetitive vocalization. And repetitive vocalization, which of course is going to ingrain the circuits, you know, by repeating it over and over and over again. So, yeah, and the topics of the combination of psychedelics and music is obviously like a really big topic.

You know, is like a larger umbrella under which this study falls. But a lot of the discussion around music during psychedelic ceremony, or combining music and psychedelics, often the tools that are used are very passive, you know, as people are just listening to music while they're on psychedelics. And what the research I'm doing suggests, what the observations I've made suggest is that taking an active role in the creation of the music with psychedelics is actually quite potent for guiding the neural circuits, because you kind of open up this window. of neuroplasticity that's going to conform to whatever behaviors you're doing and,

you know, whatever your integration practices are, whatever the set and setting is. So I think that this whole field of like how does singing and making music yourself during a psychedelic experience, how can how can that tool be refined versus just this kind of more passive experience of listening to music? I can't wait to learn more. My next question is, how are you looking at what happens inside of a songbird's brain with psychedelics and a human brain with psychedelics? Are you opening up the brain and seeing things happen or are you listening to the song or how are you equating these two things and finding out similarities and differences? Yeah, yeah. I mean, the translation between animal work and human work is always, always a little trick. but, you know, the idea is you would want to come up with a kind of convergence of evidence.

In animals, obviously, you can be more invasive and you can kind of, you know, you can look at the brain with a little bit more detail, kind of after the fact. And the research isn't quite there yet, but like there are standard methods, you know, for analyzing these circuits in birds. Because it's, you know, there's been a lot of interest in this research just for understanding the relationship between birdsong and language and the birdsong circuits mimic the human language circuits

in a little, in some ways. Of course, I'm also interested in working with patients who have traumatic brain. injury, particularly in these regions that affect the voice, which is common, for example, in stroke patients, they'll lose their ability to speak. And oftentimes the ability to sing is preserved. And so there's like these overlap in circuits. And, you know, my hypothesis is because ayahuasca targets these circuits specifically, it could be a potent medicine for recovering lost capacity in these vocalization circuits. And, you know, again, it's like that's why this this observation of the

relationship between ayahuasca use and singing is so important because it helps us identify exactly what it's doing to the brain. You know, it's not, it's not just like, a expecting everywhere, it's like really highlighting these specific frontal circuits involved in vocalizing. Hey, like that, you know, that's the next step is why don't we try translating this to people who need to rehabilitate that part of the brain. So that's kind of like the far in the future end goal. And obviously, you kind of want to, you know, it would be possible to go directly to human

trials just because there's already human trials with psychedelics. But if you do some studies in animals first, you can kind of get a better sense of what's possible and just get a little bit more detail in terms of like what kinds of circuits are forming and what kind of learning is happening. So yeah, you know, ideally it's not so much that you could like find something in birds and then know what happens in humans, but it will, you know, it's about like, you know, triangulating all the data and trying to get as specific as possible. And so the animal research often allows for a little bit more specificity that it's too invasive to really do in the human brain. Yeah. You know, there's, there's some interesting studies that I've read where spider webs on different psychedelics

spend different kind of webs. And is it, is there something similar with like bird songs if they have different? Yeah, yeah. Well, this is part of the question. I'm like so curious to find this. I'm just like, do they, do they sing different songs? Right. You know, higher pitch, lower pitch. Yeah. Yeah. And there's a, there's a research, you know, there's some research out there that show, well, so there are specific types of songbirds that are, that are, that are studied, you know, like finches and like, like, like, you know, specific species. And you can teach them new songs. Like you can, there's studies showing you can like play this electronic music and

eventually they'll mimic it. So like they'll learn it. And we know psychedelics effect learning and learning singing. So it would just be so interesting to be like, do they learn new songs faster? Do they get creative? Do they start singing different songs that they've never sung before? And the finding you're talking about in spiders is like, I kind of exactly like that, you know, It's like it shifts their creativity.

And yeah, like what is the mechanism for that? And what does the, what do the song sound like? All of that is just kind of, that's like totally unknown, unknown territory at this point. But, you know, I would definitely hypothesize that you give birds some ayahuasca and they're going to sing something you haven't heard before. That would be my guess or be some variation on what they know, but I would expect finding similar to the spider study. It's like uncovering a language.

You know, there's a great book by Jeremy Narby called The Cosmic Serpent. And in that book, he talks about going down and meeting with an indigenous tribe and learning from them the language of the plants. And I think different types of languages. And there's no shortage of stories of indigenous people saying, look, we love, we live. learned to make ayahuasca from listening to the plants or listening to the songbird or if you look at American Indian history, they talk about, you know, the crow came to visit me and he's quite a trickster. Here's what he said. You know, and we have all like maybe in certain states for us, we're able to interpret that language differently. And if they are exogenous neurotransmitters,

why wouldn't that be a language speaking to us that we've been alienated from on some level? Right, right. Oh, yeah. I absolutely agree. And in some ways, I'm, I'm wondering, I'm like, did all of human language come from the plants? You know, like at the origin, you know, did the plants give us language? Because it kind of feels like that. It feels like when the plants communicate, it is through song. Your vibration, even an unheard song, you know, that even if it's a higher vibration than what we can hear, it translates through song and sound.

And even if you sit out in your garden, you know, for me, I like to sit out there on a high dose and a low dose of psilocybin or something. And I, you know, when you vocalize the way in which the plant grows, wow,

this particular vanilla orchid climbs up the tree about halfway and then at a 45 degree angle, it drops these beautiful bouquet of flowers, right at around 12, 30 p.m. Like, you're vocalizing the growth pattern, which in some level is echoing your growth pattern or giving you the insights of, hey, maybe I'm in the season of this. I know I'm kind of walking out there a little bit, but yeah, the plant's in later. Yeah, yeah, no, when you say that, especially with orchids, too, I mean, I, you know, the way that this experience, the way that this experience happens for me is often I can like, I'll look at an orchid and I'll look at the patterns of the. colors as if I'm reading a book, you know, like I'm looking at it as if it has secret information

in it, you know, and then and just meditate on that, but in a way where I'm really receiving something, you know, not just like looking, but receiving information, like studying it, studying the patterns in nature. And then later in the day, I'll be singing and my song sounds a little different and it has that kind of infusion of the orchid. So it's just kind of like that's kind of how that interplay happens for me. The information comes in from the plant

and then now it's in my consciousness in that way and is reflected in the output and the expression and the art that I. produce and the research. Yeah, on some level, I think that what you're working on is could have radical implications for language. If we just look at some of the studies in ayahuasca talk about synesthesia, when people begin singing like, oh, I really like the color of purple you were singing, or I like the

color silver on some level. And are the neural circuits for humans or birds in Broca's area or any, what do you think about the synesthesia in language, Broca's area? of birds, throw that out there. Yeah, yeah. Oh, that's an interesting question. Yeah, I'm not sure. I actually don't know off the top of my head

what the experience of color is for birds. It's probably variable. I mean, birds are very colorful, so they're obviously sensitive to color and the color of flowers if they're pollinators, et cetera, et cetera. But, yeah, the experience of synesthesia, I mean, likely,

It's just this novel kind of communication between different brain regions that are normally kind of doing separate things. And now they're kind of co-doing a thing together. And so you get this kind of experience of intermingling of one sense with the other. And that can, you know, that can be part of what inspires the creativity and inspires like some kind of new thing. So that could definitely be part of like, you know, how a compound like ayahuasca might cause a bird to sing a new song. You know, maybe they're creating these new connections across sensory pathways. I think that's totally an interesting question. It's, yeah, I'm very interested in kind of even the, again, this behavior I'm talking about is kind of,

like a more long-term thing, right? It's like, it's not, it's not just about like singing while you're in the psychedelic state. It's just, it's like by cultivating a practice with the plant medicine, the singing behavior is something that emerges over time and becomes a signature behavior in that person. So, so it's, it's not even so much about like, what is the subjective experience like, you know, but like there's like neural circuits that are growing over time that are there now and you know you can, you know they're there because you can see the behavior. And the behavior is just everybody's behavior is a perfect reflection of their neural organization. All behavior is governed by neural organization. Yeah. So, so again, like it's, it's, it's

more, it's more the behavior that I'm interested in because subjective experience is so hard to measure. I mean, it's like, I mean, we can. Like, it's so hard to measure. So if you really want to get very objective and start to produce data sets that convince these institutions, you know, if you can have these observable behaviors, then think, you know, it's harder to deny versus. trying to get access to people's subjective experiences. So, yeah. And then singing is, I don't know that I've ever really seen anybody singing in a bad mood.

Is that like the long-term behavior being connected to well-being? Is a person that continues to sing? Well, I mean, I, there's definitely like a mood enhancement that can be to singing, but, but music and singing, it covers all the emotions. And so you can absolutely sing angry, sing, sad. And this is very important, too. So this is a little, this gets a little bit more complex to unpack this,

but certainly is something I'm interested in. In my own experience of how ayahuasca has helped my singing, it's like there's this like there's this like regulating kind of singing where it's like regulating it's calming it's uplifting and then there's like there's like an angry singing that's more like rapping

and it's like more pointed and and it's just a totally different energy you know it's a totally different energy that's more it's like sharper you know and it's it's more while one while you know you can have you can use song to like regulate into calm you can also use it to like cut through thought patterns or you know like that kind of thing so so yeah i do think um which also i think in the long term has like a mood

enhancing effect because ultimately it's like it's not so much about being happy but like truly expressing how you feel. And, you know, words are limited in that sense. And because of, because, you know, in our culture now, you know, there's not as many opportunities to sing, not as many opportunities to sing in community in the way that, you know, has been true in more ancient, in our ancestry. You know, that mode of expression, it's really about bringing back that mode of expression.

And if you think about the prefrontal cortex and like it's functioning, it does both expression and regulation. And in some ways you could argue, and this is my argument, is that emotional expression is regulation. So by expressing emotions authentically, you are regulating them. And if you don't express them, then they, you know, they find a way out, you know. Yeah. They find a way out and they might wreak havoc in different ways. So the singing can be this kind of like preemptive way of just like letting the energy flow. No matter what its vibe is, you know, just kind of.

letting it flow. Yeah. Yeah. And then the more practice there is and ingraining those circuits, like I'm, I now have like a way of expressing anger, you know, through this way of singing that is, is really valuable. It's like immensely valuable, you know, immensely valuable to have that outlet, you know, in my own brain. You know, like when that energy comes up, my neurons know, my neurons know, what to.

to do so that I can move through it. Yeah, it's fascinating to think about it. You know, with giving voice to emotions, maybe the antidote to living a happier and healthy life versus just having something bottled up in the vessel that's corroding it, you know, with like no place to go. Yeah, totally, totally. Yeah, totally.

And it's just, you know, it's such a relevant issue right now. You know, there's just so many people who are overwhelmed by their emotional experience. and we're limited. I mean, there's a lot of things you can do, but we're kind of, there's a lot of, we're limited in the sense that people, people are going to the doctor, you know,

being like, I don't know how to deal with this. Yeah. So I find singing to be just such an incredible tool to help with these kinds of things because it's so impactful on the brain. I mean, the prefrontal, cortex, like, I mean, I don't know the exact figure, but probably, probably 30% of the neurons, and don't quote me on this exact figure, but like, like a large proportion of prefrontal neurons

are dedicated to vocalizing and all the sophisticated movements that we use to vocalize, to communicate with our voice. Yeah. So just by singing, you're, you're tapping into just this, you know, it's what our brain was made for in some ways. It's kind of like, what our brain was made for. So you're really tapping into this kind of like the purpose of your prefrontal cortex is to vocalize and you're you're helping it fulfill its purpose. Yeah. Yeah.

And it seems like there's something with connection there too. Like when you see groups begin to sing or even rebellions form, there's a great book called Black Elk Speaks. And in there they talk about the indigenous people began to sing. And then the settlers got really nervous. Like everybody started singing and people are like, hey, what are they saying? about over here, you know? Or if you think about maybe some of the protest and history, people begin singing, like that sort of singing in harmony kind of collectivizes thought on

some level. Maybe that is, maybe there's something to that as well. I know that's not. Yeah, that's awesome. I actually, I love that idea. I love that idea. I mean, certainly, yeah, that's very, very interesting. Frequencies, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because everybody kind of like, I mean, that's kind of like the power of ritual in many ways. Yeah. doing the same thing. And even in a very like kind of less ceremonial version of that, just like people playing music together, like in a band or like whatever. You know.

Your family. Yeah, yeah. You're like like be in sync with each other in order to pull it off. Yeah. And so it's just a way of practicing being in harmony. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

And that's what we want. on like a global scale is we want to we want our collect we want humanity be be in harmony with each other to be in harmony with nature and um yeah i love that you you you said this because yeah like like singing together as a way to practice being in harmony like literally and i mean the neural the neural uh phenomena that's underpinning that i mean i mean we haven't really touched on that at all You know, that's like, that's just like a known turn. Again, like I said before, there's like infinite experiments you can do. And so nobody's done that one, yeah.

But, yeah, there's a lot of interesting data on neural synchrony and how like, you know, communicating. Even the way that we're communicating now, like there would be some synchrony between our brains because we're talking about the same thing or looks on the same thing. Yeah, yeah. So it'd be interesting to see if like singing together, you know, you get an even greater enhancement of neural synchrony. synchrony. That would be cool to look at. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, they should add that into all leadership courses. Like, you should have classes on singing together. Oh, my God. What if like, what if we have like Congress all singing a song together? Yeah, something like that. Yeah. Well, in some way, like the Pledge of Allegiance, when everybody stands up, it may not be singing, but when you

are speaking together in harmony, that probably activates similar circuits. Are there birds that sing in chorus together? Yeah. I mean, well, they, I mean, if you, you know, I was walking through my neighborhood like the other day and there were this, they were these, there were like seven crows in the trees and they were absolutely talking to you. Yeah. They were definitely having some kind of conversation. Yeah. I mean, in terms of like singing like together, singing the same notes at the same time, I mean, that's so. possibly like even uniquely human to be able to do that right like you definitely hear like crickets are kind of all doing the same thing or something but like like you know to be able to sing a song together at the same time I mean that's like I don't know that there is an animal species that can do that you know they're definitely you know they're definitely like singing together you know

but are they they singing the exact same thing like I think a human human chorus is like maybe the only place on earth that you find that phenomena, which is pretty cool. That's super cool. I never thought about. That's beautiful. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Again, again, it's like that more, that's like an additional argument of like just what our prefrontal cortex can do, right? Like the one thing that stands out in humans compared to other animal species is the size of the front of our brain specifically. you know, proportional to our body size, we have massive brains, particularly in the front. And that's part of what makes us human. So the fact that the fact that singing together is also uniquely human, that actually is a nice connection point. It's so awesome.

My neighbors, they sing as a family like on usually every night like at 7. It's so beautiful. Like I always look at the window. I'm like, that's such a cool thing. That's so awesome. That's so great. That's so great. So my next question that comes from the chat here is music, emotion, and healing.

In your work, you have explored the psychological and biological implications of music. How do you see music's role in emotional healing and cognitive rehabilitation? Yeah, I think I have a very specific hypothesis about what a singing practice can do for emotion regulation. and I think it has to do, the effect is actually a cooling effect on the brain. And so, like, if you think about something like anger as kind of a hot experience, like psychologically hot, and we don't, and it might not even be like the temperature of the brain specifically so much as maybe even inflammation is all, like, you know, the word flame. it's like the heat of inflammation. Singing has a cooling effect.

It like cools things down. And so that's the kind of like regulating and inhibitory effect that it can have on certain emotions. And I've done a lot of studying on anger in particular. So I've studied all the emotions, but I often give examples with anger as a focus point. but like anger is is uh there's a lot of theories about anger but what it kind of is is it's it's like an error it's like an error detection and and that error is felt as anger and so uh you know there's a real computation that's happening you know that you want to be able to uh build something that can mitigate the effects of that error computation and kind of like,

how do you continue moving forward even though there are errors, right? So it's, it's, you know, so I feel like the singing, the singing in particular has a cooling effect on the brain and that this is how it is able to help us regulate our emotions. And so that's something I'm hoping to measure in more detail because the terminology I'm using is a little bit, you know, subjective in its description of the phenomena. But I would love to test, like, literal temperature just to rule it, you know, to rule it. Yeah. That simple that, like, if the brain is overheating, what is the, or not just even overheating, but, like, like using up too much metabolic energy, you know what I mean?

Like just kind of like the wheels are spinning too fast, you know, that kind of, you know, so just to cool it down. And I believe singing has a huge impact on that for a lot of reasons. And, you know, singing not the only thing, you know, focused breathing and meditative techniques potentially fall under that umbrella in a similar kind of way. I've never heard it describe like that, but it makes so much sense. You know, when you look at the lexicon of language, like that guy's a hothead. Or if you watch the old cartoon, it'll explode because it's so hot, you know what I mean?

And even like the emoji, like if you look at the emoji, it's red, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, totally. It's definitely something like deep in our psyche, deeply embedded in our language. Yeah. We talk about the anger and violence. So it's, you know, what is the actual, what is the actual thing that's getting hot? You know, because there have been cities where they measure like body temperature. And it's not that.

It's not that simple. You know, it's not just like the body getting hot like a fever. So there's where is that heat? Why do we subjectively feel that sense of being heated? you know yeah yeah and and like what is that like we don't actually really know what it is that's getting hot but i guess would be it's it's something to do with the the neural circuitry and the metabolic energy that's being used in the brain um in the context of that emotion that is that's amazing it's yeah it's cool it's cool yeah yeah and then and then the

Singing, like to me, you know, the insight that I have about the singing practice is that they're the singing circuits are cooling circuits. So if you know about like computation in general, like these large computing systems, like the data centers at Google and stuff, it's like what is the most expensive thing about having a computer? You know, what's most expensive is the cooling, keeping it cool. Yeah. So, like, you know, they'll put these data centers up, you know, they got to put them like in the Arctic or something, you know, because they get hot.

And then when they get hot, the parts get damaged. So like your computer, if it gets too hot, it's got a little fan in it and stuff. It has these mechanisms to make sure it stays cool so nothing breaks. And so to me, the singing circuit is like that fan. It's like that fan that when things get too hot, now this is a way that you can like keep it cool so that you don't break anything. You know, internally or externally. Yeah.

Yeah. It's hard on the body. You know, it's, it's a, you know, a wave of adrenaline and all kinds of hormones and neurotransmitters that are very intense. So, yeah. Thank you. It's fascinating to think. and if something's breaking in our brain,

wouldn't we act out by breaking things in our environment? Like, it's just, you know, as above so below, right? Totally, yeah. Yeah, the behavior is a reflection of the circuitry. Absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's so funny. What else do I go?

I got a ton of stuff here. So longevity and chronic disease prevention, here's one that you speak about. You mentioned the potential of tuning front. temporal circuits to prevent chronic disease and increasing longevity. Can you elaborate on how you foresee this process working? And what might be the broader implications for public health and aging? Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is something that I'm just like super, super, super excited about. And this is like related to kind of like, you know, these findings that these stories and anecdotes we hear with psychedelics where people

experience these like miracle cures. And it's like they've had some like chronic condition that they've forever and then all of a sudden it's gone you know and and like it doesn't happen every time so we don't we don't necessarily know how to like nail it you know but it's possible and um i've been trying to uh to uh connect those findings with other things that are known about frontal temporal temporal circuitry and um you know not just the role of these circuits in singing but and an expression of the self, but, you know, this, the frontal temporal circuits are what go away in neurodegenerative disease. Oh.

You know, it's like people losing the self. It's like the self is no longer there. So we know that that's where like the self is. So then the other, the other piece of data that ties into this is with personality disorder, which is also a disorder of the self. So same circuits. You know, but in, there's this really interesting finding in the personality disorder literature where people who have extreme forms of dissociative identity disorder, which means that

basically like another personality might be there, like, you know, a totally different personality might be online at different moments in time. And their, their core identity might completely black out. So they don't even remember when other personalities take over. So this kind of thing, these kind of extreme clinical cases, in those cases, you can have a personality that has a chronic condition and another personality that doesn't have it. Wow. And so it's like there's this, like this finding is so intriguing to me because it suggests that some of these chronic conditions are controlled from a top down level. So the idea would be if we know that it's possible to have different identities that have,

different chronic conditions in the same body, which is kind of crazy thing. It's just one of those conditions that's just really hard for us to wrap our head around. But it's like the theory would be or the hypothesis would be that in order to, in order to cure a chronic condition, you have to create a new identity that doesn't have that condition. Wow. And like, I think that's what happens with psychedelics when people experience these miraculous healings, because we know that psychedelics are impacting the self and the sense of identity. And so it's just kind of like putting all these things together, I think that there's enough evidence to suggest that you can adjust the identity in order to treat or cure chronic disease. if we can figure out exactly how these circuits are structured and how they control,

you know, how they control physiology in a top-down way. So that's like my big eye. That's like, you know, a very like kind of big visionary idea I have that would definitely take a lot of research to really figure out the details. but there's already data and evidence that exists that we've already seen that like suggests that it's possible. So I do see this in the future. You know, it like healthcare, particularly for like chronic diseases, like autoimmune diseases,

allergies, all these things that like Western medicine isn't very good at treating. It's going to be more about, they're going to be treated by evolving the identity. and like it's like there's like some kind of psychological, neurological way of approaching these conditions that is essentially optimizing top-down control of physiology, you know, to say it from a neuroscience perspective. But from a psychological perspective, it's literally like birthing a new identity. And you want to birth a new identity that doesn't have the issues that the old identity has. so mesmerizing that explains it's mesmerizing like i love it i think you need i just think for a minute

like you know it speaks to the idea of people that heal themselves from PTSD and then get better and are able to look at that thing it speaks to the idea of someone who had a stroke and learns to talk again it speaks to all of that just i think you need new words like you have to create the new words that allow people to have that imagination, which will allow them to fix that condition, which is pretty freaking exciting. If you just start thinking about it like that. And why not birdsong? Like, that's where it can come from.

Like, I love it. Yeah, yeah. Well, the birdsong, I mean, that's the bird song study is just kind of like, that's like the first step, right? Because it's like in order to really make this systematic, we have to be able to map out these circuits in detail. You know, like we want to be able to. know like how do you how do you target these these uh how do you target these circuits in more specific

ways because like we know like okay you take psychedelics and it's going to cause this like transformative experience and set and setting matters and you can tune your set and setting to kind of get an outcome that you want and so it's all of that but like but like getting even more specific you know so it'd be like okay so if this is your condition if this is your condition then I know that like these are the circuits. And since I know that these are the circuits, I know that these are the behaviors that are going to affect those circuits. And so then I know how to like to combine those behaviors with your psychedelic journey to try to be targeted, you know. And so this is where our just our general knowledge of neuroscience is kind of, you know, we're just at the edge

there. We're still learning a lot about the brain. We're still learning about how all this works. but like singing, you know, these language circuits and these circuits for the self are highly related. I mean, how do you know when someone who has neurodegeneration, if you know somebody who's suffering from Alzheimer's or something like that, like when people say, oh, that person is no longer there. How do you know that person's no longer there? How do you know they're not there? And it's because they're not expressing themselves. you know, they, there's no, they're not speaking to you. You know, they're not interacting with you.

I do, I, I, um, I don't know that this is true, but I, I've heard people say that about neurodegenerative conditions a lot. And, um, I think that we don't want to rule out whether neurodegenerative conditions are more like a locked in syndrome. Like maybe the self is in there, but they can't express themselves, right? We don't really know, you know, that's the limitation. When you have a condition where you can't express yourself, you know, it's like, it's hard to measure, you know, what even is going on. So, yeah, all of that is just, you know, a way of trying to understand,

trying to understand these circuits and neurodegenerative disorders are just one. clinical example where you can literally see the layers of self as they become unraveled by the, by the disease. So it's just, it's an opportunity, you know, it's a part of how we know the self lives in those circuits. Wow. Yeah. It's so, like, it makes me wonder sometimes if maybe some of the neurogenitor of disease

isn't just a training of suppression patterns that finally takes over. like your whole life you've decided to hold this thing in and finally you win and now you don't say anything yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah I absolutely think that and like one of the insights that came to me too was like um like uh you know there's different parts of this if you get into like kind of union psychology theory or like family systems where there's these different parts of the self and these parts of the self are always competing with each other like who gets to be who gets to be the decision maker, you know, because you might be, oh, part of me wants to move to Hawaii, but like, part of me wants to stay here, you know, like, who wins, you know? And if you have a part of the self that's always losing,

you know, like that, that part might, you know, like, how does that, you know, is there like this kind of use it or lose it phenomena where it's just like that part never gets to express itself. Right. So it just stops working at some point. Yeah. Yeah, exactly, exactly. So I think that, yeah, like there's a lot of, there's a lot to explore in that. There's actually, there's not a lot of like psychological theories about neurodegeneration.

You know, it's all very, you know, neuroscience based. But a lot of these theories have been coming, coming to me about how these parts of the self interact. and how that might be related to the development of neurodegenerative disease. And again, why, like, I think singing in particular has very high potential to prevent neurodegenerative disease because it's self-expression. It's self-expression. And so you can allow all of those parts. You can give them a voice, like literally put them a voice.

Yeah. And then that keeps them on board, you know. Yeah. And it integrates those parts of self in a certain way. So that, I mean, that's a whole other theory that, you know, I'm exploring and hoping, hoping to collect data on at some point. I've seen some studies and some of them anecdotal about people finding themselves on flirting with dementia or Alzheimer's. And then I think Beckley did a study with five MEODMT, and they found some pretty staggering results of people coming back

and finding themselves playing guitar again and stuff like that. Are you aware of some of those studies? Or what do you think about neurodegenerative disease and psychedelics moving forward as the future of health? Yeah, I think that that I know a little bit about those studies. I mean, I think that definitely more data should be collected, particularly because we don't really know, like, you know, the treatments for neurodegenerative disease are limited. So, like, why not, you know, try psychedelics, particularly for cases where we don't really know what else to do.

It seems like, you know, because we know of the neurogenerative properties of psychedelics, it seems like a no-brainer. No pun intended. Yeah, listen to you. I don't know. Like I think, you know, I think that like psychedelics are going to be most potent as a preventative thing. You know, it's kind of like where is that line where it's like, you know, once you've lost something, you know, like what how much, how much can you recover versus like if you're just if you can, if you can, you know, early detection. is very important and even just like working with these kinds of practices even before you have any sign of neurodegeneration, you know, I think is kind of like those studies are really hard to do.

I mean, it's just like nearly impossible to do a preventative study, you know, because you just you need to like follow them for the rest of their life and see if like, do they ever get the disease, you know? And then it's like you're not going to like, and then just like putting people into experimental conditions. I mean, it's just those studies are so hard to do. not impossible, but it just, you need dedicated participants, you know, so. But I do think, I do think, I do think that there is treatment potential for for neurodegenerative

disorder with psychedelics and the evidence, there is evidence for that. I would like to see, I would like to see more data. I would definitely like to see more, more studies on that. and and and but but I think we're like where the money's at is that it's preventative and this is this is like a you know for me like it's like this this is like a public health thing right because it's just like even if you're taking care of your brain and like you're good you know if if like a massive amount of the population everybody's like brain is decaying you know what I mean like that's that's problematic you know And like it doesn't matter how much you're taking care of yourself. If you're living in a society where everyone's brain is melting, you know, we, it's like, how do we, how do we address this at like a larger scale, you know, as we see this phenomena kind of starting to happen before our eyes? Yeah. Yeah, it's really scary.

You can make, like, that's clearly what's happening. If you look at all of us, human species as one organism. And you look at the sheer amount of baby boomers that are approaching the mortality experience. Like that's brain decay happening. And you see these, you know, two guys on TV like, get off my lawn, you know, like, what is going on here? Like, really this? Like, it's so crazy to see that happening in real time. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, we'll see. You know, we'll see how it unfolds. And I'm hoping, you know, because sometimes when I talk to people, I'm just like, you know, like the plant spirits tell me, like the plants spirits tell me, like, the plants spirits tell me, if I sing to a tree every day, I'll never get Alzheimer's.

You know, like, they tell me, like, sing to a tree every day and you'll never get Alzheimer's. You know, like, and it's like, that's a testable hypothesis. That's, it's hard to. But it is a testable hypothesis. Yeah. But when I tell people that, you know, it's just, it's such an easy solution. and it makes sense when you, you know, it's like intuitively makes sense because we have a sense of how music impacts the brain.

But like, but like, you know, at people, there's a certain level at which people are still kind of unwilling to do things that are good for them. You know what I mean? Yeah, totally. You know we can change our diet. We know we can work out every day. We know we can do all these things, but we don't. And this is just another one of those things, you know.

So I, I am like on a personal mission. to just like, again, it's kind of like, in my opinion, a public health service, but I'm just like trying to get as many people to sing as possible, you know, just like get people to sing, tell people singing is good for their brain, just like, like, like, you know, relentlessly just like sit, have you saying today? Did you sing today? You know, like getting everybody to sing. And I'm like, also just kind of like in my mind trying to brainstorm like, how can I make this go viral? Like, how can I, how can we like get everybody to just start singing more and like, like, maybe put a dent in this, in this like, you know, the mass cognitive decline that that we see happening. And it's like, it's like how, how much does the neurodegeneration have to impact people personally before they're willing to like do something about it? You know, I don't, I don't know where that threshold is. is I don't think we're there yet.

You know, people are still kind of a little bit in denial, it seems. Yeah. Wow. It's so, it's amazing to think that maybe, I can't help but think of like a death and a rebut. Sometimes things have to get so bad. And people, especially in addiction and stuff like that, sometimes think, you have to get being so personally bad before you go, like, not another day.

I'm done with this. I don't care. I'm done with it, you know. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's true. It's true.

It's true. I mean, it's just part of human nature. It is. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I got a couple more. Are you okay on time? I got a few more questions here for you. Yeah, yeah, totally. Yeah, I can do a bit more. Yeah, thank you. Okay. Interdisciplinary approach. Your research spans neuroscience, mental health, molecular biology, and more. How do you navigate the challenges of integrating all of these fields and what benefits and unique perspectives arise from that interdisciplinary approach? Yeah, I mean, I like to be interdisciplinary.

because it's like, it's kind of like which, which angle to look at a problem. It like, it depends on the question, you know what I mean? And like a lot of, you know, a lot of science can get very myopic and you can get these like studies that are very narrow. And like, yeah, they say something, but they don't say much beyond re-describing the data they've collected.

You know what I mean? There's like, like, you know, finding things that are general requires triangulating across these different levels of analysis. So, you know, I think like to me, or even historically, you know, it's just not just my perspective, but historically like the major breakthroughs in science are about connecting the dots, you know what I mean? So so those and those dots are often across disciplines.

So it's just, you know, for, I'm just trying to like, like learn as much as possible and I get again, I get inspired by just my practice, you know, with with these different methods and like I'll get inspired to really focus on, you know, a specific field. Like, oh, let's think about, let's think about genetic engineering right now and just like really hone in on that. And then and then that will, you know, once I learn more about it, just because I know other fields, of course, whatever new information I input is I, I, I will be able to see how it connects to all these other things I know. And there's something kind of like, you know, special about being an individual who's an interdisciplinar scientist that like is different than like having five people from

different disciplines and then trying to get them to communicate. You know, it's like it's nice to just have it all in my brain. You know what I mean? But it's also not possible. So I am looking for, I'm always looking for collaborators and like relying on other people's expertise as well. But I just,

I think that being interdisciplinary and, and it, and always expanding the range of my interdisciplinary knowledge is, is just kind of a way of, um, uh, opening up new possibilities and seeing new connections. that, you know, might not be seen because these two facts are not known to the same brain.

You know what I mean? So, and yeah, I trust, you know, I trust the process. And, like, I, you know, believe that the information that I need will come to me in some sense. There's so much information out there, too. So it's just like when I feel inspired to, like, learn about something specific, like, I don't think that that inspiration is random. You know, it's like, oh, this thing keeps popping up. Like, it must be important for some reason.

So, so, you know, on some level, like, I wish I knew everything. You know, I did. I wish I knew even more than I know, you know. I wish I was an expert in even more fields, you know, just because I think it would be, it would be convenient. It's also inconvenient in some ways, but, you know, but, but, yeah, like, it just, Just every time I start to venture into like a new territory, you know, it just, it brings fresh

inspiration. It brings fresh connections. And, you know, yeah, the process of discovery continues to unfold. Yeah, our curious nature. It seems like in the world of science and medicine, like we got to a point where everyone became a specialist and everything got so narrow, you know, and if you just think about like the expanding and contract nature of most things. Like we've expanded out and now we're contracting, you know, on some level.

It's necessary, I think, in order to really get a big picture of it, I guess. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's one of my favorite scientists as a French scientist. He's, you know, he was a contemporary of Einstein named Henri Poincre. And he, like, there is this, people say about him, he was like the last polymath. He was like the last person to just like know everything, like know every field. Yeah, yeah. And then and then his writing, his books are like so amazing.

He was so ahead of his time. And then it was like after him, like after that era, you know, like knowledge just like exploded. Yeah. Now it's not possible to have a human who has mastered all. You know, I mean like back in ancient humanity, it's like there was like one library. This is everything we know, you know. And it's like, all it's changed, you know.

and it's just like we're just like not in that era anymore. Yeah, it's, it's imagine being, going to school to master everything. Like that's a whole other world when you become educated to know all things or I don't know. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I like to just be like a scientist, you know. Yeah, I just curious. And I'm, yeah, I have, you know, my question, my research questions have always been about emotion. And emotion is just this interesting.

you know, bridge between us, the psychological realms and the spiritual realms, right? Mystical experience is marked by their intense emotion in many ways. So, and then like, you know, there's so many ways to approach that topic. You know, there is a molecular component to emotion. There is a nervous system component to emotion. There is a psychological component to emotion. There's a social component. So it's just like, you know, in.

in part, you know, my interest in affect and emotion has kind of like called for an interdisciplinary approach because, you know, there's just so many angles at which to study that phenomena and all those pieces fit together in their own way and can help us enhance our understanding of this topic that's still very mysterious and there's a lot to learn. Yeah. It just gets me thinking about so many things, but I'm going to stay on topic. Otherwise, I'll just start flying off the edges here. Okay.

Let's go with neural implants and therapeutic application. Your research aims to inform the development of neural implants. How do you envision the integration of psychedelic-induced neurogenesis with neural implants for therapeutic applications? What challenges or possibilities do you see in this convergence? Yeah, that's a great question. It's a great question. I feel like, you know, psychedelics could potentially enhance what neural implants are doing by making the brain more amenable to change, essentially, right?

Like psychedelics induce learning and plasticity and learning. And when you put in a neural implant, you're often, you know, trying to, you know, trying to, fill in a function that the brain can't do by itself. You know, so one, one thing that would be cool is like, is like, can you have like a temporary implant that's kind of, in some ways, it's like that implant is creating the set and setting. And the psychedelics are going to help the brain learn to do that on its own, like that kind of thing.

But also, like, you know, I think, you know, electrical stimulation. is also really powerful for inducing neural plasticity, you know, and we know in like extreme cases, you know, electric convulsive therapy is still used where you just, if you just like, this isn't a neural implant, but like we know that if you zap the brain with electricity, you might have some memory loss, but it will cure your depression. Like it will, you know, like it works 100% of the time. It only lasts six months. There's a lot of like side effects.

know that it does that, you know? So it's just kind of like, like a less, a less in, like neural implants can, can maybe we can start to get to a less intense and more targeted kind of like, like, you know, recreating this kind of phenomena in a more detailed, more targeted way. But I also think, um, what's really exciting to me about neural implants, I don't know how much this will connect in with psychedelics. Um, but, but, you know, ways of creating new types of neural receptors, creating new types of neural transmitters, you know, all these kinds of, you know, I feel like the sector of neural implants, like, includes kind of all of that. That can get really exciting. And I think, I think neural implants can potentially, do some things that are similar to psychedelics or complement them in certain ways because they also because of the way that electrical stimulation can can also help rewire the brain.

So, I mean, there's a lot of limitations with neural implants. First of all, like, we don't necessarily know where to put them. I mean, they're very effective on things like Parkinson's and like there's some that are like known and like we know how to do it. But like, you know, I'm like, I'm like, can we, can we like, like in neurodegenerative disorder, you lose, you lose the circuits that are about the self. Can you put them back in there with a neural implant? Like, can you just put them back in there? You know, like, like, you know, it's a big vision, you know, but like I think it's possible. Like I think we could figure out how to do that, you know, those circuits that are lost, how do we put them back in there? It's like really concrete problem. Yeah, right. So I think, I think like neural implants and to me, I kind of see neural implants and

psychedelics as like parallel pathways to regenerative neuroscience. But how they'll interplay in the future. I mean, that's, I think it's really exciting. Yeah. Sometimes I feel like there's a race between technology and biology. You know, like we're both. racing towards the same thing. Like, I think I'm going to take the biological route.

I'm going to take the technological route. But ultimately they are, maybe they're opposite sides of the double helix. Yeah. Well, I mean, I like to say biology is the Earth's technology. Ah, that's beautiful. I love it. So our human inventions are just, you know, an interesting extension of all that. I love it.

Dr. Iris, this is a fascinating conversation. And I feel like we just kind of scratch the surface. I got some good questions in, but they just opened the door to so many more. And I hope maybe you can come back and we can have more conversations about what's going with your work. I would absolutely love that. And I mean, that's just how it goes. You know what I mean?

Like with every, even if I had more data to share with you, you know what I mean? It's like every piece of data opens up more questions. And that's just part of what makes the process of discovery and learning this kind of infinite journey that will never end. And so, yeah, I would love to keep that. I mean, I love this. I love talking about this stuff. I'm so grateful to have this opportunity to share my work and my ideas and really, really grateful for the amazing questions. Yeah.

Well, I've been speaking to a lot of really cool people, and I'm looking forward to introducing you to them. And you can have conversations with them about, like, Dr. David Sullivan is one of the most profound individuals I've ever talked to on the, idea of medieval mysticism, which has such an incredible tie into the psychedelic experience and language. And just, he's amazing. Dr. Jessica Rochester, who is the Mahadrina of the Santo Dime Church and a few other people. But I'll introduce you to him and maybe we can come back and have conversations with all of us in the panel and just really open that up to the audience and see what's going on.

That's amazing. That's amazing. Totally. Yay. Okay. And, but before I let you go today, I want to put the links in the show notes to your work, to the Patreon where people can find you, but I wanted to give you an opportunity to say it out loud for those people that may just be listening in their car or driving to work or commuting somewhere.

Can you tell people where they can find you what you got coming up and what you're excited about? Yeah, absolutely. I'm starting my, I have a portal to my research lab on Patreon right now. It's called the Regenerative Neuroscience Lab. And it's just, it's very experimental. So I, I, you can see, you know, even if you don't subscribe, there are some, there are some audio clips that you can hear of me just like riffing about my research and my scientific ideas. If you want to hear more about this stuff I'm working on, you know, with respect to like

emotion and and psychedelics and music and psychedelics and all these, all these different avenues. So yeah, you can find me on Patreon. You can reach out to me on LinkedIn. I'm in this process of just connecting and really like letting people know what I'm doing. So people know what I'm doing and people who are interested in my work. and would like to be involved in any way. I'm just, I'm very, very open to collaborating and hoping to share my work and to keep it going in whatever way it looks.

You know, like my lab is very unconventional in many ways. So, yeah, I'm looking for open-minded people who can contribute to the research and want to be involved. It's beautiful. So everybody who's listening and watching to this, go down to the show notes, reach out to Dr. Iris. There's enough information in this podcast to blow your mind for the next probably month and a half. So thank you for all of that. Reach out to her. She's incredible.

And she's at the forefront of doing so many cool things. And I think she's setting an example for everybody to walk down a similar path. So that's all we got. Hang on briefly afterwards. I still want to talk to you for a moment. But everyone else, thank you so much for hanging out with us. Thank you for all the great questions. And thank you for believing in yourself, becoming the best.

As version of yourself, that's all we got for today, ladies and gentlemen. Aloha. Thank you.