Psychedelics’ Effect on the Brain
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Thursday, November 30th at 5 pm Pacific, 8 pm Eastern >> Log in to Watch the Recording >>
An EXCLUSIVE Panel Discussion For Members Of The Psychedelic Medicine Association:
Psychedelics’ Effect on the Brain
Panel Moderator:
Lynn Marie Morski, MD, JD
President - Psychedelic Medicine Association
Panelists:
Benjamin Malcolm, PharmD, MPH, BCPP
Founder, Spirit Pharmacist LLC
Dr. Ben Malcolm earned his bachelor’s degree (BS) in pharmacology at the University of California at Santa Barbara, prior to his Masters in Public Health (MPH) and Doctorate of Pharmacy (PharmD) at Touro University California. He then completed post-graduate residencies in Acute Care at Scripps Mercy Hospital and Psychiatric Pharmacy at the University of California at San Diego Health.
After residency he passed his exam to become Board Certified in Psychiatric Pharmacy (BCPP). He began his career as an Assistant Clinical Professor at Western University of Health Sciences (WUHS), College of Pharmacy before transitioning to his current entrepreneurial role as a Psychopharmacology Consultant, Psychedelic Educator, and Founder of Spirit Pharmacist.
Ben envisions a society in which access to psychedelic drugs in a variety of safe and supported settings is available for purposes of psychospiritual well-being, personal development, ceremonial sacraments, and treatment of mental illness. His focus is on the intersection between psychiatric medications and psychedelic therapies. He has given several Continuing Education presentations to pharmacists and other healthcare professionals as well as published over a dozen articles in peer-reviewed literature relating to psychedelics or psychiatric medications.
His vision guides his clinical and education service-related professional activity.
Ben Spielberg, MS
Founder & CEO, Bespoke Treatment
With over a decade in the field of brain-based behavioral health under his belt, Ben is more passionate about mental health now than ever. Ben went to graduate school at Columbia University and received a Master of Science degree in Neuroscience and Education. During graduate school, Ben developed a specialty in clinical neuromodulation and neuroimaging, where he used brain scans to predict off-label uses for TMS, neurofeedback, and Ketamine. Ben’s research has been published in prestigious journals such as Brain Stimulation and ACR Open Rheumatology, and presented at The Clinical TMS Society, The International Neuropsychological Society, and the Western Psychological Association. In 2023, Ben won the Future Leaders in Behavioral Health award by Aging Media for behavioral health executives under 40 years old.
David Esselman
Executive Director, BrainFutures
David Esselman is the Executive Director of BrainFutures, where he has shaped the organization’s research and public education agendas since March 2022. He is sought out as a leading voice in the emerging field of medical psychedelics and has presented at multiple conferences on the promise of psychedelic-assisted therapy and the vital importance of ensuring that these groundbreaking new treatments are available to all who may benefit. Esselman’s prior experience in the psychedelic-assisted therapy field includes consulting on the development of a certification standard for psychedelic-assisted therapists and advising government regulators in several U.S. states, the federal government, and Europe on access-focused regulation for psychedelic-assisted therapy treatment models.
We very often look at how psychedelics affect different disease states, like depression or PTSD, but what lies at the heart of how psychedelic medicines enact their effect on these conditions is how they affect the brain.
While the scientific community is still trying to figure out the exact mechanisms through which psychedelic medicines are seemingly so much more effective for difficult-to-treat conditions than most currently available therapies, with modern neuroimaging modalities, we can now get a better idea of how the brain responds to these medicines, which starts to give us a better understanding of why they are so efficacious.
In addition, we know a lot of the neuropsychopharmacology involved in how psychedelics interact with certain receptors and what those interactions lead to…and how that may interact with other psychoactive medications.
This month we are truly fortunate to have panelists who have spent an immense amount of time studying the aforementioned brain-related topics. They’ll be discussing the following:
- The pharmacology behind how psychedelics interact with receptors in the brain
- What neuroimaging tells us about psychedelics’ effect on the brain
- How psychedelics may interact with other psychoactive medications
…and much more!
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