Okay, cool. That will work. 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, Regenitor of 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. Iris' 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. Iris' most intriguing projects, the neurogenesis of vocalization circuits in songbirds, inspired by the neurogenitorial 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. Modona'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. Modrona'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 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. Okay. Yeah, I mean, so many experiences. 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, 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, um, and, uh, I, I became particularly interested in ayahuasca as, uh, one of the psychedelics that had a special kind of resonance with me. And, um, I be, I had an experience where I was, um, 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 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 collaborate with you. I'll share your research questions, and I'm interested in showing you some answers. And so it just was super mystical. And this was before I had ever, I hadn't, I never really planned to take psychedelics myself. You know what I mean? That was not in the plan. But this was kind of that initial spark 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. Yeah. It's so fascinating. It's, it's like the, the call to adventure and the hero's journey, you know, on some level. Yeah. And at that point, you know, it's just like, so, you know, there was like so much that was unknown to me, you know, um, I really was interested in psychedelics and I knew, you know, I had this deep intuition that, um, psychedelics were key to answering some of my most important research questions that have been something I've been focusing on for years and years and years and years. And I just didn't see how it fit in. And so it just continues to unfold. 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, maybe receive is 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, 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 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? So, 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 inspiration to guide my research um 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 um you know and so it's like you know a lot of what um what the 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 um in terms of uh 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. Sometimes when I think of solving a problem, you think of the Pythagorean theorem, like the A squared plus B squared is C squared. Okay, I can define these variables. But isn't that limiting? 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 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. 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. And then, and that's part of, you know, it's definitely part of my process and, 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 even think it's part of like, the exclusion of indigenous worldviews. You know, where it's just like, it's, 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, and, 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 um 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 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 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 enough 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, you 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 help expand them. It's fascinating to me. It brings up the first question I have from 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, uh, you know, science as a scientist, it's, it's fundamentally a spiritual practice. It's, it's, 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 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 work practice is to bow to the great mystery you know like like that is what it is to be a scientist and and I you know not not all not all um scientists see it that way or would describe it that way but um 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 um it kind of forces scientists to look at some of these spiritual phenomena, because if you want to know the effects of, you know, you want to know the effects, you want to know how it works. It's like, we can no longer really ignore, uh, ignore these spiritual phenomena so like um you know uh 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 and so you can get you know you can kind of get in grounded in the physical realm a little bit um which can be helpful for people. Yeah. Yeah. It's so fascinating that 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? Yeah. Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes. And that's so interesting. I actually, I 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. 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. You like, you know, get it to come here. You know what I mean? And it's like, it's like over the course of evolution and humans interacting with these plants, you know, particularly the entheogens, you know, the plant, the plant, they have had time to learn how to communicate with us on this evolutionary timescale. So 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, but we can access novel neurotransmitters outside of us that know how to interact. You know, our neurons know how to use those compounds. So yeah, it's fast. It's, it's, it's, uh, it's so beautiful. Yeah. I agree. And, 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 not supposed to be a cog in a wheel. I'm supposed to be over here being the best version of me. 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 kind of collective disconnect from nature that we find ourselves in as society is currently. Yep. It's mind blowing to me. I, The idea of creativity and neuroplasticity, 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 noticed um observing people in ayahuasca communities is is just like people who consume ayahuasca regularly will start to sing a lot it's like the singing behavior is quite uh obvious in this specific population that that I don't necessarily see with people who 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 and interestingly like 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 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, like, animal almost like basically all animal studies of psychedelics not all but 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. This is a real behavior. This is a measurable behavior that's beyond just like, let me throw you this depression scale or this anxiety scale or this weird cognitive performance task that's unrelated to anything you do in your real life. Just like these silly measures that we use in the field of psychology as a standard, all of them would miss this phenomena. And so and it seems to be like in some ways it's just it's an obvious one because it's so like tangible, you know, it's not like, oh, it's not like some abstract spiritual thing. That's how I mean, it is. But it's like you can you can see like the behavior and, you know, it's like we know 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 creations are beautiful, if we're using rats to be experiments for people, 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 denominator. How do we do all these rats? What are we looking at people like rats for? Maybe songbirds is such a beautiful, like singing itself is such a beautiful thing. There's harmony and there's tenors and there's bass and there's all these different dimensions, much like psychedelics. yeah yeah yeah absolutely and in some ways uh 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 um practices out there with like mantras and stuff where people do induce these altered states of consciousness through vocalization and repetitive vocalization, which of course is gonna ingrain the circuits 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 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 the psychedelic experience How can that tool be refined versus just this kind of more passive experience of listening to music? It's 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? 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 tricky. But 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 after the fact. And the research isn't quite there yet, but there are standard methods for analyzing these circuits in birds because 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 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 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 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 just like, affecting everywhere it's like really highlighting these specific frontal circuits involved in vocalizing hey like that that you know that's the next step is why don't we try um 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 um 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 what kinds of circuits are forming and what kind of learning is happening. So, so yeah, the, 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, 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. You know, there's some interesting studies that I've read where spider webs on different psychedelics spin different kind of webs. And is there something similar with like bird songs if they have different psychedelics? Yeah, yeah. Well, this is part of the question. I'm like so curious to find this. I'm just like, do they sing different songs? Right. Go higher pitch, lower pitch, you know. Yeah, and there's a research, you know, there's some research out there that shows, so there are specific types of songbirds that are studied, you know, like finches and 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. Mm-hmm. So like they'll, they'll learn it. And we know psychedelics affect 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, they've never sung before? And the, the finding you're talking about in spiders is like, right. Kind of exactly like that. You know, it's like it, it shifts their creativity, um, And yeah, like what is the mechanism for that? And what do the songs sound like? All of that is just kind of, that's like totally unknown territory at this point. But I would definitely hypothesize that you give birds some ayahuasca and they're gonna sing something you haven't heard before. that, that would be my guess, or it'd be some variation on what they know. But, but I would expect a 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 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, did all of human language come from the plants or 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. Through vibration. Even, you know, an unheard song, you know, that even if it's a higher vibration than what we can hear, it translates through song. 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 1230 PM. 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 plants. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No. When you, when you say that, especially with orchids too, I mean, I, I, you know, the way that this experience, the way that this experience happens for me is I'll often I'll, 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's 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, but receiving information, like studying it, studying the patterns in nature and then, and then like, 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. On some level, I think that what you're working on could have radical implications for language. Some of the studies in ayahuasca talk about synesthesia. When people begin singing, they're like, oh, I really like the color of purple you were singing, or I like the color silver on some level. Are the neural circuits for humans or birds in Broca's area? What do you think about the synesthesia in language, Broca's area, birds? Throw that out there. yeah yeah oh that's an interesting question um 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 oh yeah it's probably variable I mean their birds are very colorful so they're obviously sensitive to color and the color of flowers if they're pollinators etc etc um but uh yeah the um 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 some kind of new thing so that could definitely be part of like uh 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 um I think that's totally an interesting question it's it's uh yeah I'm I'm I'm very interested in 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, 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, their neural organization, all, all behavior is governed by neural organization. Yeah. So, so again, like 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, convince these institutions that, you know, if you can have these observable behaviors, then think, you know, it's, 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 wellbeing as a person that continues to sing or? Well, I mean, there's definitely like a mood enhancement that can be to singing, 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 gets a little bit more complex to unpack this, but certainly is something I'm interested in. In my own experience of like how ayahuasca has helped my singing, it's like there's this like, there's this like, uh, 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, uh, and, uh, it's just a totally different energy. You know, it's a, it's a totally different energy. That's more, um, it's like sharper you know and it's it's about 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 longterm 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, we're like, words are limited in, in that, in that sense. And, and because of, because you know, in our culture now, there's not as many opportunities to sing, not as many opportunities to sing in community in the way that has been true in more ancient, in our ancestry. That mode of expression, it's really about bringing back that mode of expression. And if you think about the prefrontal cortex and its 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 find a way out. Yeah. 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. Yeah. 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. When that energy comes up, my neurons know what to do so that I can move through it. Yeah, it's fascinating to think about it. you know, with giving voice to emotions may be 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. And it's just, it's just, you know, it's, 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. And I mean, there's a lot of things you can do, but, but we're limited in the sense that people are going to the doctor being like, I don't know how to deal with this. 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, I mean, I don't know the exact figure, but probably 30% of the neurons, and don't quote me on this exact figure, but 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 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, um, the indigenous people began to sing and then the settlers got really nervous. Like everybody started singing and people are like, Hey, what are you guys singing about over here? You know? Or if you think about maybe some of the protests in 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, uh, yeah, that's very, very frequency, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because everybody kind of like, I mean, that's kind of like the power of ritual in many ways. Yes. 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. Yeah. you know your family you're yeah yeah you're like like be in sync with each other in order to pull it off yeah and and so it's just a way of practicing being in harmony yeah yeah yeah when we yeah and it's 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 said this, because yeah, like singing together is a way to practice being in harmony, like literally. And I mean, the neural phenomena that's underpinning that, I mean, we haven't really touched on that at all. Again, like I said before, there's like infinite experiments you can do. And so nobody's done that one yet, you know? 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's, there would be some synchrony between our brains. Cause we're, we're talking about the same thing or based on the same thing. Yeah. Yeah. So, so it'd be interesting to see if like singing together, you know, you get an even greater enhancement of neural synchrony. That would be, that would be cool to look at. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. They should add that into all leadership courses. Like you should have a class on singing together. Yeah. Oh my God, what if we have 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... I was walking through my neighborhood the other day and there were seven crows in the trees and they were absolutely talking to each other. 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 singing the exact same thing? Like, I think a 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. That's beautiful. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Again, again, it's like the 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, right? 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 seven. It's so beautiful. Like I always open the window, you know, it's such a cool thing. That's so great. That's so great. So my next question that comes from the, 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 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, 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, singing has a cooling effect. It like cools things down. Um, and so, uh, that's the kind of like regulating and inhibitory effect that it can have on, on certain emotions. And I, I've done a lot of studying on anger and in particular, um, So I've studied all the emotions, but I often give examples with anger as a focus point. But like anger is is 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, 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 out. that simple that like, if the brain is overheating, what is the, um, or not just even overheating, but 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. Uh, and, uh, I believe singing, singing has a huge impact on that. Um, for a lot of reasons, you know, that singing, not the only thing, um, you know, focused breathing and meditative techniques potentially fall under that umbrella in a similar kind of way. I've never heard it described 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 when we talk about anger and violence. So it's, you know, what is the actual thing that's getting hot? Because there have been studies where they measure like body temperature and it's not that, it's not that simple. 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 it would be, it's, it's something to do with the neural circuitry and the metabolic energy that's being used in the brain in the context of that emotion. That is, it's amazing. It's, Yeah, it's cool. It's cool. Yeah. 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 literally the singing circuits are cooling circuits. So if you, 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 having uh a computer you know what's most expensive is the cooling keeping it cool yeah so 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 the 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 internally or externally. It's hard on the body. It's a wave of adrenaline and all kinds of hormones and neurotransmitters that are very intense. So yeah. thank you that's 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 below so below right like totally yeah you got yeah the behavior is a reflection of the circuitry absolutely oh what else do I got 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 frontotemporal 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 super, super, super excited about. And this is related to these findings that these stories and anecdotes we hear with psychedelics where people experience these miracle cures. And it's like they've had some chronic condition that they've had forever. And then all of a sudden, it's gone. And it doesn't happen every time. So we don't necessarily know how to nail it. But it's possible. And I've been trying to to connect those findings with other things that are known about frontal temporal circuitry and not just the role of these circuits in singing and expression of the self, but the frontal temporal circuits are what go away in neurodegenerative disease. It's like people losing the self. The self is no longer there. So we know that that's where the self is. So then the other piece of data that ties into this is with personality disorder, which is also a disorder of the self. So same circuits, but 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 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. 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. It's just one of those things. 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 cure a chronic condition, you have to create a new identity that doesn't have that condition. Right. 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, that's like, like, you know. Yeah. Yeah. 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 chronic diseases like autoimmune diseases, allergies, all these things that Western medicine isn't very good at treating. It's going to be more about, they're going to be treated by by evolving the identity. And, and like, it's good. It's like, there's like some kind of psychological neurological way of approaching these conditions that is, 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, 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. Thank you, thank you. I just think for a minute, like, 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. I think you need new words. You have to create the new words. to 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? That's where it can come from. I love it. Yeah, yeah. Well, the birdsong study is just kind of like that's 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. We want to be able to know how do you target these circuits in more specific ways? Because we know, okay, you take psychedelics and it's going to cause this 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 that 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 gonna affect those circuits. And so then I know how to combine those behaviors with your psychedelic journey to try to be targeted. And so this is where 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 are 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 they're not expressing themselves. You know, there's no, they're not speaking to you, you know, they're not interacting with you. I do, I don't know that this is true, but I've heard people say that about neurodegenerative conditions a lot. And 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. That's the limitation. When you have a condition where you can't express yourself, it's hard to measure what even is going on. So yeah, all of that is just a way of 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 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 neuro genitor 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. I absolutely think that. One of the insights that came to me, too, was there's different parts of this. If you get into union psychology theory or family systems where there's these different parts of the self, and these parts of the self are always competing with each other, 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, it just, yeah, exactly. Exactly. So I think that, um, 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, but a lot of these theories have been coming, coming to me about how these parts of the self interact and, um, how that might be related to the development of neurodegenerative disease. And, and again, why, like, I think, um, singing in particular is, uh, 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 give 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 nother... theory that I'm exploring and 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 5-MeO-DMT, 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 um I i I know a little bit about those studies I mean I think I think that definitely more more data should be collected particularly because we don't really know like you know, the, the treatments for neurodegenerative disease are limited. So like, like why not, you know, try, um, psychedelics, particularly for cases where we don't really know what else to do. Um, it seems like, uh, you know, because we know of the neuro, neuro generative process, uh, properties of psychedelics, it seems like a no brainer, uh, no pun intended. Yeah. Listen to you. I don't know. Like, I, I, I think, you know, I think that the like psychedelics are going to be most potent as a preventative thing. You know, it's kind of like, where, where is that line where it's like, you know, once, 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, you know, early detection is, 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, 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, cause you just, you need to like follow them for the rest of their life and see if they, 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 that there is treatment potential for neurodegenerative disorder with psychedelics, and there is evidence for that. I would like to see more data. I would definitely like to see more studies on that. 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, you know, for me, it's like 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 like 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 pretty scary. Yeah. 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 plant spirits tell me, if I sing to a tree every day, I'll never get Alzheimer's. You know, like they tell me. Yeah. Yeah. sing to a tree every day and you'll never get all the time. You know, like, like, and it's like, that's a testable hypothesis. That's it's hard, but it is a testable hypothesis. But when I tell people that, you know, it's just, it's such an easy solution and it, and it makes sense when you, you know, it's like intuitively makes sense. Cause 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? Like, 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 real you know relentlessly just like sit have you sang today did you think today you know like getting everybody to sing and I'd 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, maybe put a dent in this, like, you know, the mass cognitive decline that we see happening? And it's, like, 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 know where that... threshold is. I don't think we're there yet. People are still kind of a little bit in denial, it seems. Yeah. Wow. It's amazing to think that maybe... I can't help but think of like a death in a room, but sometimes things have to get so bad and people, especially in addiction and stuff like that. Sometimes things are bad before you go, 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. 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, I, I like to be interdisciplinary because it's like, it's kind of like which which angle to look at a problem. It depends on the question, you know what I mean? And a lot of science can get very myopic and you can get these 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? It's 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, 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 um 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 my practice with these different methods and I'll get inspired to really focus on a specific field. Like, oh, let's think about genetic engineering right now and just really hone in on that. And then once I learn more about it, just because I know other fields, of course, whatever new information I input is I will be able to see how it connects to all these other things I know. There's something special about being an individual who's an interdisciplinary scientist that like is different than like having five people from different disciplines and then like trying to get them to communicate, you know, it's like, like, it's like, it's nice to just have it all in my brain. You know what I mean? But it's not, it's also not possible. So I do, I am looking for, I'm always looking for collaborators and like, relying on other people's expertises as well but I 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, um, and yeah, I trust, you know, I trust the process and, 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, every time, 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, in the world of science and medicine, like we, 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, like the it's necessary, I think in order to, to really get a big picture of it, I guess. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's one of my favorite scientists, a French scientist. He's, you know, he was a contemporary of Einstein named Henri Poincaré. 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 and his 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 pop 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 it's like right 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 it's a, that's a whole nother world when you become educated to know all things or I don't know. It's yeah. Yeah. I mean, I like to just be like a scientist, you know, a scientist and I'm, yeah, I have, you know, my question, my research questions have always been about emotion and, and emotion is just this interesting thing. Bridge between the psychological realms and the spiritual realms. Mystical experiences marked by their intense emotion in many ways. There's so many ways to approach that topic. There is a molecular component to emotion. There is a nervous system component to emotion. There is a psychological component. component to emotion. There's a social component to it. So it's just like, you know, 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's... It just gets me thinking about so many things, but I'm going to stay on topic. Otherwise, I'm just going to start flying off the edges here. Yeah. Okay, let's go with neural implants and therapeutic applications. 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? And what challenges or possibilities do you see in this convergence? Yeah, that's a great question. It's a great question. I feel like psychedelics could potentially enhance... what neural implants are doing by making the brain more amenable to change essentially, right? Like psychedelics induced learning and plasticity and learning. And when you, when you put in a neural implant, you're often, 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 I think electrical stimulation is also really powerful for inducing neuroplasticity. And we know in extreme cases, electric convulsive therapy is still used where you just, if you just like, this isn't a neural implant, but 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, it's like works a hundred percent of the time. It only lasts six months. There's a lot of like side effects, but know that it does that, you know? So, 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, um, targeted, um, 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 uh you know ways of uh creating new types of neural receptors, creating new types of neural transmitters, you know, all, all these kinds of, you know, I feel like the, the sector of neural implants, like includes kind of all of that, that, that can get really exciting. And, and I think, I think neural implants can potentially do some things that are similar to psychedelics or compliment them in certain ways because they also, because of the way that electrical stimulation 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, 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 a 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. We're both racing towards the same thing. I think I'm going to take the biological route. I'm going to take the technological route. But ultimately, 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 scratched the surface. Like I got a few, 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 on 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 um that will never end so yeah I would love to um 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 to to share my work and my ideas and I'm really really grateful for the amazing questions Yeah, 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... Dr. David Solomon, he is one of the most profound individuals I've ever talked to on the idea of medieval mysticism, which has such an incredible tie-in to the psychedelic experience and language. He's amazing. Dr. Jessica Rochester, who is the Mahadrina of the Santo Daime Church, and a few other people, but... I'll introduce you to them 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. But before I let you go today, I want to put the links in the show notes to your work, to the page 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 um 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 um I i you can see you know Even if you don't subscribe, there are some audio clips that you can hear of me just riffing about my research and my scientific ideas. If you want to hear more about the stuff I'm working on with respect to emotion and psychedelics and music and psychedelics and 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 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 very open to collaborating and hoping to share my work and to keep it going in whatever way it looks. My lab is very unconventional in many ways. 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 or watching 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 version of yourself. That's all we got for today, ladies and gentlemen. Aloha. Thank you.