In this podcast, Joanna talks about working with and studying the patient support group 'Clusterbusters' for over a decade and their willingness to become 'outlaws' to obtain or grow illegal psilocybin to treat severe 'cluster' headaches too often after appalling treatment by the medical profession. We discuss the sociology and politics of psychedelics, and medical research generally, reflecting on the many forces that act on researchers in supposedly objective science. We also talk about the members of the current US administration who have spoken openly and positively about their use of psychedlics and contrast this with the way drug users from other ethnicities are treated by the criminal justice system. Fascinating conversation and book.

Participants:

Joanna Kempner, Associate Professor of Sociology, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey. www.joannakempner.com

Ken Barrett, visual artist, writer and former neuropsychiatrist.http://www.kenbarrettstudio.co.uk/

Joanna's book, 'Psychedelic Outlaws': https://www.joannakempner.com/psychedelic-outlaws

Cluster headache:https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/cluster-headaches/

Clusterbusters:https://clusterbusters.org/

Chemical structure of psychedelics (the 'indole ring'): https://psychedelics.cornell.edu/

Opening and closing music: Prelude to 'Brainland', the opera by Stephen Brown.

Brainland the opera website: www.brainlandtheopera.co.uk

Follow us us on Instagram:#brainlandcollective #brainlandthepodcast

Portrait sketch by KB illustration

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the special extended 50th episode of the podcast we bring together four of the leading figures in Neuropsychiatry over the last 40 years for a wide ranging discussion that considers the varying definitions of neuropsychiatry, behavioural neurology and neuropsychology and who needs them. We discuss trailblazers in the field over the last century or so, including Solomon Carter Fuller, an African American neuropathologist and neurologist who spent a year working with Alzheimer. Adolph Meyer, Charcot and Freud (a surprise and controversial appearance) also got a look inbefore a discussion of the pivotal role played by Alwyn Lishman and his book 1978 book ‘Organic Psychiatry’ in advancing the subject. We hear about the success of joint Neuropsychiatry/Behavioural Neurology fellowship training in the US and the increasing amount of functional neurological disorders coming to the speciality in the UK, concluding with a look to the future. Terrific conversation.

Participants:

Eileen Joyce, Professor Emeritus of Neuropsychiatry, University College, London.

Sheldon Benjamin, Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry and Neurology, UMass Chan Medical School

Jonathan Bird, Retired Consultant Neuropsychiatrist, Bristol.

Stephen Brown, Composer, Cellist, Retired Professor of Neuropsychiatry, Cornwall .http://cornwallcomposers.com/stephen.htm

Neuropsychiatry defined (UK): https://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/become-a-psychiatrist/choose-psychiatry/what-is-psychiatry/types-of-psychiatrist/neuropsychiatry

Solomon Carter Fuller https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solomon_Carter_Fuller

Alwyn Lishman

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(21)00997-1/fulltext

Norman Geschwind

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Geschwind

Produced and scripted by Ken Barrett.

Opening and closing music: Prelude to 'Brainland', the opera by Stephen Brown.

Brainland the opera website: www.brainlandtheopera.co.uk

Follow us us on Instagram:#brainlandcollective #brainlandthepodcast

Sketch by KB illustration.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this wide ranging conversation we talk about current views on the subject of 'aesthetics', as covering judgements well outside of the arts (choosing a partner, home etc..) and why studying brain and other physiological responses to individually meaningful poems can be a valuable research tool. We talk about the importance of piloerection responses (goosebumps-shivers) across a wide range of species and the tool Eugen and his colleagues have developed and used to measure this, alongside a range of more traditional measures , some of the studies undertaken and their results.

Participants:

Eugen Wassiliwizky, Post-doctoral Researcher, Department of Cognitive Neuropsychology, Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics, Frankfurt am Main,

Germany. https://www.aesthetics.mpg.de/institut/mitarbeiterinnen/eugen-wassiliwizky.html

Ken Barrett, visual artist, writer and former neuropsychiatrist.http://www.kenbarrettstudio.co.uk/

Some of Eugen and his colleague's papers:

Wassiliwizky, E., & Menninghaus, W. (2021). Why and How Should Cognitive Science Care about Aesthetics? Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 25(6), 437–449.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S136466132100067X?via%3Dihub

Wassiliwizky, E., Koelsch, S., Wagner, V., Jacobsen, T., & Menninghaus, W. (2017). The emotional power of poetry: Neural circuitry, psychophysiology and compositional principles. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 12(8), 1229–1240.

https://academic.oup.com/scan/article/12/8/1229/3778354

Wassiliwizky, E., Jacobsen, T., Heinrich, J., Schneiderbauer, M., & Menninghaus, W. (2017). Tears falling on goosebumps: Co-occurrence of emotional lacrimation and emotional piloerection indicates a psychophysiological climax in emotional arousal. Frontiers in Psychology, 8, Article 41.

https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00041/full

Opening and closing music: Prelude to 'Brainland', the opera by Stephen Brown.

Brainland the opera website: www.brainlandtheopera.co.uk

Follow us us on Instagram:#brainlandcollective #brainlandthepodcast

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.