Essentials: Psychedelics for Treating Mental Disorders | Dr. Matthew Johnson

Huberman Lab

Scicomm Media

Science, Health & Fitness, Life Sciences

4.8 • 26.2K Ratings

🗓️ 24 July 2025

⏱️ 39 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this Huberman Lab Essentials episode, my guest is Dr. Matthew Johnson, PhD, a senior researcher for the Center of Excellence for Psilocybin Research and Treatment at Sheppard Pratt’s Institute for Advanced Diagnostics and Therapeutics. We explore the science and therapeutic potential of psychedelic medicine, including psilocybin, MDMA and LSD. We discuss how these substances can profoundly alter perception and self-identity, providing long-lasting relief from depression, addiction and trauma when used in controlled clinical settings. We also discuss microdosing and emerging research on psychedelics’ potential to support recovery from neurological injuries. Read the episode show notes at hubermanlab.com. Thank you to our sponsors AG1: https://drinkag1.com/huberman David: https://davidprotein.com/huberman BetterHelp: https://betterhelp.com/huberman Timestamps 00:00:00 Matthew Johnson; Psychedelics 00:01:44 Different Classes of Psychedelics 00:04:33 Psychedelics & Altering Models 00:06:18 Sponsor: David 00:07:33 LSD, Psylocibin & Serotonin 00:09:55 Psychedelic Clinical Trials 00:13:40 Therapy, Trust, Psychedelics 00:16:47 Letting Go & Psychedelic Experience, Self-Representation, Lasting Changes 00:22:31 Sponsors: AG1 & BetterHelp 00:25:26 MDMA, Dopamine & Serotonin; Bad Trips & Transcendental Experience 00:28:49 Dangers of Psychedelics 00:31:11 Microdosing Psychedelics, Antidepressant 00:35:27 Head Injuries, Psychedelics, Depression 00:38:29 Acknowledgements Disclaimer & Disclosures Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Huberman Lab Essentials, where we revisit past episodes for the most potent and actionable science-based tools for mental health, physical health, and performance.
0:11.4	I'm Andrew Huberman, and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine.
0:17.0	And now my conversation with Dr. Matthew Johnson.
0:20.5	Well, Matthew, I've been looking forward to this for a long time.
0:23.0	I'm a huge fan of your scientific work and I'm a year to learn from you.
0:28.7	Likewise, big fan and happy to do this with you.
0:31.6	All right.
0:31.8	Well, thank you.
0:32.7	My first question is a very basic one, which is what qualifies a substance as a psychedelic.
0:40.1	Nomenclature is a real challenge in this area of psychedelic. So starting with the word
0:45.7	psychedelic, it just, if you're a pharmacologist, it's not very satisfying because that term really
0:53.2	spans different pharmacological classes.
0:57.3	In other words, if you're really concerned about receptor effects and the basic effects of a compound,
1:02.9	it spans several classes of compounds.
1:06.6	But overall, so it's really more of a cultural term or it does have a relationship to drug
1:15.7	effects, but it's at a very high level.
1:18.8	So all of the so-called psychedelics across these distinct classes that I can talk more
1:25.9	about, the way I put is they all had the ability to profoundly alter. classes that I can talk more about.
1:33.9	The way I put is they all had the ability to profoundly alter one sense of reality.
1:35.7	And that can mean many things.
1:39.8	Part of that is profoundly altering the sense of self acutely.
1:42.7	So when someone's on, the psychedelic.
	...

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