Episode #57

Episode #57 Full Transcript: 

Conor Murphy

Laura Dawn: Do you wanna share a little bit of your background and the work that you’re doing with flow states and the flow research 

Conor Murphy: collective? 

Sure, absolutely. Uh, yeah, happy to walk through it at a high level. And so my educational background was originally in philosophy and then from there went into nonprofits.

And so I spent about four or five years in nonprofits, mostly looking at the impact of different humanitarian interventions. And so I became really obsessed with data and AI in the context of. And wound up transferring my career more to, uh, focus in the AI space. And then in the meantime became very, very interested in neuroscience.

And so I came to neuroscience by way of action sports. Some people came to, uh, uh, neuroscience by way of meditation or by way of psych adults. But I came to it by way of action sports and became really, really interested in the biological underpinnings of action sports. Um, and. That really drove my love of flow.

And so became involved with the research collective. We co-founded the company a number of years ago, and we’re a research and training organization focusing on flow states. So a lot of what I do is kind of combine in different ways, the neuroscience side of things, with the data in AI side of things.

Laura Dawn: That’s awesome. I love it. Okay. So let’s dive into your thesis that you are submitting in T minus six days. 

Conor Murphy: absolutely. Um, so I I’ve been writing it on, uh, psychedelics and plasticity, and so I became really, really interested in this. Core met up high level idea of how systems change over time. Why do some systems change?

Why do some systems say the same? And when it came to psychedelics, there are some really good studies that have come out really within the past year. So most of this research has come out in the past year or two. And the core hypothesis is that the so-called monoamine hypothesis of mood disorders is somewhat insufficient.

And so the monoamine hypothesis has been around for decades and decades. And this is the core hypothesis that we’re probably mostly familiar with. Right. Which is the idea that certain monoamine serotonin in particular also maybe dopamine, no epinephrine, um, Lowered in those individuals with mood disorders.

And so how do you intervene in those cases while you want to be able to, you know, systematically improve your, your access to those different neurotransmitters serotonin in particular, but there are a number of different gaps here. And so what we know is that psychedelics have a lot of efficacy when it comes to mood disorders.

And so part of the question becomes, why is it that psyched are so efficacious when it comes to these disorders? And the core idea is that this is likely because of plasticity because they are reopening these particular windows of plasticity. And so the mono mean hypothesis is still somewhat accurate, but psyched only temporarily increased say sero.

And so like what we see coming onboard now, and this is really within the past couple years, some of this research predates it, but really a lot of the core seminal studies have come out in the past, maybe six months to a year. And these are really focusing on what degree and in what ways, uh, do psychedelic promote plasticity and do different psyched, promote it differently.

You know, how persistent are those changes? How can you leverage those critical windows? And so this is the stuff that I think is really going start to our understanding of mood disorders, assis, and get into this idea of. Because if you look at these various mood disorders, mood disorders are oftentimes correlated with the lack of plasticity.

There are a number of different markers you can use in order to gauge this. And so it seems like similar to in certain stages of development, right? The so-called terrible twos, uh, uh, when you’re in puberty, right? These are critical windows of change. Um, and it seems that altered states in general and psychedelics more specifically can open up these critical periods in order to allow you to REPA.

What we call pathological neuro pathways, right? So those neuro pathways that are associated with negative outcomes and mood disorders. 

Laura Dawn: Okay. I love how there’s so much to unpack there. Let’s just pause for a second critical periods for people listening that have not heard that term before you just kind of briefly overviewed that.

So just to really make it super clear, there are times in our lives where we are very adaptive to change high learning phase periods of our lives. And so what you’re saying is that altered states and psychedelics sacred plant medicines, they open up critical periods where we are more plastic. We’re a little bit more adaptable in the face of change.

Can we, is that accurate to say, can we unpack that a little bit more? Just like really lay it out for. 

Conor Murphy: right. A hundred percent. So, so one way of thinking about this is in terms of emotional set points. And so we develop these different set points, usually based upon our prior history. Oftentimes these are seminal moments within our childhood.

And so these really. You know, gauge the amount of, um, or the, the, the spectrum of emotional bandwidth that we have. Um, and so like these emotional set points, they’re pretty much fixed once you become an adult for the most part. And it’s really only a few things that can change these emotional set points.

And so to lower these emotional set points, we’re usually talking about divorce loss of a loved one, chronic unemployment, right? The real heavy hitters. Um, and then when it comes to improving those emotional set points, it seems like altered states is one of, if not the most powerful way of improving those emotional set points over time.

And so this really fueled my interest in flow states. And so flow states is one way of having altered states that improve those set points over time. Psychedelics is also very, very interesting in that regard. So you. So you’re setting these emotional set points and then it’s through this process of altered states that you’re really able to ideally improve and increase that emotional bandwidth that, you know, upper limit of the emotional experience that you’re having.

Laura Dawn: Okay. So interesting. I wasn’t expecting you to go into emotional set points when talking about critical periods, that’s really, really fascinating. So it also seems like as a part of integration and training that we need to learn how to regulate our emotions regulate our nervous system. Are you also looking at the intersection between critical periods and nervous system regulation and flow states?

Like if we were to just like throw up a Venn diagram here, 

Conor Murphy: I mean, it it’s fascinating. So like there, there are a couple different ways that we can talk about the biology of it. Part of it we could talk about in terms of autonomic arousal. And so for instance, if you look at the way that, um, these different states promote, uh, plasticity, oftentimes they’re involving some amount of parasympathetic engagement.

So we can talk about the auto autonomic arousal side of things. We can also talk about this at the level of different brain systems. And so this is what’s going on within your default mode network, right? This is your day to day mind wandering network and within altered states, you are contrasting from that default mode network and.

We call this the task positive network, the older literature calls it the executive attention network. Um, but basically like you’re, you’re kind of ping ponging back and forth between these two overall networks. And the default mode network is more of your baseline reality. Maybe that’s correlated back to this idea of, um, an emotional set point of emotional set point, um, idea comes more from the psychology realm.

And sometimes we struggle to match up the, you know, the, the psychology with the neuroscience. Um, but at the end of the. These, what seems to be characteristic of this process is these altered states, which is, you know, can involve the task positive network, um, can involve other networks as well. And that seems to be recoding what you have within your default baseline default mode network activity.

Hmm. 

Laura Dawn: Okay. And is part of, uh, BDNF brain derived neurotropic factor, uh, an influence in what opens up the critical periods. Do you have a, a theory as to why altered states really open up this plasticity and you mentioned some seminal work. Are we talking Dr. Robin cart Harris’s work? What are some of the studies that you specifically said in the past, like six months to 12 months have really pointed towards this that has been new on the scene.

Conor Murphy: Yeah. Um, so BDNF is one of my favorite topics. So happy to do a deeper dive there. Um, uh, maybe I’ll start with one study in particular. And this one came from, uh, a number of years ago. I think this was at a UC Davis, perhaps back in 2018 if I recall correctly. But the, the, the core experimental method that they used was they were basically harvesting these neurons, these cortical neurons cortex.

Uh, putting them in Petri dishes and then applying different psychedelics to them. And so this is probably one of the coolest experimental designs, right? So you have this Petri dish and you give it, there’s a research compound called DOI, which is pretty common within these, uh, this research, but they also used L S D and psilocybin and M ketamine and DMT.

And then they looked at what were the relative effects, uh, to these individual neurons. And so they imaged them super high resolution in order to get a sense for whether there were alterations, the overall dendritic complexity, right? That’s one of the, the measures they used for plasticity. And you can then compare these different psychedelics in how they affect this really low level way of understanding plasticity, which is how are these individual adult mature neurons changing over.

And when they were looking at this, one of the things that they were looking at was BDNF. And so for those who are less familiar with BDNF, this is, as you said, brain drive neurotropic factor. This is one of the main growth factors within the brain. Um, and when they blocked BDNF, they saw no changes to these neurons.

And so this seemed to be a strong indication that this is a BDNF mediated process. So you can get BDNF elsewhere. You know, one of the best ways of improving BDNF is through exercise. As many of us know. Exercise is anti-correlated back with depressive symptoms. And so that could be part of its mechanism for a while.

There was the so-called BDNF theory of depression, uh, which is BDF is, you know, the, the main target to look at when it comes to depression, because you take individuals who are depressed, you’ll see much lower BDNF, um, levels. And so that supports this idea, that mood disorders are associated back with a lack of plasticity.

Um, and so for a while, that became, you know, one of the big targets when it came to different depression interventions. Now the, the, the consensus is that BDNF is highly correlated, but it might not be the main causal factor involved there, but it’s definitely worthwhile to look at, um, and. All that to say is like, this is like one of the piece of research that came out a number of years ago, really seminal in that space.

And then a number of additional papers came out, looking at these different components of neuroplasticity and what brain regions are involved. Um, one of the ideas that’s so interesting within this domain is whether you need some sort of conscious involvement in order to have those benefits, at least when it comes to mood disorders and this.

Controversial, a lot of people have some heavy opinions surrounding this, but it’s a fascinating, fascinating conversation to have because, um, if you look at specific brain regions, a lot of this is going on in deeper brain regions, most specifically the hippocampus. Um, and so if you have the ability to affect mood disorders without cognitive involvement, um, then like, you know, things that, that has a lot of implications for how we start to understand psychedelics, because so much of the psychedelic experience is very subjective, right?

It’s you like you’re very much there and in it. Um, however, there’s an argument that’s coming online now, especially when it comes to some of the ketamine therapy that this has to do with deeper brain structures that don’t necessarily need the same subjective involvement, um, that we might assume given, you know, that the average person’s experience with psyched.

Laura Dawn: Oh, my gosh. That is super interesting and is I can imagine very controversial and looking at, you know, how do we work with psychedelic journeys to initiate change? I feel like we, we kind of stepped over like a very base foundational understanding for people listening that maybe we should just back up a second and make this super relatable and build on it from there.

Okay. So why is change so freaking hard? maybe we should just start there stability versus change. And you know, when we go through these rapid growth phases as children where we’re so molded and shaped into, you know, certain set ways, and then as we get older, where, you know, we deepen in the groove of who we are, our belief systems, our thought patterns, our emotional set point, as you referenced earlier, And that medicines and psychedelics can open up those critical periods, but let’s start like at the base.

Why is change so hard and how do we navigate this conversation of stability versus growth and 

Conor Murphy: change? Oof. I mean, that, that’s a very loaded question and so I’ll do my best um, so like, as we go on through our development, we start off in, we are in these critical windows and. At least in the context of AI, you always talk about the exploration mode versus the exploitation mode.

The exploration mode is, you know, you’re looking at these different potential action plans. You’re weighing them. And exploitation is, you know, I’ve already learned this much about my environment. I’m gonna exploit the knowledge that I already have. And I think as humans, we go through this process as we get older and we start off and we’re in much more of exploration mode.

And then as we get older, we become much more, you know, in, in exploitation mode. And one really interesting example of this is if you look at elderly people in the way that they form friendships, generally speaking, they’re not out there trying to meet new people. They know the people that they really enjoy spending time with.

So they exploit those relationships that they have, and they don’t necessarily explore new relationships outside of that. And so part of it, I think is a natural process of learning. As, as we go on in life, we kind of figure out what works for us. And then we start to exploit that more and more over time.

Um, However, oftentimes you want to go through this process of change and you become, you know, somewhat victimized by your own, but by your past identities. Um, and th this is not to say that change is necessarily good and there’s problems. If we disregulate, if we have too much change, right. That can be really compromising to our sense of identity.

That can be really overwhelming. There are, you know, like plenty of, um, Uh, different