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4:13

Hello everybody and welcome back to Psychedelics

4:15

Today. This is Joe Moore coming at you from Breckenridge,

4:17

Colorado. Today on the show we have

4:19

Dr. David Rabin from Apollo

4:21

Neuro. They've made a wearable

4:24

device that I think could be pretty interesting

4:26

in some psychedelic studies. They've got

4:28

some interesting data they've put out. I've been testing

4:31

the device for I don't know maybe

4:33

three or four weeks now as of recording this.

4:35

Recording this in November 1. I've

4:38

found it to be pretty interesting and I

4:40

think helpful. My flights have been a little

4:42

easier and my sleeping has been a little easier. I definitely

4:45

wish I could be a little more systematic in tracking

4:47

my health stats but I'm curious.

4:50

I think I'm

4:52

really interested to see what they're up to in

4:54

the psychedelic space. This is the first

4:57

time in a while I'm recording the intro before

4:59

the podcast. You'll hear from me on the

5:01

other side, kind of recapping

5:03

what I've learned. I am

5:06

excited for this interview and we'll see

5:08

you on the other side. Hope you enjoy it. Again,

5:10

Dr. David Rabin from Apollo Neuro. Thanks

5:12

for tuning in.

5:16

What do you appreciate the most about psychedelics

5:19

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5:32

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5:34

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5:36

love you to be more involved in how our

5:38

story unfolds. We'd really appreciate

5:41

it if you would consider supporting our work financially

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and at the same time bringing your own

5:45

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5:47

of our global community. That's why we

5:49

invite you to become Navigators.

5:52

Navigators is our online membership

5:54

community where we share podcasts,

5:57

articles, and bring people in the psychedelic

5:59

world.

7:59

because, you know,

8:02

there's so many different takes on it. And

8:04

I always wanted to study dreams

8:06

and consciousness. But as

8:08

I started to go through my training and learn

8:11

about neuroscience research and what was possible

8:13

for us to do work in and research

8:15

in, a lot of my mentors really

8:17

discouraged me from studying this area because

8:20

it was so underfunded. And

8:22

so there was so little known that

8:25

I ended up focusing on chronic stress

8:28

and how stress changes the way we interpret

8:30

meaning from the world and how some of

8:32

us are exposed to stress

8:35

and use it as an opportunity for growth

8:37

and discovery and

8:40

expansion of ourselves and others of us get exposed

8:43

to stress and get sick, right?

8:46

And so, you know, for me, I was always fascinated

8:48

by what separates folks who fall

8:50

into one camp versus the other and why do some people

8:52

end up falling into both. And then as

8:55

I was finishing my

8:58

medical training in 2012, I had

9:01

a very good friend. I was studying chronic

9:04

stress on a neural stem cell level related

9:07

to dementia and disorders of aging. And

9:10

I was still

9:13

at that point, I knew I wanted to continue neuroscience

9:15

work, but I wasn't sure what medical

9:17

specialty I wanted to focus

9:20

on. And one of my best friends at the

9:22

time, who knew she wanted to be

9:24

a psychiatrist forever, you know, kept telling

9:26

me, Dave, you should really become a psychiatrist, you'd be great psychiatrists.

9:29

And I was like, nah, you know, whatever.

9:31

I don't, you know, this doesn't really interest me.

9:33

But I had also had great experiences

9:36

training in my in the psychiatry department.

9:38

And I love the people I worked with. And but

9:41

the practice of it was so drug focused.

9:43

And it was so much

9:46

not getting to the heart of what

9:48

was really causing suffering in people. And that

9:51

was a bit discouraging. And so I told

9:53

her that and later

9:55

that day, she sent me like an email with,

9:57

you know, 10 or 12 of the leading publications

10:00

that had come out in the psychedelic space around

10:03

treatment-resistant mental illness and how

10:05

this was starting to shift

10:07

the paradigm of the way we were seeing mental health

10:09

and treating mental health disorders. And it

10:12

just totally enthralled

10:14

me. And I was just fascinated by this work

10:17

that was now being, at that time, being published

10:19

in world-class scientific journals. And

10:22

I, you know, within 36 hours of reading

10:25

those papers, I made

10:27

the decision, I'm gonna become a psychiatrist, I'm gonna focus

10:29

on

10:29

studying what I've always wanted to study, which is consciousness

10:32

and healing from this perspective.

10:35

That's super interesting. And I

10:37

guess, you know, it tracks, right? Like,

10:40

do we really, if it's

10:42

avoidable, do we really want somebody on a med long-term?

10:46

Like, I think, you know, the answer is no, we want

10:48

them on natural things, or, you know, one

10:50

super aggressive intervention and back to normal

10:53

or wearables. So you kind of like, he kind

10:55

of hit all three, which is great. I'm

10:57

kind of curious, like, what

10:59

kind of stuff at the time in 2012 was

11:02

kind of overly drug-focused

11:05

in psychiatry? Was it like the

11:08

typical kind of antipsychotics and SSRIs,

11:11

and that's like the only tool being used? Or

11:13

what was, how did you see it? But

11:15

I think at that time, a lot,

11:18

you know, biological psychiatry

11:20

was in its heyday. There

11:22

was a lot of talk

11:25

and the general narrative around psychiatry

11:27

was very much that people

11:29

had a genetic deficiency

11:32

in

11:34

functioning of their serotonin receptors or functioning

11:36

of their dopamine receptors. And there

11:38

were these imbalances in our neurotransmitter

11:41

systems that we were born with that resulted

11:44

in us developing mental illness. But

11:46

that really left out a lot

11:48

of the environmental story and

11:51

the story about what happens to us

11:53

that causes us to develop mental

11:55

illness, because not everybody gets it, even if you have

11:58

a genetic predisposition. And

12:00

so it's just a story just seemed very incomplete.

12:02

And when I started to study and I

12:04

was spending more time actually treating patients

12:07

with mental illness, from depression,

12:09

anxiety to PTSD,

12:11

schizophrenia, and other bipolar,

12:14

psychotic disorders, you know, the whole spectrum, you

12:16

know, I realized, which is not

12:19

something that's unique to me, I think a lot of us see this

12:21

in the field, which is that a lot of our medications

12:23

are really focused on symptom management,

12:26

and, and kind of sedating

12:28

or numbing people to their feelings, to

12:31

help them cope with day to day stress, which

12:33

has its place. And there are times

12:36

where we need to stabilize

12:38

people in that way, that's absolutely a reality.

12:41

And those medicines do have their place at the same

12:44

time. The long term

12:46

use of those medications causes a lot

12:49

of very unpleasant side effects

12:51

that often accumulate over time

12:53

and get worse, which results people not wanting

12:55

to take the medicines and results in relapse,

12:58

illness relapse and things like that. And

13:01

it just didn't seem like we had good answers

13:04

to get to the root of what was going on. It was

13:06

like we were just scratching the surface

13:08

and trying to, you know, get

13:11

a sense of the symptom patterns, but

13:13

we weren't actually, you know, looking at what

13:15

is lying underneath the surface about why

13:18

people might have a lot

13:20

of these different symptoms. And then

13:23

I started to study trauma and through

13:25

chronic stress, I realized in the study of trauma

13:28

and some of the work that started to come out of Tom

13:30

Insull's focus at

13:33

the NIMH, the National Institutes

13:35

of Mental Health, which was called RDoC at

13:37

the time, which is research domain criteria.

13:40

And you don't need to really know much about that, but it was

13:42

a very interesting project to look at the commonalities

13:45

between all mental illnesses and what is at

13:47

the core from the evidence. And

13:49

what that started to point to was

13:52

trauma and that traumatic

13:54

experiences where we are not supported

13:57

afterwards or worst case

13:59

where we're actually blamed for the

14:01

trauma has a way of manifesting

14:04

itself in all of these different psychiatric

14:06

conditions from depression to anxiety to ADHD

14:09

to PTSD and even schizophrenia. And

14:12

our schizophrenic patients had all had for

14:14

the most part traumatic backgrounds, which was really

14:16

interesting to me. And so trauma

14:19

and chronic stress really kind of came together

14:21

as this primary theme underlying

14:24

what was to me seemed to be

14:26

at the root of a lot of our mental illness that

14:29

people were we were trying to treat and

14:31

that our patients were struggling with. And

14:34

so that became an

14:36

increasing focus of a lot of my researchers, of

14:38

course, led me to, you know, start to

14:41

evaluate what works really well for trauma

14:43

in that time and what was starting to come out in the psychedelic

14:46

literature around MDMA assisted

14:48

therapy for PTSD and psilocybin therapy

14:50

for depression and end of life and and

14:53

the work of people like Roland Griffiths and maps.

14:55

And and there was just so much interesting stuff

14:57

coming out that was giving us a different concept

15:00

of how to think about mental illness that was very,

15:03

very different from what we were taught in medical

15:05

school and medical and and psychiatry

15:08

training. And so all

15:10

of that together started to

15:12

form a new basis for how, you

15:14

know, we're now thinking about mental illness.

15:17

I love that. And thank you so much. What

15:20

I get concerned

15:22

about the psychedelic space being so anti psychiatry,

15:26

but like, you know, psychiatry

15:28

has a bit of an uphill battle, right? Like

15:31

in a lot of ways, right? Like how

15:33

you just laid that out was incredible. You

15:35

know, I did some reading on what

15:38

was the book Saving Normal, where they kind of critique the

15:40

creation of DSM five. But, you know, I

15:42

think the guy who was the chair of the project and, you

15:45

know, stuff wasn't always scientific in there. But like

15:47

the way you're speaking about a super scientific approach

15:49

to understanding these things further and traumatic

15:52

experiences, perhaps precipitating

15:55

things like schizophrenia, like we all

15:57

thought that was genetic or something. Inherited

16:00

you know perhaps inherited a little bit, but perhaps

16:03

not through genetics and as such right

16:05

So yeah, and now we have you're

16:08

welcome and now we have the epigenetic

16:10

story as well. That's really interesting, right? So

16:12

there's there's the you know, it's the genetic

16:14

predisposition Which is what our DNA

16:17

code that has been passed down from

16:19

our parents Which is the code that's the same in

16:21

every single cell of our entire

16:23

bodies except our sperm and egg cells that

16:26

is 50% from mom and 50% from dad

16:28

roughly and that code is effectively

16:33

like our biological map of our

16:35

bodies and then

16:37

Yet even though every cell has the same DNA

16:39

in it certain cells know to be skin and

16:42

certain ones know to be brain And the reason

16:44

that they know is because there

16:46

is another layer of code on the DNA

16:49

Which is called epigenetic code that tells

16:51

certain parts of the DNA Hey, we're

16:53

skin turn up skin proteins

16:56

and oh and turn down brain

16:58

proteins And then there's other ones in the brain that say

17:00

hey the poor brain turn up brain

17:02

proteins and turn down skin proteins Right in

17:04

a very simple way. And so

17:06

that also passes down

17:09

a predisposition meaning a Certain

17:12

percentage likelihood of developing

17:14

a certain illness, but I think that what

17:17

we're learning now That's really fascinating

17:19

is that there's by no means a

17:21

guarantee That because you

17:23

were born with a certain Predisposition

17:26

to a particular mental health illness that that's

17:28

your destiny, right? It doesn't mean

17:30

you're stuck and that's what's gonna happen to you It

17:33

means that you know Maybe we need

17:35

to be extra careful because there's certain stresses

17:37

or certain things that could happen to you

17:40

that could result in this And so we need to take

17:42

more care around how

17:44

you how you're dealing with stress or how You're

17:47

how safe your environment is and things like that

17:49

and how you're supported after a traumatic

17:51

event because that could ultimately

17:55

set the stage for what unfolds

17:58

later that either becomes a

18:00

growth opportunity or becomes an illness

18:02

opportunity. Yeah.

18:05

Yeah, I love that. And I loved your description

18:07

of this protein now. That

18:09

was my shower thought this morning, actually. I

18:12

was thinking into like, how does malnutrition impact

18:14

this? It's interesting. I'm sure there's plenty

18:16

of data on that. Anyway,

18:19

so you had somebody kind of sending you this psychedelic

18:21

literature and obviously you're in

18:23

this field. So you're like, okay, we should pay attention.

18:26

There's Hopkins or whatever other school is

18:28

doing this good work.

18:30

Were you kind of nervous to dig in given

18:33

the reputational pressures that can happen in

18:35

medicine? It's always edgy to talk about something

18:37

a little new, right?

18:38

For sure.

18:39

But again, going back to 2012, psychiatry

18:42

was in and of itself a

18:44

pretty... It

18:47

was a look down upon field in medicine.

18:51

Even if you were in many other fields

18:53

of medicine that have more objective measures

18:55

of illness, looked

18:58

down at psychiatry saying, oh, well, you're

19:00

just guessing because you're providing

19:03

treatment based on symptom patterns. You're

19:05

not actually understanding the core of what's

19:07

going on. You don't have tests. You

19:09

don't have lab tests. You don't have antibiotics. You

19:11

don't have tools that actually get to

19:13

the heart of what's going on. So

19:16

it's just like a guessing game. And I

19:18

think that the stigma

19:21

of becoming a psychiatrist actually

19:23

overwhelmed the stigma of psychedelic

19:26

research. Which

19:28

is kind of funny. I think there were other

19:30

challenges once I became a psychiatrist

19:33

to fold in the psychedelic

19:35

work. But psychiatrists on the whole

19:38

in general are actually a very open-minded bunch.

19:43

It's hard to deny that

19:45

we are struggling as a field

19:47

to address the growing burden of mental

19:49

illness. I mean, look at the statistics, right? You

19:52

can't deny it. And

19:54

so from that standpoint,

19:56

psychiatry actually... psychiatrist,

20:01

it was actually a pretty easy

20:03

decision to study psychedelic medicines

20:05

and to study technology and alternative treatment

20:08

modalities because the The

20:12

there was an agreement in the

20:14

field that we need more better

20:17

less side effects less

20:19

side effect burdensome Techniques

20:21

to treat some of these hard to treat illnesses and

20:24

so ultimately down the road That

20:26

led me to study wearable technology because

20:29

I was trying to figure out well You

20:31

know psychedelic medicines are hard to

20:33

access. They're expensive They require highly

20:35

trained therapists to deliver in the Western model

20:38

And so how do we how do

20:41

we actually understand what they're doing? right

20:43

if we understand that trauma is at

20:46

unprocessed trauma that where we weren't supported

20:48

effectively is is at the heart

20:51

of Or could be at the heart of

20:53

why people get and develop mental illness.

20:55

It doesn't get better Then you

20:57

know the question became well, how

21:00

do psychedelics work? Right because when

21:02

you look at the psychedelic medicine Studies

21:05

whether they're in animal models or in humans The

21:08

results are really profound

21:10

and very different than what we see in

21:12

Western medical treatment People just

21:15

as one example, right? one of my favorite examples

21:17

is the phase 2 MBMA trial with maps

21:19

that is now looked at one year follow-up data

21:21

and These are people who had

21:24

on average 17.6 years

21:26

of treatment resistant PTSD Mostly

21:29

veterans they've tried everything under the Sun.

21:31

It hasn't worked. They're still sick and

21:33

then they experience three doses of MDMA

21:36

and and 42 hours of psychotherapy

21:38

over 12 weeks and 55% of

21:41

those people are no longer meeting diagnostic

21:44

criteria After having

21:46

that experience, which is incredible in and of itself then

21:49

you can look at those people one year out

21:51

with no additional treatment as Administered

21:54

by the study group and that 55% number goes

21:56

up to 67% with no additional

21:59

administer treatment by the study group.

22:02

And that is a situation

22:05

that we never see in psychiatry.

22:08

All of the studies of psychiatric medications

22:10

show that whether you're looking at antipsychotics

22:12

or SSRIs or SNRIs

22:14

or any of the other medications we have, that

22:17

when our patients stop taking the medication,

22:20

they almost always

22:22

relapse. And so this

22:24

was showing the opposite and not with

22:26

daily dosing. And so that

22:29

really stuck out as like a paradigm

22:32

shifting opportunity for the way we look at mental

22:34

health. And really brought

22:36

me back to the ancient origins of medicine,

22:39

going back to Hippocrates, Maimonides,

22:42

and ancient Eastern and tribal techniques

22:44

where for thousands of years, we

22:46

have been taught that the source of

22:49

healing comes from within the person seeking to be healed.

22:51

So then what is the role of the healer? The

22:54

role of the healer is to empower the

22:56

person who is seeking to be healed to

22:59

heal themselves, not to

23:01

position ourselves as the source of healing. And

23:04

so that fundamental difference

23:07

in the way we practice mental health today

23:10

or medicine in general, compared

23:12

to the way we... And treat chronic

23:14

illness compared to the way that we treated these things

23:16

in history or across history

23:21

just created a really interesting

23:23

dichotomy for me

23:25

where I was like, these two are not aligned,

23:27

right? So how do we take these

23:30

principles of ancient medicine understanding?

23:33

Because even today in mental health training, we're still

23:35

taught that the patient is a source of healing. It's

23:37

not coming from us. And yet we make the mistake

23:41

of assuming it comes from us or it comes from the medicine

23:43

or it comes from the treatment program all the time. So how

23:45

do we just continue to remind ourselves

23:48

and remind our patients, our clients that they

23:50

are the source and empower them

23:53

to self heal. And that's what MDMA

23:55

was really... The MDMA studies are really showing,

23:58

which is so promising. And that,

24:00

through the study of how MDMA works, really led to

24:02

the development of Apollo and the study of wearable

24:04

technology.

24:05

I love that. Thanks so much. And

24:07

listeners should take note, if you've been around for a while,

24:09

you kind of picked up on this

24:12

message here, like you have it in you, you

24:14

just have to set those conditions in you.

24:16

So you can heal. It's kind of very grophian.

24:18

Yeah. And I really appreciate that. And I think

24:21

I even studied most of my monadies in my undergrad.

24:24

It's fun to hear that. Yeah, there's

24:26

so much interesting philosophy and medicine kind

24:28

of paired together in history. And it was often that.

24:30

It's like, it's in you. You know, I

24:32

think I remember something about

24:35

calorie Bush people having very specific language

24:37

about, you know, letting the medicine rise

24:39

in you through their rituals and a lot

24:42

of things resolve. Yeah. Yeah.

24:45

If only they had wearables, right? Like I got super

24:47

addicted in kind of a negative way to

24:49

my whoop device where I would just be like, you

24:52

know, Oh shit, didn't sleep well again. Didn't

24:54

sleep well again. I think it was about three months ago or

24:56

it was like, I can't anymore. I can't,

24:58

I can't do it. I tried so hard. And

25:00

then I got the Apollo from you

25:02

guys and I was like, okay, let's try it out. See

25:04

what we get. I remember using it at meet

25:07

Delic years and years ago. I liked your

25:09

booth there. I got to chat with your folks there. And

25:11

I think all my friends tried it out for a little bit and I was like, you

25:13

know what? I wish I had that so I could be a little bit

25:15

more easy while flying. Cause I get

25:17

like, yeah, I kind of like, I'm

25:19

not freaking out. Like I'm not going to get

25:21

security called on me, but I'm extraordinarily

25:24

uncomfortable most of the time in there.

25:27

And I've been flying with it last couple of times

25:29

and I've really, I think it's really decreased

25:31

my overall stress load.

25:33

So

25:34

I'm kind of curious, like before we dig into Apollo

25:36

more specifically, like what were

25:39

you seeing in the wearables world that

25:41

kind of made you interested in

25:44

kind of, you know, starting to develop something? Was it

25:46

something about semantics and vibration

25:49

or, or yeah, what was the influence?

25:51

So I

25:53

think

25:54

what was, so what I was seeing in the wearables

25:56

world was the same thing that you just mentioned with

25:58

your loop.

25:59

Right.

25:59

which is that people

26:01

were

26:03

using wearable trackers, and

26:06

there's nothing wrong with wearable trackers

26:08

if you need that information to teach

26:10

you about yourself. But I think a lot of people

26:13

already know when they're stressed

26:15

out, and they know when they're not sleeping well,

26:17

and they know when they're exercising enough. So

26:20

getting data back, saying

26:22

that you're not doing enough, you need to do

26:25

more when you're already stressed out,

26:28

creates data fatigue. And

26:30

people were using buying wearables.

26:34

And when I say wearables, I mean, this is

26:36

back in pre-2016 times, they're buying wearables, buying

26:43

fitness trackers, things like that, to

26:45

give them these insights into their health. But

26:47

ultimately, a lot of people

26:49

found after several months of using them, unless

26:52

you're an extreme elite athlete that's trying to eke

26:54

out every last little percent improvement

26:56

you can, that

26:59

there wasn't much new insight they were getting,

27:01

and that they were just adding on responsibilities.

27:04

And one of the things that was always

27:06

stood out to me about wearables, that I thought was so wearable

27:08

trackers, that I thought was so funny was I would have patients

27:11

come in, and they would tell me about

27:13

their sleep. And they would say, I woke

27:15

up and I felt great. And then I thought

27:18

I felt really rested. And I looked at my

27:21

wearable tracker data, and it said I didn't

27:23

sleep well last night. And then I felt terrible.

27:26

And I'm like, well, isn't it more important

27:29

that you felt like you slept well than

27:31

that your device told you you didn't? And

27:34

of course, the light bulb goes off, and they're like, Oh,

27:37

maybe. Right? And

27:39

like, how much faith are we putting in this

27:41

data technology? Not

27:43

to say that it's not useful. Again, it is useful for certain

27:46

things, just like medications are useful for certain things.

27:48

But we have to make sure that you

27:51

can have the best technology and use it the wrong way and

27:53

not accomplish your goals. So that

27:56

was really interesting to me, because

27:58

the

27:59

the benefits of wearable technology are

28:02

that they gather so

28:04

much useful data about us, but

28:07

the wearable

28:09

trackers alone don't take

28:11

the final step of actually

28:15

solving the problem. They give

28:17

us the information and then they say, hey,

28:19

you solve the problem based on what we've assessed

28:21

your problem is. But

28:24

the action from us is still required.

28:26

And if we're stressed, overwhelmed, overtired,

28:29

etc., under slept,

28:32

making those changes, even when you're told exactly

28:35

what to do, is really, really hard

28:37

because evolutionarily, when

28:40

our stress response, fight or flight system

28:42

is going off through the roof because of any number

28:44

of things in our lives, we get tunnel

28:46

vision and new things become

28:50

bringers of uncertainty and unfamiliarity.

28:53

So we actually avoid new things,

28:56

even though they might be healthy for us, that

28:59

new those new things and that change becomes really

29:01

hard because we are

29:03

our body opposes it because it's potentially

29:06

uncertain. So it's easier when you're

29:08

stressed out, even though you know, it's not good for you

29:10

to go back to the Netflix and back to the hagandah and

29:12

back to the cigarettes and back to the booze

29:14

and whatever it is, because that's what we

29:16

find familiarity and comfort in. We

29:19

cling to things we know when we're

29:21

stressed and overwhelmed. And

29:23

that's what our bodies have evolved to do. So

29:26

I think that was a big

29:28

reason why we that was a big

29:31

gap that we saw in the space where we said,

29:33

well, what if wearables could actually

29:35

start to solve some of these problems for us,

29:37

not just tell us we have problems, but actually

29:39

start to solve them. And that

29:42

set off a new

29:44

path to ultimately

29:46

the development of Apollo, which

29:48

also came from our understanding of how

29:51

MDMA therapy works, which we can talk about in a

29:53

minute if you like.

29:55

Yeah, so

29:57

let's actually dig right into like how are

29:59

you Are you modeling how does MDMA

30:01

psychotherapy work? I'm sure you have a

30:04

great way to explain it. When

30:08

I first heard about the trial results

30:10

that were coming out from MAPS that we talked about earlier,

30:12

I was really excited about them just

30:15

because they were so promising. And

30:17

just a 55% treatment remission rates

30:25

going up to 67% at one year out, that

30:27

was an unheard of statistic in psychiatry,

30:30

like unheard of. We have never seen anything

30:32

like that in the history of our field. So

30:34

that was itself

30:37

a fascinating finding. And

30:39

so when I saw that, I actually

30:42

really wanted to get involved because I'm

30:44

in that research and I'm a mechanism

30:47

guy as a neuroscientist and I love to figure out

30:49

how things work. And so I found, I was

30:51

told that if you

30:53

gotta meet Rick Doblin, you gotta find Rick and talk to him

30:55

to get involved. So I went to

30:57

the Horizons conference in 2016 and

31:00

I met Rick in person at a fundraiser and

31:02

in New York City. And we had the opportunity

31:04

to chat for 20 minutes. And I said, hey, Rick, the

31:09

results you're getting from these studies are just absolutely

31:11

stunning. Is there,

31:14

can we figure out how MDMA works? Because

31:16

if we can figure out how it works, we

31:19

can come up with other tools that

31:21

can help induce that

31:24

effect or even a small percentage of

31:26

that effect for people that don't

31:28

require medicine because the medicine

31:31

is illegal right now. That was back

31:33

in 2016, it's still illegal. It

31:36

won't be legal for practice

31:38

in the clinic until probably mid 2024.

31:42

And it's gonna be real, real expensive. And

31:44

there's only 700 people roughly nationwide

31:47

that are trained to do it. So it's gonna

31:49

be hard to access. And

31:52

Rick originally was a little bit skeptical and

31:54

wasn't sure he cared. But then as we talked, he

31:56

was like, okay, this is interesting. So

31:59

he allowed me. and three or

32:01

four of my psychiatry colleagues get trained

32:03

in MDMA therapy. And from

32:05

there, we took our research into

32:08

two directions, one of which was

32:10

studying the mechanism of MDMA therapy on

32:12

the epigenetic level, and to see

32:14

if we could start to repair some of the epigenetic

32:17

changes that Rachel, Yehuda, and others

32:19

have now shown that trauma induces

32:22

in the body on cortisol receptor genes,

32:24

which was a paper that was just published this

32:27

past February that we showed in

32:29

studying the MAPS phase three trial subjects that

32:32

yes, in fact, MDMA-assisted

32:34

therapy does start to repair

32:36

some of these epigenetic changes that

32:38

are induced by trauma, which is fascinating,

32:41

and particularly fascinating

32:44

because it's repairing

32:46

stuff that's in the safety fear

32:48

response system around cortisol and

32:51

stress. And so that was kind

32:53

of the stress link. And then the second

32:55

part that came out of that was when

32:58

I got my MDMA training with MAPS, I

33:00

learned from doing a

33:02

ton of research into the animal studies of MDMA

33:05

and what they had shown in the brain of

33:07

mice and rats, and then combining

33:10

that with what I was seeing happen in human subjects

33:12

who were experiencing MDMA therapy in the

33:14

MAPS trials, that MDMA

33:17

works by molecularly,

33:19

at least from what we can tell now, it

33:21

seems to be working by molecularly

33:24

amplifying safety cascades in the emotional

33:26

brain. And that when you amplify

33:28

safety cascades in the emotional

33:30

brain, or

33:31

what we call the limbic system, that

33:34

sends direct signals to the amygdala,

33:36

the fear center of the brain, that says, hey,

33:38

hey, bud, we're safe. You

33:40

don't need to overreact right now. You

33:43

can settle down and we can enjoy this

33:45

moment and be present. And

33:49

by present in the MDMA therapy context

33:52

of PTSD, that means safe and

33:54

present enough to actually

33:57

reevaluate your past

33:59

traumatic experience.

33:59

experiences and

34:01

reinterpret and remake meaning

34:03

around them so that they don't sit with

34:05

you for the rest of your life and That's

34:07

what we were seeing in the in

34:09

these studies of the MDMA

34:12

psychotherapy And so all of this

34:14

came back to and kept coming back

34:16

to this concept of safety

34:18

and That our safety

34:21

our physical mental emotional legal

34:23

financial all-inclusive spiritual

34:25

safety is Critical to the

34:27

healing process again something that's

34:29

been taught by Eastern and tribal practitioners

34:32

and Hippocrates and Maimonides and even

34:34

Western Western medical training

34:36

teaches its safety with is with our

34:38

patients is the foundation of our healing

34:41

relationship And so as I started

34:43

to pull on those threads around these

34:45

common threads around safety started

34:48

to ask, you know Well, what makes us

34:50

feel safe naturally? What are the and

34:52

it's and it's unsurprisingly soothing stuff,

34:55

right? It's like the smell of your mom's chicken

34:57

soup. It's a hug from a loved

34:59

one. It's holding a purring cat or a pet

35:01

it's Having your

35:03

handheld ocean waves washing over

35:05

you, right? It's like soothing Gentle

35:08

sensations and when I started

35:10

to parse those apart and and

35:12

look at you know What those have in common

35:15

touch really rose to the surface because

35:17

soothing touch is the

35:20

oldest most powerful

35:22

and quick form of safety that we have and it

35:25

evolved over hundreds of millions of

35:27

years since the first mammals started

35:29

nursing their young and It is

35:32

hardwired into our nervous system

35:35

and to the point where it's in

35:37

almost immediate in effect It

35:39

is not completely nonverbal

35:42

as an experience and it requires no effort

35:44

to receive it And so as

35:46

we started exploring that we thought well

35:49

if soothing touch in is so effective

35:52

at activating the safety pathways in our brains And

35:55

this is you know going now or fast forwarding to like 2016

35:57

or 2014 to 2018 at the University at

36:00

the University of Pittsburgh. And after 2016,

36:02

when I got my MDMA training, we started to pull

36:05

on those threads of safety and to say,

36:07

okay, maybe if trauma

36:10

is a response to threat

36:13

in our bodies that our body stores over

36:15

time, can we treat

36:18

it or address it by providing

36:20

constant safety stimulation to the body

36:22

over time? Because that's how MDMA

36:24

seems to work. If MDMA does

36:26

it in the moment that the MDMA is active,

36:29

what if we give people stuff that helps them feel

36:31

safe on the go, like a wearable

36:33

that delivers the feelings of soothing touch to

36:35

you wherever you are, like what

36:37

I'm wearing on my chest right now. And so that

36:41

started with us delivering soothing

36:43

vibrations that

36:46

help the body achieve these breathing

36:49

states that we enter when we meditate by

36:51

inducing coherence or what we call

36:53

like cardio respiratory resonance, which is what

36:55

the heart and lungs do when we enter a meditative state

36:57

around five to seven breaths per minute. And

36:59

if we sent that rhythm to the body, would the body

37:02

recognize that as safety number one, and

37:04

number two, would it change our breathing and bring

37:06

us into one of those like

37:09

blissful present meditative states that favors

37:11

recovery rather than stress and threat. And

37:14

multiple clinical trials later, that was

37:16

in fact what we showed we could do, which was

37:18

surprising that it worked so well and it

37:20

worked in most people. And then

37:22

fast forward to 2020 after a heck of a lot more studies

37:26

and thousands of people in the lab

37:28

in the real world, that became Apollo.

37:31

So launch was in 2020 you said?

37:34

Yeah, we launched in January of 2020.

37:36

Wow,

37:36

yeah, you guys really gone fast. I love

37:39

that. But obviously you gotta go slow to go

37:41

fast. So you did a lot of groundwork first, so

37:43

no doubt. And yeah, that's super interesting.

37:46

I guess how in your mind, how

37:49

do you frame like this kind of like

37:51

vibrating tool for soothing touch? Like

37:53

it's obviously using your body's knowing

37:56

it's getting touched, right? Like how does

37:59

the vibrations. from Apollo and say

38:01

we're doing like the calm down, wind down mode on

38:04

there. Like how does that correlate to a loved

38:06

one's touch? Like how

38:08

is the signal similar?

38:10

So there's the way it's interpreted. And then there's

38:12

like some way that it is

38:14

acting neurologically on

38:16

the nerve endings. So we have about seven

38:19

different common, most

38:22

common touch receptors in our bodies that exist

38:24

throughout our whole bodies. Some parts of

38:26

the body have more of one kind than the other. And

38:29

those touch receptors have just

38:31

like all neurons in our bodies, they have a, each

38:34

one has a different sensitivity level. And

38:37

when you receive a hug from a loved one,

38:39

or you hold a purring cat, or somebody holds your

38:41

hand that you like, that

38:44

stimulates those receptors in a very

38:47

specific way that is

38:49

somewhat rhythmic. And it's

38:52

similar to soothing music. It's like there's

38:54

certain music that gives us energy and makes us like

38:56

amped up and wanna dance and party. And then there's

38:59

other kinds of music that makes us wanna calm down and sleep

39:02

and relax. And so it was

39:04

a combination of the understanding of how these different

39:06

rhythms of music work to affect our body.

39:09

And that by applying the basic

39:11

layer of that rhythm to the body,

39:14

that at the rhythm

39:16

that the touch receptors like, that

39:19

is that they feel an interpretive soothing,

39:22

that is similar in nature to

39:24

soothing touch, that you could activate

39:26

the same emotional pathways

39:29

that are activated when we're experiencing touch.

39:31

So by no means is Apollo or a placement,

39:33

for soothing touch, it's more of a help

39:36

tool

39:37

for those of us, which is almost all

39:39

of us that just don't have enough touch. Like

39:41

we're all supposed to get eight minutes of hugs a day or

39:43

something like that. I don't remember the last day I

39:46

got eight minutes of hugs. Right? I

39:48

mean, this is something, but that is so important

39:51

to just reminding us that we're safe in our

39:53

own skin and reminding

39:55

us that we're in control of how we feel. And

39:57

so it was really focused around

39:59

that. and then heart rate

40:02

variability, HRV, was

40:04

the metric that we primarily

40:06

tracked because soothing touch and

40:09

soothing stimulation to the body improves heart

40:11

rate variability and so does breath work

40:13

and biofeedback. And so what

40:15

we learned through the study of all

40:17

the work that came before us was that the

40:20

body actually likes to be in that state.

40:23

It likes to be in this calm, soothe state

40:25

and it's just overwhelmed and overstimulated

40:28

a lot of the time. And that's why it's not

40:30

in that state. So then the question became,

40:32

the research question was, if we deliver

40:35

the rhythm that we like

40:37

to breathe at, our bodies like to breathe at when they're

40:39

at rest, which is like five to seven breaths per

40:41

minute, when we're normally breathing

40:44

at 12 to 24 breaths per minute, which is stress

40:46

breathing, then would

40:49

the body start to automatically

40:51

breathe at its ideal rhythm on its own

40:53

simply by receiving the right rhythm? Is

40:56

that enough, right? Like

40:58

if you play the right dance beat, will people start

41:00

dancing on their own or will

41:02

they just sit in the chair, right? Sometimes.

41:06

Yeah, sometimes, but one or the other, depending

41:08

on how much of it like the song. But

41:10

with touch, it's less subjective and

41:13

that was really interesting. And so what we were

41:15

able to show through just repeated

41:18

studies and trials of many, many different frequencies

41:20

and patterns was that there

41:22

are very specific patterns that we interpret

41:26

as soothing touch. And

41:29

you can tell that the vibration is vibration

41:31

that somebody holding your hand is somebody holding your hand and

41:33

there's no confusion there, but nervous

41:36

system wise, our bodies through

41:39

our touch receptors don't really know the

41:41

difference and both of those help

41:43

us enter calm, relaxed states

41:45

very, very quickly. So

41:47

that was really through the repeated testing

41:51

in double blind randomized like placebo controlled

41:53

format and that kind of thing where we had no

41:55

idea what vibrations people were getting and they had no

41:57

idea what they were getting and we were asking them

41:59

to. do lots of stressful tasks and physical

42:02

and emotional tasks and cognitive tasks

42:04

and then measuring their bodies with lots of

42:06

lab grade, EKG, EEG, people

42:09

assessments and all these other things that we could reliably

42:12

induce these states of calm in the body that

42:14

look just like when somebody entered a

42:17

breathing meditation technique or biofeedback

42:20

or when somebody gives you a hug. And so that

42:22

was the signature we were looking to replicate, which

42:25

is when HRV starts to really go up.

42:28

And so when we hit that, we were like, oh, we're

42:30

getting real close here. And that was

42:32

how we started to distinguish between

42:34

these different vibration patterns in a new way. That's

42:36

super interesting. I hope most

42:39

of the listeners know a little

42:41

bit about HRV. Could you give us

42:43

just a super high level? Like what is HRV?

42:46

Yeah, the simple explanation

42:48

of HRV is that it is the

42:51

variability of our heart rate over time. So

42:53

most people, it's like the difference

42:56

between each beat in time.

42:59

So most people think that when you have a heart rate

43:01

of 60 beats per minute, that our heart

43:03

is beating exactly one beat each second. But

43:07

that's not actually what's happening because as

43:10

we breathe, it changes the resistance

43:12

of the vessels in our lungs. And so the

43:14

heart has to work harder at different times

43:17

to pump. And so the time between

43:19

each beat changes over time. And

43:22

that's called heart rate variability. So

43:24

having a low heart rate

43:27

usually correlates with having a high heart

43:29

rate variability. And we know that having

43:31

a low resting heart rate and

43:34

a high heart rate variability predicts

43:36

better health outcomes, better

43:39

quality of life and less likelihood of getting

43:41

sick and longer life. And

43:43

we know that having a higher

43:46

resting heart rate and having a lower

43:48

heart rate variability because the time in between

43:50

each beat is less, it

43:52

predicts people having more likelihood

43:55

of getting sick, shorter lifespan,

43:58

lower quality of life. more

44:00

likelihood of lots of other health issues. So

44:03

that metric that you can measure just through

44:05

the skin and now with like every wearable

44:07

like Apple watch or ring and things like that, became

44:10

a really nice clue for us to

44:12

start to follow along the way.

44:15

Yeah, that's interesting. I was thinking about

44:17

when I was at my fittest and the

44:19

only way I would have ever measured my heart

44:21

rate or anything was getting hospitalized, I got hospitalized.

44:23

I was like, oh man, that's

44:26

like the craziest lowest heart rate I've ever seen.

44:29

And the whoop was telling me I was

44:31

evidently gonna die. So I'm like, I gotta

44:33

not, I gotta put this thing down. So

44:36

happy I did. But yeah, HRV,

44:38

the first person I heard about it

44:41

from was Dave

44:43

Asprey as he was hyping some of his like meditation tools,

44:46

which is interesting. And then I started seeing

44:48

it more and more. And now it's like, thankfully

44:50

it seems to be everywhere, which is great. Yeah,

44:53

and the natural techniques that boost heart

44:55

rate variability are the things

44:57

that we do that slow our heart rate down. So

45:00

it's getting a good night's sleep,

45:02

doing deep breathing, meditation,

45:05

yoga, soothing touch, soothing

45:08

music, regular healthy amounts

45:10

of exercise, not over training, because

45:12

that will reduce HRV by stressing

45:14

the body, but regular healthy

45:16

amounts of exercise, like half an hour of

45:18

getting your heart rate up every day or so,

45:20

and things like that. But

45:23

it's really the common theme around what

45:25

increases heart rate variability is

45:27

soothing sensations. And so

45:29

we, and heart rate

45:32

variability is also a reflection

45:34

of

45:35

how

45:36

toned our vagus nerve is. So

45:38

the vagus nerve is the primary nerve

45:41

that governs all of the recovery

45:43

response in our bodies and tells our

45:45

bodies, hey, you're safe

45:48

enough to recover now because you're not under

45:50

threat. So let's send blood

45:52

and resources back to the reproductive

45:54

system and the digestive system and the immune system

45:57

and our sleep and recovery system. And

46:00

the creativity and empathy systems,

46:02

all things that we don't want to be active

46:04

when we're running from a predator in the jungle, right?

46:07

You don't want to empathize with your predator

46:09

when you're running in the jungle. You want to get out

46:11

of that situation to safety. So when we're

46:14

under stress or threat, even

46:16

if it's not actual survival threat, if it's just perceived

46:19

threat, like from too many emails or too much

46:21

traffic or what have you, all of those recovery

46:23

systems get shut down and our vagus nerve

46:26

decreases in activity. And so when

46:28

all those systems get shut down and they

46:30

get shut down sometimes multiple times a day,

46:33

every day for years, you're effectively

46:35

saying, hey, digestive system, reproductive

46:38

system, immune system, I want you to keep working

46:40

at the same peak level, but I'm going to deprive

46:43

you of oxygen and nutrients and I'm going to take

46:45

away your garbage pickup. Right?

46:48

And so what happens is organ systems, of course

46:50

they get disease, right? They're

46:53

being depleted of everything they need to function. And

46:55

so that just creates this

46:58

general state of inflammation

47:00

in the body that a lot of the techniques

47:02

we're talking about here start to

47:04

help. And so Apollo was

47:07

a really interesting discovery for us because using HRV

47:09

as a key, knowing that breath

47:12

work and yoga and mindfulness and all these things

47:14

over time helped to improve it and good sleep

47:17

helps to improve it. We were like, we thought,

47:19

well, maybe if

47:21

we boost HRV by providing

47:23

the soothing sensation to the body, that

47:25

that's indicated that people are going to be able to recover

47:28

more. And when we discovered

47:30

Apollo technology in, I guess

47:33

the first discovery was like 2017, when

47:35

our first study results came back, we

47:37

were the first to discover that

47:40

it was the first technology ever discovered that

47:42

improves heart rate variability and just

47:45

by wearing it. You don't have to do anything

47:47

else. You can literally just strap this thing on anywhere

47:49

in your body and just wearing it throughout

47:51

the day improves your vagal tone and heart rate variability.

47:54

And so that was one of the first keys to

47:57

solve that puzzle. So

47:59

people

47:59

are going to be like,

47:59

I'm going to have a couple questions for

48:02

sure. So you mentioned you're doing RCTs and other

48:05

really interesting research. Like your website

48:07

does say you had university partnerships to like

48:09

help maintain objectivity because

48:11

obviously it's important in a commercial situation. Like can

48:13

you talk about how or who you worked

48:16

with and how you worked with the universities

48:19

to do research?

48:20

Yeah, absolutely. So all of the work

48:22

of Apollo came out of the university or well

48:24

originally came out of the University of Pittsburgh in the

48:26

Department of Psychiatry. The first manuscript

48:29

was published last year with

48:31

the lead athletes showing that statistically significant

48:33

improvement in heart rate variability in a

48:35

double-blind randomized placebo controlled crossover

48:38

study, which is the most rigorous form of

48:40

clinical trial where every subject's blinded

48:42

and every subject experiences all the experimental

48:45

conditions. So everybody's going through every single

48:47

piece of the study. And so, and then

48:50

we have four more publications that

48:53

are coming out in the next

48:55

year or so about, I

48:57

think three out of four are actually coming out of different

49:00

groups at the University of Pittsburgh. We

49:02

don't run, one of those

49:04

studies is coming out of our company and we

49:07

did it with, it was a real world study, observational

49:10

with Apollo purchasers

49:12

who were just observed in the real world. And

49:14

that was a fascinating sleep study that

49:16

we did where we were just showing what happens

49:18

when you add a polity or life and we track you for three

49:21

years. And we did that in 1300 people

49:24

over the last three years. But

49:26

other than that particular sleep study, pretty

49:29

much all, and which we clearly label on our website

49:32

research page, all of the studies we do are

49:34

with independent academic partners. So that

49:37

means that neither myself nor anybody else

49:39

in our team has any say in anything

49:42

from the study protocol to

49:44

the way the data is analyzed to whether it's published

49:47

or not and the paper writing and the conclusions.

49:49

We purposefully, because

49:51

of my rigorous scientific training

49:53

and background, we're gonna do science, do good

49:55

science, don't waste time and money. And

49:58

so we just, we went and found some of the. best

50:00

scientists we could who saw

50:02

a need in a patient population or in

50:05

a or in the scientific literature

50:07

a gap in the literature and said,

50:10

hey, would you be interested in studying this? We'll provide

50:12

the tool and we'll provide tech support,

50:14

but you do the rest and we don't even

50:17

pay for the study. Almost all these studies are investigators

50:19

sponsored and they take it the

50:22

whole way themselves. And of course

50:24

the downside of that is that everything

50:26

takes longer when you don't have like a huge

50:28

bank account behind it. But the

50:30

upside is all the research is completely

50:33

genuine and it's 100% independent

50:36

and unbiased because the people who are running it

50:38

are independent academic scientists and they don't care

50:41

if it's positive or not. They just want

50:43

to do good work. So that

50:45

is the science philosophy of our business, which

50:48

is, as you alluded to, a little

50:50

bit different than most other companies that produce

50:52

product. But for

50:54

us, we'd be making way

50:57

more money if I was just seeing patients and

50:59

my wife was doing her thing, not running

51:01

a startup. So we really had

51:03

to prove to ourselves before

51:06

we started this business that this

51:08

actually was a real effect before we devoted

51:10

our lives to it. Because running a startup is no joke.

51:14

It's not always fun. Yeah,

51:17

made me need an Apollo. So I think

51:20

like, you know, it's interesting. I wonder,

51:22

I have been seeing

51:24

slow improvements over time too, over the last

51:26

four weeks. You know, is it Apollo or not?

51:29

N of one? How do I know without being part

51:31

of an actual trial, right? Or even

51:33

me? Like it's irrelevant what happens

51:35

for me in a trial. So well,

51:38

that's really interesting. So I guess next up,

51:40

like you're starting to get integrated

51:43

into ketamine-assisted psychotherapy

51:45

research and also some portions

51:48

of the integration for after

51:50

an MDMA session. Is that

51:52

right? Like, can you tell me a little bit about your active projects?

51:55

Yeah. So we've had about seven trials

51:58

completed to date, as I said, at 4. of

52:00

those are going to be published in the

52:02

next year or so. And then

52:04

we have 14 more clinical

52:08

trials currently underway. Two

52:10

of the studies that I'm most excited about

52:12

are in the psychedelic space because

52:14

Apollo came out of the psychedelic space

52:16

and our work with veterans with treatment

52:18

resistant PTSD. So it's really

52:21

nice to be able to come full circle back to

52:23

that. And one of the things

52:25

you know, what we took another step

52:27

in the psychedelic process of developing the technology that most

52:30

companies don't take, which was after

52:32

we did our initial early

52:34

double blinded RCTs

52:36

in the lab, you know, that's

52:39

great results. But it's, you know, 25 up to 25%

52:42

proven in cognitive performance, like 11 10 11% improvements

52:46

in heart rate variability, you know, really

52:48

great results. However, those

52:50

are not real world studies. So we

52:52

wanted to know what happens

52:55

in the real world when people are using this device? Does it

52:57

have the same effect? Because that's not always the case.

52:59

And so my wife Catherine, who is now the CEO

53:02

of Apollo had a great idea, which was, let's

53:05

let me get you some money from

53:07

the university. And let's make prototypes

53:10

that are wearable. And let's distribute

53:13

those to 1000s of people

53:15

before we actually go all

53:17

in making a commercial product.

53:20

And let's make sure that this actually

53:23

works with real people in the real world.

53:25

So we did and that started in about 2018. And

53:27

we learned so much from those 1000s of people that

53:32

were using this. The first thing we

53:34

learned was that

53:36

people use Apollo for sleep.

53:39

And in our studies in the lab,

53:41

we only tested it for focus, we didn't do

53:43

any sleep studies originally, we only tested Apollo

53:45

for focus and cognitive performance and stress,

53:48

we didn't look at it for sleep. But when we gave

53:50

it to people in the real world, people are like, Oh, this helps me sleep

53:52

better. And they were sending a sleep data

53:54

showing like, sometimes in the first four

53:56

weeks at two to four weeks of using it like double

53:59

or triple their

53:59

deep sleep and increasing

54:02

their sleep at night by half an hour, 45

54:04

minutes. I mean, it was like big numbers

54:06

as they were tracking them by their own wearable technology.

54:09

And so that really had a dramatic

54:12

impact on shifting our focus of the company

54:14

to one where, you know, of

54:17

course, the field of medicine is also shifting to recognizing

54:19

that sleep is at the foundation of health, of course,

54:22

and especially mental health. But

54:24

that was not fully embraced

54:26

at that time.

54:27

And we shifted

54:29

the product to sleep

54:31

or to sleep as a focus because

54:34

sleep is our most physically

54:37

vulnerable state. And

54:39

so that it's when we're basically defenseless,

54:42

right? Like we're our whole protective system is

54:44

offline. And for us to be able to enter

54:46

the most vulnerable states of sleep,

54:48

like deep and REM sleep, where we're sometimes

54:50

paralyzed physically, we

54:53

have to feel safe. So that

54:55

was really interesting. And then the second

54:57

thing that was really interesting was people were reaching out

54:59

to us saying they were using Apollo as psychedelic

55:01

medicines. And the

55:04

two things that came up from that were,

55:06

number one, this helped go

55:08

three things. Number one,

55:10

this helped me drop into my psychedelic

55:12

states more effectively, it reduced my anxiety

55:14

going in. And I had a much better

55:17

time.

55:17

Number two,

55:19

was it helped I was having a bad

55:21

trip or I was having a really hard time

55:23

in the psychedelic experience with

55:25

anything from ayahuasca to LSD to

55:27

psilocybin, what have you, and that

55:30

it helped them navigate

55:32

that challenging experience. They were actually

55:35

able to step to

55:37

move through the discomfort of

55:39

the bad trip or the challenging trip

55:42

and come out the other side on their

55:44

own,

55:45

feeling whole and not feeling

55:48

retraumatized, which was fascinating. Because

55:50

I see in my practice people who have bad trips that

55:52

we traumatize themselves all the time, which is a very

55:54

real thing. And then the third

55:56

was, I use this during my

55:59

after time.

55:59

after psychedelic period,

56:01

and it helped me to like

56:04

integrate all the stuff that I learned from my psychedelic

56:06

experience.

56:07

So

56:08

from that, and these were all healthy

56:10

people for the most part, not people who had a diagnosis.

56:12

And so from that we did two things. Number

56:15

one, we released Apollo in 2020 as a consumer

56:17

product, not a medical device. We're

56:20

still take it's built as a medical device. So it's medical

56:23

device powered, but an equivalent

56:25

quality, but it's a consumer product

56:27

that requires no prescription and anyone can

56:29

use it and buy it over the counter, which

56:31

made it more accessible to everybody because we

56:34

had no side effects in any of our trials and

56:36

it was found to be universally safe in

56:38

our studies and in studies of these vibrations

56:40

in the past that a few that had existed.

56:43

And then the second thing was that we started

56:45

seeing clinicians in the ketamine

56:48

therapy space using it because

56:50

it was not a medical device. And

56:52

so in ketamine therapy,

56:54

anxiety is a big problem.

56:58

People who have anxiety coming into a ketamine

57:00

therapy experience feel

57:02

or have a much harder time

57:04

dropping in to their experiences because

57:07

they resist the discomfort of the

57:09

change of the state change. And

57:11

then they require higher doses of

57:13

medicine,

57:14

which has the, which

57:16

either gets them there with, but

57:19

decreases their memory of the experience because

57:21

ketamine at higher doses starts to have memory impairment

57:24

in the short term.

57:25

So people have an experience, but they're like,

57:27

I don't really remember what happened, but it felt nice. And

57:31

then, and so we started seeing clinicians

57:34

use of using Apollo with their patients and they were giving

57:36

it to them in the waiting room

57:37

before they actually went into their ketamine

57:40

just for 15 or 30 minutes. And

57:42

that was enough to

57:44

help them drop in and require and

57:46

just reduce enough their apprehension and anxiety

57:48

so that they had more of

57:51

a meaningful experience with less dose

57:53

of medicine. And that was fascinating.

57:56

So now there's been hundreds of patients fast

57:58

forward in 2023.

57:59

we are sitting today, right? We've now had

58:02

hundreds of patients nationwide being treated

58:05

with

58:06

Apollo plus ketamine in the real world and

58:08

actually seeing really great

58:11

results from before, during,

58:13

and after for integration. And

58:16

as these results started to come in and as we started

58:18

to get more results from our PTSD

58:20

pilot studies, I met,

58:23

speaking at a conference with Rick Doblin again and

58:26

we were paneling together and I

58:28

was talking to Rick and sharing some of

58:30

our data with him from these PTSD pilots. And he

58:32

was like, you know, he's holding

58:34

the device. He's like, no,

58:36

this can't, this

58:38

can't hurt

58:40

you. Right? And I'm like, no,

58:42

like we haven't seen any side effects, just sound waves.

58:44

And he's like, that's really interesting.

58:48

If you're getting these results as good as you're getting

58:50

in this within a PTSD population

58:53

without drugs,

58:54

what if we just gave this to everybody

58:57

who went through our MDMA trials? And

58:59

I was like, that's a really interesting

59:01

idea.

59:02

So we started to work on

59:04

that together and started a collaboration

59:07

with maps. And I think it was about

59:09

a year ago, we got an IRB approval

59:11

for administering Apollo

59:14

to any person who's ever been

59:16

in an MDMA trial for PTSD

59:19

or sorry, an MDMA trial for any indication

59:21

with maps. So

59:23

as a, maybe an interesting call for action,

59:25

if anybody's listening to this and interested

59:28

in participating, this trial is open and

59:30

recruiting right now.

59:31

And if anybody has ever

59:33

participated in an MDMA trial with maps

59:36

in at any time period,

59:38

you are eligible for a free Apollo

59:41

to participate in this study. And you can go to our website, you

59:43

can sign up and just fill out the screening questionnaire.

59:46

And if you screen in and you're able

59:48

to participate, we will just send you a device and we'll

59:50

track your data over the next two years.

59:53

And to understand if we can help

59:55

increase your remission rates, decrease

59:57

your symptoms over time and improve your... recovery

1:00:00

response after MDMA as an integration tool.

1:00:03

So that's been a really exciting study.

1:00:06

It's not gonna be done for a couple years, but

1:00:08

it's a really exciting study to see

1:00:10

what the potential is to combine the science

1:00:14

of touch therapy and wearable technology with

1:00:17

psychedelic assisted therapy. Because my

1:00:20

hunch is that by putting the two together,

1:00:22

what we're gonna see in the clinical trials, what we're

1:00:24

seeing in the real world, which is that

1:00:26

these are synergistic combinations,

1:00:28

right? The sum of the two is bigger

1:00:31

than each individual part, and

1:00:33

that people are gonna have combined better effects

1:00:35

from the combination than from any one

1:00:37

part individually because we know how important integration

1:00:40

is.

1:00:41

I love that. And I'm very excited

1:00:43

to see what the data says. And that's unfortunately

1:00:46

two years out or something. But,

1:00:48

you know, we'll get there. Yeah. We should last that

1:00:50

long. And there will be other studies that

1:00:53

come up sooner. We're doing

1:00:56

a small group study with

1:00:57

Pam Kresgell we're involved

1:00:59

in the Roots to Thrive study where Apollo

1:01:02

is actually a fascinating study that Pam has

1:01:04

set up. She's a psychiatrist in British Columbia,

1:01:07

and she's doing some of the first group therapy

1:01:09

studies with ketamine and psilocybin for

1:01:12

first responders with PTSD and

1:01:15

with medicine with and without

1:01:17

Apollo. And so we'll see how that works

1:01:19

in the group setting. And that will

1:01:21

probably be published before the

1:01:24

MDMA trial plus Apollo. So

1:01:26

that'll be an interesting one to keep a lookout

1:01:28

for. And then, you know,

1:01:30

the idea will be eventually

1:01:32

we'll do more ketamine trials as well because

1:01:34

it's much, much easier in today's world to

1:01:36

study ketamine than it is study anything else, psychedelic.

1:01:39

So lots of exciting stuff to come.

1:01:42

I love that. A topic that comes

1:01:44

up for us here on occasion is

1:01:46

one that doesn't get a lot of attention in

1:01:48

psychedelia. It's a HPPD. So

1:01:51

like what, hallucination

1:01:53

persistent perception disorder. Something

1:01:56

along those lines. Maybe I switched the Peds around, but

1:01:58

like, have you- Have you seen anybody

1:02:00

come forward with any kind of anecdotal data around

1:02:03

HPBD yet?

1:02:04

I have not seen any studies of that.

1:02:07

I see people, so what

1:02:09

I may

1:02:12

be getting, I may not be getting this exactly right

1:02:14

because I haven't used that term before and

1:02:16

heard that used much, but what we

1:02:19

call that,

1:02:20

or at least what I know, as

1:02:22

I understand it, the way we describe that in the clinic

1:02:25

is drug induced psychosis.

1:02:28

And it's where people will have

1:02:31

a

1:02:31

psychedelic experience with the medicine and then

1:02:35

the psychedelic phenomena

1:02:37

and the hallucinations persist afterwards for extended

1:02:41

period of time to the point where there

1:02:43

can even be like depersonalization

1:02:45

and derealization effects

1:02:47

and people can lose sense of who they are, which

1:02:50

can be completely disruptive and result

1:02:53

in, in not even being able to function

1:02:55

in your day to day life anymore. And

1:02:57

I see a lot of this in my practice because there are

1:02:59

very, very few people nationwide who actually

1:03:01

treat this. But the good news is there are

1:03:04

treatments for it and a lot of it involves

1:03:06

just gentle, like, well, a lot of it involves

1:03:09

intensive psychotherapy, talk therapy to integrate

1:03:12

the experience. Integration is key there.

1:03:15

And then also mood stabilization with

1:03:17

natural substances for the most part and tools

1:03:19

like Apollo. But it's

1:03:22

a really good, good question that you brought up because

1:03:24

it's something that happens. We know it happens,

1:03:27

but there's not a lot of conversation

1:03:29

about it or how to what to do about it right now.

1:03:32

Yeah. Yeah. Thanks. So it's kind of similar

1:03:35

to cluster headaches. It's like a somewhat

1:03:37

orphan disease because it's so rare, but

1:03:40

it can happen. And there's a vocal minority

1:03:42

out there that, you know, they're raising the sound

1:03:44

balls and we've, we've looked at, you know,

1:03:46

how could we intervene? We have some

1:03:48

theories and I'm glad you're doing some stuff there. So

1:03:51

you'll be getting some extra referrals, fortunately

1:03:53

or unfortunately. Oh,

1:03:57

sorry. Go ahead. I was just saying, like, it's

1:03:59

just great to know that you're. you're thinking

1:04:01

about it and active there a bit.

1:04:04

Yeah, and it's a very

1:04:06

interesting topic to me. I'm always interested in the stuff

1:04:08

that nobody else is looking at. But

1:04:11

I think that there's something worth talking about here,

1:04:13

which is the word hallucination.

1:04:15

Oh yeah.

1:04:16

Because I'm not a huge fan of that

1:04:18

word. There are certainly times

1:04:21

where the experiences

1:04:23

we have in and

1:04:25

out of a psychedelic state can be

1:04:28

considered to be hallucinatory. But

1:04:31

the word hallucination implies

1:04:34

that what you're experiencing is not

1:04:36

real. And I

1:04:40

hesitate to use that word when it's context

1:04:43

of psychedelic work because psychedelic

1:04:46

means to reveal the mind. And

1:04:49

so if we put out

1:04:51

the understanding

1:04:52

that

1:04:55

what the revelation of what's underneath the surface

1:04:58

of our consciousness and our minds is not

1:05:00

real or hallucinatory, then

1:05:03

we

1:05:04

might be missing a lot

1:05:06

of the meaning of what's actually

1:05:08

underneath the surface. And the

1:05:10

way I like to think of, and it's not to say that doesn't

1:05:12

happen sometimes, of course it does, like the

1:05:15

purple dragons and the rainbows you

1:05:17

might see all the time may not actually

1:05:19

be there. It might be a way that light's

1:05:21

reflecting, that our retinas are detecting, that's

1:05:23

different than, that's chemically

1:05:26

induced, right? That's different than the way our retinas

1:05:28

normally work. And that might be considered hallucination.

1:05:31

However, there's a lot of things

1:05:33

that happen in the psychedelic experience

1:05:35

that are not hallucinatory and

1:05:37

that are in fact real perception.

1:05:40

And the way that

1:05:42

that happens, and again, there's a lot

1:05:44

to be understood here. We don't have all the answers by

1:05:47

any means. But when

1:05:49

you look underneath the surface of your consciousness,

1:05:52

it's almost like,

1:05:54

if you think about it from the perspective

1:05:56

of an iceberg, our

1:05:58

awareness in any. normal given days,

1:06:01

like just the tip of the iceberg that's sticking

1:06:03

out of the water.

1:06:04

That's all we have the awareness of because

1:06:07

there's 100 million more pounds

1:06:09

of iceberg underneath the surface. But if we were aware

1:06:11

of all of that at all times, we'd be completely

1:06:13

overwhelmed and distracted and not be able to function. So

1:06:16

our brains have very highly trained

1:06:19

filtration mechanisms that

1:06:21

are neurons in certain

1:06:23

specific layers of the brain that

1:06:25

are specifically trained to

1:06:27

filter out all the rest of that iceberg

1:06:30

beneath the surface.

1:06:31

When you take a psychedelic medicine, or

1:06:34

when you enter a deep meditative state, or

1:06:36

in a dream, for instance, which is the most common

1:06:39

way that people experience any kind of, I would

1:06:41

argue, any kind of psychedelic mind

1:06:43

revealing experience, you're

1:06:45

all of a sudden able to look

1:06:48

beneath the surface of the water and recognize,

1:06:50

hey, look, there's all these other parts of this iceberg

1:06:52

down here. Maybe some of these parts are

1:06:54

important. And then we can investigate them and

1:06:56

dive in. And maybe certain other parts aren't important

1:06:59

or aren't relevant right now. And

1:07:01

I

1:07:02

think that

1:07:03

that's an important distinguishing factor

1:07:05

because we don't want to de-realize

1:07:08

the experience too much or devalue

1:07:10

the experience and just blanketly call it,

1:07:12

oh, hallucination, it's not real. There's

1:07:15

a lot of real valuable stuff

1:07:17

down there. And it's really

1:07:20

that's why again, integration is so important

1:07:22

because the integration therapy,

1:07:24

what happens after the psychedelic experience

1:07:27

is that time where we have

1:07:29

people who are highly trained to help

1:07:31

us understand what was real

1:07:34

and meaningful and what was maybe an

1:07:36

artifact of the drug-based experience

1:07:39

or an artifact of my

1:07:41

experience that could be considered a hallucination.

1:07:44

And so it's sometimes even

1:07:46

to the best of us, it can be really

1:07:48

challenging to interpret what's what.

1:07:51

So

1:07:52

thinking about it from that standpoint is

1:07:54

important because there's a lot

1:07:57

going on under the surface. literally

1:08:00

everything is down there. Everything

1:08:03

that we're aware of is just the tip of the iceberg.

1:08:05

Everything down beneath is everything

1:08:07

else. So there's a lot to unpack

1:08:10

there. And there's a lot of healing that

1:08:12

comes from structured experiences where

1:08:14

we're safe enough to actually look beneath the surface

1:08:17

and parse out what's going on.

1:08:19

Wholeheartedly agree. And

1:08:22

thank you for that. Yeah, I've

1:08:25

seen very few psychiatrists bring that up.

1:08:27

So I appreciate it. I think my friend Franklin King

1:08:29

has brought it up a few times. And I'm thankful

1:08:32

whenever anybody tries to

1:08:35

tease that apart a little bit. And I think I've

1:08:37

only hallucinated a couple of times.

1:08:42

It's like not exactly a common

1:08:45

phenomenon for me, even at pretty high doses. So

1:08:48

yeah, and HPPD, I know plenty,

1:08:50

at least a couple people who have had that experience. And

1:08:53

it's not fun to be avoided if we

1:08:55

can figure it out. That's why I think psychotherapy

1:08:57

and having integration practices

1:09:00

in place ahead of time is definitely

1:09:02

a good move for most folks, even if you're just

1:09:04

recreating. Get that psychotherapy

1:09:06

ahead of time, please.

1:09:09

Yeah, and also have long breaks

1:09:11

between your altered state experiences

1:09:14

that are drug-induced, right? Like it's great

1:09:16

to meditate every day or great to practice

1:09:19

natural techniques to get to psychedelic

1:09:21

states every day, right? It doesn't require drugs

1:09:23

to get there. But when

1:09:25

we're doing the drug-based experience,

1:09:27

even with our patients, we have long breaks in between,

1:09:30

so that people don't struggle with confusing

1:09:32

real

1:09:32

from drug-induced

1:09:35

altered state, right? They're both valuable

1:09:37

experiences, but we need to have enough

1:09:39

perspective to understand what's what.

1:09:42

Agreed, yeah. In the graph world,

1:09:44

we call that confusing inner and outer realities, which

1:09:46

is, can get ugly. And

1:09:49

I'm sure it happens quite often in

1:09:51

clinical spaces here too.

1:09:54

Yeah, that's why we urge the eye shades. Not

1:09:58

everybody loves them. Anyway, was

1:10:01

there anything we missed about Apollo, about yourself

1:10:03

that we want to fit in?

1:10:05

I mean, there's so much to talk about. Well,

1:10:07

I think the one thing that's

1:10:09

really interesting that we touched

1:10:12

on a little bit earlier is going

1:10:14

back to this epigenetic story, right?

1:10:16

And really understanding

1:10:19

the root mechanism

1:10:22

of what's happening when we experience

1:10:24

a profoundly safe healing experience

1:10:27

that allows us to effectively feel

1:10:30

safe enough to heal. And

1:10:32

that study that we published

1:10:35

in collaboration with MAPS and Rachel Yehuda

1:10:37

at Sinai and Dr. Kamendi

1:10:39

at Yale, Candace Lewis at ASU and Rayal

1:10:42

Khan at USC, Joe Tafoor. It

1:10:46

was a very interesting study because

1:10:48

it

1:10:49

really starts to shed light on

1:10:52

what's happening underneath the surface

1:10:55

in ourselves when we are

1:10:57

experiencing healing.

1:10:59

And to tap

1:11:01

on that a little more, what Rachel

1:11:04

Yehuda and now, which

1:11:06

has been replicated in animal models, demonstrated

1:11:09

in her studies of Holocaust survivors

1:11:12

is that trauma

1:11:13

induces changes to our

1:11:15

stress response genes like cortisol receptor

1:11:18

on the epigenetic level that changes

1:11:21

the functioning of our cortisol receptors in

1:11:23

a way that can

1:11:25

get passed down to our offspring,

1:11:28

right? So going back to this

1:11:30

idea of intergenerational inheritance

1:11:32

of trauma, we inherit trauma

1:11:35

through our epigenetic

1:11:37

code and the way

1:11:39

that trauma shapes our stress response

1:11:42

in the form of what we might call epigenetic

1:11:44

memory. And then also

1:11:47

all the way we learn trauma

1:11:50

from our environment, from being exposed

1:11:52

to traumatic experiences. And

1:11:55

what's interesting is that

1:11:58

people and animals who have

1:12:00

these epigenetic changes that are trauma-induced

1:12:03

on these cortisol receptors, for instance, have

1:12:06

an increased predisposition or likelihood

1:12:08

to develop

1:12:09

mental illnesses like PTSD. So

1:12:12

they are actually very important

1:12:14

biomarkers of illness.

1:12:16

And so

1:12:18

what we were trying to show was, you know,

1:12:21

if trauma, which

1:12:24

is like one or multiple

1:12:26

intense meaningful

1:12:29

threatening or experiences that are perceived

1:12:32

as threat over time

1:12:34

for which we were not adequately

1:12:37

supported afterwards, causes

1:12:39

these changes to cortisol gene expression

1:12:42

that predicts

1:12:44

an increased likelihood of developing PTSD,

1:12:47

as one example, then

1:12:48

how could MDMA work

1:12:51

with just three doses

1:12:53

to repair that?

1:12:55

Well,

1:12:56

MDMA is kind of

1:12:58

like

1:12:59

a reverse trauma by that definition,

1:13:01

right? It's one in the in the mass

1:13:03

trial, three doses, 12 weeks of psychotherapy.

1:13:06

It's one or multiple intense

1:13:08

meaningful safe experiences

1:13:11

that are challenging, but after

1:13:13

which we are supported

1:13:15

very tightly and held. And

1:13:18

in a lot of ways that makes

1:13:20

you think, well, at least it made us think

1:13:23

that if that

1:13:25

treatment with MDMA therapy is

1:13:27

able to clinically

1:13:29

reverse the symptoms of PTSD in these

1:13:32

people who have such severe illness, perhaps

1:13:35

we could track it on the cortisol receptor

1:13:38

genes, right? Perhaps actually

1:13:40

changing the epigenetic memory. And

1:13:42

if it changes the epigenetic memory, would

1:13:45

it stop us from passing that predisposition

1:13:48

down to our offspring, right?

1:13:50

So that study was a study

1:13:53

we published in February that was

1:13:55

just really exciting that shows

1:13:58

that yes, in fact,

1:14:00

The first part of that is true. We

1:14:02

don't yet know about the passing down to offspring after

1:14:05

the fixing part, but we know that

1:14:07

MDMA therapy now from that

1:14:10

study,

1:14:10

looking at MAPS participants in the

1:14:12

phase three trial,

1:14:15

have a repairing or remodeling

1:14:18

of their methylation epigenetic

1:14:20

patterns on that same cortisol

1:14:22

receptor site

1:14:24

that were changes induced

1:14:26

by the trauma and or that have

1:14:28

been shown to be induced by traumatic events,

1:14:31

that

1:14:32

this is starting to change our epigenetic

1:14:34

code. And what's even more interesting

1:14:37

is that the amount of

1:14:40

epigenetic change that cortisol receptor

1:14:42

site is directly proportionate

1:14:45

to the amount of clinical

1:14:47

outcome. So

1:14:50

there's a linear relationship between

1:14:52

how our epigenetic memory is

1:14:54

recorded and how much it's recorded

1:14:57

on cortisol receptor

1:14:59

genes. There's probably lots of other genes involved, don't

1:15:01

get me wrong, but this is the one that comes to the

1:15:03

surface and how much

1:15:06

we get better.

1:15:07

And so

1:15:08

this really brings us back

1:15:11

to the safety pathway and this understanding

1:15:13

of cortisol is a stress response protein.

1:15:16

It's a stress response hormone. So

1:15:19

it's involved in how we interpret safety and

1:15:21

threaten our bodies. And so

1:15:24

going back to that theory of how we developed

1:15:26

Apollo and how safety is important, we

1:15:29

had the pleasure of working with

1:15:31

the Denver VA to actually

1:15:33

replicate this study with

1:15:36

Apollo alone, which is targeting

1:15:38

the safety pathway to the skin. And

1:15:41

they are, they've been giving Apollo

1:15:43

to veterans with PTSD for

1:15:46

a 12 week period, no drugs,

1:15:48

no MDMA, just giving them

1:15:50

Apollo and

1:15:51

using Apollo to target

1:15:53

the safety pathway. And we're collecting

1:15:56

their samples before and

1:15:58

after. 12 weeks to

1:16:01

see if by chance,

1:16:04

will targeting the safety pathway

1:16:06

in a different way than MDMA

1:16:09

change the same or

1:16:12

have a similar effect on the cortisol receptor

1:16:14

site? And will that also correlate

1:16:17

with amount of clinical improvement?

1:16:20

And if we can show that, and it may

1:16:22

not be shown in this study, there'll be a lot more to come

1:16:24

because one study often isn't enough

1:16:27

to get to the end goal of proving

1:16:29

your hypothesis. But if

1:16:31

we are able to show that other safety-based

1:16:34

treatments, whether it's MDMA or

1:16:36

traditional ceremonial ayahuasca

1:16:39

or other things, or ketamine therapy or

1:16:41

Apollo or soothing touch, if any

1:16:43

of these things are inducing similar

1:16:46

changes to cortisol receptors that we saw

1:16:48

in that MDMA trial,

1:16:50

then we know it's not the drug

1:16:52

that is inducing the healing state,

1:16:55

right? It's the safety that

1:16:57

is amplified by the drug that

1:16:59

produces the healing response. And

1:17:01

that will be really, really

1:17:05

helpful

1:17:06

to us as a field to understand

1:17:08

what we actually need to heal. I think

1:17:11

the theory is we need to feel safe enough

1:17:13

to heal.

1:17:14

This would actually prove that, which would

1:17:16

be so exciting.

1:17:18

Yeah. Yeah. Wow.

1:17:20

All right.

1:17:21

I'm feeling similarly mind-blown to the last time we chatted. So

1:17:24

I'm thinking we're going to have to do

1:17:26

more. Anytime. Yeah.

1:17:28

I appreciate it. So where can

1:17:30

people learn more about Apollo? You

1:17:33

can learn more about Apollo at apollouneuro.com.

1:17:37

That's A-P-O-L-L-O-N-E-U-R-O.com.

1:17:41

And if that's too hard to remember,

1:17:43

you can go to wearablehugs.com, which is what

1:17:45

the kids call it. And if you want to find me, I'm at drdave.io.

1:17:48

And you can find me at Dr. David

1:17:50

Rabin on Twitter

1:17:51

and Instagram.

1:17:54

And I'm always happy to hear from you.

1:17:56

So please do reach out. to

1:18:00

learn more of a deep dive about any

1:18:02

of these topics that especially the

1:18:04

last few topics that we've been talking about, check

1:18:07

out my podcast,

1:18:10

the Psychedelic News Show, which is called the Psychedelic

1:18:12

Report. We deep dive into

1:18:14

this particular epigenetic study

1:18:17

with Candace Lewis, who is

1:18:19

the first author on that paper

1:18:22

that just came out in episode 24.

1:18:24

And then I just released a special

1:18:27

feature that's co-produced by

1:18:29

the Psychedelic Report called Your Brain Explained,

1:18:32

where we deep dive into the trial results and

1:18:34

what they mean around the MDMA trials. And

1:18:36

then we just released an episode with

1:18:38

Gavir Mate and Rachel Yehuda deep diving

1:18:41

into the mechanism of trauma and trauma

1:18:43

healing.

1:18:44

I love it. Dr. Dave, thanks

1:18:46

so much for being here. And yeah, I'm

1:18:48

looking forward to more. Likewise. Thanks

1:18:50

again for having me.

1:18:55

And there you have it, everybody. Dr. David

1:18:57

Rabin from Apollo Neuro.

1:18:59

I sensed a lot of alignment

1:19:02

in that episode. I don't know if regular

1:19:04

listeners to the show sense that as well. A

1:19:06

lot of really interesting kind of

1:19:09

opportunities, it seems like to me

1:19:11

here with this device. And I'm you

1:19:14

know, I'm still using it quite regularly. So

1:19:16

definitely, you know, if you're curious, maybe

1:19:18

check it out. I think it's a pretty cool

1:19:21

little device. And definitely,

1:19:23

I hope to be able

1:19:26

to pull together some sort of research with it in

1:19:28

the future as well and see where we

1:19:31

at PT really land on this kind of stuff. I'm

1:19:33

hopeful. I'm hopeful for sure. When

1:19:36

Kyle and I started psychedelics today,

1:19:38

we included in our kind

1:19:40

of long term vision that technology

1:19:43

would substantially impact

1:19:45

the psychedelic experience. And, you

1:19:48

know, it's just a matter of time. I think it was what

1:19:51

was it?

1:19:52

Terence McKenna line, the drugs

1:19:55

of the future will be technology, the technology

1:19:57

in the future will be drugs. Very

1:19:59

interesting.

1:22:00

you