Advancing psychedelic discovery for the public good.

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UC Berkeley Psychedelics Survey

The UC Berkeley Psychedelics Survey is an evidence-based resource about attitudes toward psychedelics in the U.S. during a period of rapid legal, scientific, political, and cultural change.

Michael Silver mid-conversation, with an inset image of mushrooms

A Neuroscientist Describes Your Brain on Psychedelics in 101 Seconds

Watch UC Berkeley Professor Michael Silver describe how recording the brains of people on psychedelics could transform our understanding of human consciousness.

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Psychedelics 101

What Are Psychedelics?

Our primer on classic and non-classic psychedelic substances, including psilocybin, LSD, ketamine, and more.

What Are the Risks? Ask Experts.

How should you choose a psychedelic therapist? What do “set and setting” mean? How should a trip sitter prepare for the experience? Experts answer these questions and more.

Microdosing—Does It Work?

Interest in psychedelics is growing fast, but legal use—either through a clinical trial or psychedelic therapy—can be complicated.

Psychedelics and Spirituality

People have used psychedelics to commune with the divine and create bonds among the living and the dead, the spiritual and the natural worlds for centuries and possibly millennia.

About BCSP

Psychedelic Research

We bring together researchers from across disciplines, including neuroscience, molecular biology, psychology, chemistry, and genetics, and experts in public policy, law, health economics, and religion.

Journalism and Public Education

BCSP’s public education program produces evidence-based, objective journalism, conversations, and courses about psychedelics.

Listen to the BCSP on KQED Forum

Tune in with as Michael Silver, director of the BCSP, Marlena Robbins, the program coordinator for the Indigenous Student Research Fellowship, and Berra Yazar-Klosinski, former chief scientific officer at Lykos Therapeutics, discuss what RFK Jr.’s support for psychedelic therapy means for its future.

Gül Dölen in The New York Times

Gül Dölen, professor and the Bob & Renee Parsons Endowed Chair in the Department of Neuroscience and Department of Psychology, and Senior Scientific Advisory for the BCSP, spoke about her theory that psychedelics might open a window of enhanced motor learning after a stroke.

SF Chronicle on new moms and psychedelics

Elena Kadvany writes about Reunion Neuroscience’s clinical trials providing&nbs&nbs p;p;psychedelic treatment for postpartum depression. Michael Silver, director of the BCSP, is quoted in the article. Rather than symptom management, he said, psychedelics might offer “something more like permanent or at least long-lasting, durable changes that are more like healing.”

Tools and Resources

Law and Policy Map

Track proposed and enacted legislation of psychedelics across the U.S.

Patent Tracker

BCSP has created a patent tracker that uses publicly available data gathered by Psychedelic Alpha, an independent community working in the psychedelic space.

Clinical Trials Map

Figuring out how to participate in psychedelic-assisted therapy as either a therapist or a patient can be complicated. BCSP’s clinical trials map, featuring data from   ClinicalTrials.gov, provides a way to navigate past, ongoing and future trials.