After talking about how he entered the field of psychedellic research and offering analogies as to how psychedelics work on the brain, Robin Carhart-Harris discusses some of the early results of his pioneering clinical trials looking at the potential of psilocybin to treat major depression.

After completing his PhD at the University of Bristol in 2009, Robin moved to Imperial College London, where he has worked for the last few years on the brain effects of LSD, psilocybin (magic mushrooms) and MDMA, conducting some pioneering brain-imaging studies of these drugs. Most recently he has completed the first phase of a clinical trial looking at the potential of psilocybin to treat major depression.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx.