Psychedelics Transdiagnostic Therapeutics

04/21/2026

In the early hours of March 11, 2012, under the cover of darkness in rural Afghanistan, U.S. Army Staff Sergeant Robert Bales walked off base and into history. By sunrise, 16 Afghan civilians were dead. Among them were women and children.

What followed was swift and definitive: Bales was charged, convicted, and sentenced to life in prison without parole. The narrative seemed clear—a soldier turned mass murderer.
But is that the full story? Or is it the version we are most comfortable accepting?

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In the early hours of March 11, 2012, under the cover of darkness in rural Afghanistan, U.S.

04/16/2026

In 2001, 57-year-old Robert Hanssen, former FBI counterintelligence agent, pleaded guilty to espionage and was eventually sentenced to life in prison. He had a long history of spying for the Soviet Union and later the Russian government. His spying activities are considered amongst the most damaging sustained by the United States in modern history.

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By Mohan Nair, MD, J. Arturo Silva, MD

04/16/2026

Understanding how structural brain abnormalities influence behavior remains one of the most complex and important areas of neuropsychiatric research. A well-known forensic case from the early 1990s provides a striking example of how brain pathology may contribute to profound behavioral change. Through modern lesion-network analysis, researchers have been able to revisit this case and examine the neurological mechanisms that may have contributed to the behavior involved.

This case study explores the relationship between a large frontotemporal arachnoid cyst and impulsive violent behavior in the case of Herbert Weinstein.

🔗 https://open.substack.com/pub/drnair/p/when-brain-structure-influences-behavior?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web

🧠 WWW.MOHANNAIRMD.COM

04/10/2026

In this post, we delve into an illuminating article published in the Psychiatric Times titled Ketamine and Psychedelics: The Journey from Magical Mystery to Informed Consent co-written by myself, Mohan Nair, M.D. This article explores the evolution of these therapies and the critical concept of informed consent.

🔗 https://open.substack.com/pub/drnair/p/ketamine-and-psychedelics-the-journey?r=11fx3g&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

04/08/2026

The use of psychedelics in psychiatry and pain medicine holds promise and raises difficult questions. My recent presentation reviewed the ethical, moral, and malpractice-related issues in this space, along with the systemic challenges that determine who receives care and who does not.

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The use of psychedelics in psychiatry and pain medicine holds promise – and raises difficult questions.

03/30/2026

"Why Some Grief Never Fades" is a really wonderful article in National Geographic if you want to understand how terrible emotional losses can impact an individual over a lifetime, sometimes in a way that never stops.

🔗 https://apple.news/AQDaKphrmSgKalEOVt5Vt7g

03/04/2026

New Perspectives on End-of-Life Care 🔗 A recent article from National Geographic: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/health/article/psychedelic-drugs-terminal-cancer-palliative-care

Emerging research is showing that certain psychedelic medicines like psilocybin, may offer real emotional and psychological relief for people facing terminal illness. Rather than treating the disease itself, these therapies have helped reduce anxiety, depression, and existential distress in patients with advanced cancer, allowing many to reconnect with loved ones and find a deeper sense of meaning in their final months.

This is not about curing cancer, it’s about supporting the whole person, addressing the emotional pain that traditional medicine often can’t reach. As researchers continue to explore and challenge regulatory barriers, this work may open new pathways in palliative care and improve quality of life for those approaching the end of their journey.

Certain psychoactive substances can improve the mental health of terminally ill cancer patients—but few patients can currently access them.

01/06/2026

Neuropsychiatry / behavioral neurology is the study of emotional and behavioral disorders in which disturbed brain functions are either scientifically established or strongly suggested. Prior to the 80s, the term neuropsychiatry was limited to conditions with identified etiologies, i.e., the depression or mania following a stroke, delirium/dementia associated with hepatic encephalopathy, or the paranoid/religious psychosis of a temporal lobe epileptic?

However, with the rapid advances in the neurosciences, the more serious psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia, obsessive-compulsive disorder, Tourette’s, ADHD, bipolar disorder, and autism are undeniably recognized as brain disorders. Considerable skepticism is raised in the courts when brain disorders are used to explain away horrific acts or serious antisocial behaviors. Mental health professionals may identify brain damage as a causal mechanism in wrongful behavior without an adequate scientific basis. This may be the result of honest differences in opinion, advocacy, or in some instances (unfortunately) the willingness to provide a desired opinion for the referring party.

👉 Read more on this week's blog:

Neuropsychiatry / behavioral neurology is the study of emotional and behavioral disorders in which disturbed brain functions are either scientifically

12/31/2025

As a Harvard-trained physician, with a background in brain injury medicine, pain medicine, addiction medicine and psychiatry, I’ve spent the last 15 years focused on what I believe are the four dark horsemen afflicting humanity:

🧠 Brain injuries
⚡ Chronic pain
🧠 Severe psychological trauma & PTSD
🔗 Addiction

These conditions represent one of the greatest threats to human well-being today. They fuel chronic suffering, disability, incarceration, and homelessness, impacting millions of Americans, both veterans and civilians.

For over a decade, I’ve worked with ketamine-assisted treatment, which has led me to explore the broader potential of psychedelics as transdiagnostic therapeutic agents - tools that may help address the root causes shared across these complex conditions.

It’s time for deeper conversations, rigorous science, and compassionate care models that meet the scale of the problem.

🧠 www.mohannairmd.com

12/23/2025

If you’re curious about the growing role of psychedelics in healthcare, Psychedelic Capitalism by Jamie Brownlee and Kevin Walby, published by Columbia University Press, is a strong place to begin.

🔗 Watch the full discussion on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0u9LpIAC7p8&t=6s

12/19/2025

Psychedelic Capitalism from Columbia University Press provides a critical analysis of the exploding medical psychedelic terrain. Authors Brownlee and Walby illuminate where the corporate-capture trip is headed—through hasty medicalization, commercialization, psychedelic tourism, Big Tech, Big Pharma, and aggressive intellectual-property practices. It gives insight into the handshake politics of Big Pharma, government regulatory bodies, and politics that infest the U.S. healthcare “industry.”

👉 Learn more about Psychedelic Capitalism here: https://cup.columbia.edu/book/psychedelic-capitalism/9781773637310/

As I have noted in my book Making Sense of Suffering – Psychedelic Medicine for Pain Management, a soulless health care “industry” dedicated solely to profiteering and not to people sucks up billions of dollars in private profits from public money, while 80 million Americans go with no health care or substandard health care in the most expensively budgeted health care system in the world.

📖 Making Sense of Suffering – Psychedelic Medicine for Pain Management - Available on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C8KZPK64

Drawing from the collective wisdom and diverse backgrounds of individuals passionate about psychedelics as medicine, the reader is provided cutting-edge up to date research data. This includes the basic science of psychedelics as it may apply to pain related conditions. Specific information is...

12/12/2025

A powerful dive into how Terence McKenna’s first brush with DMT at 19 shattered everything he thought he knew — and turned him into a psychedelic “edge runner.” In this new piece, we follow how that single trip rewired his worldview and set him on a lifelong quest to transform a molecule into a cultural sacrament.

👉 Curious where “the secret the world can’t tell” leads? Read more:

After a mind-bending trip at nineteen, Terence McKenna, or “America’s shaman,” spent his adult life transforming a molecule into a cultural sacrament.