Today we delve deep into the fascinating world of the placebo effect, exploring its implications in medical treatments and the ethics surrounding its use. Dr. Helena Hartman, a neuroscientist, joins the show to talk about how expectations can significantly influence treatment outcomes. Hartman shares her research insights into pain, empathy and placebo and the importance of expectation in driving placebo effects.

We also talk about the work being done by the Treatment and Expectations group uncovering the complex interplay between expectation, treatment efficacy, and the ethical dilemmas that arise when discussing placebo in a clinical context. Hartman emphasizes the importance of transparent communication with patients regarding the use of placebos and the potential benefits they can offer when patients are informed about their effects. We also discuss the challenges posed by wellness influencers who may mislead the public into thinking that they can heal themselves through mental power alone, neglecting the necessity of real medical interventions. Hartman highlights the importance of finding a balance between promoting the benefits of medical treatments and avoiding the pitfalls of over-hyping the placebo effect, especially in the age of misinformation.

Finally we take an intriguing examination of side effects and their unexpected role in enhancing the efficacy of treatments. Hartman discusses a study showing that mild side effects from placebos can actually boost the perceived effectiveness of treatment, tying back to the central theme of expectation. This leads to a broader conversation on the implications for future medical practices, particularly in the realm of psychedelics, where the challenges of maintaining placebo control are complex.

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• Side-effects are often a curse. Can they also be a blessing?
• Accessible scientific results and exciting fictional stories in one.
• What can psychedelic drugs teach us about placebo-controlled trials?
• Treatment and Expectations Group - Find out and join in / TRR 289

The great science broadcaster and author Jay Ingram joins me once again to talk about science that goes mainstream. Why does do some topics jump out of dedicated science news channels and how should critics respond? Is there any good way to present the process behind science and why is that crucial for critiques of misleading stories. These are some of the topics we explore and Jay provides some positive examples of efforts to communicate the changing nature and long term vision of scientific research.

We pose many questions about how best to tell science stories and not all were answered but just like research, communication is an ever evolving thing as well. Let me know what you think about science media and where you'd like to see change.

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If you'd like to support the show with currency click here. We are grateful for that too. Finally, you can check out the website here.

Many thanks to Freak Motif for the music and Sebastian Abboud for the logo.

• Dementia prevention, intervention, and care: 2024 report of the Lancet standing Commission
• Yes, Social Media Really Is a Cause of the Epidemic of Teenage Mental Illness - Jonathan Haidt
• The great rewiring: is social media really behind an epidemic of teenage mental illness?
• Unsettled science on social media - Science
• Defy Dementia Podcast

In June an independent advisory committee recommended the FDA not approve MDMA assisted therapy for PTSD. This came as a surprise to many working in and following the field of psychedelic assisted therapy. It also raised questions as to where the field is at and what challenges still exist.

To provide some context and perspective on this decision and some of the specific criticism raised during the hearing Henrik Jungaberle, a psychedelic and public health researcher in Berlin joined the show.

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If you'd like to support the show with currency click here. We are grateful for that too. Finally, you can check out the website here.

Many thanks to Freak Motif for the music and Sebastian Abboud for the logo.

• The MIND Foundation
• Methodological challenges in psychedelic drug trials: Efficacy and safety of psilocybin in treatment-resistant major depression (EPIsoDE) – Rationale and study design - ScienceDirect
• Treatment with psychedelics is psychotherapy: beyond reductionism - The Lancet Psychiatry
• Measuring psychotherapeutic processes in the context of psychedelic experiences: Validation of the General Change Mechanisms Questionnaire (GCMQ) - Journal of Psychopharmacologyent...
• Was the FDA Panel Right to Recommend Against MDMA Approval? - MedPage Today
• Psychiatric Drug Developers Make Recommendations Following Lykos Adcomm - BioSpace
• An emotional public hearing on MDMA: ‘Today you will vote on whether my friends live or die’

In this episode we have two interesting news stories from the unrelated worlds of infectious disease and psychedelic research.

What's all the fuss with H5N1 moving into cows and is my milk safe? Plus a breakdown of a fascinating set of experiments aimed at answering whether MDMA increases empathy and why this could influence how doctors prescribe the drug in the future.

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If you'd like to support the show with currency click here. We are grateful for that too. Finally, you can check out the website here.

Many thanks to Freak Motif for the music and Sebastian Abboud for the logo.

• Podcast: 'Mainstreaming' Psychedelic Drugs to Treat Mental Health - Brad van Paridon for Undark Magazine
• MDMA enhances empathy-like behaviors in mice via 5-HT release in the nucleus accumbens
• The H5N1 Outbreak Is Not a Test Run, It's a Warning Shot
• US to test ground beef in states with bird-flu outbreaks in dairy cows
• U.S. dairy farm worker infected as bird flu spreads to cows in five states
• Scientists call new measures to control bird flu in cows ‘a drop in the bucket’

Have you ever thought about how knowledge, sometimes thought of as facts, get from the scientists, to journalists, to the articles and videos on your screen? Turns out there is a pipeline taking science discoveries from the lab to the news media. This pathway is a useful and well-used system but it is not without problems. Information can be distorted as it is translated and passed on and the fact checks you might assume are present sometimes aren't.

My guest Elisa Nelissen is a Ph.D. researcher at KU Leuven the studying this pipeline and science media. Having worked as a press officer, freelance communications specialist and now academic she has worked at many stages along the knowledge pipeline. Our conversation was wide ranging and touched on how knowledge moves from the lab to the newsroom, the different incentives that distrot this message along the way. We discussed motivations for communicating science, what audiences are looking for when consuming science news, and the challenges of fitting science news into mass media structures.

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If you'd like to support the show with currency click here. We are grateful for that too. Finally, you can check out the website here.

Many thanks to Freak Motif for the music and Sebastian Abboud for the logo.

Ants and other eusocial insects have taken group living to the extreme and while we may not think of these animals as representative of human societies studying the fundementals of the evolution of and consequences of social living using ants makes a lot of sense. My guest Yuko Ulrich is a behavioral ecologist and group leader at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology in Jena, Germany. She joined me to discuss how she uses a unique ant species, commonly known as the clonal raider ant, to ask basic questions regarding evolution and behavior. She explains why the clonal raider ants are such a useful model system and discusses the results from two studies that look at the evolution of group living itself and how an individuals behavior within a group affects their risk for disease.

This conversation really highlights the importance of experimental biology for asking and answering questions that may seem obvious but that must answered before we can discover exactly why group living is so succesful or understand how groups evolved to defend against disease. It was also a nice reminder that working together in the face of an outbreak offers unique defenses solitary individuals don't have. Finally, we touch on what happens when the parasite takes things to the extreme and manipulates host behavior. That's right, zombie parasites.

Links to both of the studies discussed can be found below.

• Fitness benefits and emergent division of labour at the onset of group living | Nature
• Behavioural individuality determines infection risk in clonal ant colonies | Nature Communications

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Many thanks to Freak Motif for the music and Sebastian Abboud for the logo.

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When's the last time you checked your butt? It could save your life. This episode I chat with Anthony Morgan, host of CBC's The Nature of Things, about their upcoming film Butt Seriously and so much more. As Anthony explains the idea for the arose because people are literally dying from embarassment by not getting their butt's checked out by a doctor. This soon expanded to a deep dive into butt's from all over the animal kingdom. Creatues that breathe through their butt's and the researchers who think we can too. Insect butts that shoot acid at enemies. The evolution of the butt and more.

I also chat with Anthony about science communication and the lessons he's learned from vaccum sealing himself to a building in dowtown Toronto. How we can tackle polarizing topics and the live game he tours around Toronto to "undivide us". Find out more about Anthony and his "Freestyle Socials" at anthonymorganscience.com and on Instagram @anthonymorganscience and @freestylesocialsgame

This is the only link you need to subscirbe and never miss an episode of Two Brad For You. Please do rate and review it really helps us out.

If you'd like to support the show with currency click here. We are grateful for that too. Finally, you can check out the website here.

Many thanks to Freak Motif for the music and Sebastian Abboud for the logo.

Two major breakthroughs in gene editing recently occurred and show how our ability to edit the human genome is rapidly increasing. This episode we dive into how these technologies work and how they were able to treat two diseases. One a rather mundane sounding cholesterol problem and the other an exteremely painful and potentially deadly condition known as sickle cell disease. Both stories invovle a combination of new technologies, mRNA techniques and gene editing either using or inspired by CRISPER. These stories highlight how all of these technologies are combining to open new possibilities, that gene editing may become just a regular treatment as we age, and the less talked about downsides or hidden trade-offs that come with these treatments.

Sources

Base editing, a new form of gene therapy, sharply lowers bad cholesterol in a clincal trial - Science

A Closer Look at the Approval of CRISPR/Cas9 Gene Therapy for Sickle Cell Disease - MedPage Today

New gene therapies confront many sickle cell patients with an impossible choice: a cure or fertility - STAT

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