ABOUT THIS EPISODE
Can psilocybin microdosing actually treat depression – or are expectation and the placebo effect doing far more of the work than we realise?
Dr. Rotem Petranker is a clinician, researcher and therapist who has spent years studying psychedelic microdosing. In one of the most rigorous clinical trials of microdosing for depression to date, his team gave people diagnosed with major depressive disorder either 2mg of psilocybin or placebo and tracked what happened.
The surprising result?
People in both groups got dramatically better – but on most measures of depression, there was almost no difference between microdosing and placebo.
In this conversation, Paige and Rotem explore what that finding actually means, why psychedelic research may be far less certain than popular headlines suggest, and how expectation, media hype and scientific bias can shape what we think psychedelics are capable of.
We explore:
💕 What actually counts as a microdose – and why scientists still don't know the ideal dose or frequency
💕 What happened in Rotem's clinical trial of psilocybin microdosing for depression
💕 Why both the placebo and psilocybin groups experienced major improvements
💕 The enormous role expectation may play in psychedelic research
💕 Whether microdosing improves focus, cognition or connectedness
💕 Why set and setting are so difficult to study scientifically
💕 The replication crisis and why some psychedelic research may be less reliable than it appears
💕 Why pre-registration matters – and how researchers can accidentally “draw the bullseye after firing the shot”
💕 How media coverage may be exaggerating what psychedelics can currently treat
💕 Psychedelic-assisted therapy, SSRIs and what the evidence actually tells us
💕 The meaning crisis, certainty and why humans find not knowing so uncomfortable
💕 Consciousness, physicalism, panpsychism and whether psychedelic entities should be taken literally
This isn't an argument for or against psychedelics. It's a conversation about something much more interesting: what the science actually shows when we remove what we want to be true.
☕️ To support conversations like this, shout Paige a coffee:
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🔗 Connect with Dr. Rotem Petranker:
Website: https://petranker.com/
🔗 Connect with Paige:
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@PaigeLeacey
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Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/on-the-same-paige-with-paige-leacey/id1573526370
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