Overview

⏱️Schedule:  Doors 18:30 → Talk 19:00→ Q&A → Mingle

Psychedelics are having a comeback – in labs, in clinics, and in culture. But between breathless headlines and political panic, it’s not always clear what they actually do to our brains, how they might help with mental health, or what risks they carry for individuals and societies. In this talk, cognitive neuroscientist Eric Lonergan takes us inside the science and philosophy of psychedelics – from neural circuits to new ways of living together.

We’ll look at what psychedelics are, how they work in the brain, and why hallucinations are so interesting for understanding perception itself. Then we’ll zoom out: what can psychedelic research offer to psychiatry, and how do current social, legal, and ethical debates shape what’s possible?

This session dives into a new philosophical framework for how psychedelics can help us build better lives – not just as treatments, but as tools for understanding minds and communities.

Together, we’ll explore:

• What are psychedelics? – key substances, their effects, and how they act on the brain.

• The mystery of hallucinations – a brief tour of Eric’s research at the Decision Circuits Lab and what it reveals about perception and prediction in the brain.

• Why this research matters – the promise (and limits) of psychedelics for computational psychiatry and new approaches to mental health.

• Beyond the lab – current social, legal, and philosophical debates around psychedelics, from medicalisation to decriminalisation.

• A new way forward – a philosophical theory of how psychedelics can be used for a better life, for individuals and communities.

Expect an evening that is curious, nuanced, and grounded in research, with plenty of space for questions. You’ll leave with a clearer picture of what psychedelics do, why scientists care so much about them, and how they might reshape our understanding of mind and society.

Speaker

Eric Lonergan

Cognitive Neuroscientist

Eric Lonergan, M.Sc. is a cognitive neuroscientist at the Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience and the Institute of Biology at Humboldt University of Berlin. His research focuses on how the brain constructs perception, what hallucinations can teach us about this process, and how psychedelic substances might open new paths in computational psychiatry and mental health.