Matthew W Johnson PhD is an Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioural Sciences at John Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. His research has focussed on understanding and facilitating human behavioural change, particularly behaviour change that is fundamental to addiction recovery. He has overseen laboratory studies determining the behavioral and psychological effects of psychoactive drugs in humans, particularly novel or atypical drugs. This work has examined hallucinogens including psilocybin and salvinorin A (Salvia divinorum), stimulants including cocaine, methamphetamine, nicotine, and caffeine, and various sedatives. His studies with psilocybin have examined its potential for facilitating behavioral change. These studies included a trial determining the ability of psilocybin to increase engagement in a meditation program, a trial testing if psilocybin can decrease anxiety and depression in cancer patients and studies examining psilocybin as an anti-addiction medication for tobacco smoking cessation and alcohol dependence.

Psychiatry Might Need Some Psychedelic Therapy - Article by Matthew W. Johnson

Anil Seth is Professor of Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience at the University of Sussex, where he is also Co-Director (with Prof. Hugo Critchley) of the Sackler Centre for Consciousness Science. He is a Wellcome Trust Engagement Fellow, a Senior Fellow of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, and Co-Director of the Leverhulme Doctoral Scholarship Programme: From Sensation and Perception to Awareness.

Anil is Editor-in-Chief of Neuroscience of Consciousness (Oxford University Press), was Conference Chair of the 16th Meeting of the Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness (ASSC16, 2012), and sits on the steering group and advisory board of the Human Mind Project. Since 2014, he's been a member 'at large' for the ASSC. He was the 2017 President of the British Science Association (Psychology Section). He has edited and co-authored the best-selling 30 Second Brain (Ivy Press, 2014) and has contributed to a variety of media, including the New Scientist, The Guardian and the BBC.  He writes the blog NeuroBanter.

Also see Anil's TED talk (recorded in Vancouver in 2017) or listen to his conversation with Sam Harris on his Waking Up podcast (Jan 2018). He has been interviewed on BBC's The Life Scientific, with Jim Al-Khalili (2015), and has published an introductory essay on consciousness on Aeon.co - The Real Problem - a 2016 Editor's Pick.  He features in the Vice/Motherboard feature documentary The Most Unknown, now streaming on Netflix.