AI-Powered Psychedelic Treatments: Special Status And Next-Gen Contests Winners

As psychedelics and AI travel their own development paths, here are some initiatives looking at ways of enhancing the former with the latter’s help.

AI-Infused Research Partnerships

The Institute of Biomedical Research Corp. MRES is using AI algorithms, machine learning and predictive models to conduct research on psychedelic compounds, mainly around psilocybin through funding research collaborators at the University of South Africa. 

Meanwhile, AI mental health solutions company Cognetivity Neurosciences Ltd. CGNSF has struck a deal with the Alzheimer's Society in Oman toward studying cognitive health in patients with dementia and diabetes.

Combining AI and neuroscience, the company’s Integrated Cognitive Assessment (CognICA) platform will be used for regular monitoring of the senior population under the country’s healthcare services, with the goal of creating a baseline performance of their brain health.

A secondary goal is to research comorbidities, like diabetes, in patients diagnosed with dementia or Alzheimer's through the use of big data toward further development of AI models that enable risk stratification and the provision of comprehensive care through tailored strategies.

3D Movement Data: ‘Special’ Status, On Track For IP Coverage

Red Light Holland’s TRUFF wholly-owned Silicon Valley-based Radix Motion has been granted the right to participate in the fast-track “Patent Prosecution Highway” (PPH) procedure, and has been accorded a “special” status for, its U.S. patent application covering the company’s 3D movement data and AI innovations.

The patent's claims include the use of human movement data in psychedelic-assisted therapy toward promoting positive experiences and preventing negative ones, predicting and personalizing individual patient journeys, and evaluating the therapy’s efficacy.

Further, the application also points to the new technology’s use for real-time analysis of human movement data to identify the position 

and body movement of a psychedelic facilitator/therapist to detect if a potential violation is taking place and, if so, activate real-time alerts and safety measures. As stated by the company, the new tool does not require sending or storing any video information and helps protect patient privacy.

Psychedelic Cryptography And Science Of Perception Box Winners

California-based consciousness nonprofit The Qualia Research Institute (QRI) has announced the winners of its "Psychedelic Cryptography” (PsyCrypto,) a contest calling on artists to produce videos encoded with hidden messages for people to decipher while tripping, reported Vice.

Entries were judged by members of QRI’s international phenomenologist network. QRI’s research director Andres Gomez-Emilsson says that only three submissions “worked,” according to the review experts. He said he's convinced that “there are at least three to four completely new and mind-blowing ways to achieve PsyCrypto that do not use tracers at all.” 

In this edition, all three projects use the psychedelic experience of seeing radiant “tracers,” or lingering trails of colors and afterimages, to write out messages that come out as incomprehensible to a sober person.

Gómez-Emilsson predicts improved creations will begin to pop up in recreational and entertainment spaces soon, presenting stimulating opportunities for neuroscience and consciousness and changing the path of the history of consciousness “in very unexpected ways.”

Separately, the Tiny Blue Dot Foundation announced the funding of 11 neuroscientific research projects connected to “The Science of Perception Box,” a singular state or place the nonprofit’s founders believe each of us lives in and whose limits can be expanded to minimize suffering and increase acceptance of self and others.

The international open call winners’ list includes two studies on psilocybin, one based in Vienna focusing on assessing the actual need for a psychedelic trip “for increased well-being and pleasure” through fMRI brain scans, and the other based in Wisconsin adding a non-invasive transauricular vagus nerve stimulation (taVNS) to the psychedelic’s intake for further effect enhancement, also measured through fMRI.

Photo: Benzinga edit with photo by geralt and sergeitokmakov on Pixabay.