Broken Brains with Bruce Parkman
Broken Brains with Bruce Parkman is presented by The Mac Parkman Foundation
The mission of this show and the foundation is To serve as a source of information, resources, and communications to the community of parents, coaches/Athletic trainers, medical staff, and athletes that are affected by sports-related concussions and to raise awareness of the long-term implications of concussive and sub-concussive trauma to our children.
Broken Brains will also explore how Concussive Trauma impacts our Service Members and Veterans.
Join us every week as Bruce interviews leaders and experts in various Medical fields, as well as survivors of Concussive trauma.
Produced by Security Halt Media
Broken Brains with Bruce Parkman
Daniel Carcillo: Healing Brain Trauma with Psilocybin | Broken Brains with Bruce Parkman
What happens when a former NHL enforcer turns his battle with brain trauma into a mission for mental health advocacy?
In this powerful episode of Broken Brains, host Bruce Parkman sits down with Daniel Carcillo, former NHL player and founder of Wesana Health, to discuss the long-term impacts of concussions, traumatic brain injuries (TBI), and the mental health struggles faced by athletes and veterans alike. Daniel shares his deeply personal journey from the highs of professional hockey to the devastating effects of repetitive brain trauma—and how psilocybin therapy offered him a path to healing.
They dive into:
- The hidden mental health crisis in professional sports and the military
- The science behind psilocybin, neuroplasticity, and brain healing
- Why integration and therapeutic use are critical for successful recovery
- The barriers posed by Big Pharma and the need for alternative treatments
- Real-life success stories of individuals overcoming trauma through innovative therapies
This conversation sheds light on the urgent need for better brain health solutions, greater community advocacy, and a shift in how we support those affected by brain injuries.
If you care about brain health, mental resilience, and the future of trauma recovery, this episode is a must-listen.
📣 Call to Action:
If you or someone you love is navigating concussion recovery or wants to learn more about cutting-edge brain injury treatments, this episode is for you.
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Chapters
00:00 Introduction to Brain Health Advocacy
02:47 Daniel Carcillo: A Journey from NHL to Advocacy
11:22 The Impact of Concussions on Mental Health
15:52 Finding Healing: The Role of Psilocybin
21:10 Challenges with NHL Support Systems
24:04 The Grueling Schedule of Professional Sports
24:48 Exploring Psilocybin's Impact on Brain Health
25:10 Research and Studies on Psilocybin
27:00 Therapeutic Use of Psilocybin
29:22 Integration and Lifestyle Changes Post-Treatment
31:15 Scientific Studies Supporting Psilocybin's Efficacy
32:08 Challenges with Big Pharma and Quality Control
35:07 The Importance of Longitudinal Data
38:15 Real-Life Success Stories with Psilocybin
40:03 The Need for Alternative Treatments
42:23 Future of Psilocybin Research and Accessibility
Join Blue Fusion and Horse Soldier Bourbon for the inaugural Special Operations Army vs. Navy Tailgate Event
Celebrate with us and support veteran wellness. Your participation helps fund The Mac Parkman Foundation's Veteran Program and Team American Freedom.
Your sponsorship ensures vital education, screening, and treatment for veteran mental health, aiming to reduce the tragedy of veteran suicide.
Enjoy food, beverages, and live music by Razor’s Edge, one of the top-perform
Produced by Security Halt Media
Hey folks, welcome to another edition of Broken Brains with your host, bruce Parkman, sponsored by the Mack Parkman Foundation, where we work at the issue. Look at the issue of repetitive brain trauma in the forms of repetitive head impacts from contact sports, repetitive blast exposures for our veteran population, and what these conditions are doing to the brains of our kids, our athletes and our veterans and causing, right now, the largest preventable cause of mental illness in this country now the largest preventable cause of mental illness in this country. We reach out to players and advocates and researchers, scientists, authors, whoever is in this space, because this is not taught in any medical, nursing or psychological curriculum. So you need to be informed to make the best decision for yourself and how to address brain health, how to take care of your kids and how to help us all make sports safer, because they can be made safer as we move forward.
Speaker 1:With us today is another amazing guest, thanks to our producer, denny Caballero, who's always bringing these amazing folks on our show. Love to have him. And we have today Daniel Garcia, who's our first NHL player to get on the show. Mr Garcia is a former NHL player and if they show, mr Garcia was a former NHL player and if they're like Marines, they're never former. Once an NHL player, always an NHL player. He's a two-time Stanley Cup winner man with the Chicago Blackhawks and a now-renowned advocate for brain health and mental well-being, which we always love to see players getting into space because it's so necessary.
Speaker 1:He played left wing in the NHL for 10 seasons, earning a reputation as a hard-nosed enforcer, the bad guy on the ice, and is now known for his work with individuals suffering from effects of concussions and mental health challenges. And since he's left the NHL right now he has been eminently engaged in the space, is helping out other players, other kids, other parents in space. Um, he retired in 2015, but he founded a nonprofit organization to assist former NFL player NHL players dealing with post-concussion syndrome and mental health issues. He currently serves as CEO of Wasana health, a company focused on using psilocybin based medicine for the treatment of traumatic brain injuries. Boy, we got a lot to talk about on that one. He speaks at a lot of events. He's a vocal advocate for concussion awareness and he's personally experienced the effects of multiple concussions you think after 10 years in the NHL and including a diagnosis of post-concussion syndrome, which has led him to this advocacy work, mr Carcio. What a resume, what a reputation, what a career. Welcome to the show, sir.
Speaker 2:Thanks for having me, Bruce.
Speaker 1:I love it, man. So, dude, where are you from originally? Obviously you're from Canada, europe. I mean, how did you get into hockey, man?
Speaker 2:Yeah, Canada. As soon as you're born, you're pretty much born with skates on. As soon as you can walk, they stick you on the ice. It was a small town. Everything really revolved around the community rink.
Speaker 1:It's called King City, ontario, no kidding. So did you have an actual rink or did you skate on like ponds and stuff like we did in Massachusetts? When I was growing up, we used cranberry bogs all the time, yeah we did both.
Speaker 2:We, you know, we had, uh, a local mom under the bridge kind of dropped the bowling ball and would tell us when we could, you know, get on the ponds and stuff. Uh, we had a backyard rink and then you know, there's a rink on every corner. They're open all year round in canada. So, uh, it was a meld of those three things all right.
Speaker 1:So you, you were up there, way up north, with a with the ices around year round. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, I mean the snowfall was pretty predominant. It's definitely less now, but yeah, no, definitely we were pretty north of the city. And then you get up into Sudbury and North Bay and Sault Ste Marie and those towns are constantly, you know, constantly covered.
Speaker 1:Dude, yeah, I remember sometimes if the ice was thick enough, they'd have the pickup trucks actually go out there and plow the snow.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we'd do the ice fishing Like my dad had a hut that we would just, you know, pull with a snowmobile, or sometimes a truck, onto the ice, so definitely thick enough for that.
Speaker 1:Dude, cool beans man. So where did you go to school? I mean, where did you play hockey in college? Or did you play hockey? Did you just go right in?
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, we went right in. So there's kind of you know there's a fast track system with with hockey. I was actually drafted as 16, turning 17. So in high school and then as soon as I graduated high school I, um, uh, turned pro at 19,. You know, around like 15 or 16, you have the decision to either go to college or at least start looking at universities or play in the league called the Canadian hockey league, which really fast tracks you, and that's where a lot of the scouts were. Uh, you know you're playing against 16 to 21 year olds and I went to a few school visits but I figured you know why be behind the eight ball. I thought I was good enough. I thought I was strong enough that I could break into the league. Maybe not at 19 or 20. But after a couple years in the AHL I thought I could definitely get there faster and no point in going to school and waiting until I was 23 or 24 to try to get in.
Speaker 1:Cool beans man. So basically, how long did it take you to get drafted into the NHL.
Speaker 2:I mean unconsciously, since I started around four years old when I really noticed that I probably had a pretty decent shot if I continued to work hard and outwork people. Probably at 13, 14 years old people were starting to take notice. I was never the biggest, I was never the best. I played AA, which is kind of a level down from AAA. There were about 700,000 kids in Ontario alone that were playing hockey, so it was really really competitive and I had an opportunity to make a AAA team, got drafted in the sixth round to an OHL team, moved away at 16, drafted 73rd overall to the NHL and just kind of kept making my way up and just kept working as an underdog.
Speaker 1:Dude. So you're in the NHL at 17 years old.
Speaker 2:You're drafted yeah, 17, turning 18. Yep, you're drafted. And then you start going to pro camps. You know, that year, and there's only a select few guys that you know turn pro right away and get right into the NHL, typically like first rounders and second, third, fourth rounders. You got to continue to make your way up through the developmental league, which is the American Hockey League it's one level down from the NHL and then you start playing well and you start getting noticed by the organization. They either bring you up or, if there's a little bit of a pecking order, like there was in my situation, I was drafted to the Penguins. I knew that I was ready to play and there were just so many guys in front of me that it didn't really matter how well I played. So I asked for a trade and ended up getting traded a year and a half into my pro career to Phoenix Arizona and started my NHL career there in I think it was 05, 06.
Speaker 1:Wow man, I never knew how this stuff played and you know. It's just, you read about it and you know stuff like that and I think, actually I think you're the I think you're the second professional hockey player I've talked to. I met a guy that played with the Bruins a long time ago and he runs a sports clinic. I'm talking about how we can make the sport safer so that people can play the entire time and retire from the NHL, nfl, any world rugby and not have brain problems. Right, there's a, there's a way forward to it. So, so in your life, from the time you retired, from the time you start playing hockey, I mean, how how many years did you play competitive hockey?
Speaker 2:Competitively. You know, the rules were different back when I started, right, we were hitting right at three, four years old. So I mean, yeah, I started, you know, I'd say about like 25 years, 26 years, you know, because I retired early at 30. It was because of just the effects of concussion and I just was really, you know, just affecting balance and hand-eye coordination and symptoms like headaches, head pressure, insomnia. It was just impossible to continue to do my job. But 10 years is a really long time to play in the NHL, especially when you fight 164 times.
Speaker 2:And my job was to get as many hits as possible, and I was good at it, but it comes at a cost.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so not only were you checking and hitting the ice, all the time, you're getting punched in the head too, just for the. You know that was your job.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I was, I was an enforcer. I uh, I mean, I was good at the game. It wasn't like I was one of those um, kind of you know heavyweights that just went out and at the beginning of the game just kind of dropped their gloves. I would make you know people earn it, uh, or I would go earn it myself. But you know, it was really used as a tool to shift the momentum of a game to, you know, if you weren't having kind of the best start to just, you know, show the guys that you were there to battle and and your teammates appreciate it. And then usually the next shift and the shift after that you start to gain some momentum and within a game you know, especially professional sports, there's there's very little room for error and and so momentum plays a very big role in in the bounces that you get and create for yourself and winning a game or a series.
Speaker 1:Dang you ever have one of your coach go, hey man, go start a fight. We need to, we need to, we need to flop the momentum or anything like that.
Speaker 2:Um, they don't, they don't, they don't, they say it without saying it.
Speaker 2:So yeah they'll, well, they'll put you. They'll never say, go start a fight, but what they'll do is they'll, they'll change. Maybe one guy or two guys off a face off, maybe one guy or two guys off a face-off, and then the guy that you're lined up with is you know, you know who fights on the other side all the time, right, you do your research and so you know they say it without, and then you know like that's you know, having your finger on the pulse of how the game's going is. It's a skill and I knew that pretty intimately and for a long time, like I reveled in it. You know, I really liked hurting people and I, you know the only other time that people stand up and cheers when you know a goal scored or there's a fight.
Speaker 1:So good on you, man. I mean hey, we all got our roles right. I played semi-pro rugby for a long time, man, and my role is just stick my head in there and come out with the ball somehow. Nice, I didn't even know how to pass. I mean, I played semi-pro rugby for decades. I never even passed the ball, we just had.
Speaker 2:It's funny you mentioned that we just had a bunch of UK boxers and some rugby players and they're going through a concussion lawsuit right now, but we're starting to treat some people from across the pond there using mushrooms at our center and we're tracking data and it's been going well. We just did our first cohort of eight individuals and some UFC, some bare knuckle boxers and, um, and yeah, we just, we just all met the other day and people have been, you know, their lives have been changed, uh, for the better.
Speaker 1:So yeah, let's get into that a little bit. So, yeah, no, absolutely, cause I want to dial into psilocybin. It's one of the treatments that we highly recommend, um, as part as as part of the legislation that we have in Congress right now for veterans. We're trying to parallel that track for athletes and um get that going. So you noticed that you know the, the sport was taking its toll on you and basically, you had to leave the sport because of its impact on your brain and um, and and physical health. What about mental health? Were you struggling? I mean, obviously you were reveling and fighting. I mean, that's just who you are. You know other times, you know the. You know the the anger, the impulsivity and the rage come from. You know, you know the damage to the brain.
Speaker 2:It's also done by the sport yeah, if I look back on my career, I can see how I was dealing with, like a lot of, you know, depression, anxiety or what could be framed as that. But also, you know, I'm the type of person that likes to use things as fuel and so you know, I could also see that some forms of the self-sabotage were likely because I was self-medicating because of the injuries that I was kind of dealing with that were, you know, underlined or underpinned, just feeling so different, Uh, but also, you know, trauma in a big way um, fueled me, right, you know I was, I was angry, Uh, I just liked the physicality of of the game. I liked being able to look at somebody you know in the eye and and test and then have them test me to see how strong I am, to see how far I'll go, Less about for the team, but more so just personally. And I'm still very much kind of like that. That dog is still in me. It just comes out in different ways now, right, In entrepreneurship and that sort of thing.
Speaker 2:But my sixth and seventh concussion, which were the last two years of being in the league, so 2014 to 2015,. The symptoms were really, really bad. So, on top of the headaches, head pressure, the insomnia, the impulse control issues. I was definitely dealing with anxiety, depression and then suicidality, Especially when I walked away from the game.
Speaker 2:When you're not getting sleep and then you have all of these kind of things that are that are happening to you and you go from being a professional athlete to sitting at home with your wife and a newborn, you start to really realize how sick you are, how slow you are, you know, compared to other people, and I think a part of that, a big part of that, was obviously the brain chemistry and the years of abuse. Um, you know, being so physical in the body and the brain but then also having no purpose. I think people, men especially, can deteriorate without that community and purpose. So that definitely happened to me and it got really scary for for a really long time. Um, I've had a lot of friends that didn't make it out that, you know, CT was all over their brain and and for whatever reason, they, they just, you know, couldn't figure it out. So I feel blessed that, you know, I was able to to find a medicine that that saved my life.
Speaker 1:So when you got out, I mean and we deal with this on the military side too you know, depression and anxiety, mental health issues are very prominent in first responders, professional athletes in the military because you spend a such a long segment of your life in a an environment of you know, just say, let's just say, manliness, right, I mean, whether you're shooting guns, going to combat, you're playing, you know a sport or you're saving lives, right.
Speaker 1:Then you leave it, right and it's like silence and we don't know how to deal with silence. How did you take the steps to avoid you know, some of the tragedies that happened with professional athletes in the same spot, right, and this is we're talking. You know almost everybody I know that plays professional sports, contact sports is hurt, okay, whether they're rugby players, football players, nhl players, whatever, right. So you know, obviously you were in a hole and thank the Lord that you know you started climbing out. What was the impetus for you to start saying I've got to do something? And then what led you to the medicine that you know that that helped you, uh, get back and become who you are.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so 2015,. The year started with me having we we had our first, uh, our first child. So Austin was born in 2014. The season starts in September and then, leading into 2015, my best friend, steve Monador, passed away. He had 19 documented concussions in the NHL, and so I just saw a lot of the same symptoms in myself that I saw in him, that we were obviously talking about when he retired and what he was struggling with. And then in March, I had my seventh concussion and then at the end of the year, we won the cup again, and that was my second.
Speaker 2:And I just thought that, with the symptoms from the seventh concussion and how bad they were, I still never recovered. I just knew that if I kept going on that way, there was a high likelihood that my brain was just going to stop working forever. So I made the decision to stop based off of those symptoms. And then I went into the medical system and luckily, I had means. I had all the means in the world to get the best care and unfortunately, what I started with was listening to doctors prescribe me these synthetic pharmaceuticals for a number of years to manage symptoms which then exasperated others. So when I got off of those. I had a couple seizures which made my situation a little bit worse, and then I started to go to these kind of cash pay neurological stroke rehabilitation, concussion rehabilitation clinics, started to really learn about the brain diagnostics and went to these kind of intensive week-long programs. But I could only sustain that for like a year and a half because, number one, it was just so expensive and number two, like the treatments just didn't really take hold, you know. And so then I started to kind of be resounded to the fact of listening to these neuroscientists saying, well, we've done everything we can for you, so now it's time to just manage these symptoms and live a new normal which is what a lot of concussion survivors, you know, hear and live a new normal, which is what a lot of concussion survivors hear.
Speaker 2:So I started to do float tanks, hyperbaric chamber, mox, acupuncture, cranial sacral things like that, just to kind of manage the days and all this while I was reading PubMed papers. So I was reading anything that I could on what the new science was saying about any medicines coming out or anything for the brain. And then I came across a study in 2000, I think it was 2017, it was published in 14, it was by Robin Card Harris, imperial College of London of a brain on psilocybin under fMRI and what I saw was this kind of overactivity of communication with left and right brain hemispheres and I just a light went off and said, hey, that might work for you, just based off of what I was listening to from the diagnostics from these clinics and the neuroscientists, etc. So, luckily, in 2019, I took an invitation to Denver which, where magic mushrooms are still inside and was decriminalized at the time. So I knew I couldn't get arrested and I took a really high dose and before I left I took some diagnostics. So I took a QEG, I took blood work because I knew that if this could work, then there's a lot of stigma associated with it, so I'd need some kind of backup data and at that point I was big on this kind of data collection. So I did it on myself.
Speaker 2:And then I did two high doses across six months and I went back to the neurologist or neuroscientist that kind of gave me the scans and they couldn't find any abnormalities in my brain and then my blood work was completely clear. And they asked me well, what have you been doing? And I said I've been focusing on my sleep. I did two high doses of mushrooms, I did some microdosing and then I have supplements of lion's mane and reishi and cordyceps and chaga these other legal, usda certified organic mushrooms that help support, you know, anti-inflammatory benefits of the brain, the body and they, you know, they wouldn't like even look at it.
Speaker 2:You know, because at this point there weren't that many studies out, but now there's a lot that promote this idea of neuroplasticity that you know we got it wrong. Right, the brain doesn't stop growing at 21. It continues to if you introduce the right substances and you have the right lifestyle. It continues to be able to be placid enough to make these new neuronal connections around these dead neurons. So you know that was in 2020, I really started talking about this, right? No-transcript.
Speaker 1:So you found this. I mean you found this path all by yourself. When you got out, where was the NHL on this? Did they offer you any? You know, I mean obviously that they offer you any. You know, I mean I mean obviously.
Speaker 1:And this is one of my ongoing presses against the NFL and in the V, in the, in the military, like when I retired 21 years as a green beret. You know I've been shot in the face, all you know, blown up. I shot, I've shot so many bullets I don't even go to range. They bought, they bored me, right. But the military does an assessment center, right, we find all this stuff wrong that you didn't have when you came in. We own this and, right or wrong, the VA says, hey, we're going to take care of it, all right.
Speaker 1:And yet you know we're talking about a sport where you dedicated yourself from three or four all the way up until 2015. So before three, I doubt you had the kind of damage that was found with your QEG and FMR when you retired. Obviously, this is due, dedicated. You know it's due to the hockey right, it's due to your sport, your commitment, your passion. Right Was the NHL. You know. You know they would they? Did they have any programs or anything to help you with at all? Do you get any medical support or anything like that?
Speaker 2:No, no, I, no, I was a little bit like jaded from what had happened to Steve and he was such a big part of the union, the NHLPA.
Speaker 2:But once you stop either working for them or paying your dues, if you're not playing, you're not necessarily, you know, I wouldn't say you're not welcome, but they're not going to, they're not going to go out of their way to help. And we all pay for healthcare and you could tap into healthcare, but the only thing that can be prescribed are these FDA approved medications right, that we know work, you know less than 7% of the time and come with these crippling side effects. I think people are waking up to that now. So, no, there wasn't much support. I honestly, to be honest, I didn't want their support. We talked a little bit about these transition programs because I had such a hard time transitioning and I think they're doing a little bit of a better job of it now through the NHL as well. So, no, you know, I think once you stop kind of producing and playing for the corporations or for the leagues or for the teams, then, um, you know, you're kind of yeah, you're kind of on your own.
Speaker 1:Wow, okay, I mean, you know, not pointing fingers. What I'm looking at is how do we change this right? How do we get you know people to you know, or the organizations to professional leagues to say, look, man, these young men dedicate themselves to our sport. You know, you guys are like gladiators, right? You give us our, you know for football, our Sundays with our Doritos and our beer, you know. And on the hockey, I mean, you guys play so many games, dude, I don't even know it was a lot. Yeah, how many games in NHLC?
Speaker 2:82. 82. And then, yeah, so it's, but it's over 184 days, I think. So you're 40, obviously 41 are at home and 41 are on the road, so it's a pretty grueling schedule.
Speaker 1:Dude yeah, nuts, so all right. So all right, you put yourself, you know, on the way back and then you know, obviously, you know, have you tried? I mean, so all right. So let's talk about psilocybin. Tell us about the impact it has on brains. I mean, you've mentioned new neural connections and increased plasticity. Connections and increased plasticity. You know, tell our, our members, um, you know, you know, from a, from a, a brain damage perspective, from subconcussive trauma, uh, you know how long did it take? You you said you took two high doses. Was that, you know, one in one or in in in micro dose, along? Or you know what are the, what are the protocols that you know that you went through and there, and, uh, what do you? What the protocols that you know that you went through and they're in, uh, what are you, what are you finding out?
Speaker 2:psilocybin, because I mean, we talk about all the time and obviously you're you're devoted to it. What do our listeners need to know about this, about this medicine? Yeah, so I will say so and let me just address, um, I do want to say something just about the like, the leagues and stuff, right, so what? What we have that we are putting together right now is the first inhuman longitudinal observational study with QEGs, which are the brain scans got microbiome genetic testing blood. So we're putting that together. We just did our first eight cohorts, as I mentioned a little earlier, with the boxers and rugby players and UFC fighters. So that's exciting and that's something that I think, because there is so much research there isn't an FDA approved medicine yet, but there is so much that's been done in the way of proving that this neuroplasticity is happening and how it could be good for not only concussion but neurodegenerative disease through, like Johns Hopkins and NYU, langone and some serious academic institutions that I think, if we put together this program and put it in front of the NHLPA, I'm hopeful, and even the UFC, and I'm hopeful either they help with recruitment, um, or maybe funding, and so, um, you know, that's kind of the next step of of you know how maybe they can get involved for your listeners. You know I want to start with, there's obviously two different ways to do this right that a lot of people hear about. They hear about, kind of recreationally, going to a concert and doing, you know, a small dose um. But what we're talking about here, in the context of of healing the brain and the body and the spirit from depression, anxiety, any number of these psychiatric and neurological disorders, is we do this therapeutically.
Speaker 2:So this is a Schedule I substance. So that means that it's illegal, federally illegal, similar to how cannabis is federally illegal. And so with a federally illegal substance, we have to lobby the states to be able to introduce legislation to create what's called adult therapeutic use programs. So there's four actually now that are currently available, four states. They include most recently New Mexico, um, which will create this kind of adult therapeutic use framework. It'll take another probably two years to get to get open, Um. The two that are open right now are Oregon, with measure one, oh nine, where we have our center in Portland, and then Colorado, uh, with through prop one, two, two. So they're just starting to license. They just licensed, uh, the first healing center, um, and and then you have, uh, utah that actually has, you know, medical professionals prescribing being able to prescribe MDMA and psilocybin. So, um, that's a legal way through the state to be able to, to access this. And why that's important is because we focus on a couple of different avenues and licenses to be able to do this correctly.
Speaker 2:So set and setting are really important. So your mindset, and then the environment that you do this medicine in, and what's also critical and where all of the positive results come from, is this psychotherapy that individuals continue to do. So in regards to preparing somebody, we would prepare them and give them these kind of questionnaires about their mental health history and medication, so there's no drug-drug interaction, and then we would, after you're qualified, you'd be paired with a facilitator. So think about this person as a licensed individual that is knowledgeable and can sit with somebody through a ceremony, and they will get to know all of Bruce's traumas, why he's coming, because sometimes these things can arise and Bruce may need a little bit of support during the ceremony.
Speaker 2:And then you know, I think the most crucial part is the integration of okay, we've had the ceremony, we've had this kind of cataclystic event and it's been positive for not only the spirit but also the brain and there's definitely, you know, more activity happening in the brain and there's definitely more activity happening in the brain. There's an anti-inflammatory effect. Now what are you going to do with it? There's this proven in nature. There was a study of this proven openness period. So there's three to four weeks where individuals have the ability that in the ceremony they've broken these kind of destructive thought patterns or perspectives of themselves and now they've got this three to four week window to be able to really go anywhere they want to go. They aren't hamstrung by the same anxieties or perspectives of themselves or their injury or the situation they're in, and so they can start eating differently, they can start waking up at different hours and going to bed at different hours, and it just becomes really easy because the brain is almost like a child's brain again, it's placid right, and so that's what we've proven through a number of different studies, both in animal and in human. So you know that integration piece is really important and this has all been supported by a number of different studies. So you know, obviously people can try to get in touch and, bruce, I'll send you some of the information that we have in our decks, but most recently I'll just touch on this.
Speaker 2:There was a study done by Northeastern University about three weeks ago they published this where they gave female rats mild traumatic brain injury and people might be asking well why would they use rats?
Speaker 2:That's the first step to doing a drug development program specifically for concussions, so they actually might make people a little queasy, but they have an anvil test where they hit these rats on the head, similar to a mild traumatic brain injury, for three days and then they gave them a dose of psilocybin. And what they found? Obviously they had this brain damage. They had anti-inflammatory effects that went up after they were hit and they also had the presence of tau proteins. Tau proteins are these entanglements that basically strangle brain hemispheres and they're present in Alzheimer's, dementia, als and Parkinson's. Why that's important is after the psilocybin went into these female rats that were hit in the head, they did not have a presence of these tau proteins anymore. After the psilocybin dose, the researchers couldn't find any signs of any brain damage and all of the anti-inflammatory markers that were heightened after they got hit in the head were no longer present. So this study speaks to how powerful psilocybin is specifically for the brain and specifically for after it has been injured due to impacts.
Speaker 1:And that's something I mean. Number one, that's amazing and we are a huge proponent. I've done most of these modalities myself part of my research project and, to your point, they're not a lot of fun. I mean there is no recreational when you take ketamine, psilocybin, ayahuasca there is no recreation. There's no fun about this because you are dealing with your internal struggles, your internal trauma and getting rid of it in your pursuit of becoming a better human being. So the what. What always bothers me when you start talking about studies and stuff is how do we keep big farmers hand out of this thing? Right, because they want to turn everything into a pill and charge 500 bucks for something you can grow for 50. Right, they can grow a ton of it. Right, I happen to know people that have like mushroom farms. Right, they're not making pizzas either, right?
Speaker 1:So, you know how do we prevent that? And then the other thing is, how do we control the quality so that people know I'm getting what I'm getting? You know whether it's the type of mushroom or the type of plant or whatever.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I think that's what's important to highlight about Oregon and about Colorado. So there's four licenses so you can get licensed as a service center. So that's the environment that you would come and do this in and that's the center that we have called Experience Onward in Portland. But then there's also manufacturing licenses, right? So for the growers of the fungi, there's very specific ways to grow it and if you don't follow that, then nobody's going to ingest it. Then there's testing facilities. So there's a testing license. So after the mushrooms manufactured, it goes to the testing facility and has to pass those specifications. And then there's a facilitator licenses. So there's these therapists or these people that have obviously been through a ceremony and several themselves and now want to help others and pass this on. So those four licenses create the programming and, similar to pharma, the reason they use one compound synthetically is because they need to replicate that compound within a 0.01% variance for millions of people Think about Adderall, et cetera. So the testing is really important. But we've lobbied for that right, we've put these programs in place. And so will Big Pharma ever come in and want to run a state-run center? Absolutely not.
Speaker 2:Why are we doing this first inhuman longitudinal observational study. Well, because there's a lot of stigma associated with this medicine that we use and we want to track data. We want to track data in a poignant way, so that we can show people the real-time effect of how this is impacting a veteran's life, an athlete's life, an executive's life that's struggling right now, a civilian that was just in a car crash. We just want to be able to show people on top of Bruce talking about it, or Daniel, or somebody that just came to the retreat. We really want to back up that with some markers of data, and these are just quantitative, qualitative surveys, but you know. So what we'll get right is, we'll get this question well, you're not doing a double-blind placebo study the way that the FDA does.
Speaker 2:Right, and I will say, no, I'm not. But there's also measurements that we're taking that bust through your placebo argument. Right, if we know that the brain has more activity right, and is communicating correctly through a QEG pre and then post. There's no placebo effect there. Somebody's brain was communicating badly because they were hit in the head several times for several years. We gave them psilocybin and then now it's communicating correctly. So that's why these studies are so important, right? These anti-inflammatory effects, these genetic tests of the actual age, how fast somebody's aging, because what we've seen across 50 people that have come is that they look younger. Everybody looks healthier, right, and then you know, tracking the anti-inflammatory effects. But these data points, I'm not collecting them to sell them to big pharma. That is not what's going on here. What's happening is I'm essentially collecting them so that we can show how important inhuman data is to convince others that this could work for them.
Speaker 1:Well, the absence of longitudinal data is actually the largest obstacle to all these modalities being approved, because everybody wants the FDA stamp and you're not going to get it for all this and there will be significant pushback by big pharma to anything that can enter their little SSRI, ssni and benzo chokehold on mental health. And that's why you know we're a huge proponent of plant medicines and their impact. I mean, I've got a friend who was training in special forces and they cacked off an implosion and a damn staircase came down and hit him on the head and when he retired they did a brain scan on him and they declared him terminal. It was like, look, you got all these fibrous tangles, you got all this stuff in there that we've never seen before. We don't know where it came from, but you better start getting ready to go. And he found psilocybin and right now they can't find anything in his head.
Speaker 2:And that goes to speak to what you just said, right, bruce? So one of the hardest things to do is communicate this to people, right? There's just so much of that stigma. And so if you compare that Northeastern study, right, which was done like via an FDA approved but that was an FDA approved study and then you compare the inhuman stories that you just mentioned, and then that individual's brain scans, and then you put those together and you can show, right, what you're talking about are those protein tau entanglements, and then now this individual doesn't have them anymore. So that's real and we should be listening to that, even though it wasn't done with a synthetic medicine and it wasn't done through an FDA approved study.
Speaker 2:That to me doesn't matter, right, but that's the trick. That's kind of the game really that we're all playing, right Is how to put this into language. And then, secondly, a lot of people ask well, you're not going to be able to publish it in nature or frontier. And I'm like this is not for the scientific community, this is for individuals that that have been through the system, that are hopeless, that are suicidal. The number one cause of death after a traumatic brain injury is suicide, and that's who this is for this, isn't for anybody else.
Speaker 1:No, and it shouldn't be. I mean, right now, the people that are finding, like I go to quite a few ceremonies to observe, to talk and the people that are coming there have been through everything that Big Pharma has. They've been through everything the whole healthcare, the, the, the uh, the whole healthcare system has and they are done. Nothing has helped them. I talked to veterans that have literally a bag of 15 different medications and they'll say I don't want this, you know, for whatever, whatever negative impact on their health that they all cause. I don't want this, no more. And they're like well, let's give you more Right. Well, let's give you more right, or let's try this other one. No, it's all about what else is out there. So let me ask you a quick question. I ask everybody that's in this space, out of all the people so you say 50 people have gone through your program how many of them said that this has had a positive impact on my health and my future?
Speaker 2:98%, yeah, okay.
Speaker 1:Now, yeah, so my daughter's a nurse practitioner of psychiatric medicine, and the drugs that she prescribed, you said have a 7%. She said, dad, they might help. I have a 25% expectancy that they were going to improve or positively impact my patient. And then yet I talk to practitioners of ayahuasca, psilocybin, ketamine, hbot. You name all those therapies that you tried before you found psilocybin. Every one of them has an enormously high level of positive impact on the patient. And so what we're, you know what we want to work with. Providers like you is like say, look, why isn't this enough? When people are literally getting ready to suck on the end of a pistol or run off a cliff like my son, or just think of all the other tragedies that can take place why don't we allow them access to these modalities that have changed lives in order to save them?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think things are changing. So, you know, and I talked to a lot of my friends, of people that, like, are focusing on kind of the why not? And you know, I'm trying to highlight like. So Enthea is, you know, a specialty network program that is actually working with employers to to use their insurance, um, to help people subsidize this, this type of treatment. Uh, it's cash pay, you know. So that's sometimes difficult for people and the reason that you know some people want to go through the FDA so that you know they can play that whole um, capitalize on insurance and those types of things. So, um, but yeah, I just think, you know, I think, focusing on messaging and and and collecting this data, you know we're about to, you know, raise funds to be able to put 25 people through this program. We already did eight and uh, and I think that'll go a long way, you know, to to show and it's not expensive. This isn't a clinical trial to spend $300 million, right, we're talking about a couple hundred thousand dollars to be able to show this and show it. Well, so, and there's a lot of forces that pull people in, right, but typically, and I think unfortunately, there's so many people that have been through the healthcare system, especially with concussion, that have spent so much money and time, that are so frustrated that you know. And then there's so many stories that already are out there of people positively impacted that they're taking advantage of this.
Speaker 2:Careful to say it's not a panacea. There's things that I do on a yearly basis to make sure that I maintain my brain health and quality of life, mainly like a lot of lifestyle things, obviously, and then I continue to do this medicine once or twice a year, but I mean, it's by far the best medicine I've ever come across and it lasts, you know, for me, with a good lifestyle and good habits, like up to six months. I don't need anything else. I just work out and eat well and and um, yeah, it's pretty amazing. Uh, good for you.
Speaker 1:And we and we noticed that too with other plant medicines that you know, other plant medicines, like, like ayahuasca, is really good at purging, you know, getting rid of a lot of uh, you know, a lot of trauma.
Speaker 1:So that you can focus on those better, uh, lifestyles and better change what it does to the brain. I think there's a lot of good, positive stuff there, because you know it hurts, um, but you know to your point is that you know these are lifestyle changes that are impacting people that had no hope and if you've got to, you know, you know, continue with a, you know a protocol once or twice a year and your lifestyle has increased from a health perspective, so so drastically that you're back with your family. That's a hell of a lot better than being in the hole that a lot of the folks that we talked to are in.
Speaker 2:And it's a.
Speaker 1:It's amazing what you're doing and I would love to get a copy of your legislation. We have a very pro-veteran legislation here. We're doing a study with ketamine right now and brain supplementation Ayahuasca is a little bit too far for the Congress down here Like hey, dude, but if we could.
Speaker 2:Ketamine is nice. It's FDA approved. What state are you in?
Speaker 1:Florida sir.
Speaker 2:Oh you are, so am I. I'm in Jupiter We've been talking a lot about. We have a couple of representatives that are actually interested in some form of a possible adult therapeutic use bill. But, yeah, no, let's definitely we'll exchange.
Speaker 1:I got a couple more for you, cool, and we'll talk about that, because we got funding for the ketamine study, okay, so what I'd like to do is work with you to submit your study to the state, to go ahead and open that up here in the state of Florida.
Speaker 2:And that's another reason why I started the center, right, it's because there's been over 9,000 people treated in Oregon and nobody collected any data. And the reason that you would collect data on top of this is like, all right, we could show this data in the veteran population to other states and it'll be so much easier to open up more of these programs. So, yeah, absolutely, let's, um, you know, fortuitous. You know I call this a God wink. It's like, yeah, it's how God works, man. No doubt, bro, no doubt.
Speaker 1:He's all over this man?
Speaker 2:Yeah for sure, so let's do it. That is amazing, yeah.
Speaker 1:And I mean what you the battle right now, or another person, because there's just so much carnage out there and we both deal with it on a daily basis. And I got a kid for you right now that really needs your program and I'll even try to help, I'll raise the money for it and a lot we can do together. So, look, tell us how people find you, man. As I close out the show I'd like to talk about. You talked about studies, where you're at right now, where you're going, and then how do people find out about your clinic, the program, where can they go to research psilocybin so they understand? Number one, you need to understand what you're dealing with. And then, number two, what are the potential outcomes that could change their lives?
Speaker 2:Yeah, for sure. Thanks for asking. So I'm on Instagram pretty regularly. So, daniel Carcillo 13. Linkedin is just my name, facebook my name.
Speaker 2:Our center is called experience onward, so websites wwwexperienceonwardcom. We've got a number of different resources there, so all the links to over 150 cited studies from Johns Hopkins. We've got Andrew Huberman on there talking about the risks and benefits in a pretty extensive 40-minute YouTube about the science and everything involving psilocybin and we've also got a clip from Roland Griffiths, who's the who was the lead researcher at Johns Hopkins. He recently, you know, passed away from a cancer diagnosis. But you know, just talking about, you know, all the studies that they've done on end of life anxiety in terminally ill cancer patients and and, and depression, and and. So there's pretty good resources on the website for people to get to get started. Um, and you know I I have a, you know a business line that's that's attached to my phone that people can, um, you know, text and and uh, and then email is danielatexperienceonwardcom. So if anyone reaches out and they want more information, I've got decks and documents ready to go, specifically on concussion and the latest research. So, yeah, just reach out through those platforms.
Speaker 1:Dude, I wish I would have met you earlier, because Friday we're having an actual, the first town hall of repetitive blast exposure and we've got a panel of veterans and a panel of specialists and modalities that are not normal. I wonder if I can squeeze you in.
Speaker 2:But where's, uh, where's it at it's in uh, tampa.
Speaker 1:Uh, we're having the first and we're we have we host the only repetitive brain uh summit on repetitive brain trauma in the world in tampa. It's going to be september 3rd and 4th, so I'd love to have you come out and maybe give a presentation on psilocybin. It would be great. It's a two-day summit. We got a lot of really great speakers and presenters there, so we'll get you the invite. So, daniel man, thank you so much for the time you get to spend with me today. What an amazing journey you've been on. God bless you and your organization, and thank you for the work you've done on yourself, for your family, and the work that you're doing for others, and we look forward to hearing from you later on and we'll have you back on the show for sure. Awesome, appreciate it, bruce Cool. All right, folks, as we close out, another amazing episode of Broken Brains with another just a special guest, daniel Carcio, make sure you reach out to him, make sure you find him, because if you don't know about psilocybin and you know people that are struggling, I'm telling you it's one of those medicines out there that can help, and when people at the end, you know, that's why the show exists Now, you know, get out there. If there's somebody that needs help, reach out to Daniel and let them know. By the way, the book the only book for parents free on our website Go out there, get it, give it away Birthday presents, whatever.
Speaker 1:The town hall on Friday is going to be a big event that we had to reschedule because of construction concerns last month. So that'll be the Repetitive Brain, repetitive Blast Exposure Town Hall we're hosting. Do expect we're going to have our NFL seminar, which we're going to open up to NHL players, on repetitive head impacts how to diagnose them, how to validate them and then how to go back to your providers for coverage. And then what are these programs, like Daniel's, that can help you get back on your feet. We'll have a seminar for parents and, don't forget, our Summit on Repetitive Brain Trauma is going to be September 2nd and 3rd here in Tampa. Amazing guests showing up right now, some of the top-ranked speakers in the country on this issue, which, again, is not taught in any medical, nursing, psychological course. And, like Daniel, you have to find your way, unfortunately, until we get this fixed. So, for all of you, thank you so much. Keep your brains healthy. We'll talk to you later. Another exciting episode. No-transcript.