Psychedelic Neural Plasticity and Corporate Care Economics
September 1, 2026
Neuroimaging studies reveal that compounds like psilocybin and toad-derived psychedelics reorganize brain patterns and connect consciousness to external environments, challenging rigid clinical paradigms. Meanwhile, state-backed healthcare pushes in China and entrenched Western pharmaceutical revenue models struggle to accommodate non-medicalized care approaches, contrasting with communal village experiments in Yorkshire that redefine social support outside commercial extraction.
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Psilocybin Might Make Your Brain Live in the Moment
Psychedelics are often associated with disconnecting from reality, but a recent neuroimaging study found that psilocybin can actually make our brain activity more connected to the world around us.
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New research shows how psychedelics reorganise the patterns in your brain
Francesco Carta / Getty Images One participant described “melding with the MRI machine, floor, walls and air”. Another described “losing all sense of self”, becoming at one with their surroundings. Half the participants in our study reported having one of the most meaningful experiences of their liv…
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How long could we possibly live? A new estimate is mind-boggling
Biogerontologists are exploring the upper limit for human life. A recent study has it verging on two centuries – but columnist Graham Lawton finds reason to be sceptical
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The wild, gripping story of the psychedelic secreted by desert toads
Kimon de Greef's The Ego Trip chronicles the rise of a potent psychedelic drug, from the toads that secrete it to the man who claimed it has amazing powers. Olivia Goldhill discovers an extraordinary tale
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The healthcare industry isn’t built for coming off medication
Starting a new medication is relatively easy once you have a prescription from your doctor, but stopping is much harder, because from research to revenue, the healthcare industry has little interest in getting people off drugs
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What if we stopped treating social care like a service? A small village community in Yorkshire showed me another way
Members of the Esk Valley Community baking bread. Esk Valley Community Within an hour of arriving in Botton, a small, picturesque village in the UK’s North Yorkshire moors, I was standing in a farm field shovelling hay. Alongside me were my friend Max*, his father, a co-worker named Richard, two vol…
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China Is Trying to Make AI Work for Health Care
A state-backed push is raising the question: Who pays?
- geopolitics
- structural power