Roland Griffiths

Roland R. Griffiths is one of the strongest voices in psychedelics research. With over 400 journal articles under his belt and as one of the first researchers in the psychedelics renaissance, he has been a vital part of the research community.

CV

Roland Griffiths is the Director of Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research and Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Johns Hopkins University.

From his bio: “Roland Griffiths, Ph.D., is Professor in the Departments of Psychiatry and Neurosciences at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. His principal research focus in both clinical and preclinical laboratories has been on the behavioral and subjective effects of mood-altering drugs. His research has been largely supported by grants from the National Institute on Health and he is author of over 400 journal articles and book chapters, and has trained more than 50 postdoctoral research fellows. He has been a consultant to the National Institutes of Health, to numerous pharmaceutical companies in the development of new psychotropic drugs, and as a member of the Expert Advisory Panel on Drug Dependence for the World Health Organization. He has conducted extensive research with sedative-hypnotics, caffeine, and novel mood-altering drugs including. In 1999 he initiated a research program investigating the effects of the classic psychedelic psilocybin that includes studies in healthy volunteers, in beginning and long-term meditators, and in religious leaders. Therapeutic studies with psilocybin include treatment of psychological distress in cancer patients, treatment of cigarette smoking cessation, and psilocybin treatment of major depression. Other studies have examined the effects of salvinorin A, dextromethorphan, and ketamine which produce altered states of consciousness having some similarities to psilocybin.  Drug interaction studies and brain imaging studies (fMRI and PET) are examining pharmacological and neural mechanisms of action. The Hopkins laboratory has also conducted a series of internet survey studies characterizing various psychedelic experiences including those associated with acute and enduring adverse effects, mystical-type effects, entity and God-encounter experiences, and alleged positive changes in mental health, including decreases in depression and anxiety, decreases in substance abuse, and reductions in death anxiety.”

Part of the work is done in collaboration with the Beckley Foundation (article).

He is a board member of the Heffter Research Institute.

He sits on the advisory board of the MIND Foundation.

Notable Research Papers

• Psilocybin produces substantial and sustained decreases in depression and anxiety in patients with life-threatening cancer: A randomized double-blind trial (Griffiths et al., 2016)
• Mystical experiences occasioned by the hallucinogen psilocybin lead to increases in the personality domain of openness (MacLean, Johnson & Griffiths, 2011)
• Mystical-type experiences occasioned by psilocybin mediate the attribution of personal meaning and spiritual significance 14 months later (Griffiths et al., 2008)
• Psilocybin can occasion mystical-type experiences having substantial and sustained personal meaning and spiritual significance (Griffiths et al., 2006)

Find more on Google Scholar or PubMed

In our database you will also find him as an author on many more papers.

Media

He has done various excellent talks on psychedelics/psilocybin:

• Roland Griffiths, Tim Ferriss | The Future and Science of Psychedelics | SXSW 2018 – Interview at SXSW by Tim Ferriss
• Prof Roland Griffiths – Experimental Studies of Psilocybin-Occasioned Mystical-Type Experience – Talk at Breaking Conventions
• The science of psilocybin and its use to relieve suffering – TED (MED) talk
• Roland Griffiths: Johns Hopkins Psilocybin Project – Implications for Spirituality & Therapeutics – Talk at Psychedelic Science 2017
• TEDxMidAtlantic – Roland Griffiths – 11/5/09 – TEDx Mid Atlantic