Faculty Sponsor: Valerie Nazzaro
Live Poster Session: Zoom Link
Ava Liberace
Hello! I am a senior at Wesleyan University, dual majoring in Biology and Studio Art. I’m particularly interested in hiking and ecological systems, psycho-assisted therapy and neuropathology, and figure drawing. I often use drawing to blend together biological concepts, anatomy, and more abstract visual methodologies, and I am currently completing a thesis in drawing alongside my interest in psychedelic research. Within neuroscience, I am most interested in the chemical psilocybin and its therapeutic potential for neurodegenerative disease and mental health conditions. My research for QAC focuses on compound interactions and psychedelic treatment to recalibrate brain patterns and help with drug addiction. Specifically, I am looking at the interaction between psychedelic and opioid use among a sample population.
Abstract: Psychedelic assisted therapy is a growing field proven to alleviate mental disorders and addiction, despite the belief that psilocybin leads to addiction, medical abnormalities, and psychosis. Despite government restrictions on researching these drugs due to their classification as Schedule 1 drugs, psilocybin has been tested to treat addiction of opioids, alcohol, heroin, and nicotine, and its use leads to substantial cessation rate of drug use. The following research looks at the relationship between opioid dependence and hallucinogen use across various time intervals. Conclusions included: there was no statistically significant difference between past and present hallucinogens users in relation to opioid dependence; opioid dependence is not significantly higher between non-users and present hallucinogen users; those that were likely to have great exposure to liberal usage of psychedelics in the height of the psychedelic era is only group concentrated in the past psychedelic use category.
Final-Presentation-Ava-Liberace