The University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA) is set to create a rooftop garden designed for psychedelic-assisted therapy sessions, according to a report from UCLA Health. This innovative proposal aims to transform the eighth floor of the university’s Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior into a “living laboratory,” says Dr. Helena Hansen, MD, PhD, the institute’s director and co-founder of Project ReConnect, an initiative focused on ecological medicine and psychedelic studies.
The planned rooftop space will be restricted for the application and study of medicinal psychedelics. Meanwhile, one of the building’s lower-level decks is set to be converted into a publicly accessible green space and community garden.
Project ReConnect aims to investigate the connections between humans, their communities, and Earth’s natural ecosystems. Dr. Hansen highlighted the initiative’s goal: “to foster connections with each other, foster connections with the natural world … and where necessary, bring the natural world of plants and animals into the biomedical clinic.”
Dr. Hansen observed that contact with soil, plants, and animals provided significant benefits to many people. She noted, “For others, there were conversations with their peers, with their therapist, out in the garden that wouldn’t have happened in a room one-on-one with the door closed. Being out there with the garden was really game-changing for many people, and the nature contact was vitally important.”
Planning and funding efforts for both the rooftop deck and the lower-level community garden are already in progress.
Preliminary research indicates that certain psychedelics, including MDMA (ecstasy) and psilocybin, show promise in treating cases of depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) resistant to other treatments. However, the FDA has recently expressed concerns about the initial investigations of MDMA as a new therapy for PTSD.
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