Recap: Psychedelics Workshop at UNIFR

Federico Seragnoli, ALPS Foundation CEO, speaks at the Psychedelics Workshop at UNIFR

Friday the 11th of March, ALPS was officially present at our first event since the ALPS Conference in 2021!

The exploratory workshop on psychedelic research at the University of Fribourg brought together researchers from a variety of disciplines, offering an overview of their different approaches to psychedelic science. 

The event was opened by a talk delivered by Federico Seragnoli, coordinator of the ALPS Foundation, presenting our work to help strengthen psychedelic sciences in Switzerland. 

Dr. Illana Berlowitz, a psychologist with a Phd in clinical and health psychology presented some of her work on indigenous medicine systems in Peruvian Amazonia.

Professor Paul Cumming at the Inselspital Bern, a specialist in PET-scanning, presented key findings from his research on the psychopharmacology of ayahuasca. Professor Gregor Hasler spoke about the safety of psychedelic therapy. With him was two members of his research group. PhD candidate Abigail Calder presented her upcoming experiments investigating the relationship between LSD and neuroplasticity, using EEG and TMS, rounding off with a call for healthy volunteers interested in participating in her study. Adrian Hase presented his newest publication: a linguistic analysis of trip-reports gathered from the Erowid experience vaults.

After the talks, the event was wrapped up with a roundtable inviting all the speakers to an open conversation about psychedelics, and answering questions from the public.  

Between the talks, Clara Acien, co-president of PROOF gave a quick introduction to the work of the local psychedelic student association. We applaud this initiative! UNIFR faculty led the way, inviting speakers and reaching out to both our foundation as well as PROOF for cooperation surrounding the event. 

With over 120 people presents in-person and online, we can safely assume that another step has been taken to reinforce the psychedelic scientific community of Switzerland!