uniMIND Central Session #12 – Psychedelics, Sociality, and Human Evolution

Join us in February to discuss Psychedelics, Sociality, and Human Evolution with first author José Manuel Rodriguez Arce tuning in from Costa Rica.

Find the open access article in Frontiers in Psychology:

About the format:

uniMIND Central Sessions are part of the global uniMIND journal club network. During the semester, the Central Sesssions take place monthly, each fourth Wednesday of the month, usually at 7 pm CET/CEST.

For each session, we invite authors of research papers from a wide variety of disciplines. While the session is mostly guided by a moderator, all attendees are invited to actively partake through comments or questions. This is a great opportunity to learn about the processes behind and between the literary lines and to get in touch with researchers!

Come one, come all – but please prepare the assigned paper.

About the author:

José Manuel Rodríguez Arce is an evolutionary anthropologist who specializes in the role of ritualized psychedelic use in human adaptation an evolution. Primarily an autodidactic, transdisciplinary investigator, José holds a bachelor’s degree in Biology and is currently pursuing a second BSc degree in Anthropology at the University of Costa Rica (UCR). Presently an independent researcher, he was previously research assistant at the Neuropsychopharmacology Laboratory, Faculty of Pharmacy, and at the Carlos H. Aguilar Piedra (C.H.A.P) Archaeology Laboratory, School of Anthropology, both at the UCR.

His previous work addressed, through animal models, the effects of unpredictable chronic stress on the development of pain, anxiety, and depression disorders, exploring psilocybin mushrooms as a potential prophylactic and treatment for these stress-derived conditions. He was also involved in the microscopical analysis and classification of the Palaeobotanical Samples Collection of the C.H.A.P. Archaeology Laboratory, and in ethnohistorical and archaeological investigations of the presence and cultural significance of the use of psychoactive plants and mushrooms among the indigenous populations that inhabited the present Costa Rican territory during pre-Columbian time periods.

José’s current research focuses on universality and diversity in human hallucinogen use. As a recipient for the 2022 Human Relations Area Files (HRAF) Global Scholars Program Award, he initiated—and is currently in the process of building—a database that systematically aggregates and analyzes worldwide ethnographic and archaeological information on hallucinogenic drug use. This Hallucinogens Across Cultures (HAC) database will provide quantitative answers to the questions of the prevalence, antiquity, and functions of traditional hallucinogen ingestion, and will be useful for empirically testing the hypothesis that serotonergic psychedelics acted as an enabling factor in the hominization process.