PsyDactic
A resource for psychiatrists and other medical or behavioral health professionals interested in exploring the neuroscientific basis of psychiatric disorders, psychopharmacology, neuromodulation, and other psychiatric interventions, as well as discussions of pseudoscience, Bayesian reasoning, ethics, the history of psychiatry, and human psychology in general.
This podcast is not medical advice. It strives to be science communication. Dr. O'Leary is a skeptical thinker who often questions what we think we know. He hopes to open more conversations about what we don't know we don't know.
Find transcripts with show-notes and references on each episodes dedicated page at psydactic.buzzsprout.com.
You can leave feedback at https://www.psydactic.com.
The visual companions, when available, can be found at https://youtube.com/@PsyDactic.
Episodes
70 episodes
Nicotinic Receptors, Anxiety, and PTSD - an A.I. generated discussion
-- Dr. O'Leary explores how an artificial intelligence tool summarizes recent data on the use of nicotinic receptor modulators for the treatment of anxiety and PTSD. Please send any comments to feedback@psydactic.com.
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Episode 70
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15:30
An extraordinary perspective on Suicide Risk Assessments from Dr. Tyler Black via Psychiatry Boot Camp
"People are 14 times more likely to die during a hospital stay than outside of hospital for inpatient psychiatry." In the last episode, I shared an episode of Psychiatry Boot Camp, which is a podcast created by Dr. Mark Mullen to help med...
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Episode 69
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1:47:05
Dr. Mark Mullen interviews Dr. Awais Aftab and Dr. Allen Frances on Psychiatry Boot Camp
In the last episode, Dr. O'Leary interviewed the creator and host of the Psychiatry Bootcamp Podcast, Dr. Mark Mullen, who is currently a psychiatry clerkship director at St. Louis University School o...
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Episode 68
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1:09:24
Meet the Psychiatry Bootcamp Podcast brought to you by Dr. Mark Mullen
Dr. O'Leary is excited to introduce you to Psychiatry Boot Camp (PBC), a podcast created by Dr. Mark Mullen during his psychiatry residency to help prepare medical students for psychiatry residency. It covers fundamental topics in psychia...
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Episode 67
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26:56
In a Word - Agonist
--In today's episode, Dr. O'Leary explores agonists, inverse agonists, partial agonists, and antagonists. These terms describe how molecules bind to receptors and either increase, decrease, or prevent changes in receptor signaling. Agonists inc...
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Episode 66
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24:01
In a Word - Transference (with a dash of neuroscience)
--Dr. O'Leary discusses the term Transference, and if you listen until the end, he relates it to some computational neuroscience. Transference is a historically loaded term. Transference is supposed to be an unconscious process, so...
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Episode 65
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30:10
Catatonia in Autism and Neuroatypical Patients - Easy to miss, Harder to Treat
-- More recently I have faced the diagnostic conundrum of catatonia in autism, and that is what I want to explore in more excruciating detail today. There is surprisingly little literature on the subject, and that is concerning bec...
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Episode 64
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35:54
Mindhunting with Forensic Psychiatrist Dr Michael Schirripa
-- Dr. O’Leary interviews forensic psychiatrist and author Dr. Michael Schirripa about his career as a forensic psychiatrist, the release of his first thriller,
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Episode 63
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56:11
Psychedelics - A skeptical approach to MDMA aka Ecstasy
- - In the world of psychotropic medication, the question is not just whether it works or not, but whether it works better than a placebo and whether the effect size is clinically significant and the benefits outweigh the risks. In the ca...
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Episode 62
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31:46
The Narrative Fallacy in Psychological and Psychiatric Clinical Practice with Dr. Alexey Tolchinsky, PsyD
The Narrative Fallacy describes our tendency to find meaning, connections, and causal relationships where they do not necessarily exist. In this episode, Dr. O'Leary had the pleasure of interviewing Dr. Alexey Tolchinsky.He re...
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Episode 61
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55:14
Psychometrics - The Dangers of Rating Scales and Screeners
Dr. O'Leary discusses a variety of concerns that all clinicians should have in mind when using psychometrics. In the end, he hopes you come away with some level of agreement with the statement: “Our primary concern should not be wit...
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Episode 60
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31:45
In a Word - Aphasia
In this episode, Dr. O'Leary discusses a word that he has struggled to understand since medical school. The word is aphasia. The root “phasia” comes from the Greek phanai which means “to speak.” When aphasia is used m...
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Episode 59
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37:22
WTF Cerebellum - Little Brain, Big Deal
I did not until recently even consider the cerebellum when thinking about psychiatric conditions, but the more I read, the more I wonder why the cerebellum is not considered a potential important player in nearly every psychiatric disorder.&nbs...
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Episode 58
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32:58
WTF - Thalamus
The thalami are bilaterally symmetrical structures in the subcortical part of the brain that are cradled by the basal ganglia. They are major hubs of pretty much everything your brain does and all of the sensory information coming into th...
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Episode 57
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22:32
Seroquel (Quetiapine) - Drugs, Sex, Money and Psychopharm
In this episode, I discuss a medication that patients who saw a psychiatrist or their primary care provider between about 1997 and 2015 were very likely to find themselves prescribed. More recently, it has been taken down a notch or two o...
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Episode 56
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24:53
In a Word - Confabulation
This episode continues an intermittent series called “In a Word.” Past episodes have explored words like Akathisia, Dissociation, Perseveration, and even the difference between Impulsive and Compulsive. This episode explores Confabu...
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Episode 55
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14:22
How guilty are adolescents for their crimes?
In 2012 the Supreme Court heard two related cases involving adolescents convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison without parole because of mandatory minimum sentencing guidelines in their states. One of the boys, Evan Miller al...
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Episode 54
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29:31
Serious Mental Illness in America with Dr. Zac Brooks
I am lucky today to be able to bring you an interview with Dr. Zac Brooks who is passionate about serious mental illness (SMI). “What is serious mental illness?” you might ask. That is one of the things we are going to discuss, and ...
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Episode 53
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45:59
HIV, PrEP, and Mental Health with Dr. Jon Lindefjeld
PsyDactic welcomes Dr. Jon Lindefjeld for a discussion of the history of HIV and AIDS. In particular, we discuss the development of effective antiretroviral therapies, including pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) and post-exposure prophylaxi...
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Episode 52
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46:48
Perspectives on the Borderline: The Most Disordered Personality
Dr. O'Leary discusses some of the history of the borderline personality, how different perspectives have attempted to explain its origin, how to treat it and how not to treat it. He starts in 1947 with some colorful descriptions of patien...
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Episode 51
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40:07
The Ghost of Personality Disorders Future
Our current diagnostic criteria for personality disorders have failed to demonstrate validity or reliability. The DSM 5 encouraged psychiatrists to start considering a broad range of personality features adapted from the Five Factor Model...
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Episode 50
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23:27
Tattoos, Stigma, Racists, and Psychiatry
Humans have a history of tattooing that stretches millennia into prehistory. The western ban on tattoos by the early church resulted in a systematic effort to paint tattooed individuals as pagan, primitive, vulgar, criminal, and mentally ...
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Episode 49
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26:11
Attractor Networks and the Bayesian Brain
The brain understands the world by building models that predict the future. One of the ways that it does this is by utilizing attractor networks. These small world networks are constantly trying to determine what is a true signal fr...
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Episode 48
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58:06
Serotonin - Jack of All Trades, Master of None
When I started to make this episode, I thought I would try to do a comprehensive review of all of the various functions of serotonin across its 15 or more receptor types, but I soon found myself overwhelmed. More importantly, I found that...
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Episode 47
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32:44