Ketamine Study Participation

Bryan Johnson shares a story about participating in a ketamine study to demonstrate the importance of precise brain measurement versus subjective experiences.

"I was a pilot participant for a ketamine study. Ketamine has been used for the treatment of depression - we used it as an off-label study with healthy people. The question is: what does ketamine do to your brain?

Of course someone can do ketamine and they can be like 'How was ketamine?' and get a subjective response like 'I went to a different dimension and I think I feel better but I'm not sure.' But it's kind of like asking 'How was your sleep for the past week?' - it's an extremely imprecise answer based on subjective self-assessment. Your memory is fading, you don't really know, and it's a disaster.

This measurement system is meant to standardize the measurement of the brain. Part of the challenge was building a device that can make brain measurement mainstream so everyone does it for everything, and then finding applications for early markets. We've built the tech, we have a few papers coming out, and now we're in the product market fit finding the first application for the technology."