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Matthew J. Baggott

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Matthew J. Baggott
PhD
Other namesMatt Baggott
Alma materUniversity of Chicago; University of California, Berkeley[1][2]
Occupation(s)Neuroscientist; Data scientist
Years active1980s–present[1][3][4]
Organization(s)Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS); Tactogen
Websitehttps://mdma.expert/
https://tactogen.com/

Matthew John Baggott, PhD is an American neuroscientist who studies entactogens, hallucinogens, and other psychoactive drugs.[5][6][1][7][8] He is considered to be an expert on MDMA and other entactogens and is an influential figure in the psychedelic medicine movement.[9][8][10]

Baggott is co-founder and CEO of Tactogen, a public benefit corporation started in 2020 that is developing novel MDMA-like drugs as medicines.[5][6][1][7][11] Baggott had previously worked with the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) studying and developing MDMA as a potential medicine.[7][8][5] He had also formerly worked in a research lab at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) affiliated with Alexander Shulgin and Peyton Jacob III, and became well-acquainted with Shulgin while in the lab.[12][7][8][13] Baggott was involved in the first Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved clinical studies of MDMA and MDA.[4][2][1] He has been active in scientific research since the 1980s[1] and has been studying MDMA since that time.[4][14] Baggott was also previously a data scientist and then director of data science and engineering at Genentech.[1] He earned his bachelor's degree from the University of Chicago and his doctorate degree in neuroscience from UCSF.[1][7][8]

In January 14, 2022, the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) proposed moving five unscheduled and relatively obscure psychedelic tryptamines, including 4-OH-DiPT, 5-MeO-AMT, 5-MeO-MiPT, 5-MeO-DET, and DiPT, into the Schedule I controlled substances category in the United States.[15][16] Baggott and Tactogen, as well as a large number of other individuals and organizations, publicly challenged and opposed the proposal.[17][18][16][19][20] In July 22, 2022, under significant pressure, the DEA withdrew the proposal.[16][19]

Selected publications

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See also

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References

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  1. ^ a b c d e f g h James W. Jesso (1 June 2023). "Entactogens, MDMA, and Bringing New Love Drugs To Market (with Matthew Baggott)". Adventures Through The Mind (Podcast). Retrieved 27 January 2025. Matthew Baggott is a neuroscientist who has worked over three decades to legally study MDMA and related molecules. His research has ranged from studying the neurotoxicity of amphetamines in rodents to studying changes in emotional experience in people who have been given MDA or MDMA in a laboratory setting. Matthew is co-founder and CEO of Tactogen Inc, a public benefit corporation that is developing a next-generation of gentler, more accessible MDMA-like medicines. Before starting Tactogen, Matthew was a Director of Data Science & Engineering at Genentech. Matthew studied philosophy as an undergraduate at University of Chicago and earned his PhD in neuroscience at University of California Berkeley.
  2. ^ a b "Matthew Baggott: ICPR 2024". Europe's Conference on Psychedelic Research & Therapy. 16 January 2025. Retrieved 27 January 2025. Matthew Baggott, PhD, is a neuroscientist and CEO of Tactogen, a public benefit corporation that is developing MDMA-like medicines with a goal of making transformative experiences safer, more effective, and more accessible. He studied philosophy at the University of Chicago, earned a PhD in neuroscience at UC Berkeley, and has conducted studies administering compounds such as MDMA and MDA to healthy volunteers.
  3. ^ Baggott MJ, Richards JB, Sabol KE, Seiden LS (October 1992). "380.8 Large Dose Regimen of Methamphetamine Produces Long Lasting Deficits in the Acquisition and Performance of a Reaction Time Task" (PDF). Society for Neuroscience Abstracts. 18 [Society for Neuroscience 22nd Annual Meeting, Anaheim, California, October 25–30, 1992] (Part 1): 914.
  4. ^ a b c "The quest to improve MDMA". Apple Podcasts. 20 December 2022. Retrieved 29 January 2025.
  5. ^ a b c Nuwer, R. (2023). I Feel Love: MDMA and the Quest for Connection in a Fractured World. Bloomsbury USA. ISBN 978-1-63557-957-4. Retrieved 27 January 2025. [...] said Matthew Baggott, a neuroscientist, history enthusiast, and cofounder and CEO of Tactogen, a company trying to develop new MDMA-like molecules. [...] If taken too often and at too-high doses, [MDMA] loses its magic, people often report. In an unpublished survey of six hundred MDMA users, neuroscientist Matthew Baggott found that 40 percent said the drug's effects changed over time. As the pleasurable parts of the experience diminish, users say they are left with more negative side effects: jaw clenching, wiggling eyes, speedy jitteriness, and a low mood in the days after. [...] Neuroscientist Matthew Baggott was working with MAPS at the time [of the Ricaurte MDMA primate neurotoxicity study] [...]
  6. ^ a b Nuwer, Rachel (18 August 2023). "MDMA Risks and How to Reduce Them". The New York Times. Retrieved 27 January 2025. Many of MDMA's health risks relate to the fact that it is an amphetamine derivative, said Matthew Baggott, a neuroscientist and chief executive of Tactogen, a life sciences company developing MDMA-like molecules for medical use.
  7. ^ a b c d e Rex, Erica (5 August 2021). "A Conversation with Dr Matthew Baggott". The Brave New World: Psychedelics in a Neoliberal Society. Retrieved 27 January 2025. Pharmaceutical entrepreneur and data scientist Matthew Baggott, the CEO and co-founder of Tactogen, never set out to enter the psychoactive pharmaceutical business. As an undergraduate at the University of Chicago majoring in philosophy in the 1980s, [...] Dr Baggott worked in the lab first as an undergraduate, then spent two years there full time after he graduated. With guidance from Dr Alexander (Sasha) Shulgin, Dr Baggott moved to San Francisco and got a job at the University of California San Francisco at a lab which had been among the first to study the effects of LSD in humans. [...] By the time Dr Baggott earned his PhD in Neuroscience from the University of California Berkeley, the federal funding for MDMA research was drying up. He began working in data science. [...] Dr Baggott found Tactogen in 2020, a public benefit corporation1 [...]
  8. ^ a b c d e Hamilton Morris (28 November 2023). "POD 92: Understanding and Improving MDMA with Dr. Matthew Baggott". The Hamilton Morris Podcast (Podcast). Patreon. Retrieved 30 November 2024. For years I've wanted to interview Dr. Matthew Baggott, one of the word's leading experts on the human psychopharmacology and molecular neuropharmacology of MDMA and related entactogens. In this conversation we discuss his research career and his new efforts to design improved version of MDMA.
  9. ^ Hillier, David (15 June 2023). "Why Psychedelics Work Differently for People on Antidepressants". VICE. Retrieved 31 January 2025. "There are several studies that gave MDMA and an SSRI to healthy volunteers and compared the effects to MDMA alone. These studies show that even a single dose of an SSRI can reduce the psychological effects of MDMA by as much as 80 percent," says Matt Baggott, an MDMA research heavyweight and CEO of Tactogen, which develops MDMA-like compounds for medicinal use. [...] Interestingly, Baggott tells VICE that taking an SSRI after a MDMA roll "probably works" in alleviating a comedown. He points to animal studies that suggest SSRIs given shortly after MDMA may protect the brain from the negative effects of this overstimulation. He also ran a small, unpublished study with people who typically recorded a comedown post-MDMA, and did not normally take SSRIs. "When I gave them MDMA in a laboratory setting, they performed worse at a demanding cognitive task at both five and 26 hours after MDMA." In a separate session he gave them MDMA, followed three hours later by the SSRI citalopram. He says that this "prevented MDMA-induced performance difficulties without noticeably changing the main emotional effects of MDMA. This supports the idea that SSRIs can reduce the undesirable after-effects of MDMA."
  10. ^ "The Most Influential People in Psychedelics". Psychedelics.com. 30 September 2024. Retrieved 27 January 2025. Matthew Baggott, Ph.D. CO-FOUNDER AND CEO, TACTOGEN Matthew Baggott, Ph.D.: Matthew Baggott is a data scientist and neuroscientist with more than three decades of psychedelics research. He is the co-founder and CEO of Tactogen, a biopharma research company devoted to developing empathogens, or drugs that promote connectedness and emotional openness, similar to MDMA. Tactogen's mission is to ensure that these psychedelic medicines are accessible, effective, and safe.
  11. ^ Goodwin, Kate (30 September 2024). "MDMA Drug Developers Reprioritize Following Lykos Rejection in PTSD". BioSpace. Retrieved 27 January 2025. [...] Matthew Baggott, co-founder and CEO of psychedelics-focused Tactogen, [...] Tactogen's pipeline includes a number of preclinical molecules that Baggott said he believes will be superior to MDMA. [...] Amidst this debate, Tactogen is working to improve the safety profile of MDMA through fixed dose combinations in hopes of decreasing side effects like difficulty concentrating and mood instability seen in some participants in the days after use. The company also hopes to improve tolerability with its program combining MDMA with citalopram, a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) used to treat depression, for PTSD. Baggott anticipates beginning Phase II trials with the combo in 2025.
  12. ^ Nuwer, Rachel (6 November 2023). "The Search for New Psychedelics". Scientific American. Retrieved 27 January 2025. Nuwer: That's Matt Baggott, a neuroscientist and co-founder and CEO of a start-up called Tactogen. He and his colleagues are trying to make safer and more effective MDMA-like molecules for therapeutic and medical uses. [...] Baggott: I wrote to both Dave Nichols and Sasha Shulgin.... They both responded to me...and I was able to get a role at the University of California, San Francisco, in a lab that Sasha was affiliated with.... And so I got to know Sasha during that time period pretty well.
  13. ^ Baggot MJ (2018). "Seed crystal: on the contributions of Alexander Shulgin to the science of consciousness". The Commemorative Edition of Pihkal and Tihkal. Berkeley: Transform Press. pp. 474–482. ISBN 9780963009661. OCLC 1176317484.
  14. ^ Hillier, David (10 November 2022). "'Losing the Magic': When MDMA Just Stops Working". VICE. Retrieved 29 January 2025. Matt Baggott has been publishing research on MDMA since 1999 and is now CEO of Tactogen, a corporation developing MDMA-like compounds for medicinal use. "We don't really know what causes the loss of therapeutic effects, or 'loss of magic'," he tells me over email. "MDMA, especially in higher doses or when people take multiple doses in a night, can cause lasting decreases in serotonin, tryptophan hydroxylase – a key enzyme that makes serotonin – and serotonin transporter. These decreases may make it so that your brain is releasing less serotonin compared to dopamine, which may make MDMA feel less magical and more like a typical stimulant." [...] After reviewing the available literature, Matt Baggott says of Sferios's case: "The serotonin system should slowly recover if one stops MDMA use. For people whose brains have only partly recovered, MDMA may still not fully work, but other drugs, like 5-MAPB, might because they interact with the serotonin system in a slightly different manner compared to MDMA." [...] So is there any data on how long it takes for the brain to recover? Baggott points to some 2021 research which suggests it could take around 500 days to regain its serotonin transporter (SERT) availability – although this is a rough estimate based on a comparison across studies and there is a lack of data on shorter times.
  15. ^ Carpenter, David E. (25 January 2022). "DEA Proposes Adding Five Psychedelic Compounds to Schedule 1". Lucid News - Psychedelics, Consciousness Technology, and the Future of Wellness. Retrieved 27 January 2025.
  16. ^ a b c Psychedelic Alpha (29 July 2022). "Inside the Challenge to DEA's Proposed Scheduling of 5 Psychedelic Tryptamines". Psychedelic Alpha. Retrieved 27 January 2025.
  17. ^ Jaeger, Kyle (7 February 2022). "DEA Faces Backlash Over Proposed Scheduling Of Five Psychedelic Compounds". Marijuana Moment. Retrieved 27 January 2025.
  18. ^ Martinovic, Jelena (7 February 2022). "Will The DEA Give In As Advocates Revolt Over Proposed Scheduling Of Five Psychedelic Compounds?". Benzinga. Retrieved 27 January 2025.
  19. ^ a b Matthew Aragón (9 January 2024). "Meet Moxy: The Novel Psychedelic the DEA Tried To Ban". doubleblindmag.com. Retrieved 27 January 2025.
  20. ^ "STATEMENT OF MATTHEW BAGGOTT, PH.D. [In the Matter of Scheduling 4-OH-DiPT, 5-MeO-AMT, 5- MeO-MiPT, 5-MeO-DET, and DiPT]" (PDF). July 2022. Retrieved 27 January 2025.
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