🫠 Psychonaut POV

Welcome to Tricycle Day. We're the psychedelics newsletter that wants to remain objective. So tell us how you really feel with our (very scientific) 5-mushroom rating scale at the end of this email. 🤓

Jonny Wilson learned as a Navy SEAL never to leave anything important to chance. So now that his company is backed by ARPA-H (the most ambitious research agency in the game), he’s racing to turn mental health from something soft and squishy into cold, hard data.

We asked Jonny what it took to get funded to study wearable devices and psychedelics, how his system generates an objective mental health score, and which biometrics to track around any psychedelic journey.

There are no stupid questions.

Especially not about psilocybin, one of the most enigmatic experiences a person can have.

So next week, we’re hosting Office Hours. It’s like college, remember? Except instead of cramming for a midterm, you’re learning about something that could actually change your life.

On Wednesday, join Martyna Skalna (care navigator at Althea) and Avi Zadaka (licensed clinical facilitator in CO) for an informal Q&A on anything you'd want to know before booking a psilocybin journey.

Best part is, you won’t even be graded. You’d get an A+ for effort though.

I spent time in the SEAL teams, and the transition out was volatile. I went from purpose, passion, and camaraderie with my team to a civilian life where the only goal left was making as much money as possible. That didn't align with my values, and I wasn’t the only one. Other guys I knew were struggling to find their place, too. So I started a foundation to help SEALs transition, focused initially on getting them credentials and jobs. 

Then in 2017 we lost our first teammate, Bill Mulder, to suicide. He was part of SEAL Team 6 and numerous high-profile missions, the kind of guy you assume is indestructible. That ripple moved through our whole community and made me ask what we were actually solving. We can't get these men jobs if they're not healthy first.

That's when the measurement idea started. We partnered with WHOOP and used it not as a recovery tool but as an early warning system. We could watch 1,500 Navy SEALs on the dashboard, and when someone was in the red, sleep wrecked and HRV tanking, we could say, “Hey, I know you say you’re fine, but you haven't slept in five days. Let's talk.” It let us be proactive instead of reactive. I remember thinking, if this works for SEALs, it could work for a lot more people.

Later, a teammate who'd been kicked out of the Navy for his drinking showed up to a barbecue. I didn’t recognize him. He had long hair and was in great shape. He told me he’d done a psychedelic intervention, and my first thought was that he lost his mind. But he planted a seed. I flew to the UK, sat with Robin Carhart Harris, and asked if this could work for veterans. Then I did my own intervention with ibogaine and bufo. It pulled out childhood and war trauma I'd compartmentalized, and on the other side was perspective on how connected we all are. It saved my life. Psychedelics have been part of the work ever since.

We'd already spent the last few years partnering with retreat centers like Beond. Every participant got an Oura ring 30 days before their session, and we collected biometrics continuously alongside questionnaires like PHQ-9 and GAD-7. We watched what happens going into the intervention and coming out of it. So when we read the ARPA-H grant requirements, we were pinching ourselves. It felt like they were written for us. They wanted continuous patient monitoring. Check. They wanted a multimodal system that ingests wearables, questionnaires, and more. Check.

Beyond the ring data and the questionnaires, we also pull in wireless EEG through a technology called Epitel. We're looking at adding a take-home blood kit and a saliva swab next. All of these data feed into a system we call an MSTL, or Multi-Signature Trend Library. We ingest everything and run our own models over it, looking for the correlations and patterns. 

With the ARPA-H grant, we're running four separate studies on psilocybin, ibogaine, TMS, and meditation. Baylor University is handling the psilocybin and TMS studies, we partnered with Beond for the ibogaine study, and Joe Dispenza's nonprofit, Give to Give, is running the meditation group. Every arm gets the same measurements going in, during, and coming out, so once all the studies wrap, we can compare the results directly. I’m especially excited to see what the TMS and meditation arms turn up, since we already have a hunch what psychedelics can do.

The questionnaires, such as PHQ-9 and GAD-7, are a kind of timestamp, in the sense that they tell you what someone felt at one moment. What we want is continuous monitoring and analysis of what’s happening day in and day out. That was ARPA's big ask.

There's no equivalent of a continuous glucose monitor for mental health, so that's what we're trying to build. We take those questionnaires, combine them with all the biometric data, and build a MindScore that holds up against the traditional assessments. We're focused on depression, PTSD, and substance use, trying to establish an objective, measurable indicator for each. Then we look at whether biometrics can flag someone drifting toward an episode before it happens.

With MindScore, the trend matters more than the number itself. A small dip alerts you directly and serves up solution videos from Navy SEAL performance doctors. A bigger dip pings what we call your swim buddy, a concept borrowed straight from the SEAL teams, where you always had one person assigned to watch out for you. So if my score drops for a couple of days, my swim buddy gets a nudge to check in.

We're working on voice analysis too. Before AI as we know it, we hit 86 percent accuracy detecting depression with a 6-second voice sample, and the technology’s only gotten better. Now, picture a provider on a telehealth call with a veteran who's isolated somewhere with no VA hospital nearby. Right now they're relying entirely on what that person tells them in the moment. If the provider has historical biometric data going in, and a real-time objective read on that person’s mental state, the conversation gets to what matters a lot faster.

From an operational standpoint, WHOOP would be ideal because it’s one-size-fits-all. But when I do medicine, I don’t want anything on me, especially a strap. Even when I tell myself I’ll keep it on, I can’t because it’s so distracting.

The Oura ring, on the other hand, I barely notice. It’s the least intrusive device for people who aren’t in the best state of mind. Its main downside is that we have to ask people who, in some cases, are barely holding it together to figure out their own ring size.

We started working with OURA early on, and they've been a great partner ever since. We have bi-monthly calls, and the relationship's grown well beyond psychedelics. Our platform and their rings are being used by law enforcement, first responders, and the military, with no medicine involved at all. For me it comes down to partners you can trust. WHOOP could have done it too, but our early requirements made OURA the right fit.

Heart rate variability is the first thing I'd watch because it’s such a strong indicator of overall health. Coming back from my most recent ibogaine experience, my HRV almost doubled, and I felt calm and peaceful in a way I hadn't in a while. Low HRV is a sign you're overwhelmed or anxious. But don't compare your number to anyone else's; genetics play a big role. Your own trend is the only thing that matters. 

The other two I'd track are skin temperature and sleep. Skin temperature is the newer signal that's gotten attention the last couple years, and it's remarkably sensitive. An Oura ring can detect COVID a full 48 hours before symptoms show up, just from a one-degree bump in skin temp. Sleep is the other one, specifically deep and REM, since both track your overall well-being. After ibogaine, my deep and REM sleep jumped from about 30 minutes a night to an hour and a half.

I’m well aware that too much data can itself cause anxiety though. If you see a score you don't like, sometimes your whole day feels shot. I ripped off my devices for two years over exactly that. Some people still want every data point, and our app lets them drill all the way down to get it. But the MindScore itself was built to dodge that spiral. A little up means a good day, and a big drop means something's worth a look. It's about which way you're heading, not the score on the board.

Download the INVI Mindhealth app for free on iOS or Android.

That’s all for today, Cyclists! Whenever you’re ready, here’s how we can help.

Forwarded this email? Subscribe here.

DISCLAIMER: This newsletter is for educational and informational purposes only and is not intended as a substitute for professional medical advice. The use, possession, and distribution of psychedelic drugs are illegal in most countries and may result in criminal prosecution.