Will Beischel, Ph.D. @WillBeischel

Assistant Professor at Loyola University Chicago | gender/sex and sexual diversity | positive gendered experiences (they/them) #FreePalestine luc.edu/psychology/peo… Chicago, IL Joined July 2017

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@

2 months ago

bringing this back

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nature @Nature

2 months ago

A growing body of legitimate science has been exploring the benefits of red light therapy for several conditions, from ADHD, to retinal degeneration, to dermatology go.nature.com/3NoGcbx

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Will Beischel, Ph.D. @WillBeischel

3 months ago

This is how I feel every time I start a sentence with "Indeed"

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Will Beischel, Ph.D. @WillBeischel

3 months ago

So can we please hold space for nuance? PRETTY PLEASE?? Many issues arise when people try to apply (perceived) societal patterns to individuals (also known as stereotyping!), and it's a strong cognitive bias that takes work to fight against. But I believe in us! We can fight!

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Will Beischel, Ph.D. @WillBeischel

3 months ago

BUT, of course male socialization is *real* in a sociological sense. Scholars for decades have documented connections between how boys are normatively raised and societal patterns of violence, men's communication patterns, etc. Tho all of this also differs based on race, SES, etc

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Will Beischel, Ph.D. @WillBeischel

3 months ago

Uh oh I'm wading into the "male socialization isn't real" discourse! When trans people say this on social media I know what they mean. Trans women get accused of having "male energy" or something of the sort all the time and ppl say they were socialized as a boy so they can...

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Will Beischel, Ph.D. @WillBeischel

3 months ago

@ZUCKERKJ Hmm I haven’t done that no! Could be worth a try. Is there a reason why you think that might increase participation?

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Will Beischel, Ph.D. @WillBeischel

3 months ago

In my classes on gender and sexuality, I've noticed that the straight men are extremely hesitant to voice their thoughts/questions/opinions. Does anyone have good techniques for addressing this? Beyond just reiterating that I want to hear a diversity of voices.

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Will Beischel, Ph.D. @WillBeischel

3 months ago

@wsilviapsych I do this too! I just want more on the share side!

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Will Beischel, Ph.D. @WillBeischel

3 months ago

I do think this in part comes from a prosocial ethos of not wanting to overstep, but also the fear of having any opinion at all is quite a hindrance to development.

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Paul F. Austin @PaulAustin3w

4 months ago

We can now watch psilocybin grow new brain connections in real time. Not metaphorically. Not "neuroplasticity" as a vague buzzword. Actual, physical structures — dendritic spines — sprouting from cortical neurons within 24 hours of a single dose. A team at Yale used chronic two-photon microscopy to image individual dendritic spines on layer 5 pyramidal neurons in the medial frontal cortex of living mice. Before psilocybin. After psilocybin. Same neurons. Same spines. Day after day. And here's what they found: A single dose of psilocybin produced a ~10% increase in spine density and spine size. New spines began forming within 24 hours. Most of these new connections were still there a month later. That last part matters most. Psilocybin has a half-life of about 3 hours. The molecule is gone by dinner. But the structural changes it triggers persist for at least 34 days (and likely far longer). This is the biological explanation for something clinicians have observed for years: a single psilocybin session producing therapeutic benefits that last months. The drug disappears, but the architecture it built does not. There's a critical mechanistic detail. When researchers pre-treated with ketanserin — a 5-HT2A receptor antagonist — the spine growth was completely blocked. This confirms that structural remodeling depends on activation of the serotonin 2A receptor. The same receptor responsible for the psychedelic experience itself. A 2025 follow-up from the same lab went further. Using rabies tracing to map brain-wide inputs to these new spines, they discovered psilocybin's rewiring is network-specific. It selectively strengthens inputs from perceptual and default mode network regions, the same networks implicated in self-referential processing, rumination, and depression. It doesn't just grow connections randomly. It grows the RIGHT ones. Here's what this means for practitioners: The window after a psychedelic experience isn't just psychological. It's structural. New dendritic spines form and stabilize in the days and weeks following a session. Integration practices — therapy, journaling, somatic work, meditation, breathwork — aren't just processing insights. They may be reinforcing which of these new physical connections survive. You're not just supporting someone's mental model. You're supporting their neural architecture. Think about what that reframes. The integration period isn't a nice-to-have. It's a biological imperative. Those new spines either stabilize into lasting connections or get pruned. The environment, practices, and support during that window may determine which. We're not just learning that psilocybin works. We're watching exactly how it works, at the level of individual synapses. The implications for how we design protocols, structure integration, and time follow-up sessions are enormous. What do you make of this research? Is psilocybin the miracle drug that science makes it out to be?

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Jonathan @J_A_Gleason

4 months ago

FIELD GUIDE TO FALLING ILL is out today! Honored that the book received a double star ⭐️ ⭐️ from both Publishers Weekly and Kirkus Review “Arresting prose meets emotional and clinical intelligence in this lucid collection.” —Kirkus Reviews “A triumph.” —Publishers Weekly

The Yale Review @yalereview

4 months ago

⭐️ Happy pub day to @J_A_Gleason! FIELD GUIDE TO FALLING ILL, the inaugural winner of the Yale Nonfiction Book Prize, is out today from @yalepress ⭐️

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Will Beischel, Ph.D. @WillBeischel

7 months ago

Does anyone have experience giving public lectures at their local library or something similar? I'm feeling called to do more free/public education work about the science of gender and sex but not quite sure how to go about it.

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Will Beischel, Ph.D. @WillBeischel

7 months ago

@demetriastudy Great question! I think there's merit in BOTH categories and spectra. Each has its pros and cons. For example, categories are useful for political organizing and as a shorthand for communication. Spectra are useful for more fine-grained understandings.

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Will Beischel, Ph.D. @WillBeischel

8 months ago

In my new paper I argue there are at least 130 genders! I show how Trump's executive order on "extremist gender ideology" relies on "common sense" understandings of gender/sex, not scientific ones. It's also just straight up prejudiced. researchgate.net/publication/39…

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Will Beischel, Ph.D. @WillBeischel

8 months ago

I wrote this to be accessible to an undergrad audience or otherwise people not in the field of gender/sex so please share widely!

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Will Beischel, Ph.D. @WillBeischel

8 months ago

Our latest research was just reported on in US News & World Report! :) Basically, we found that LGBTQ+ teens who had experiences of victimization or less affirming environments reported more trouble falling asleep (which is v bad for health!) usnews.com/news/health-ne…