Charles Raison

Charles L. Raison, MD, is Professor of Psychiatry and Director of Research in the Department of Psychiatry at Emory University. Trained as a psychiatrist with a long-standing research focus in psychoneuroimmunology, he has made sustained contributions to understanding the role of inflammation and immune processes in mood disorders and to translational treatments informed by those mechanisms. Over the past decade he has extended this expertise into modern psychedelic science, collaborating on clinical trials, observational studies and evidence syntheses examining psilocybin and other serotonergic psychedelics.

Raison has co-authored clinical trial reports of single-dose psilocybin for major depressive disorder and has contributed to studies that probe acute and persisting immunological effects of psilocybin, the interaction of sedative co-medication (for example midazolam) with subjective and mnemonic aspects of the psychedelic experience, and naturalistic patterns of psychedelic use and associated health-related behavioural changes. His work also encompasses qualitative analyses of the phenomenology of the psychedelic ‘come-up’ and ‘come-down’, exploratory analyses of post-experience reactivations after 5‑MeO‑DMT, and participation in evidence briefs and reviews that inform policy and clinical translation. He is recognised for bridging mechanistic neuroimmune research with pragmatic clinical and community-focused investigations in psychedelic medicine.