Tomas Pokorny

Tomas Pokorny (often published as T. Pokorny) is a clinical psychopharmacologist and researcher specialising in the human experimental pharmacology of classical psychedelics. His work has focused on mechanistic, placebo‑controlled studies in healthy volunteers that probe how serotonergic systems—particularly the 5‑HT2A receptor and interactions with 5‑HT1A—mediate the subjective and cognitive effects of LSD and psilocybin. He has co‑authored studies demonstrating that LSD’s dreamlike alterations of waking imagery and increases in primary‑process thinking are dependent on 5‑HT2A receptor activation, and he has investigated how adjunctive agents such as the 5‑HT1A agonist buspirone and mixed non‑hallucinogenic agonists modulate psilocybin’s effects.

His contributions extend to affective and social domains, including work showing that psilocybin can reduce amygdala reactivity in association with enhanced positive mood and studies examining psilocybin’s impact on empathy and moral decision‑making. Methodologically, Pokorny’s research integrates controlled pharmacological challenge designs with psychometric assessment and neuroimaging to connect receptor‑level pharmacology to changes in cognition, emotion and social behaviour in humans.