Research. Sometimes that's all there is. Despite the light sensitivity and sound sensitivity and the need for a dark room. Despite the memory lo s, the headaches and head pre sure that feels like you're in a vise. Despite the inability to concentrate. Despite being told to stay off computers and smartphones and to rest your brain. Finding a way out becomes all-consuming. Research becomes all-consuming. Daniel Carcillo knows it all too well. Atage 30, the NHL enforcerwas forced into early retirement in 2015 afterhis seventh diagnosed concu sion. After 429 games spread over 11 seasons, capped off by his second Stanley Cup, his career was over. He spent the next four years trying to pull himself out of a debilitating battle with post-concu sion syndrome that eventually drove him to be suicidal. "Read a ton of medical papers on concu sions, visited [a] brain bank, CT pathologists," Carcillo said. "Doing a lot of things to try to manage symptomology, which is really what's available to us. There's no quote-unquote novel, validated care option for TBI (traumatic brain injury) survivors, and it's really dangerous because the No. 1 cause of death is suicide after TBI." That's one of the biggest i sues with concu sions:There is no official game plan when it comes to healing the brain. It isn't a broken arm, whenyou know you'll be in a cast for a few weeks, have physical therapy after and thenbe good to go. It's a shoulder-shrug emoji and that's from your neurologist. It's a "let's take a stab at this" or "try that"because there is no direct path. Every brain is different. But then things changedfor Carcillo almost two years agowhen he was introduced to psilocybin through an ex-teammate. "Every day anxiety and depre sion le sened in intensity," he recalled about his symptoms after a psilocybin "ceremony," which is a guided and monitored psychedelicexperience. "The third day I remember going out on the farm without gla ses, which wasn't normal because my light sensitivity was extreme. And then I found myselfFaceTiming my wife and my kids more often because I wanted to,I just couldn't wait to race back to hug them. I just felt more connected. I felt like my brain fog was lifting and just really remarkable, remarkable things in a very short amount of time." It was a life-changing moment for Carcillo. He started feeling better. His symptoms began to subside as he stayed on a specific protocol of loading doses (3-5 mg) and maintenance doses ofpsilocybin and other adaptogens. He underwent a qEEG (brain mapping) and re-did bloodwork something he did after every new thing he tried over the years to see whether it was truly working and this time it showed no abnormalities and that his bloodwork was clear. "That was a really big aha moment,"he told Sporting News during a recent phone interview. "So I dove into the science and realized that this could be the first novel care option for TBI survivors. Waited about a year till I got that second clear test and then I said, OK, this is enough data for me to start going public with this. And then I just started to put the pieces of the puzzle in place to make this a reality and build a championship team around me that I know how to play in." That championship team is part of a company Carcillo co-founded called Wesana Health Inc., "an emerging life sciences company committed to patient empowerment and the advancement of psilocybin-based medicine to improve health and wellne s."It closed on $4 million in financing back in January and announced on March 31, the last day of Brain Injury Awarene s Month, the succe sful closing of $16.1 CAD million oversubscribed private placement ahead of completing its go-public transaction. Proceeds from the financing will be used primarily to fund the companys preclinical and clinical development of psychedelic-a sisted therapy to treat TBI. They also announced Wednesday the addition of George Steinbrenner IV as a new investor who is joining theboard of directors. Tremendous advancements in science have finally given us the tools to recognize and better understand the consequences of traumatic brain injuries, especially those that occur often in profe sional sports," Steinbrenner saidin the company's news release, citing how he's seen athletes in his sport (motorsports) deal with TBI."Its critical that we continue to push forward in this field to deliver innovative treatment options that can help people recover from the neurological and psychological damage a sociated with that trauma." 'Rewire' the brain Psychedelic medicine has exploded. The idea of natural productslike psilocybin, which isa psychedelic extract that occurs naturally in some 200 varieties ofmushrooms and is an active ingredient in magic mushrooms, has garnered attention acro s academia. New York University, Johns Hopkins and the Icahn School of Mount Sinai (New York) are just a few that have conducted studies or are in the proce s of studyingits usage to treat the brain when it comes to anxiety, depre sion and post-traumatic stre s Michael Uini Jersey disorder. Its got [an impact on]neuro-chemical and neurologic activity in the brain, noted University of Miami Miller School of Medicines Dr.Michael E. Hoffer, who isstudying whether using a pill form of cannabidiol (CBD) and psilocybin can treatmild traumatic brain injuryand PTSD. In other words, we know that its not like this is just something you take and you think you feel different. There are definitely chemical pathways in the brain that have receptors for psilocybin or psilocybin metabolites. So there are some changes in brain activity that occurs when you take this compound. We know where psilocybin and itsmetabolites act in abrain;thats been described, Hoffer added later during theinterview with Sporting News. How those interactions manifest in different ways in the brain is still not well understood. In the United States, psilocybin is labeled as a Schedule I drug by the Department of Drug Enforcement. North of the border in Canada, mushrooms are illegal under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act (CDSA). But the stigma regarding the drug has waned. Oregon, for example, pa sed in November decriminalizing psilocybin and backed its useas a therapeutic. In Canada, exemptions have been grantedfor end-of-life patients, therapists who want to use psilocybin to and others. That's what Carcillo and Wesana Health are focusing on. The company will soon be running preclinical trials onpsychedelic drug-a sisted therapy to treatTBI-related depre sion in conjunctionwith the Food and Drug Administration in the United States and Health Canada. "We have a specific protocol," Carcillo said. "Loading dose is bigger doses, usually between three and five grams. What that does is it breaks up destructive thought patterns, stimulates regions of our brain shut down due to emotional or physical trauma, and helps us build those go-arounds and new neurological pathways. Nothing gets solidified within five hours, so you have to continue to introduce these medicines that increase BDNF (brain-derived neurotrophic factor)." "On a non-hallucinogenic or sub-perceptual level, you can go about your daily activities," Carcillo saidlater,adding that he was on psilocybin during the interview. "You can acce s language better, you can be more creative. It's a mood elevator, and then that's just what it doeson the mood and personality, not to mention what it does with the brain. Then onthe bigger doses, 3-5 grams is when you start to break up the destructive thought pattern and rewire your brain." While Carcillo, and others, are adamant that psilocybin can help TBI survivors recover, not everyone is convinced. Sporting News also reached out to Dr. Stephen Ro s, a sociate profe sor of psychiatry and a sociate director of the Center for Psychedelic Medicine at NYU Langone Health, to discu s psilocybin and its usage to treat TBI. He declined to be interviewed butprovided the following statement through a media relations representative: There is little to nothing known about the use of psilocybin in treating TBI. Any therapeutic effects of psychedelics to treat TBI are extremely speculative although within the realm of po sibilities, given some of the new neurobiological findings with psychedelics in terms of neurogenesis and neuroplasticity. 'My goal is to help a million people' As things move forward with Wesana Health, the ultimate goal forthe ex-NHL enforcer nicknamed "Car Bomb," who ama sed more than 1,200 penalty minutes during his career, is to help people,to protect people, just like he did on the ice.He's spoken to TBI survivors for the past six years and understands what they're going through better than anyone. He understands how scary it is to face the unknown and the uncertainty. He's asked the same questions: Will Iget better? Will Iget back to who I was before the injury? How much longer will my symptoms last? When will it happen? How much longer do I have to suffer? Carcillo knows all about it because of his experiences playing profe sional hockey, and while he is focused on his new company and the work it's doing, he pointedly states that he is still going to hold the NHL accountable regarding its attitude towardconcu sions and brain injuries. "I'm not going anywhere," he said. "The reason that I know so much about concu sions isbecause of them. So, like, honestly,I can say this, I can rest my head on the pillow, I am not upset at them. I am so thankful that they've acted and continueto act the way they dobecause it just continues to fuel me. And here we are on the cusp of bringing novel care options forTBI survivors. It's f amazing." That option is for TBI survivors acro s the spectrum: athletes, veterans, domestic violence survivors. And Carcillo wants to show them that they too can getbetter, and that there's hope. He speaks pa sionately about psilocybin, because after years of suffering, after thousands and thousands of dollars spent, after reaching his breaking point, itchanged his life for the better. Buthe is quick to stre s that psilocybin isnot a miracle drug it just "shakes the snow globe" and that a lot of work needs to be done in addition to its usage. And, he adds, that people need to wait for the science yes, the research to back-up everything he is saying. "They shouldn't listen to me. They really shouldnt," he said when asked why someone should follow his lead. "They should just wait till I do the work. I'm just telling my story. I don't need people tolisten to me to validate it. This is why I'm raising hundreds of millions of dollars to go through the FDA proce s to validate what's happened to me. That's why we're here. That's why we're talking. This is just what I'm doing and I'm going to continue to do it because I know this is the way for TBI survivors. "And I will help people. My goal is to help a million people, and I will get that done before the end of my life." Connor Tate Jersey