Nathan Heller, PhD. Expert vision, hallucination, and psychedelics expert

Nathan Heller, PhD

[email protected]

Dr. Nathan H. Heller is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the prestigious Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine’s Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research. He earned his Ph.D. in Cognitive Neuroscience from Dartmouth College, where his doctoral thesis explored “Psychophysical and Pharmacological Models of Visual Hallucinations”. Dr. Heller’s research focuses on the interplay between lower-order and higher-order cognitive and neural processes that construct our perceptual experience, with a special emphasis on understanding visual hallucinations across various contexts, including psychedelic experiences and neurodegenerative disorders.


Dr. Heller’s expertise encompasses the acute subjective effects of psychedelics, aiming to identify biomarkers to track these experiences, and adapting psychophysical measures for human electrophysiology. His work delves into how medication side effects and substance-induced perception changes can alter an individual’s interaction with the world, including potential implications for safety and cognitive function during interactions with individuals and objects in the environment. He possesses a deep understanding of psychophysics and the neural correlates of phenomena such as hallucinations and their impact on real-world interactions. Supported by numerous publications and presentations, Dr. Heller is adept at explaining complex neural and cognitive processes. As an expert, he brings this scientifically grounded knowledge to legal cases requiring nuanced understanding of human perception, attention, and altered states of consciousness.

Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, 2024 – Present
Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research


PhD, Cognitive Neuroscience, Dartmouth College, 2024
Psychophysical and Pharmacological Models of Visual Hallucinations


B.Sc., Cognitive Science, University of California, Santa Cruz, 2024
Applied Mathematics, Minor





Researcher
High level Perception Lab, University of California Santa Cruz, 2014 – 2018
Professor Nicolas Davidenko


Cognitive Modeling Laboratory, University of California Santa Cruz, 2015 – 2017
Professor Travis L. Seymour


Teaching
Principles of Human Brain Mapping with fMRI, Winter 2021
Dartmouth College, with Professor Emily S. Finn


Laboratory in Psychological Science, Fall 2020
Dartmouth College, with Professor Kimberly Rose Clark


Experimental Design, Methodology, and Data Analysis, Spring 2020
Dartmouth College, with Professor Keilah A. Worth


Perception, Fall 2019
Dartmouth College, with Professor Peter U. Tse

Publications

Heller, N. H., Jardri, R., & Barrett, F. S. Hallucinations Captured: Resurrecting and Recontextualizing the First Psychedelic Neuropsychopharmacology Investigation. (in preparation)


Heller, N. H., Barrett, F.S., Buchborn, T., Collerton, D., Dupuis, D., Jardri, R., … Leptourgos, P. Visual hallucinations in serotonergic psychedelics and Lewy body diseases. Schizophrenia Bulletin. (Accepted).


Heller, N. H., & Barrett, F. S. (2024). Teaching a new dog old tricks: bringing rigor, grounding, and specificity to psychedelic neuropsychopharmacology. Neuropsychopharmacology: Official Publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology, 50(1), 324-325.


Heller, N. H., Patel, N., Faustin, V. M., Peter, U. T., & Störmer, V. S. (2023). Neural correlates of stroboscopic stimulation to test a model of psychedelic hallucination. PsyArXiv Preprints. https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/dex5v


Kang, K., Stenum, J., Roemmich, R. T., Heller, N. H., Jouny, C., & Pantelyat, A. (2023). Neurologic music therapy combined with EEG-tDCS for upper motor extremity performance in patients with corticobasal syndrome: Study protocol for a novel approach. Contemporary Clinical Trials, 107058.


Davidenko, N., Heller, N. H., Schooley, M. J., & McDougall, S. G. (2022). Visual priming of two-step motion sequences. Journal of Vision, 22(8), 14-14.


Maechler, M. R., Heller, N. H., Lisi, M., Cavanagh, P., & Peter, U. T. (2021). Smooth Pursuit Stabilizes Objects in Perceptual and not Retinal Coordinates. Journal of Vision, 21(9), 2200-2200.


Heller, N. H., Patel, N., Faustin, V. M., Cavanagh, P., & Tse, P. U. (2021). Effects of internal and external velocity on the perceived direction of the double-drift illusion. Journal of Vision, 21(8), 2-2.


Erlikhman, G., Lytchenko, T., Heller, N. H., Maechler, M. R., & Caplovitz, G. P. (2020). Object-based attention generalizes to multisurface objects. Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, 1-14.


Heller, N. H., & Davidenko, N. (2018). Dissociating higher and lower order visual motion systems by priming illusory apparent motion. Perception, 47(1), 30-43.


Davidenko, N., & Heller, N. H. (2018). Primed and unprimed rebounding illusory apparent motion. Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, 80(2), 307-315.


Davidenko, N., Heller, N. H., Cheong, Y., & Smith, J. (2017). Persistent illusory apparent motion in sequences of uncorrelated random dots. Journal of Vision, 17(3), 19-19.


Davidenko, N., Vu, C. Q., Heller, N. H., & Collins, J. M. (2016). Attending to Race (or Gender) Does Not Increase Race (or Gender) Aftereffects. Frontiers in Psychology, 7, 909.



Conference Talks

Heller, N. H. (2023). Stroboscopic stimulation as a model of the hallucinogenic brain: Evidence from alpha power, E/I balance, and signal complexity modulation. Talk presented at the International Consortium for Hallucination Research 2023 Biannual Meeting, University of York, UK.



Poster Presentations

N. H. Heller, G. Loflend, & F. S. Barrett. Individual differences in alpha power dynamics across the time course of psilocybin acute effects. Program No. 323.14. 2024 Neuroscience Meeting Planner. Chi-cago, IL: Society for Neuroscience, 2024.


Heller, N. H., Maechler, M. R., Jayaraman, A., Kamath, V., Pantelyat, A. Y., Tiedemann, A., … & Peter, U. T. (2024). False-alarm rate and inter-trial priming predict hallucination proneness in the Signal Detection Pareidolia Test. Journal of Vision, 24(10), 1153-1153.


Choe, E., Heller, N. H., Cavanagh, P., & Peter, U. T. (2024). The double-drift illusion is dominated by the first-order motion energy of the internal texture. Journal of Vision, 24(10), 1185-1185.


N.H. Heller, Patel, N., Faustin, V. M., Tse, P. U., & Störmer, V. (2023). Stroboscopic stimulation as a model of the hallucinogenic brain: Evidence from alpha power, E/I balance, and signal complexity modulation. Program No. PSTR105.04 Neuroscience Meeting Planner. Washington, D.C.: Society for Neuroscience, 2023.


Smith, M. P., Wang, J., Leverenz, J. B., Heller, N. H., Magsaman, S. H., Bakker, A., … & Kamath, V. (2023). A-63 Neuropsychiatric and Cognitive Correlates of Pareidolias in Dementia with Lewy Bodies. Archives of Clinical Neuropsychology, 38(7), 1226-1226.


N.H. Heller, K. Ortego, B. Duchaine, P.U. Tse, V.S. Störmer. High-level stimulus-selective response potentiation: late ERP modulation following prolonged 6hz presentation of faces and houses. Program No. 387.10. 2022 Neuroscience Meeting Planner. San Diego, CA: Society for Neuroscience, 2022.


Heller, N. H., Alleyne, A., Cavanagh, P., & Peter, U. T. (2022). Seeing mixed percepts in apparent motion quartets during passive and volitional perception. Journal of Vision


Heller, N. H., Allyene, A., Cavanagh, P., & Tse, P. U. (2021, December). Simultaneously seeing both vertical and horizontal motion in apparent motion quartets during passive and volitional perception. In PERCEPTION (Vol. 50, No. 1_ SUPPL, pp. 175-175). 1 OLIVERS YARD, 55 CITY ROAD, LONDON EC1Y 1SP, ENGLAND: SAGE PUBLICATIONS LTD.


Heller, N. H., Cavanagh, P., & Peter, U. T. (2021). Temporal integration window of the double-drift illusion: an immediate effect of the internal motion. Journal of Vision, 21(9), 2642-2642.


Patel, N., Heller, N. H., Cavanagh, P., & Peter, U. T. (2021). Position shifts following motion aftereffects in non-static translating stimuli result in angled trajectories. Journal of Vision, 21(9), 2648-2648.


Faustin, V., Heller, N. H., Patel, N., Cavanagh, P., & Tse, P. (2021). The weights of internal and external motion driving the double-drift illusion depend on the external speed. Journal of Vision, 21(9), 2647-2647.


Lytchenko, T. K., Heller, N. H., Saleki, S., Peter, U. T., & Caplovitz, G. P. (2021). Neural Correlates of Object-Based Attention in Early Visual Cortex in a 100% Valid Exogenous Cuing Task. Journal of Vision, 21(9), 2816-2816.


Heller, N. H., Samermit, P., & Davidenko, N. (2019). Orthogonal and parallel rebounding aftereffects produced by adaptation to back-and-forth apparent motion. Journal of Vision, 19(10), 286a-286a.


Lytchenko, T., Erlikhman, G., Heller, N. H., Maechler, M. R., & Caplovitz, G. P. (2019). Surface-Object Interactions in Object-Based Attention. Journal of Vision, 19(10), 45d-45d.


Hughes, B. P., Delattre, H., Heller, N. H., Samermit, P., & Davidenko, N. (2019). Rebounding illusory apparent motion in three dimensions using virtual reality. Journal of Vision, 19(10), 288b-288b.


Heller, N., Schooley, M., McDougall, S., & Davidenko, N. (2018). Priming staircase motion: evidence of a motion-pattern priming mechanism. Journal of Vision, 18(10), 301-301.


Heller, N. H., Davidenko, N. High-level knowledge influences the formation of global motion patterns. Bay Area Research Day, 2017


Allen, A. K., Heller, N. H., & Davidenko, N. (2017). Performed overt actions can disambiguate ambiguous apparent motion. Vision Science Society 2017 annual meeting.


Vu, C., Heller, N., Collins, J., & Davidenko, N. (2016). Attending to race (or gender) does not enhance adaptation to race (or gender). Journal of Vision, 16(12), 736-736.