Ancestral use of psychedelics as species wide "neurodegenerative" treatments?

[Fruit is life]

Thought some of you might find this interesting....

With rising interest in the idea psychedelics played an important role in our species evolution specifically in regards to consciousness, new information and interpretations of existing data are suggesting we have been looking at this connection from the wrong angle.

Evidence supports likelihood that ancestral use of psychedelic plants, spiritual traditions/practices/mythology from wide ranging cultures world wide were originally part of an extremely ancient "treatment" for a species wide neurological condition (in modern langauge), all part of an advanced science of mind that has fragmented and become distorted as the very condition itself progresses, you just have to ask the right questions and beware of current conclusions, look at the objective data asking if there is any evidence of species wise brain damage or developmental failure.

Is it remotely possible that the catastrophic atrophication of our new brain is in any way connected to our obvious insanity? Is there any evidence that we are behaving like a species with serious brain damage because we have serious brain damage?

If our neo-cortex was an emergent structure or by product via our 50 million year pharmacologically juvenilising symbiotic relationship with an extremely unusual host, the reproductive system of the flowering plants (fruit) in the equatorial non seasonal African rainforest. When the relationship began to break down our neo-cortex would have been exposed to our ancient mammalian hormones and sex steroid activity without the modulating and pineal stimulating chemical environments the plants hosted, and would inevitably begin to prematurely age, and atrophy as the juvenile environment it required for development and function was lost.

"Is there any evidence of species wise brain damage"?
Selective Atrophy of Left Hemisphere and Frontal Lobe of the Brain in Old Men
- Selective Atrophy of Left Hemisphere and Frontal Lobe of the Brain in Old Men

Humans Alone in Brain Shrinkage With Age
- News Hub: Humans Alone in Brain Shrinkage With Age

Primate aging in the mammalian scheme: the puzzle of extreme variation in brain aging
- Primate aging in the mammalian scheme: the puzzle of extreme variation in brain aging

Cerebral Lateralization. Biological Mechanisms, Associations, and Pathology: I. A Hypothesis and a Program for Research
- Cerebral Lateralization

If ancestral use of psychedelics were 'treatments' for a failing perceptual system, then this early study into the neurological correlates of typical perceptual effects during an LSD induced experience appears to confirm the same asymmetric pattern in hemispheric response, suggesting hemispheric assymetry of 5-HT receptors.
- https://www.researchgate.net/public...c_patients_before_and_after_temporal_lobectom

Thoughts on ancient use of psychedelics as a sort of symbiotic neurochemical supplementation? One of many interconnected bodies of treatments..interesting to say the least.

Childeren of the forest research hub

Children of the Forest | Children of the Forest

childrenoftheforest.info

 

[Fruit is life]

Paleoconsciousness. | Children of the Forest

childrenoftheforest.info

"Evolutionary biochemistry."

There is little dispute in mainstream science that for tens of millions of years our evolutionary origins were the equatorial tropical rain forests, by far the most complex molecular ecology biological evolution has ever created. Not only that, our ancestors were seed disseminating symbionts, an extremely unusual co-evolving symbiotic relationship that revolved around the ingestion of the swollen female reproductive organs of the angiosperms, several kilos daily. The science is catching up but only from an adaptive selection perspective. The juvenilising pharmacology of fruit is well documented yet no account of the direct impact of a symbiotic relationship on the mammalian transcription environment has been factored into an evolutionary context though some classes of plant chemicals that must have been extremely abundant during our symbiotic evolution are now categorised as endocrine disruptors.

Introductory references, more at the end of the article.

Wade L. Is fruit eating responsible for big brains? Evolution Plants & Animals Mar. 27, 2017

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/03/fruit-eating-responsible-big-brains?r3f_986=https://www.google.co.uk/

Milton K. Diet and Primate Evolution Scientific American June 1, 2006

Diet and Primate Evolution

Many characteristics of modern primates, including our own species, derive from an early ancestor's practice of taking most of its food from the tropical canopy

www.scientificamerican.com

Milton K. Nutritional Characteristics of Wild Primate Foods: Do the Diets of Our Closest Living Relatives Have Lessons for Us? Nutrition Vol. 15, No. 6, 1999

http://www.direct-ms.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/primaten.pdf

(Specifically relevant to neural development and function)

Braga de Andrade Teles et al. Flavonoids as Therapeutic Agents in Alzheimer's and Parkinson's Diseases: A Systematic Review of Preclinical Evidences. Oxid Med Cell Longev. 2018

Flavonoids as Therapeutic Agents in Alzheimer's and Parkinson's Diseases: A Systematic Review of Preclinical Evidences

Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases are considered the most common neurodegenerative disorders, representing a major focus of neuroscience research to understanding the cellular alterations and pathophysiological mechanisms involved. Several natural ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Baptista et al. Flavonoids as Therapeutic Compounds Targeting Key Proteins Involved in Alzheimer’s Disease. ACS Chem Neurosci. 2014 Feb 19; 5(2): 83–92

Flavonoids as Therapeutic Compounds Targeting Key Proteins Involved in Alzheimer’s Disease

Alzheimer’s disease is characterized by pathological aggregation of protein tau and amyloid-β peptides, both of which are considered to be toxic to neurons. Naturally occurring dietary flavonoids have received considerable attention as ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Böhl et al. Flavonoids Affect Actin Functions in Cytoplasm and Nucleus. Biophys J. 2007 Oct 15; 93(8): 2767–2780.

Flavonoids Affect Actin Functions in Cytoplasm and Nucleus

Based on the identification of actin as a target protein for the flavonol quercetin, the binding affinities of quercetin and structurally related flavonoids were determined by flavonoid-dependent quenching of tryptophan fluorescence from actin. Irrespective ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Hansberg-Pastor et al. Sex Hormones Regulate Cytoskeletal Proteins Involved in Brain Plasticity. Front Psychiatry. 2015.

Sex Hormones Regulate Cytoskeletal Proteins Involved in Brain Plasticity

In the brain of female mammals, including humans, a number of physiological and behavioral changes occur as a result of sex hormone exposure. Estradiol and progesterone regulate several brain functions, including learning and memory. Sex hormones contribute ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

 

[downwardsfromzero]

Is there any evidence that we are behaving like a species with serious brain damage because we have serious brain damage?

There is certainly good evidence that complex human civilizations have a tendency to poison themselves with heavy metals - and both mercury and lead have a clear link with negative neurological outcomes. Today, we can add to that a plethora of man-made cumulative toxins including PCBs to name but one group of persistent halogenated organic pollutants.

Looking at the current state of global politics, corporate business, and planetary stewardship it becomes increasingly tempting to say that humanity taken as a whole is in severe need of treatment for collective (chemo)trauma psychosis.


It is interesting to note that plant flavonoids can have a wide range of effects, from sedation to cannabinoid modulation to MAO inhibition. The thing is, flavonoids are often stated to have only a low (~5%) bioavailability so - is there a way bioavailability can be increased? Were there factors in palaeodiets that increased bioavailability or were the diets previously so rich in flavonoids that absorption was high enough to have an effect?

I do note that the flavonoid bioavailability claim seems to be at odds with the oft-repeated claim that soya isoflavone phytoestrogens are in some way problematic, however.

 

[Fruit is life]

It seems our gut flora/microbiome and nuero-assimilation system has changed quite significantly since the introduction of agriculture and modern diets.

It would make sense to me that the flavanoid bio-availablity would be significantly lower in subjects without the necessary gut flora and microbiome suited to digesting and assimilating angiosperms by the kg. Not only would our ancestral diet have been significantly higher in key flavanoids but we would have been much more suited to assimilating the chemical cocktails found in tropical fruit.

Regarding phytoestrogenic effects of soya beans, as far as I know research into the wide range of biological activity flavanoids interact with is still young. But overall flavanoids seem to dampen down and modulate the activity of our mammalian sex steroids in a therapeutic manner, as well as stimulate pineal activity and the production of Melatonin and related endogenous beta carbolines via their MAOi, further inhibiting sex steorid activity (think melatonin and puberty connection), considering sex steroids transcribe the DNA, a diet extremely rich in flavanoids has the potential to kick start funky feedback loops involving suppression of sex steroid activity in regards to maturisation and developmental windows of the brain.

Considering so many of our modern health quirks are in some way related to our own hormones, or their excessive activity e.g acne, estrogen dependant cancers, balding, dementia, autism etc etc it seems that we currently are suffering from unnaturally high sex steroid activity, which would make sense if we have lost the hormone modulating environment (diet wise) our Neuro-endocrine system evolved to run on

 

[Fruit is life]

Is there any evidence that we are behaving like a species with serious brain damage because we have serious brain damage?

Looking at the current state of global politics, corporate business, and planetary stewardship it becomes increasingly tempting to say that humanity taken as a whole is in severe need of treatment for collective (chemo)trauma psychosis.

For sure..not the most optimistic article but check this out :shock: We Are The People of the Apocalypse

 

[downwardsfromzero]

Thanks for posting about all this, you've really set me thinking - I've been looking up AhR and enzyme induction genetics

We Are The People of the Apocalypse

^Very good article