Help fund this project

[Cognitive Heart]

A fun and cool page pledge towards introducing and reinforcing the research towards DMT, which is found within many animals and plants.

Why does our body produce one of the most potent hallucinogens?

Our bodies produce very low doses of N,N-Dimethyltryptamine (DMT), a psychotropic substance. Recent findings suggest that DMT is an important modulator of Sig-1R, a receptor that plays important roles in neuropsychiatric diseases like schizophrenia, and depression. This project aims to further...

experiment.com

:thumb_up:

 

[SnozzleBerry]

It doesn't actually say anything about what he's done/doing...

 

[Cognitive Heart]

It doesn't actually say anything about what he's done/doing...

I feel he's just improving/accelerating the overall research into Sig-1R correlated with dimethyltryptamine and synaptic plasticity to help with his own work.. those interested can kindly donate to help support his working hypothesis and publish the findings, I suppose. I thought it was interesting and somewhat inspiring.

Here he is:

https://experiment.com/users/Battaglia

 

[SnozzleBerry]

I just don't see any information on the linked pages (or on his biopeers website) that gives any indication of what he's done and his request for funding seems exceedingly vague.

Someone is asking for funding for research without giving any clear indication of what that research is, imo. If I'm missing concrete components, please help me locate them, as I'm rather baffled by the whole thing

 

[darklordsson]

(sniff sniff)

I smell fraud...

Snozz is right with this need's something concrete.

 

[Cognitive Heart]

Hm, okay, I see your concerns. I've never met him personally myself so it's difficult to say. If true, then I have trouble understanding why this page would post/support him..

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1055048000/neurons-to-nirvana-understanding-psychedelic-medic-0

The pledge link is actually within their official FB page which is located under supported backers. And if that's not enough then I don't know what is.

 

[dreamer042]

I also found this rather confusing.

He talks vaguely about needing money to develop a hypothesis, generally you ask for money to test a hypothesis not to develop one.

What is his goal? What is the money for? Where is it going?

A lot of unanswered questions here. I'm always happy to see more DMT research, but before I shell out hard earned cash I like to be informed what exactly it's going toward.

 

[Cognitive Heart]

Oh, of course. Nobody is of expected to give their cash away. Merely just for informative reasons and its possible potential. If not, continue on. The priorities of the project are outlined under the 'abstract' section. I don't see it as confusing to be honest. I shall leave this up and update if and when more info is available.

 

[SnozzleBerry]

For easy reference, the abstract states:

What are the goals of this project?

DMT might be a modulator of Sig-1R in a complex cellular signaling that regulate cancer and neuronal plasticity. Due to technical constraints it has been uneasy in the past to measure and track the DMT molecule in human body, and hence it has been almost impossible to identify its physiological roles.

Moreover, Sig-1R was for a long time considered to be an orphan receptor, while in recent years it quickly became one of the most promising target in psychiatric and neurological molecular research. To this day, we know that Sig-1R is ubiquitous in many tissues and it plays a prominent role in coordinating cellular stress responses in mitochondria, while in neurons, Sig-1R extends this response to the cell's membrane level by interacting with numerous proteins involved in synaptic plasticity.

Why is this research important?

From 60s to late 70s psychedelic research was very active but was basically lacking of the technical resolution we have nowadays. Also, this type of research was mainly focused on the pharmaceutical use of psychedelic compounds, and not on their endogenous role. After a pause of nearly 40 years in this field, recent advances in our understanding of the neurobiology of psychedelics have led to renewed interest in their clinical potential in the treatment of various psychiatric disorders. It's interesting to note that these novel studies are showing that sub-hallucinogenic doses (similar to the physiological one) are those who particularly determine promising responses for treating anxiety, depression, PTSD, OCD and addiction. My research will focus on the endogenous role of DMT in the CNS.

How will the funds be used?

I'm raising some basic funding to finish my literature research, review it, publish it in an open access journal (i.e. Frontiers) as a systematic review, and propose it to labs that are involved in Sig-1R studies.

My hypothesis is that DMT is regularly produced in low doses at the peripheral level and then transported in various tissues where it is stored. DMT is subsequently released during cellular stress, participating in stress response mechanisms mainly via Sig-1R activation.

I wrote this almost 22k words research one year ago, and then after dozens of new papers confirming my intuition I finally decided to follow it and try to publish in open access. Unfortunately I don't have access to a wet lab that could host this type of experiments so my hope is to write a compelling review.

 

[endlessness]

I think it`s cool that people research DMT but.. He says himself he already has 22k words from another paper on same subject and now wants to publish. Why do you need 1500 bucks for editing and doing some more bibliographical research?

Seems a bit off imo, but maybe i`m missing something.

 

[Infundibulum]

The way i understood it is that he needs money to finish a review paper on dmt and publish it. But for that you really need time more than money. And depending on the journal you may not even need to pay a single cent for publication.

I read through the link and sorry, as a guy who both applies for grants and also reviewes grants, i was left particularly unconvinced, if not confused.

 

[Endurance]

I was also a little thrown off by this request, especially since as the prospective author stated the paper is to be a review article.

In the abstract, the paragraph " I wrote this almost 22k words research one year ago, and then after dozens of new papers confirming my intuition I finally decided to follow it and try to publish in open access. Unfortunately I don't have access to a wet lab that could host this type of experiments so my hope is to write a compelling review." This paragrpah left me particularly confused.

Comments:

• "I wrote this almost 22k words research one year ago". Was this for the proposed review or another research/review undertaking? If it is for this intended paper, surely that is a substantial amount of words, which would only require considerably less time to complete.

• "...then after dozens of new papers confirming my intuition". Infundibulum could comment here as a experienced reviewer, but if I were to write a grant proposal of this kind, I'd find it useful to mention, and briefly discuss, the above studies that confirm the authors intuition. This would be beneficial in placing the proposed study within the relevant field and assessing the knowledge-gap that it addresses.

• "Unfortunately I don't have access to a wet lab that could host this type of experiments..." Is the funding request to facilitate further lab research that would complement the literature review? (I understand the author intends to review,althoug alluding to the lack of a lab facility suggests to me that he would like to pursue some type of original research). Or, provide some means of financial stability while the author pursues writing a review?

In my opinion, the author does not provide sufficient detail or clarity in the methods and procedures required for this study. The lack of specific methodological detail might be intentional to allow for more adequate readability to reach large numbers of potential financial contributors. Although when wanting to undertake a scientific study, the institution or grant body that would be financially supporting the project would require to see these details (more often than not). That being said, I do not wish to discourage the authors attempt. And, if the paper were to be eventually submitted for review would also receive criticism.

 

[laughingcat]

From reading his request page, most of the money is for a publication fee that the Frontiers journals charge (all their journals are open access so they have to charge a publicaton fee - this does not detract from the quality of the journal, as Science and Nature also charge these days, but they aren't open access :x !).

$1600 for the publication fee
$1000 for "Translation and review" - so he's paying someone to translate into English???

However, according to Frontiers, an inability to pay is not a barrier to publication. So if his paper is accepted and he really can't pay, they will publish anyway. So I can't see why he doesn't submit and wait for a decision - what if he raises the money and the paper is rejected? Does everyone get their money back? As he is an undergraduate student, albeit smart and committed and whatever else, his probable lack of experience in writing for peer-reviewed journals means that this is a definite possibility. And as we have nothing to go on other than the abstract, how are we to judge whether the paper is likely to be accepted?

 

[Infundibulum]

However, according to Frontiers, an inability to pay is not a barrier to publication. So if his paper is accepted and he really can't pay, they will publish anyway. So I can't see why he doesn't submit and wait for a decision - what if he raises the money and the paper is rejected? Does everyone get their money back? As he is an undergraduate student, albeit smart and committed and whatever else, his probable lack of experience in writing for peer-reviewed journals means that this is a definite possibility....

Exactly. And he didn't got the costs correctly, he asks $1600 for publishing in frontiers but the fee is €1600, which amounts to ~$2100.

I doubt that any early-to-late career lab chief would not align with him and pay the fee for him, provided that also the lab chief would review, amend and correct the manuscript to publication standard and that this guy would also append his name at the publication...simple science politics. It kind of seems to me that despite all the great intentions he doesn't know very well the nasty game of scientific publications, which is a very understandable thing considering his level.

 

[laughingcat]

I doubt that any early-to-late career lab chief would not align with him and pay the fee for him, provided that also the lab chief would review, amend and correct the manuscript to publication standard and that this guy would also append his name at the publication...simple science politics. It kind of seems to me that despite all the great intentions he doesn't know very well the nasty game of scientific publications, which is a very understandable thing considering his level.

That's exactly the way for him to proceed with this I think, assuming his theory is sound. He might actually have a really sound, water-tight hypothesis/model that is ready for publication - the problem is there is no way for us to know...

 

[Ufostrahlen]

Someone should point him to the Nexus, so our experienced members can help him out.

 

[Cognitive Heart]

Someone should point him to the Nexus, so our experienced members can help him out.

Done and done. :thumb_up:

 

[LaTorre]

Hi, first of all I want to thank Cognitive Heart to post it here, and thanks SWIH to inform me about this conversation. I was about to post something here anyway in the next days when I'd have had more free time. But then I was suggested to take a look and I saw this convo full of things to answer. Here I am. AMA.

I'll try to answer to everything and timely. I cannot reply so quickly but I'll try to do my best in answering in a couple of days maximum.

I went through all your comments, my answers can be condensed in this points:

LACK OF INFORMATION:
- The original submission I made to experiment.com was much deeper and full of details about the technicality of the review, the point of making a review, and about the use of the money. However the editors of the crowdfunding platform told me to make the description very simple so a larger audience might understand what was my point and feel more comfortable to pledge.
For example, the original title was less catchy than "Why our body produce..", instead was "Understanding the role of endogenous tryptamines in Homo sapiens".

So this polishing that I had to make after the platform owners' feedback is the main reason for a lack of thoroughly information.

I will: upload now here on Nexus the full version of the draft I wrote the last year in Italian; write a little abstract at the end of this message; and I will (as soon I have more spare time) add a "lab note" to the crowdfunding campaign website with a more detailed description of what is my hypothesis, what is the experimental design I have in mind, and other details.


REASONS FOR THE MONEY
– Colour have exactly understood the reasons for a lack of clarity and details (need to reach larger audience according to experiment.com) and he also understood the reasons for the money.

First, Financial stability at my age (and in my family condition) is not something easy to achieve. As now, I could not spend time to pursue this, I got to finish my studies and work to earn a living. I'd like instead spending the time I have to work in cafeteria, in writing the paper, polishing it, drawing images etc.

Second, since I cannot access to a proper wet lab to make "original research", and since my credibility as a undergrad is less than zero on the eye of any journal editors, I'd like to make my paper bulletproof in term of english language (which I'm not native speaker), and in term of technicality, by assessing the manuscript to a language review and to a pre-publication peer-review. In the case the paper will be published in a respected journal, I can use it to pitch labs around that might be interested in this hypothesis.

Third, I want to publish in open access, and today, open access peer-reviewed journal publication, cost. The cost I stated is correct http://www.frontiersin.org/Integrative_Neuroscience/fees
Also, I think that even if Frontiers allow for a no fee publication, my guess is that those cases are very rare and happens when the subject is very interesting for the editors.


As I state in the crowdfunding page, In case Frontiers reject, I'll try to other relevant journals. In case no journal will be willing to publish it, I'll put it online in academia.edu or autohrea, while the remaining money will be given in donation to MAPS dot org.

"DOZEN of new PAPERS":
- The papers I'm talking about are relevant to Sig-1R agonists, not specifically to DMT. Since I wrote the first draft I have received nearly 108 paper suggestions by NCBI in my e-mail inbox about the query (Sigma-1 receptor). Most of them are relevant to my hypothesis.
I started to do a selection of this suggestions list. Here I also attach a list of such selcted new papers (unfortunately updated only till december 2013).


I hope I answered to all the questions raised here. Feel free to ask more.


Here the paper draft in italian as I left it more than one year ago.

 

[laughingcat]

It's good that you've cleared this up!

I think that even if Frontiers allow for a no fee publication, my guess is that those cases are very rare and happens when the subject is very interesting for the editors.

Fortunately, you guess wrong. The editor and referees neither have any knowledge or interest in your ability to pay when you submit and during the reviewing process and it has no influence on the decision to publish or otherwise. You simply submit and wait. They will only discuss payment if the paper is accepted, which is almost certainly going to be after many corrections and other amendments (this is the part that takes time, because you might have to rewrite or add to significant portions of the paper, perhaps requiring additional research in the literature) - this is why you should get it submitted as soon as possible - don't wait for the funding!

If they accept and you really still cannot pay then you must say so at this point. Then they will discuss this with you - you might pay a reduced fee or they might waive the fee completely. You should also talk to your department - $1600 is not a lot of money in the grand scheme of things and there are often pots of cash that can be accessed in these circumstances... good luck!

 

[Ufostrahlen]

Somebody could set up an EtherPad and instead of donating money (scarce), Nexians could donate their free time (abundant) translating.

A quick Google translation of the abstract:

The definition of stress covers a wide spectrum of phenomena that vary in intensity, duration and type of stimulus. Based on these parameters, and the innate and acquired predispositions of the individual responses to stress and its effects on physiology are different. In particular, the stress response can have two possible Results: very negative outcomes in the case of vulnerable individuals, and adaptive responses in the case of resilient individuals. the success of a resilient response is determined by the mobilization of the biological mechanisms - not only can bring the individual to the initial state (homeostasis) - but that in some cases also facilitate the acquisition of new resources (adaptation allostatic positive or reostasi positive).

The multiplicity of these answers are on the one hand an advantage to the health of the individual, and on the other a selective advantage for the species. Starting from these assumptions, in this paper we describe some of the molecular mechanisms of recent interest concerning the little known tryptamine endogenous N, N-DMT and its interaction with Sig-1R, Taars and 5-HTRs- This work also aims to highlight some potential points of contact between the studies on response to stress, the effects of placebo, and some CNS disorders (both neurological psychiatric).
Specifically, the similarities between the neural correlates and systemic activities that involve the N, N-DMT and the Sig-1R, slopes suggest some useful research to expand our knowledge of the mechanisms that make possible mechanistic interaction between mental and behavioral activity and the complex physiology of the body human. The ultimate goal is to develop strategies and interventions appropriate to the maintenance of health human, and to the treatment of a wide spectrum of diseases.

Doesn't look too bad. The native speaking PhDs of the Nexus can do the polishing. What's left can still be reviewed for money, but that's more proof-reading than translating and therefore much cheaper. I smell the first paper partially published by the Nexus.

Edit: also useful: Online Grammar, Style & Spell Checker - LanguageTool