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New Study about positive neural effects of 5-MeO-DMT

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Aum_Shanti

Rising Star
Thought this is quite interesting:

Scientists discover neuronal effects of psychedelic drugs using human minibrains

Original Nature article as PDF

In short:
Researchers found that proteins important for synaptic formation and maintenance were upregulated. Among them, proteins related to cellular mechanisms of learning and memory, key components of brain functioning.

On the other hand, proteins involved in inflammation, degeneration and brain lesion were downregulated, suggesting a potential neuroprotective role for the psychedelic substance.
Click to expand...

I really hope they do the same also for other trypts to find out, if this is general for them or specific for 5-MeO-DMT.

But I have to say, that most stuff in this paper is far above my understandable level...
 
Yes I saw this, was about to share, good shout!

And yes I think it will very likely apply to other psychedelics, 5-MeO-DMT was just the chemical model they were working with in this case, and there has been research on other psychedelics that has revealed similar things.

A study on LSD that is relevant and reported similar findings (linked below).

We have identified a number of genes that are predicted to be involved in the processes of synaptic plasticity, glutamatergic signaling and cytoskeletal architecture.
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Ketamine has been linked to synaptogenesis and increasing BDNF and this has been postulated to partly explain its antidepressant qualities.


Psilocybin has been linked to neurogenesis, and ibogaine has been found to raise GDNF levels. So it is very likely this applies to most or all classical psychedelics to some degree.

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Effects of psilocybin on hippocampal neurogenesis and extinction of trace fear conditioning - PubMed

Drugs that modulate serotonin (5-HT) synaptic concentrations impact neurogenesis and hippocampal (HPC)-dependent learning. The primary objective is to determine the extent to which psilocybin (PSOP) modulates neurogenesis and thereby affects acquisition and extinction of HPC-dependent trace fear...
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Autoregulation of glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor expression: implications for the long-lasting actions of the anti-addiction drug, Ibogaine - PubMed

We recently showed that the up-regulation of the glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor (GDNF) pathway in the midbrain, is the molecular mechanism by which the putative anti-addiction drug Ibogaine mediates its desirable action of reducing alcohol consumption. Human reports and studies in...
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

What is extra intriguing about this though is 5-MeO-DMT's endogenous status.
 
There's probably no definite answer to this question, but do you think that these are purely pharmacological effects, or could the experience itself have anything to do with it?

Meditation also changes the brain...maybe an experience that causes you to more often reflect on yourself, your beliefs and 'reality' could have a simmilar effect.
Or the experience, and later on, thinking about the experience, could have a feedback type of effect on some of the pharmacological effects. A reïnforcing sort of mechanism.
 
Regarding the linked 5-MeO-DMT study in the OP, it is purely pharmacological effects at play, as the study was in vitro and there was no human experiential component involved.

Certainly though it seems that the psychedelic experience (and in particular the mystical-type experiences they can catalyse) is a very important part of their long term therapeutic effect. There is very likely going to be a synergy between the pharmacological and experiential effects of the experience (for instance long term changes in the personality domain of openness in past psilocybin studies were intimately tied to the occurrence of the mystical experience during a given psilocybin session). Like meditation it seems psychedelics are able to affect neuroplasticity.
 
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