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russian olive status ?

Migrated topic.
Dorge said:
Do we know of any psychopharmacological research on these compounds at all? Possible toxicity, and what not?
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A BRIEF NOTE OF WARNING

Mydriasis just informed us in chat that harmane is potentially neurotoxic/carcinogenic...I'm going to try to do more research on this this week, there is such indication on the wikipedia page. If anyone knows about any of these compounds, any info would be appreciated. I'm going to go ahead and extract this week as well, but will hold off on bioassaying until we have more certainty on this.
 
Eur J Pharmacol. 2009 Dec 21. said:
Electrophysiological characterization of harmane-induced activation of mesolimbic dopamine neurons.

Arib O, Rat P, Molimard R, Chait A, Faure P, de Beaurepaire R.

Laboratoire de Psychopharmacologie, Centre Hospitalier Paul Guiraud, 54 avenue de la République, 94806 Villejuif, France; Neurobiologie Intégrative des Systèmes Cholinergiques, Institut Pasteur, F75724 Paris Cedex 15, France.

It has been suggested that the beta-carbolines harmane and norharmane may be involved in the pathophysiology of Parkinson's disease, psychosis and addiction, but the mechanisms of these possible effects remain to be elucidated. In the present study, the effects of the two compounds were examined by using in vivo extracellular recordings of ventral tegmental dopamine neurons.

The effects of harmane (2mg/kg) and norharmane (2mg/kg), were compared to those of nicotine (11microg/kg), of cotinine (0.5mg/kg), of the monoamine-oxidase-A inhibitor befloxatone (0.12mg/kg), and of the monoamine-oxidase-B inhibitor selegiline (0.5mg/kg). The effects of harmane were also tested after pre-treatment with the nicotine receptor antagonist mecamylamine. The results show that all substances, except befloxatone, activate the firing and/or burst activity of dopamine neurons.

The increase in firing rate produced by harmane was approximately 18 times greater than that produced by nicotine. Such powerful excitation of dopamine neurons by harmane may in part explain its involvement in neurotoxicity, psychosis and addiction. The absence of effect of befloxatone supports the hypothesis that the effect of harmane is not related to its monoamine-oxidase-A inhibitory properties. Mecamylamine inhibited by approximately 80% the activity of harmane, indicating that the activating effect of harmane on dopamine neurons involves several mechanisms, among which activation of nicotinic receptors likely has a prominent importance. The results of the present study support the hypothesis that harmane could be a tobacco (or smoke) component other than nicotine involved in tobacco dependence
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This one's a bit over my head (I'm trying to unpack it in bits and pieces but any help deciphering it would be much appreciated...the technical details are a bit rough on my brainbox 😉 ): TOXICOKINETICS OF TREMOROGENIC NATURAL PRODUCTS, HARMANE AND HARMINE, IN MALE SPRAGUE-DAWLEY RATS

This one's a fairly easy read: Higher Blood Harmane (1-Methyl-9h-Pyrido[3,4-B]Indole) Concentrations Correlate With Lower Olfactory Scores In Essential Tremor

You know...as I look at these, I'm seeing a lot of comments on Essential Tremor being caused by harmala alks, which is something I think a lot of Nexians have experienced/commented on (or do these tremors not necessarily qualify as ET?)...are there any people with medical background that could maybe fill in some info on this, beyond what's provided on wikipedia?
 
I've read those same reports. Harmane is in tobacco I believe as well. There are contradictory reports here of harmalas treating parkinsons and curing cancer. I've a hard time thinking that these cause either. The research sited is still in the "may" category... Dubious.
 
Ok, so I'm in the process of doing an extraction on E. umbellata bark/branches. The extraction has been pretty fatty/oily...but following an A/B I have tan and brown precipitates that are in the process of drying. I will be doing at least another one or two A/B's on them...but I think that a defat of the acidified aqueous stage will ultimately prove to be necessary for the most efficient methodology. I will be sending at least one sample to be tested via Endlessness and will continue experimenting over the upcoming days/weeks. My current "results" lead me to believe that felniks red oily extraction makes perfect sense; given the color of the brew, the apparently large quantity of oily lipids in the bark, etc.

I have leaves I will be experimenting with as well. I will be attempting an a/b with no defat at first to see how it compares to the bark... whatever the results are, I will post findings/pics/methods. I also have new growth and old growth and seperated it out as such. My current extraction is on older bark...once I have a methodology, I will compare old and new specimens for alkaloid %.
 
snozz,
great careful work your doing.

I'd like to know the difference between harmane and harmine , can anybody clarify that for me?
 
Fantastic Snozzle, my experimenting with E. angustifolia is on hold for the most part as my fam is doing some holiday time.
As I noted before, after doing an A/B/A a large amount of precipitate came out, though it was a lot, so I do not believe it had much of the actives. It was very dark once filtered out, more like sediment than alks to my mind. I have not checked for activity though.
You say you had precip after basifying? I had nothing coming out, only after acidifying again.
Then once I salted the filtered solution I saw much lighter precip, though I have not been able to filter it (most of it seems to go through coffee filters). I was going to do washes with salt solution and then dry it (Once I have time to put into it again).
What are you doing to defat in the acidified stage?

I am assuming you are trying to get around needing to salt the actives out of solution in order to preserve the various harmalas?
 
I posted my method for the test extraction and my plan for the current extraction over here.

Afaik, when the alks are in the acidified stage, they are water-soluble. In the basified stage, they are insoluble. Precipitates in the acid stage tend to be fats and oils, ime. To defat in the acidic stage, I'm going to put the acidified aqueous solution and xylene into a separatory funnel and agitate it. Afterwards I will separate the aqueous layer and basify it to see how it compares to non-defatted filtration. Then I will a/b it as many times as necessary to get a decently pure product for bioassay.


Felnik said:
I'd like to know the difference between harmane and harmine , can anybody clarify that for me?
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There are some attached papers in the new thread that cover that somewhat...or at least give some explanation on harmane and its physiological effects.
 
I'm still working on my extractions, but I've learned two things:

1) A vinegar tea made from the bark produces a good bit of precipitate when sodium carbonate is used to basify the tea. I still need to do some cleanup to see what's contaminate vs. Alkaloids, but it's been suggested that basing doesn't work in this situation. This seems to be bunk in my experience. The precipitate is very fine and takes some time to settle, but immediately after adding a saturated sodium carbonate/water solution I could see solids coming out of solution.

2) The product I got seemed active on its own, but I have not used it with spice yet. On its own (vaporized) the effects were heavy feeling extremities much like with bufo and a general feeling of warmth and excitement like with caapi alkaloids. For this test I vaped about 10mg.

These results are based on an A/B a la Gibran2. The impure product assayed was brown in color and dried to a powdery consistency. I hope to repeat my tests in the near future and add some spice to the mix. I'll report back as soon as I have a chance to experiment.

-JM
 
jmaxton said:
but it's been suggested that basing doesn't work in this situation. This seems to be bunk in my experience.
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I don't follow this...can you clarify? Are you just saying that basing does work? Ime, basing worked fine, granted it's a different species...but it should work, at least in theory for all of these harmalas.
 
SnozzleBerry said:
I don't follow this...can you clarify? Are you just saying that basing does work? Ime, basing worked fine, granted it's a different species...but it should work, at least in theory for all of these harmalas.
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There are several reports (some in this thread, If I recall correctly) of A/Bs on Russian olive in which the experimenter says that no precip formed when NaOH was added. Just saying that my experience was different using a weaker base.
 
I,m wondering how to better refine a crude powder from
A salt extraction on bark . I have a brown salty powder scraped from
Filtering a saturated salt solution with autumn olive bark .
What next ? I,m not sure how to proceed .
 
A/Bs seem pretty standard/straightforward when dealing with harmalas.

You can dissolve your salts in water, base, collect the precipitates and evaluate FB purity, after which more A/Bs can be performed for increased purity. Right now I'm in the process of extracting more material to find out if the red/brown compound that keeps appearing in my product (even when tan at the beginning of drying) is the result of excessively high pH.
 
Hey! where'd everyone go?! I'm doing a Manske on some leaf right now and am eager to inspect the results for myself as both russian olive and autumn olive are abundant in my area...wish I had come upon this thread sooner, I could have clarifyied the IDing of these right away as they are VERY common around here.
Yes, some do have long thorns.
Yes, the young ones are smooth and the elder trees are shaggy, almost shredded bark that can be peeled right off with out hurting the tree.
Autumn Olive is silvery on the underside of the leaf where as Russian Olive is silvery on all over it's vegitation.
The youngest saplings are soft and velvety, almost spongy in the stalk and can be found growing up from the base and roots of older trees.
They are so invasive that we can hardly trim them back and pull the new ones fast enuf to protect our gardens here in the Denver valley of the Rocky Mountains.
GREAT WORK GUYS!
YOU RULE!!
LOVE YOU!!!
 
Here's where I've continued to post on this...
SnozzleBerry said:
I posted my method for the test extraction and my plan for the current extraction over here.
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I will be bioassaying ~150-200mg this evening after my post-work bike ride and hope to have results up before I go to sleep. Vaping was nice...definitely active and familiar ;)

My second A/B since the one posted in that thread is currently winding down...I need to filter the extract and rebasify once more at minimum. I still need to get either pieces to fix my blender or add-ons for my food processor, I've been dragging my feet on that but will be doing so before the end of the month. The thing to note with this is the incredibly low yield, which is presented in the scientific literature as well. I will be trying with methanol within the next month as well to compare the ease/efficiency...right now my only bottleneck is having no means for shredding. Once this is rectified I will be going to town as my backyard and surrounding woods are literally teeming with autumn olive.
 
Wutsup Everybody!

After learning about the russian olive/harmala situation over the summer, I was delighted to find a russian olive tree on campus...labelled just that. Imagine my excitement as I approached the suspected russian olive. Perfect!

So, I did an ethanol extraction on 3 grams of inner, non-degraded bark using admiral nelsons (lol) :( . I then heated it to allow evaporation of the ethanol, and I steeped another clump of both leaves and bark (~ 10g bark, ~3g leaves) in hot water for 3 hours, only one wash though. I then combined the two extractions and ingested about 30 minutes ago...beginning to feel the pleasant warmth and change of consciousness though not yet above placebo. The true test is the 0.6g of psilocybe cubies I will ingest in about 10 min. It should be a small enough dose to be a sub-threshold without RIMA action, and active with RIMA. If I can feel the effects, I assume it will indeed potentiate (though I suppose thats been confirmed already). Will follow up tomorrow probably. Sorry for the lack of controls and estimates...at least we get a look from a different angle.

Tastes like aya, maybe a bit worse.
 
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