Testing of home grown Ayahuasca materials in comparison to study brew

[rahlii]

A recent intense Ayahuasca journey has lead me to investigating further the alkaloid content of my home grown materials.
Extraction of dried Psychotria viridis leaf has shown to average around 1% DMT when grown in optimal conditions, stressed and harvested at dusk to ensure maximum alkaloid yield. A method closely following steps outlined within the lextek was used to obtain the alkaloid.
The ‘Pictoral guide to caapi vine alkaloid extraction’ was used to extract vine alkaloids from home grown Banisteriopsis caapi ‘Cielo’. Stressed vine was harvested and a fairly even range of vine was selected from sections including the vine base, main stem and smaller finger width stems. Final extract yielded 0.67% caapi freebase alkaloids.
My recent experience leading to total dissolution self was the result of a brew containing 22g of dried Psychotria viridis leaf (approximately 220mg DMT) and 100g of dried vine (approximately 670mg of caapi alkaloids) per dose.
The study paper ‘Seeing with the eyes shut: Neural basis of Enhanced imagery following Ayahuasca Ingestion’ by Draulio et.al 2012 (see attached), has recently come to my attention and the dosage information I found to be of interest. It is as follows –
Each patient had 2.2ml/kg of Ayahuasca containing 0.8 mg/mL of DMT and 0.21 mg/mL of harmine.
My weight = 85kg
85kg x 2.2mL = 187mLs
DMT: 187mL x 0.8mgs = 149.6mg
harmine: 187mL x 0.21mg = 39.27mg
Assuming this is correct, the harmine seems very low to me.
I have worked out that to make a similar brew using my materials I would need to brew the following materials per dose –
15g of dried Psychotria viridis leaf = 150mg DMT
5.9g of dried caapi vine = 39.53mg of caapi alkaloids.
I am yet to try this brew but it was obviously affective at causing the Ayahuasca state within the study.
What opinion do folks have on this brew? Should it adequately produce the Ayahuasca experience or is there something wrong in either my working out or the dosage info within the study paper?

 

[jamie]

caapi contains a lot more than harmine. Do not assume that what comes out of those extraction teks is pure harmine.

 

[rahlii]

Good point. Thanks jamie.

As I don't have the capabilities to determine the alkaloid profile of either the study brew or my own vine I will have to make a leap and assume that going by the caapi analysis thread (The Caapi Analysis Thread - Plant Analysis and Substance Testing - Welcome to the DMT-Nexus), harmine averages around 70%-85% of the profile. Also you would have to take into consideration the effectiveness of the remaining alkaloids, which I assume is lower than harmine or they would have been mentioned within the study.

This would still only make the brew 10g of dried vine per dose at the most. Seems a little low to me.

 

[jamie]

that does sound low.

 

[rahlii]

I suspect that the paper may have mixed up the alkaloid amounts.

40mg DMT and 150mg of harmine sounds to be a more likely dose to trigger off the ayahuasca effect observed within the study.

:?:

 

[Vodsel]

Alkaloid contents in ayahuasca are extremely variable between preparations and batches. Specially in the area of betacarbolines, that have variable contents themselves between harmine, harmaline and THH.

I wouldn't take one sole study as reference to prepare what works for you. If you want to use studies to calibrate dosage, look at several of them and calculate medians. I'm leaving attached another paper that reports concentration levels from several reference samples, and as you will see they are mostly higher than the one you mention. In all of them, the amount of betacarbolines per ml is higher than the amount of dmt per ml, often significantly higher.

And regarding your psychotria harvest routine... have you analyzed samples extracted at different day times? Not that the yield you report sounds low, but dmt is reported to be found in other botanicals (the clearest example Phalaris spp.) in higher amounts at dawn, after the dark period of plant metabolism.

 

[Vodsel]

...and I forgot the paper.

 

[rahlii]

Thanks for your input vodsel. The paper you have attached is an excellent resource and I am glad to have read it.

There is some awesome data on concentrations of alkaloids detected within Ayahuasca potions and source materials contained within. Unless I missed it, the paper did however not have any reference to dosage information so I am unable to compare it to the previous paper or my last brew.

Generally I tend to harvest fresh materials and brew 170g of wet vine and around 80 leaves of Chacruna. This recently changed when one of my 5 year old Cielo vines died as it was growing through a wire fence and grew too thick, resulting in its premature death. Having an abundant supply of dried vine and with the monsoon fast approaching I decided to store some chacruna leaf also, as in my experience alkaloid levels significantly drop in chacruna in the monsoon rain season. Working back from my experience with fresh materials I worked out the dose of 100g dried vine and 22g of dried leaf. The experience from this brew was literally out of this world so I decided to work out the concentration of the vine to determine the alkaloid content and look further into what is considered to be a more standard dose (if such a thing even exist, likely not). The paper I attached was my first opportunity to compare the brew to a published effective Ayahuasca brew. From my experience I would not bother brewing 10g of vine and 15g of leaf as I doubt it would trip off on a journey. However I could be wrong and this is why I started the thread. To ask other folks their opinion on whether the brew would trip off in their experience.

I also gained some excellent information on Chacruna from your attached paper. I was previously aware of the following information -
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samples of P. viridis, collected in the morning on the same day from several locations throughout Brazil, the DMT concentrations were found to range from 0.00 to 17.65 milligram per gram (mg/g) of dried leaf. Most samples had a value of approximately 10mg/g DMT, and only one had undetectable amounts. It is possible that this specimen was not P. viridis, but another species of Psychotria.

Most remarkable were the results from the consecutive samples taken from the same plant at several different times throughout the day. The highest levels of DMT were found in those leaves that were collected at dawn (8.97mg/g) or before dusk (9.52 mg/g DMT). The leaves that had the least amount of DMT were those collected at midnight (5.57 mg/g), and another depression in alkaloid content appeared near 10:00 am (8.01 mg/g DMT) and subsequent values remained low throughout the hotter parts of the day. One could argue that these are simply variable values from different leaves, although special consideration was taken to include leaves at equivalent stages of development. It is also important to note that these quantitative results are in agreement with what has been observed over years of practical experience.

From Phytochemistry and Neuropharmacology of Ayahuasca, JC Callaway, 1999, in Ayahuasca by R Metzner
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Your attached paper has built on this further stating that DMT concentration rapidly drops at dusk and that the afternoon samples were taken at 6pm. It also suggests that DMT might aid the plant in the absorption of solar radiation. I will now be more careful to finish collection of leaves an hour or so before dusk to ensure alkaloid levels are not dropping in my harvested material.

I have contributed further information on my experience at harvesting Chacruna leaf in this thread - Extracting freebase dimethyltryptamine from the leaves of psychotria viridis. - Eco friendly extraction teks - Welcome to the DMT-Nexus

Also to give you an idea of where I will be going with my next brew using the same materials -

Last brew - 22g dried Chacruna leaf (approx 220mg DMT) 100g dried vine (approx 670mg caapi alks)

Planned next brew - 20g dried Chacruna leaf (approx 200mg DMT) 80g dried vine (approx 536mg of caapi).

Obviously set and setting will also have a significant influence on the planned upcoming journey so that will need to be considered also when comparing to the previous brew. I'm also planning to move forward and learn a few lessons from the last journey so that will effect the next journey also. Such are the challenges a psychonaught faces in evolving with entheogens and in particular plants with varying levels of alkaloids depending on the surrounding environmental influences. I guess it can be put down to 'Drink the brew and take Your medicine', as partakers are situated to deal with events at hand regardless their nature and intensity.

Thanks again for the paper.

 

[rahlii]

I was just looking through Snu's Garden of Eden and found the following information on pp. 60 -

Harmine inhibits MAO efficiently from about 1.5mg/kg; harmaline does so from about 1.2-1.3mg/kg (expect personal variations).

My weight is 85kg, so would require -

85 x 1.5 = 127.5mg of harmine.

this is much higher than the 39.27mg of harmine prescribed to me according to dosage information provided in the attached paper.

from personal experience I would be going with the 1.5mg/kg to produce the Ayahuasca effect.

 

[sjaman]

A few years ago I was trying and testing and came up with the amount of 1.55mg / kg.

I even wrote it down, im more organized then I expect myself to be.

 

[Shadowman-x]

I think, more than anythng, that the paper illustrates the psychosomatic/placebo power of drinking a brew, and just how much the mind has to do with physical reality
(or just how little physical reality has to do with..physical...reality..)