's Blogs

Joel, I agree and you also worked in the overwhelmingly positive effects of Ketamine and TCH having a powerful blanketing and masking affects on cns receptors allowing positive regeneration of needed reuptake receptors. 

I tend to believe this.  

The classical understanding of major depression is that it stems from a chemical imbalance on the brain whereby the pre-synaptic end of the neuron does not have the necessary stores of serotonin to release into the cleft during an action potential to trigger the post-synaptic serotonin receptors.  Therapies such as prozac and paxil, the so called ssri's, target the reuptake of mechanisms of serotonin so that two things happen:  first, theres more serotonin in the cleft, and second, the pre-synaptic end of the neuron develops substantially more reuptake receptors so it can recycle more serotonin back for when its needed for another action potential.  The reason ssri's take a month or so to kick in is because that's how long it takes for these reuptake receptors on the pre-synaptic terminal to regenerate.  That's all well and good and works well for most people.

What we're finding however, is when people have major depressive episode, like when they get so bad that they need to be hospitalized, the ssri isn't good enough.  What they've found is that its a complex interaction of several key neurotransmitters in addition to serotonin that controls these situations.  Some patients who are in these situations were given ketamine, which acts on the central nervous system acting not only on serotonin, but also norepi, acetylcholine, nmda, gaba, etc.  People who were given an infusion of ketamine, which is an iv general anesthetic, had immediate relief from major depressive episodes not previously seen before.

Its actually not unlike those with chronic pain syndromes.  Post surgical patients tend to have terrible times in the PACU with pain control despite being given ample doses of narcotic medication.  Narcotics target the mu receptor in the dorsal horn of the spinal cord and tends to do well for people.  For people with chronic pain syndrome who are not opiate niave, or who take chronic narcotic pain medication, this just isnt enough.  Again, giving them ketamine, which blankets multiple neurotrasmitters in the central nervous system, they see instant relief.  Its amazing really.  Marijuana it turns out, does the same thing as ketamine in blanketing multiple receptors.

So is there a benefit to psylocybin?  probably....if you ask me.

I know and realize it's a bit much to ask most people to watch the video which is only a bit more than 6 minutes but it's really worth it. Hell, even just reading this may spark your mind down the road.

I took psilocybin mushrooms when I was in my 20's and 30's and started off taking only a very small dose. As I overcame my initial fears of "bad trips" I really enjoyed them and gradually increased my doses. 

I genuinely believe taking psilocybin over such a long period of time has had a beneficial effect on the way my brain functions. 

It certainly helped stop my stammering, that in itself boosted my confidence.