• N&PD Moderators: Skorpio

What are some endogenous ketamine like molecules?

Not exactly. We can again imagine a hypothetical scenario where the activity of one endogenous ligand influences the activity of another endogenous ligand within the same receptor complex (I blame ethanol and fatigue for my inability to recall a real example, if one exists :P) (I don't think that magnesium really counts, as it simply modulates flows through ion channels).

Neurosteroids like allopregnanolone are endogenous molecules and act as positive allosteric modulators of GABA-A receptor. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19758761
 
I'm with Soli, I thiink you can chalk K's "delayed effects" with insufflation up to diffusion/absorbtion issues.

Fair enough, I admit I had no hard evidence for the delayed effects, just comparing personal experiences with different substances.

That said there is good evidence that Ketamine behaves more like an open channel blocker than a standard noncompetitive antagonist. This study shows that Ketamine doesn't bind to the NMDA receptor in the absence of agonist, and that bound Ketamine is "stuck" to the receptor when agonist is washed away.
 
I think that in the normal utilisation of your brain, there's going to be enough endogenous activation of NMDAr to allow ketamine, etc to bind easily.
 
I think that in the normal utilisation of your brain, there's going to be enough endogenous activation of NMDAr to allow ketamine, etc to bind easily.

That's probably true, although there are likely subpopulations of NMDAr that are activated less frequently.

I was mostly responding to specialspack's comment that Ketamine was misclassified as a noncompetitive antagonist on wikipedia, and could be more accurately classified as an uncompetitive open channel blocker.
 
Ahh there has to be some 'natural' counterpart to the PCP/ketamine world. Nobody would have dreamed Salvinorin A was a kappa agonist. Some culture's magic plant may tickle the same receptors and we just don't know it. Well, I like to think Hoffman was right in his answer to 'not yet' relating to LSD being found in nature.....so I hold out hope for some sort of plant-based dissociative.
 
It shouldn't have been...such a receptor-slut. :P
I dunno. I find the question of whether there is an endogenous ligand of a particular type a bit more important than the question of whether something is in general present 'in nature' in some way...as was said, with innumerable plants, fungi, etc., a pharmacopeia abounds...but where are our botanical entactogens? :P

ebola
 
It seems unclear that either this or MMDA are entactogenic. Lophophine is pretty weak in potency...it's difficult to get a finger on specifically what its activity is. I'm as of yet unaware of any in vitro studies on them. Does anyone have any handy?

ebola
 
Granted, this isn't endogenous in everybody (just as well)

But, hows about NMDAr autoantibodies? anti-NMDAR-encephalitis is an interesting condition. Typically presents as a severe, but eminently treatable encephalitis, showing a very pronounced subset of dissociative symptoms, including psychosis, delirium, dissociation, anxiety, hallucination/delusions, along with seizures.

IIRC its for some reason often comorbid with an ovarian teratoma being present in females (although this is not by any means to be considered pathognomonic), and seems in many cases to resolve, or rapidly become more responsive to therapy (which includes corticosteroids, immunosuppressants and/or other immunomodulatory agents). Therapeutic prognosis appears relatively positive in the short term, higher immunostaining reactivity of autoantibodies directed at NMDAr subunits, from a few papers I flicked through online earlier whilst bored out of my mind, waiting for the pharmacy to open and my rx to arrive., appears to be associated with a worse prognosis short- and long-term, taking longterm deficits in neurological function into account. And a common target seems to be NR21 subunit, which forms the NMDAr glycine allosteric binding site.

Isn't the active compound in the psychotropic mulberry species (forget if it is the white, or black), deoxyjirinomycin, isn't that one an NMDA antagonist?

Alternatively there are some (although not to my knowledge, dissociative) compounds acting as NMDAr antagonists in cat's claw (Uncaria tormentosa), IIRC. Might be mistaken there though. And some spider toxins, such as jorotoxin act at the polyamine regulatory site.
 
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