Nootropics which psychedelic would induce the most neuroplasticity?

[rehm2k3]

I imagine something like salvia would because of how crazy the experiences are. I think doing it weekly wouldn't be dangerous either.

Any input?

 

[M!$TER-ED]

IDK

 

[PsychedelicSummer]

Depends on the dosage.

 

[donotdothis]

I am using periglandula, cannabis, tobacco and caffeine.

 

[pupnik]

@rehm2k3 I think that the psychedelic neuroplasticity story is a red herring among many confusions that neuroscientists propound to extend their funding.

With or without psychedelics we are constantly making new memory which is one of the neuroplastic concepts involving new protein arrangements in the cerebral cortex.
Strange new experiences will leave slightly different protein arrangements / growth than everyday experiences. The animations we might see on instagram etc. about axon branches growing and dendritic fibres growing are 100% speculative, and relate more to embryonic brain growth rather than what we sustain later in life when we enjoy psychedelics.

Among Psychedelics, the salvia divinorum path to strangeness is quite extreme, although psilocybin and LSD are sufficiently strange to produce altered mental formations, and neuroplastic muchness however you interpret that.

 

[rehm2k3]

With or without psychedelics we are constantly making new memory which is one of the neuroplastic concepts involving new protein arrangements in the cerebral cortex.

well of course, this is common knowledge.

The animations we might see on instagram etc. about axon branches growing and dendritic fibres growing are 100% speculative,

I have never seen this before and I do not use instagram.

although psilocybin and LSD are sufficiently strange to produce altered mental formations, and neuroplastic muchness

I have used synthetic mushrooms / 4aco DMT and had some of the best experiences in terms of mental growth. I remember winning 20 chess games in a row, performed incredibly well in memory testsl and made overall better decisions in that one week I had used it. I myself have experienced the neuroplasticity effects and have seen what psychedelics can do. I don't see what "red herring" you are talking about and I don't fully understand the financial incentive there by neuroscientists. We have the evidence that psychedelic induced neuroplasticity is a real thing.

 

[foodcrisis]

didn't know salvia created neuroplasticity. i just googled. it does..... ..

doesn't really feel like it'd be doing anything good. shrooms and acid feel healing to me.

 

[PtahTek]

shrooms and acid

gonna pick some more up this weekend as well as a little more mdma to take the edginess off more therapeutic trips.
i do feel this experiment is helping me in general specially when i turn that eye inward scary and dark but comfortable with trying to be whole at some point.


one love family stay safe if possible plz

 

[pupnik]

...
I have used synthetic mushrooms / 4aco DMT and had some of the best experiences in terms of mental growth. I remember winning 20 chess games in a row, performed incredibly well in memory testsl and made overall better decisions in that one week I had used it. I myself have experienced the neuroplasticity effects and have seen what psychedelics can do. I don't see what "red herring" you are talking about and I don't fully understand the financial incentive there by neuroscientists. We have the evidence that psychedelic induced neuroplasticity is a real thing.

Yes I am familiar (over 50 years of experience) with the expansion of conscious awareness and memory function that occurs on and after psychedelic sessions, which you can call plasticity if you like, but it is not about extra biological growth or rearrangement in the brain, it is about temporary mental states with extra persistence of mental content that usually lasts less than 1/3 of a second.

When mental content persists, the associations that are made become more widely ramified. This makes contextual memory more accessible than ordinarily is the case, however it also has a chimeric nature (overlapped memory/artifice), which may be adaptive, as the same kind of persistence extension has evolved to occur when the limbic system kicks in as it does during emotional states.

When the psychedelic effect is very strong that persistence is noticeable as trails or tracers or overlapping images, and time dilation, but with microdosing, and post trip mental sharpening, the effect is less dramatic.

As I said - the claims about psychedelic neuroplasticity are vague or inconclusive, or they can mean whatever you like since money is pouring into that kind of research and it is "acceptable" to believe that they are onto something substantive - the peer review process involves peers that are on the same money train.

The allusion in claims of neuroplasticity is that it is a lasting change, however, as you stated, for a while after you trip you feel smarter, and then it fades. Surely neuroplasticity is not supposed to be such a temporary gift.

 

[perpetualdawn]

We're always plastic to some extent or we wouldn't be able to form new memories or learn things, but clinical studies are showing strong evidence that there is a phase of enhanced neuroplasticity after the trip has wrapped up, in the days and sometimes even weeks after. I think hippies and trippers have observed this for decades but this extra neuroplasticity from psychedelics claim is clinically well observed and measured now, I wouldn't say it's vague or inconclusive any more.

"Psilocybin induces rapid and persistent growth of dendritic spines in frontal cortex in vivo"

Psilocybin induces rapid and persistent growth of dendritic spines in frontal cortex in vivo - PubMed

Psilocybin is a serotonergic psychedelic with untapped therapeutic potential. There are hints that the use of psychedelics can produce neural adaptations, although the extent and timescale of the impact in a mammalian brain are unknown. In this study, we used chronic two-photon microscopy to...

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

"Psilocybin desynchronizes the human brain"

Psilocybin desynchronizes the human brain - Nature

Healthy adults were tracked before, during and after high doses of psilocybin and methylphenidate to assess how psychedelics can change human brain networks, and psilocybin was found to massively disrupt functional connectivity in cortex and subcortex with some changes persisting for weeks.

www.nature.com

These are just a couple that are recent-ish and strong, but there are many many studies piling up over the last decade on the subject.

I think where some of the claims from the past were wrong was in saying that there is strong neurogenesis, which turns out to be mostly an exaggeration. But there is lots of obeservation of extra dendritic spine growth, neuritogenesis (branching), synaptogensis - on a cellular level, animal model level, and FMRI observations on actual humans.

I think the other claim that has weakened lately is that microdosing can induce these effects - it seems like it probably takes the more whopping doses to reliably induce extra neuroplasticity.

I find this really exciting, and so it seems almost exuberant and there's a part of me that pushes back on that and says there must be some BS here. But from what I can tell and what all the studies are actually showing, this effect is real and legit. And when I look at my own life I can see how periods of heavier psychedelic uses are times when I've been more impressionable and made some of the biggest lasting changes in my life, so it does line up subjectively.

Nonetheless I welcome counterpoints and counter-evidence!

 

[rehm2k3]

but clinical studies are showing strong evidence that there is a phase of enhanced neuroplasticity after the trip has wrapped up, in the days and sometimes even weeks after. I think hippies and trippers have observed this for decades but this extra neuroplasticity from psychedelics claim is clinically well observed and measured now, I wouldn't say it's vague or inconclusive any more.

I second this. I have read the studies too and I have also experienced the effects.

I think it is absolutely reasonable to assume that consistent psychedelic use would boost neuroplasticity more than baseline, it has to be. It would be pretty ridiculous to say otherwise.

I am also 23 years old. I think I would benefit from the neuroplastic effects more than ageing folk.

 

[pupnik]

I do not have acccess to the full experiments, but I can guess how this one is misleading

Psilocybin is a serotonergic psychedelic with untapped therapeutic potential. There are hints that the use of psychedelics can produce neural adaptations, although the extent and timescale of the impact in a mammalian brain are unknown. In this study, we used chronic two-photon microscopy to image longitudinally the apical dendritic spines of layer 5 pyramidal neurons in the mouse medial frontal cortex. We found that a single dose of psilocybin led to ∼10% increases in spine size and density, driven by an elevated spine formation rate. The structural remodeling occurred quickly within 24 h and was persistent 1 month later.

I cannot exactly judge the equipment they are using to localize and count and measure the density and size of spines on dendrites - however, if it is before and after training and dosing of controll and experimentally dosed mice, I find it unlikely that they can resolve exactly the same angle to determin the 5% increase in spine density and or size. IMO there should be no change in size for arc spines. Instead I blame the optics of their setup, and measurement methods. Other methods with radio-labeled amino acids equally just show the expected.

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[pupnik]

btw the size of spines is irrelevant but the density does relate to the connections that neuron has, which does increase over time, with respect to experiences / learning.
if size made a difference, we would see plaques forming at this resolution and learning would mean something completely different in real life which would have to be much much shorter.

 

[perpetualdawn]

I cannot exactly judge the equipment they are using to localize and count and measure the density and size of spines on dendrites - however, if it is before and after training and dosing of controll and experimentally dosed mice, I find it unlikely that they can resolve exactly the same angle to determin the 5% increase in spine density and or size. IMO there should be no change in size for arc spines. Instead I blame the optics of their setup, and measurement methods. Other methods with radio-labeled amino acids equally just show the expected.

Yeah, perhaps you're right and they're basically making mistakes with their optics. I am in no position to judge. I tend to trust them because they are obviously more expert in their techniques than I am, but we are all human and subject to finding patterns where we want to see them. However, there are many many studies now piling up that corroborate what these guys are observing, which adds credence. OTOH it wouldn't be the first time that there has been a kind of mass hallucination that looks real at first. Your mentioning of plaques reminds me of how everyone was convinced that beta-amyloid plaques were completely accepted as the cause of Alzheimers disease not so long ago.

> Other methods with radio-labeled amino acids equally just show the expected.


Is there a specific study that you're thinking of here?

 

[perpetualdawn]

I am also 23 years old. I think I would benefit from the neuroplastic effects more than ageing folk.

I tend to think the opposite! When you are younger you are naturally more neuroplastic, and as you age you become more crystallized into patterns - the pathways have become more hardwired from years of repetition and practice, the footpaths have become paved neuronal superhighways. It seems to me like as you age it that if you value mental agility and adaptability it can be useful to introduce more branches and side paths on these networks so that you can enjoy more new territory and the spots between the major ruts and routes in your mind.

On the other hand, age 23 is also a natural time to revisit some of the habits and patterns that you've built up from childhood to young adulthood, and psychedelics can really be a powerful tool to get an eagle-eyed view for refactoring things.

 

[rehm2k3]

When you are younger you are naturally more neuroplastic

Wouldn't that mean i would benefit even more from psychedelics? as I can break out easily from habits and experience even more change/neuroplasticity than someone older than me?

 

[perpetualdawn]

Wouldn't that mean i would benefit even more from psychedelics? as I can break out easily from habits and experience even more change/neuroplasticity than someone older than me?

Up to you!

In my youth I saw some very young people (14-16yo) abuse acid and become totally lost in life. Looking back with the neuroplasticity lens it looks like they became so plastic that they lost a framework completely and had very few patterns to fall back on. I'm talking about young kids who were doing acid every weekend or more, and they might have had other factors in their lives like lack of strong parental presence too. Intuitively there is a possibility of too much plasticity, you don't want to always have to reinvent the wheel.

From my perspective older people generally have more to gain from psychedelics, but ironically its young people who usually have more proclivity to use them. To me it seems like older people are more "stuck" and need the help more. But of course being stuck in well-adapted patterns is not a bad thing!

 

[rehm2k3]

so plastic that they lost a framework completely and had very few patterns to fall back on.

That sounds like me right now. No direction, constantly confused, depersonalization.

I just want to view differently