Burning Incense Is Psychoactive: New Class Of Antidepressants Might Be Right Under Ou

[Ximot]

Burning Incense Is Psychoactive: New Class Of Antidepressants Might Be Right Under Our Noses

ScienceDaily (May 20, 2008) — Religious leaders have contended for millennia that burning incense is good for the soul. Now, biologists have learned that it is good for our brains too. An international team of scientists, including researchers from Johns Hopkins University and the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, describe how burning frankincense (resin from the Boswellia plant) activates poorly understood ion channels in the brain to alleviate anxiety or depression. This suggests that an entirely new class of depression and anxiety drugs might be right under our noses.


"In spite of information stemming from ancient texts, constituents of Bosweilla had not been investigated for psychoactivity," said Raphael Mechoulam, one of the research study's co-authors. "We found that incensole acetate, a Boswellia resin constituent, when tested in mice lowers anxiety and causes antidepressive-like behavior. Apparently, most present day worshipers assume that incense burning has only a symbolic meaning."

To determine incense's psychoactive effects, the researchers administered incensole acetate to mice. They found that the compound significantly affected areas in brain areas known to be involved in emotions as well as in nerve circuits that are affected by current anxiety and depression drugs. Specifically, incensole acetate activated a protein called TRPV3, which is present in mammalian brains and also known to play a role in the perception of warmth of the skin. When mice bred without this protein were exposed to incensole acetate, the compound had no effect on their brains.

"Perhaps Marx wasn't too wrong when he called religion the opium of the people: morphine comes from poppies, cannabinoids from marijuana, and LSD from mushrooms; each of these has been used in one or another religious ceremony." said Gerald Weissmann, M.D., Editor-in-Chief of The FASEB Journal. "Studies of how those psychoactive drugs work have helped us understand modern neurobiology. The discovery of how incensole acetate, purified from frankincense, works on specific targets in the brain should also help us understand diseases of the nervous system. This study also provides a biological explanation for millennia-old spiritual practices that have persisted across time, distance, culture, language, and religion--burning incense really does make you feel warm and tingly all over!"

According to the National Institutes of Health, major depressive disorder is the leading cause of disability in the United States for people ages 15--44, affecting approximately 14.8 million American adults. A less severe form of depression, dysthymic disorder, affects approximately 3.3 million American adults. Anxiety disorders affect 40 million American adults, and frequently co-occur with depressive disorders.

Journal reference:

1. Incensole acetate, an incense component, elicits psychoactivity by activating TRPV3 channels in the brain. Arieh Moussaieff, Neta Rimmerman, Tatiana Bregman, Alex Straiker, Christian C. Felder, Shai Shoham, Yoel Kashman, Susan M. Huang, Hyosang Lee, Esther Shohami, Ken Mackie, Michael J. Caterina, J. Michael Walker, Ester Fride, and Raphael Mechoulam. Published online before print May 20, 2008 as doi: 10.1096/fj.07-101865. [link]

Adapted from materials provided by Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/05/080520110415.htm

 

[delta_9]

morphine comes from poppies, cannabinoids from marijuana, and 1)LSD from mushrooms; 2)each of these has been used in one or another religious ceremony

1)So lsd is in mushrooms now? 8)
2)uhh, no...lsd has never been used as an entheogen...and no, Tim Leary's bullshit dosen't count at all. I dont believe morphine has either

sorry, this article is crap.

 

[Ximot]

/\ Oooh you're so clever, man! Apart from the fact that the article says "LSD" when it should have said "psilocin/psilocybin" I don't think what it says is all "crap" and I am actually getting tired of some of BL's folks' one-upmanship when it comes to demonstrating knowledge and slashing articles written by folks who surely know a little less than they do about certain psychedelics but who may otherwise well have good info to share, such as that given here on Incensole acetate - but that's just my opinion. Do whatever the fuck you please with the info, but I'm gonna go inhale some boswellia incense

 

[immad]

Very interesting, I've been thinking about this for quite some time

 

[Jabberwocky]

if anybody reads that article would you kindly add here what specific brain areas they found the drug was active in? My guess....anterior cingulate cortex (affect)...?

 

[Ham-milton]

Published online before print May 20, 2008 as doi: 10.1096/fj.07-101865.

Incensole acetate, an incense component, elicits psychoactivity by activating TRPV3 channels in the brain
Arieh Moussaieff, Neta Rimmerman, Tatiana Bregman, Alex Straiker, Christian C. Felder, Shai Shoham, Yoel Kashman, Susan M. Huang, Hyosang Lee, Esther Shohami, Ken Mackie, Michael J. Caterina, J. Michael Walker, Ester Fride, and Raphael Mechoulam

E-mail contact: [email protected]

Burning of Boswellia resin as incense has been part of religious and cultural ceremonies for millennia and is believed to contribute to the spiritual exaltation associated with such events. Transient receptor potential vanilloid (TRPV) 3 is an ion channel implicated in the perception of warmth in the skin. TRPV3 mRNA has also been found in neurons throughout the brain; however, the role of TRPV3 channels there remains unknown. Here we show that incensole acetate (IA), a Boswellia resin constituent, is a potent TRPV3 agonist that causes anxiolytic-like and antidepressive-like behavioral effects in wild-type (WT) mice with concomitant changes in c-Fos activation in the brain. These behavioral effects were not noted in TRPV3-/- mice, suggesting that they are mediated via TRPV3 channels. IA activated TRPV3 channels stably expressed in HEK293 cells and in keratinocytes from TRPV3+/+ mice. It had no effect on keratinocytes from TRPV3-/- mice and showed modest or no effect on TRPV1, TRPV2, and TRPV4, as well as on 24 other receptors, ion channels, and transport proteins. Our results imply that TRPV3 channels in the brain may play a role in emotional regulation. Furthermore, the biochemical and pharmacological effects of IA may provide a biological basis for deeply rooted cultural and religious traditions.—Moussaieff, A., Rimmerman, N., Bregman, T., Straiker, A., Felder, C. C., Shoham, S., Kashman, Y., Huang, S. M., Lee, H., Shohami, E., Mackie, K., Caterina, M. J., Walker, J. M., Fride, E., Mechoulam, R. Incensole acetate, an incense component, elicits psychoactivity by activating TRPV3 channels in the brain.

That's a major mis-statement for an Editor-In-Cheif of such a journal.

 

[dunwich]

Interesting. Interesting enough to make me light a frank/myrrh incense stick i had lying around.

And as to the "L in mush" statement, he was probably just a but misinformed or maybe just being careless. LSD, or its precursor at least, comes/came from a fungus, not a mushroom. Thats probably what he meant, that it had a natural origin. Psilocybes were not mentioned.

 

[delta_9]

/\ Oooh you're so clever, man! Apart from the fact that the article says "LSD" when it should have said "psilocin/psilocybin" I don't think what it says is all "crap" and I am actually getting tired of some of BL's folks' one-upmanship when it comes to demonstrating knowledge and slashing articles written by folks who surely know a little less than they do about certain psychedelics but who may otherwise well have good info to share, such as that given here on Incensole acetate - but that's just my opinion. Do whatever the fuck you please with the info, but I'm gonna go inhale some boswellia incense

my my, we sure are touchy today
I'm not trying to 1-up anybody I know you didn't write this article.

 

[Ham-milton]

These TRPV channels are closely related to cannabinoid receptors, no?

 

[nuke]

^^ I don't think so but I'm not sure? The family seems to respond to vanilloid/capsaicin-like compounds, and activates within certain temperature ranges to facilitate complex pain responses in the peripheral nervous system. The role in the central nervous still seems a bit nebulous, with TRPV1 being utilized for certain aspects of memory formation and the family being well-expressed in neurons.

Edit: I just saw anandamide as a ligand in the wiki article, then found this really nifty article from the British Journal of Pharmacology that explains things well: http://www.nature.com/bjp/journal/v140/n5/full/0705467a.html

 

[tobala]

There might be an aromatherapeutic/psychological component to this, no?

 

[Ham-milton]

okay, that explains why I was thinking they were related.