Do disassociatives truly, verifiably, "disconnect your brains signals from the body"?

[thoughtsUnThought]

Do disassociatives truly, verifiably, "disconnect your brains signals from the body"?

Is this an scientifically accepted fact which has been studied and observedrepeatedly in tests, or just another theory whose terminology has become accepted and readily used..? It kinda seems extreme and reminiscent of the dmt at death kinda hearsay, but I have no clue and just started wondering so here I am trying to get the knowledge refined. Thanks for your help...

Does your brain get somehow literally detached from the sensory input of the body...? Or is this idea more of a perceptual depiction of the state of holing on a disassociative..? If it is physical is the process gradual in relation to dosage? (Like a low dose causes a small amount of physical detachment and a high dose a remarkable amount). Or is it that at a certain dose that, beyond the normal neurotransmitter firing effects, this detachment of the brain from body occurs as well..?

Also, which of the disassociatives are capable of and incapable of producing this drastic physical effect?

What about other non dissociative trips, like traditional psychedelics, do these ever disconnect your brain..?

A final point, where do Amanita Muscaria and Salvia Divinorum stand when it comes to this physical brain disassociating from the body effect..? People refer to these as disassociating experiences sometimes...

 

[Flickering]

Can't comment on the science, but that's certainly what it feels like. As for salvia, it's actually considered a dissociative substance. Not entirely sure about fly agaric but I think that just counts as a deliriant.

 

[sekio]

"Detachment of brain from body" is a pretty hard to quantify term because nobody is really sure where the body ends and the mind begins.

But yes, NMDA antagonist dissociative drugs block some of the proprioceptive ("where is my arm?") and sensory (touch, taste etc) signals, by inhibiting nerve transmission. This explains why at higher doses it can feel like you don't have a body, or your arms belong to someone else, etc. They just block quite a wider spectrum of nerve signals than the "simple" soidum channel blockers like lidocaine.

 

[thoughtsUnThought]

Interesting! Good answer sekio
Creepy effect, but interesting none the less.

Is this same effect what anaesthetics do? Like non psychedelic ones, I know disassociatives can cause anaesthesia in high doses.

 

[sekio]

Anesthesia, or anaesthesia (see spelling differences; from Greek αν-, an-, "without"; and αἴσθησις, aisthēsis, "sensation"), traditionally meant the condition of having sensation (including the feeling of pain) blocked or temporarily taken away. It is a pharmacologically induced and reversible state of amnesia, analgesia, loss of responsiveness, loss of skeletal muscle reflexes or decreased stress response, or all simultaneously.

You have to be a little more specific as anesthetics are a rather broad class of drugs.
There are the "topical" or "local" anesthetics like lidocaine, procaine, benzocaine, bupivicaine et cetera that stop some nerves from activating by blocking them physically from firing. These generally are not considred to be "anesthetic" as in "knockout" but more as in "numbing", and in fact may cause bad effects like seizures or cardiac arrest at high doses.

The simple gaseous anesthetics act at GABA-A, several ion channels, and also modify the shape of cellular membranes. These are drugs like diethyl ether, cyclopropane, chloroform, & to some extent ethanol. They are pharmacologically much "dirtier" and inhibit a wide spectrum of nervous activity while increasing activity in some other parts of the brain.

Finally there are the "dissociative anesthetics" like ketamine and PCP, which act at ion channels but also at a specific type of (normally stimulatory) receptor that binds glutamate, called the NMDA receptor. It just so happens that this receptor is somehow tied into cognition, memory etc in very complex ways and many drugs that effect a blockade of this receptor act rather effectively as anesthetics, producing memory loss & dissociation.

The problem with decribing the effects of anesthetics is that almost every drug today used to induce unconciousness is filthy, pharmacologically speaking. Ketamine hits at least half a dozen major targets in the human brain at anesthetic dose levels.

To answer your question, yes, blockade of the NMDA receptor is also seen in the other psychoactive anesthetics (not local ones though), but it is not thought to play as major of a role relative to the role NMDA antagonism plays in dissociatives' effects. The only "anesthetics" that don't have some activity at NMDAr are drugs like propofol, etomidate, midazolam etc.

 

[thoughtsUnThought]

Good info there too brother, much thanks.

Modify the shape of cellular membranes...? That's an intense and strange effect it would seem...
Quite a good pharmacology lesson