every toxic cloud has a silver lining

[vecktor]

shulgin-every toxic cloud has a silver lining

Obliquely in Tihkal and Pihkal there is mention of an insecticide that Shulgin developed whilst at Dow Chemicals, the commercial success of which that meant he was given free reign to research the psychedelics everyone has known and loved, I was a bit curious as to why it was never named in Pihkal.

A bit of digging and it seems that the commercial insecticide is a carbamate acetylcholinsterase inhibitor called mexacarbate or Zectran.
AKA
N-Methyl 4-dimethyamino-3,5-xylyl Carbamate; Mexacarbate; Zextran; Zactran
CAS: 315-18-4
patent: US3084098.
It doesn't seem that bad, I was half expecting Shulgins secret chemical child to be a horrific environmental disaster (Dow the company that bought you agent orange and napalm), but other than some evidence that it causes mild amnesia amongst forest song birds, "look theres a tree......look theres a tree.......look theres a tree......look theres a tree etc etc ad nauseum" it doesn't seem to have much badness about it.

thankyou Dow...........


on a side note
Shulgins ARIADNE patent is much more interesting it has been discussed on this site before, but it seems to be more nootropic.
patent: US4105695
Derek at In the Pipeline has posed some interesting stuff on the use of nootropics, his audience is very Big Pharma,
http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2008/04/17/getting_smarter_already.php
I shall watch to see what pops up in the comments.

Has anyone here tasted ARIADNE if you have can you post a short trip report or PM me please.

Vecktor

 

[Jamshyd]

Shulgin has a habit of giving non-psychedelic chemicals he makes funny designations. Is ARIADNE as "nootropic" as 2C-D? .

Interesting post nontheless, Vecktor... LMAO @ songbird amnesia.

 

[Ham-milton]

Titre du document / Document title
MDMA-like stimulus effects of α-ethyltryptamine and the α-ethyl homolog of DOM
Auteur(s) / Author(s)
GLENNON R. A. ;
Affiliation(s) du ou des auteurs / Author(s) Affiliation(s)
Virginia commonwealth univ., medical coll. Virginia, dep. medicinal chemistry, Richmond VA 23298-0540, ETATS-UNIS
Résumé / Abstract
One-carbon homologation of phenylalkylamine or indolylalkylamine hallucinogens containing an α-methyl substituent typically results in a reduction of hallucinogenic potency; however, this same structural change has little to no effect on agents that produce MDMA-like effects. In the present investigation, rats trained to discriminate 1.5 mg/kg of MDMA (3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine) from saline vehicle were employed to determine if the a-ethyl homologs of the hallucinogens 1-(2,5-dimethoxy-4-methylphenyl)-2-aminopropane (DOM) and α-methyltryptamine (α-MeT)-that is, α-EH DOM (BL-3912) and aαEtT, respectively-would produce stimulus effects similar to those of MDMA
Revue / Journal Title
Pharmacology, biochemistry and behavior ISSN 0091-3057 CODEN PBBHAU
Source / Source
Congrès
American Psychological Association. Annual convention No101, Toronto ON , CANADA (20/08/1993)
1993, vol. 46, no 2, pp. 493-510 (16 ref.), pp. 459-462

neccessary words to submit reply

 

[vecktor]

from the patent:
BL-3912A = ARIADNE

The compound BL-3912A, a reference compound used in assaying the compounds of this invention, has demonstrated remarkable and profound effects in initial clinical studies in psychotics and normal senile geriatric patients. For example, in psychotics demonstrating schizophrenia and manic depression, a dose of 50 to 100 mg per day produced remarkable results in that virtually all the patients so treated behaved in a near normal manner. The catatonics relaxed, the withdrawn and fearful became sociable, etc.

In the non-psychotic geriatric patient, at a dose of 25 to 50 mg/day, BL-3912A had the effect of producing increased mental alertness and a renewed interest in life characterized by increased sociability, mobility, concern about appearance, dress and general well-being.

In two instances where the patient had Parkinson's disease, substantially complete remission of the symptoms of the disease was observed at a dose of 100 mg/day.

The ability of BL-3912A to increase the learning capacity of humans has been confirmed in the initial clinical trials.

In view of all the above and in projecting the activity found in rodents to humans, it is anticipated the compounds of the instant invention will possess activity in man that is essentially identical to that seen for BL-3912A.

So it seems hairless apes and rats seemed encouraged by ARIADNE/Dimoxamine.

I wouldn't give Glennons' discriminative stimulus work comparing it to MDMA much weight, as with most of these who knows what aspect of the pharmacology the rats are using as stimulus to press the drug responding lever. 4-MeO AMPH discriminates to LSD for example.

I found 2-CD at low doses to be effectively nootropic (<10mg) especially with abstract thought, It has the 'problem' of psychedelic side effects at higher doses and legal controls on it so has no future as a nootropic. It occured to me that variations on this theme could separate the psychedelic from the nootropic effects.
whatever your thoughts are on the ethics of chemical enhancement of cognition, an effective safe nootropic is worth a huge fortune to whoever discovers it.

 

[Ham-milton]

I wouldn't give Glennons' discriminative stimulus work comparing it to MDMA much weight, as with most of these who knows what aspect of the pharmacology the rats are using as stimulus to press the drug responding lever. 4-MeO AMPH discriminates to LSD for example.

That really is the failing of generalization studies. I think the ones done with hairy apes have a lot more weight, though.

I found 2-CD at low doses to be effectively nootropic (<10mg) especially with abstract thought, It has the 'problem' of psychedelic side effects at higher doses and legal controls on it so has no future as a nootropic. It occured to me that variations on this theme could separate the psychedelic from the nootropic effects.

By this do you mean seperating visual effects from mental ones, or simply eliminating 5HT2a agonism? I think that the latter would render any nootropic effect ineffective.

4-HO-DiPT is a good example of a psychedelic that produces little to no visual disturbance (OEVs, anyway) while providing a fair amount of the mental aspects.

I think that many would find it useful as a nootropic. The 2Cx's are particularly useful because they seem to provide a useful stimulation. A nootropic that enhances abstract thinking and provides a mild stimulation will be better than one lacking in the latter, I think.

 

[Jabberwocky]

you talk of stimulation as if it is a natural kind in any relevant discipline. Stimulation comes in many forms, friend, lets start by making the division between peripheral and central (one of MANY divisions we could make).

What use is a nootropic that causes your legs to jitter?

 

[Ham-milton]

I'm only talking about central stimulation of course- the sort that 2C's and amphetamines provide. That should have been clear.

 

[Jamshyd]

So a "nootropic" now is any substance that makes you think deeply? Would that not make all psychedelics nootropic? Would that not make amphetamine "nootropic" too? And crack, while we're at it?

There is a formal definition of nootropics that stipulates that such title can only be conferred on substances proven to be (a) non-toxic and (b) Cognitive-enhancing. As of now, we have no formal studies that satisfy criterion A coclusively on either ARIADNE or 2C-D.

 

[Ham-milton]

So a "nootropic" now is any substance that makes you think deeply? Would that not make all psychedelics nootropic? Would that not make amphetamine "nootropic" too? And crack, while we're at it?

There is a formal definition of nootropics that stipulates that such title can only be conferred on substances proven to be (a) non-toxic and (b) Cognitive-enhancing. As of now, we have no formal studies that satisfy criterion A coclusively on either ARIADNE or 2C-D.

I don't think it's a substance that makes you think deeply, but rather enables abstract thought. A substance that's too pushy in this effect is likely going to inhibit productive thinking (ie: 25-50ug LSD vs. 250ug LSD; dose makes a big difference here, where a threshold dose could be considered nootropic, but a fully psychedelic dose would be problematic).

I think that the definition is a little dubious; there's very little in this world that's non-toxic, but with appropriate dosing, toxicity can be mimized. If a substance has a suitable safety profile for human administration, and whatever toxicity does not impair cognitive enhancement, I don't think it matters if there's some toxicity.

I don't think there have been formal studies conclusively showing the cognitive enhancing properties of many of these drugs, unfortunately. There doesn't seem to be any really good methods of quantifying 'cognitive enhancement'- most of the studies done usually revolve around the ability to remember strings of words or numerals or other basic memory tests.

I'm afraid that it'll be very difficult to come up with a really good measurement for substances that enhance abstract thought the way that psychedelics do.

 

[5-HT2]

^^^Have you heard of/read Jame's Fadiman's study where they gave technical professionals mescaline to see whether it would catalyze insight into problems they were working on? Though the study was not well controlled, the psychedelics seemed to help. I would really like to see a follow-up with all the proper controls, modeled after the study which was recently done at Johns Hopkins on psychosocial outcomes of psilocybin exposure.

I don't think that facilitation of abstract thought is a sufficient criterion to define what is a nootropic. Promoting this one factor alone is probably not sufficient to result in general cognitive enhancement from "baseline." Other things that need to be functioning well in concert are working memory, attention, conflict monitoring/performance control, etc.