StagnantReaction said:
bauble, thanks for the abstracts about endogenous DMT, I'd been looking for that.
So endogenous DMT/5-meo-dmt production may serve to keep us from developing psychosis? Or is it the MAO production levels that allow this human DMT to thrive enough to function?
That first abstract I cited only explains that there's a g-protein-coupled human trace amine (TA) receptor that's activated by a number of drugs that acts as an anxiolytic (stress-reducing) effect.
Here's my conjecture:
If DMT is involved during the visual aspect of dreaming, then this would suggest why our mind remains calm while we hallucinate the dream world. But I'm totally unqualified to make this conjecture. Totally. Really. If scientists say that they don't understand the brain, then I'm like a 2 year old talking talking next to a 6 year old about high-level mathematics.
And therein lies the problem in answering your question. I have another study to cite, this time from 1970:
PMID: 5415111
Multiple forms of human brain mitochondrial monoamine oxidase.
Collins GG, Sandler M, Williams ED, Youdim MB
Monoamine oxidase exists in at least four molecular forms in different areas of the human brain. Variations in their enzymatic properties may have important clinical implications, perhaps reflecting their relative ability to degrade different monoamine substrates in vivo.
And of course, a little information from [link="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monoamine_oxidase"]wikipedia[/link] never hurt.
I can't even find a good abstract for this. But I'm not sure we fully understand the function of mitochondrial monoamino-oxidase, because we don't fully understand the role of all the neurotransmitters. We know that some MAO's catabolize seretonin, norepinephrine, epineprhine, others phenethylamine, and others dopamine, but the second study I cited shows that only recently we've come to understand that some MAO's catabolize DMT too. We don't understand MAO's function, much less DMT.
But I do think my conjecture above (^ that DMT is involved in visual dreaming, and affects that anaxiolytic TA to suppress anxiety) is pretty similar to the academic hypothesis.
Seriously: fuck political stigma for DMT's schedule 1 status. Obstructing research into drugs endogenous in the human brain in a country where we prescribe children methamphetamines is ludicrous.