I'm a bit surprised the grad student or expert didn't discuss neuromodulators more. The fact is we already have the full connectome of a much simpler system, a worm (C Elegans). And this full mapping is considered insufficient to fully understand the simplified worm behavior because it doesn't fully capture the diversity of different neuromodulators and how they effect processing in neurons. It matters if the neuron is releasing dopamine, serotonin, glutamate, etc. There are ways to approximate these from EM images by analyzing the synapse properties, but ultimately it leads to a much larger problem in understanding neural processing.

In a similar light, the connectome project does not do a good job capturing synaptic strength. We don't really know just from the electron microscopy how strong the connections are. We can try and approximate it by looking at the size/formation of the synapse but ultimately this falls short.

For instance, my memory is that thalamocortical projections (thalamic nuclei to L4 of the cortex) do not make up the primary inputs to L4 on a structural connectivity level, but the strength of those connections are much stronger then the more numerous cortico cortical connections. I don't think the connectome from EM images will be able to pull that out.

The connectome is important, the same way knowing the human genome is important. However, it's really not going to tell us how to simulate a person. It's an important step to be sure, one we are still a good ways away from finishing last I checked (which was three years ago ...)

That sounds a whole lot like some kind of absurd "Reefer Madness" kind of "thinking."

On what are you basing that "feeling?" Leaving aside that serotonin is involved with mood (and not meaning or motivation) and that LSD's binding to the receptor sites increases not decreases the amount of serotonin available in the synaptic cleft (performing the same effect as any other SSRI like Zoloft, Paxil, or Prozac), there is actually no reason why any of the hundreds of successful professionals that I know who have taken LSD multiple times would express such a feeling on the basis of taking LSD.

If anything, your comment reveals a fear of your own mind and, having read your comments, I can't say I blame you.

Is the lack of serotonin what gives the user the "Urgh, what am I doing with my life? I need to get my shit together!" feeling ?

It might "feel" like someone who's found god/religion but that comes down to brainwashing & propaganda. Just like the propaganda that is spread about drugs in general that are scheduled (that they are unhealthy and have no health benefits). The atheist trend is just a trend and everyone is going along with it. I'm not saying I believe in god but that things are a lot more complicated than that.

I commented because it's Richard Dawkins, who in my mind - has a position - one that I had for most of my life in fact. That really there is nothing that can't be explained. Sure, DMT affects the serotonin 5-HTA sites, who cares, It's messing with your brain. So, what? What the person experiences is really the only thing I have ever encountered that truly is a mystery. It opens up that dialog that, really, no one knows what the hell is going on in the Universe if such as strange thing is possible. And in my mind, that is incredible.

Onto a secondary topic, it includes the "media frenzy" and the contract clauses that force players, coaches, and others to appear before the media... Plus the media in general, when it comes to the Superbowl (but, this has to do with our country; or at the least certain segments and populations of our country). But, really it's about the general stupidity and levels we have turned this ONE event into!

Only a few interviews are worth looking at typically and they tend to be AFTER a game, not before it (as that amounts to "what ifs", "probably might", "we sure can try", and "if I win, I'll go to 'insert Measleland or another place here' with my wife/kid/family/parrot"). I absolutely hate the fourteen hour pre-game show that the NFL and the channel hosting this *thing* that apparently people watch, that is quite like a: "super-fabulous-orgasmic-serotonin ovulating-dopamine excreting-heroine junkie nerve conduction transfer-fourteen people high at a rave experimenting in an orgy with all the holes and toys available"... OK, so maybe that is a bit too far, but still...! It really is the most "grandiose" setups for a game, that doesn't need such a grandiose setup.

The should just make it a damned national holiday already--everyone already stays home or is basically forced to, since one half of their family is probably glued to the TV for quite awhile.. Although I know we always "had" these interviews on the TV, but we never really listened to them, because they bring out 40 people who essentially ALL say the same thing (the only difference is if it is a different team and or if they are extremely religious--they will then tell you how their team will win, "...no matter what...", and then if they are religious proceed to randomly give you the, "God is on our side...", mantra...which always made me laugh--literally, out-loud).

Then they cut back to the ex-coach's and arm-chair quarterbacks who have been given a one day opportunity to tell the world what they think, and how he game will go (and it never does).

Needless to say, I HATE, with a passion, the "pre-game show" (which didn't exist in it's ridiculous form for a VERY longtime until the late 80's and early 90's). I'd rather them move all of their prime-time TV shows that will not be shown that night, due to the game, to that period of the day and let us watch that instead before the game (then they can give us a modest 45-30 minute pre-game; not this 5-hour marathon of ads and marketing, with a bunch of talking faces trying as hard as they can to make a name for themselves in that time-span).

Only people like "Beast Mode" can save that time allotment and make it worthwhile (if you think it is "entertaining", you REALLY need to stay away a bit from Football, and I'm saying that as a concerned friend...)--because right now, although a lot of people flip their TV over to the channel with it on...it is a massive waste of money and time--that somehow generates massive amounts of money (talk about "very careful" and "orchestrated" money setups and schemes; but luckily they have idiotic companies paying them gigantic sums of money for their commercials to air...even before the game comes on...). And, I wish people wouldn't just flip over to it, to have it on in the background (as most of the time I've noticed, whether it's a game at my house, someone else's OR an actual Superbowl party--no one watches that crap, it just sits on that channel...making them "think" they are getting ratings, but they actually aren't. It's kind of like saying that people go to Tailgate parties to park cars and see how neat the cement is...

CBD possesses sedative properties (Carlini and Cunha, 1981), and a clinical
trial showed that it reduces the anxiety and other unpleasant psychological
side effects provoked by pure THC (Zuardi et al. 1982). CBD modulates the
pharmacokinetics of THC by three mechanisms: (1) it has a slight affinity for
cannabinoid receptors (Ki at CB1 = 4350 nM, compared to THC = 41 nM,
Showalter et al. 1996), and it signals receptors as an antagonist or reverse agonist
(Petitet et al. 1998), (2) CBD may modulate signal transduction by perturbing
the fluidity of neuronal membranes, or by remodeling G-proteins that
carry intracellular signals downstream from cannabinoid receptors, and (3)CBD
is a potent inhibitor of cytochrome P450 3A11 metabolism, thus it blocks the
hydroxylation of THC to its 11-hydroxy metabolite (Bornheim et al. 1995).
The 11-hydroxy metabolite is four times more psychoactive than unmetabolized
THC (Browne and Weissman 1981), and four times more immunosuppressive
(Klein et al. 1987).
CBD provides antipsychotic benefits (Zuardi et al. 1995). It increases dopamine
activity, serves as a serotonin uptake inhibitor, and enhances norepinephrine
activity (Banerjee et al. 1975; Poddar and Dewey 1980). CBD protects
neurons from glutamate toxicity and serves as an antioxidant, more potently
than ascorbate and α-tocopherol (Hampson et al. 1998). Auspiciously, CBD
does not decrease acetylcholine (ACh) activity in the brain (Domino 1976;
Cheney et al. 1981). THC, in contrast, reduces hippocampal ACh release in
rats (Carta et al. 1998), and this correlates with loss of short-term memory consolidation.
In the hippocampus THC also inhibits N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA)
receptor activity (Misner and Sullivan 1999; Shen and Thayer 1999), and
NMDA synaptic transmission is crucial for memory consolidation (Shimizu et
al. 2000). CBD, unlike THC, does not dampen the firing of hippocampal cells
(Heyser et al. 1993) and does not disrupt learning (Brodkin and Moerschbaecher
1997).
Consroe (1998) presented an excellent review of CBD in neurological disorders.
In some studies, it ameliorates symptoms of Huntington’s disease, such
as dystonia and dyskinesia. CBD mitigates other dystonic conditions, such as
torticollis, in rat studies and uncontrolled human studies. CBD functions as an
anticonvulsant in rats, on a par with phenytoin (Dilantin, a standard antiepileptic
drug).
CBD demonstrated a synergistic benefit in the reduction of intestinal motility
in mice produced by THC (Anderson, Jackson, and Chesher 1974). This
may be an important component of observed benefits of cannabis in inflammatory
bowel diseases.

--"Cannabis and Cannabis Extracts:
Greater Than the Sum of Their Parts?
John M. McPartland
Ethan B. Russo"

Simple as fear. It is not only a wonderful experience it is also very terrifying. Psychedelics, if that is even what it is, have been ostracized by society, for whatever reason, politics, philosophy, culture, people making OSs due to their inspiration since the 60s. DMT was known about back then, but not widely known about, back then it was super rare. Getting the main ingredients would have been a pain and required going to South America.

Now that the ingredients are not difficult to get, thanks to the digital information system, more and more people are seeing what this thing is. And many of them that take enough come back with stories right out of a Phillip K Dick novel, or information that seems so New Agey, frequencies, cymatics, fractals, entities, etc, it is too weird or difficult for people to even want to look at this as something more than a really crazy drug and look into what it is doing to the brain. This has been done to small extents in providing details into which serotonin receptors DMT is affecting. What is clear is that one would have to take HUGE amounts of mushrooms to get to what this state is, if it is even possible. This takes a person there in two seconds then ten minutes, you are back. How is it possible?

By all means, I would LOVE for this to be studied by science ; then the Singularity would be right around the corner, mann...JK.

What is religion anyway? Many of them exude the same principles of which I believe have some truth in all of them. Hinduism and Buddhism probably moreso than others but that is just me and what I have seen and learned.

Though there is definitely more verifiable truth to Math and Science. We were built and evolved in this intergalactic system, a system largely devoted to geometry... and an intergalactic system that we do not know much about.

We hardly even know how our brain functions and even less about the subconscious or what happens when we sleep, we know these aspects of our own being impact us, we can study the brain waves, we can hypnotize, we can slip in different molecules into our serotonin receptors, but we still do not understand why. It is a mystery yet to be solved. Much like this phenomenon we might believe as God. Eventually, I believe that we can figure out the science and it will be mindbogglingly simple creating much complexity. Akin to a simple formula as x=abs(x) or y=abs(y) or m=x*x+y*y or x=x/m+cx or y=y/m+cy. But, math will not contain the science of all of the states of being, spirit realms, and matter that do not relate to us on Earth. In my opinion this is only one life. The science of the next could be completely different.

Is God a deity or a they? The programmers of a gigantic reaction that occurs probably in many more places than we can imagine. Who are connected to everything. Maybe, it was a blob of energy that never knew it could create consciousness and the Earth evolved us to be conscious to protect it. Yeah, great job guys.

No one has that great of an idea because if it is real, it would be absolutely mind blowing and beyond all human comprehension, yet probably very simple once we understood it. There is only one way I know to reach out and touch a little bit of it on Earth and it is absolutely amazing and terrifying all at the same time and beyond human linguistics. Science so far is hardly trying to figure it out but it is science, because if all living things ingest this molecule that resides in everything and then is able to see through dimensional portals, into afterlife, through the universe, think it is dead because it is impossible otherwise... well that is Spirit Science something of which is only beginning to come to fruition.

I just think everyone is somewhat right, even Christianity, hehe, as long as they are teaching compassion and love; there is something to it be it group therapeutic, psychological, or really there is something much bigger going on that science has no way of quantifying. Again, I am not saying anyone is right or wrong but that there are truths in everything and to completely disregard them might not be the best approach, even if it is an amalgamation of prior knowledge so very twisted by imperialists throughout these two thousand plus years.

Science is what we need to get behind to begin unraveling these mysteries, even though it is a slow process. I bet that science will eventually grapple to learn that these mystical underpinnings of religions, cults and ancient sacraments... these things Christians call holy light, prayer, God, resurrection, afterlife, angels... fit into the coding of the universe. If string theory and quantum mechanics did not already open that can of worms up. But, I also doubt that whoever created this thing that we are, wants to be seen and would have put up many barriers, knowing full well that its creations would seek them or it out. Or maybe it is the exact opposite....

One would have to be absolutely clinically insane or severely Serotonin deficit (but would that not be the same as clinically "insane"?) if they did not enjoy MDMA / MDA. I can understand why people would not be interested in DMT. It shows one just how little they & we (the general world) know. Comparing MDMA to DMT is like comparing a catholic preacher to a Quantum Mechanics genius that lives on another planet we haven't even visited yet that has lived for millions of years and thinks your ignorance (Not you personally TC, I know you know) is fucking hilarious.

Serious research must be done. The fact that such an extreme divide even exists should be reason enough. I think the American institution must be pathologically insane for even having done so little in the field or else they have and KNOW that society would change for the better and we obviously can't have that happening, now can we?

If everyone starts smoking DMT, now, humanity might evolve to harbor the first generation of telepathic children. Who fucking knows? Whatever the fuck it is, it has been used for ages, it is not Earth like, and it feels like the real "reality", it feels like the future. Though it is apart of everything and every time that has ever existed. It looks a way that I would never ever be able to describe with puny, puny, puny, puny human words. And I used to think LSD was beautiful. PSH!


SMOKE DMT NOW. LOTS OF IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!! POUNDS OF IT

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGTUz4OnzdM

Its serotonin wrapped in a nostalgia capsule. Oh look it that D2 is already installed on this machine, see ya'll in a few days.

>> ^kagenin:

Did it. You gonna tell us what the most popular drugs sifters use are?


Serotonin !

I'll just add some nuance to your assertion below. The issue is not so much that depression is "misdiagnosed." The issue is that depression doesn't have a known physiological cause. That is, there is no anatomical or physiological marker for depression. It's a behaviorally defined disorder. That means it is entirely possible (even likely) that multiple patients all suffering from "depression" (i.e. exhibiting the behavioral symptoms of depression, thus being properly diagnosed) could be suffering as a result of differing physiological problems.

Almost all psychiatric disorders (other than maybe Parkinson's and some other known neurological malfunctions) have this issue. The problem I have with this is our readiness to prescribe physiological interventions for conditions that can't be diagnosed physiologically. While many of these substances are relatively benign, some have the potential to cause extremely problematic side effects (e.g. acute suicidal urges). The real work is going to be in finding better mechanistic level diagnostics.

In the mean time, I think more conservative treatment protocols are warranted. If sugar pills show some efficacy, why not start with those? You could still ramp up to an SSRI or the like when the sugar pill is shown to be ineffective in that patient. Better still are behavioral therapies, e.g. exercise or sleeping schedule changes. At the very least, I think they should be prescribed along with and emphasized just as much as the pills and counseling.

Longterm, I think pharmacological interventions into the brain are somewhat misguided. Serotonin receptors, for instance, are expressed all over your brain. I think more promising are the newer treatments like deep brain stimulation. It has been shown to be extremely effective in disorders like Parkinson's, and trials are already underway in the treatment of depression. Not only do I think the treatment will ultimately be more effective, I also think research into that sort of treatment is more likely to bear fruit in understanding the mechanistic underpinnings of these disorders. Hopefully that will lead to better sub classifications of people exhibiting depressive behavior.

>> ^DuoJet:

I'm inclined to believe that, as is often suggested, depression is very commonly misdiagnosed. This would surely introduce "extraneous variables" into placebo studies as well.

To me this video represents liberalism in society... which is why I want to see what QM says about this. Without liberalism running rampant through the 60's I feel many of these topics would still be taboo. Through liberalism I feel as though consciousness has expanded on many fronts. Although, don't tell that too a business man - they're not supposed to be empathetic with humans who are below them in the hierarchy.

It seems like this video has a couple of things going on. It wants to talk about the evolution of consciousness & how it relates to being bi-polar in our modern world. But, mental illness for the masses in America is just a drug war. "Buy these, don't buy those". It's largely a fabricated industry & consciousness is another story.

As far as I can see on the topic of evolved consciousness - many, many, many more people in liberal cities have evolved. But, I think the internet is a great device so I think if someone is interested in certain aspects of reality they too can evolve their consciousness & thought processes from the middle of no-where in Kansas; if they really care to or know to. I mean we're constantly expanding QM's consciousness - he just doesn't know it yet he's afraid of it!

I was diagnosed with ADHD when I was a teenager by a psychologist... but I may as well have been diagnosed bi-polar. I was pissed off at the world even though I had it all and was fairly sheltered... and that was the problem. It was too peaceful & I knew the world was out there waiting for me to find out the truth. So, I'm not exactly sure if we could say that my affliction was/is the symptom of post-modern evolution of consciousness but just an annoyance of mundane life tangled up with general anxiety.

I definitely think many people could benefit from "alternative medicine". I know it has a new agey bad wrap. I was prescribed both ritalin (legalized speed) & zoloft (what the hell is it? I don't know!) which are obviously fairly potent. I've experimented with herbal shit like 5-HTP which helps produce more serotonin and it works. It's not as potent but if someone doesn't have a serious mental illness it can work for short-term use and is great for people who would rather not turn into a zombie/robot.

As far as weed... I'm not sure if pot is the greatest thing for someone who is "bi-polar" or super depressed... mushies are great for positive consciousness just don't take em when you're feeling low, lol!

Either way, no one can be happy all of the time. We're human after all. Even though I hate the (human capitalist pig waste) fucking world - I am happy & people always tell me I'm super positive hahaha!! They can never know the truth!



As always...

@Boise_Lib, the article is a springboard to other articles.

You claimed that there are no scientific studies suggesting that an NDE can be the result of biological reactions which help the body to cope. This is demonstrably untrue. The section on endorphins—which also mentions serotonin and NMDA—has multiple references alone. Note that I am not saying these studies explain NDEs entirely—just that they exist. The hypothesis is a relatively old one.

The only conclusions I make regarding NDEs are that they are complex, poorly understood, difficult to study, and almost certainly nothing to do with an afterlife. It also makes for a fucking excellent piece of fiction!

http://bit.ly/gNSnlb
says fluoride can act as an neurotransmitter in general, triggering neurotransmitter receptors, apparently all kinds of them.

in presence of aluminum fluoride (alf4-), a receptor-independent activator of g-protiens in cells.