Good news! Low dosage is the trick (reminds of the often derided homeopathy)!
"A natural psychedelic may do more than alter perception. A new study found that at sub-hallucinogenic doses, DMT shielded the brain from stroke damage in animal models, reducing inflammation, preserving the blood-brain barrier, and speeding recovery. ...
A new study by researchers ... has investigated whether DMT, a naturally occurring psychedelic compound, could protect brain cells from damage caused by stroke in animal models. The results hold great promise for the development of a human treatment. ...
Neurons and other brain cells, which modeled the blood-brain barrier (BBB), were subjected to oxygen and glucose deprivation to simulate the conditions of a stroke. DMT was added either before or after this deprivation to test both preventive and therapeutic effects. In animal studies, rodents had their middle cerebral artery occluded, a standard stroke model in animals.
After stroke onset, DMT was administered intraperitoneally (into the abdominal cavity), followed by a continuous infusion for 24 hours, to see if it reduced brain damage and improved recovery. The researchers examined post-stroke cell survival and death rates, the size of areas of dead brain tissue (infarct), behavioral outcomes such as motor coordination and cognitive function, and inflammatory and neuroprotective signaling pathways activated by DMT.
What they found across cell and animal models was encouraging. DMT-treated cells exposed to stroke-like conditions showed significantly less cell death compared to untreated controls. In animals, brain damage was reduced – infarct volumes were notably smaller when DMT was administered after a stroke. Treated animals recovered motor function and cognitive performance more quickly and more fully than untreated, control animals. DMT appeared to suppress harmful inflammatory responses while promoting protective cellular pathways that helped cells resist stress and programmed cell death (apoptosis). ..."
From the abstract:
"N,N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT) is a psychoactive molecule present in the human brain. DMT is under clinical evaluation as a neuroprotective agent in poststroke recovery. Yet, its mechanism of action remains poorly understood.
In a rat transient middle cerebral artery occlusion stroke model, we previously showed that DMT reduces infarct volume.
Here, we demonstrate that this effect is accompanied by reduction of cerebral edema, attenuated astrocyte dysfunction, and a shift in serum protein composition toward an anti-inflammatory, neuroprotective state.
DMT restored tight junction integrity and blood-brain barrier (BBB) function in vitro and in vivo. DMT suppressed the release of proinflammatory cytokines and chemokines in brain endothelial cells and peripheral immune cells and reduced microglial activation via the sigma-1 receptor.
Our findings prove that DMT mitigates a poststroke effect by stabilizing the BBB and reducing neuroinflammation.
Such interactions of DMT with the vascular and immune systems can be leveraged to complement current, insufficient, stroke therapy."
A natural compound against stroke? Psychoactive agent protects brain vessels and reduces inflammation (original news release)
N,N-dimethyltryptamine mitigates experimental stroke by stabilizing the blood-brain barrier and reducing neuroinflammation (open access)
Fig. 1. Effect of DMT on infarct size and barrier integrity in a rat model of stroke.
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