The Profound Potential of DMT

this region of the brain known as the parietal temporal occipital cortex or PTO plays an essential role in spatial awareness and integrates visual information from the occipital cortex auditory information from the temporal cortex and somato sensory information from the parietal cortex to help determine the location of your body in three dimensions of space the PTO is part of the transmodal dissociation cortex which are multiple regions of the brain all working together for complex sensory processing in a fascinating 2023 study Dr Christopher Timmerman out of Imperial College London gave 20 healthy participants 20 milligram of DMT in an IV while recording simultaneous EEG fmri before during and after the trip the goal was to study the connectivity of the PTO as well as many other brain regions during this powerful psychedelic experience while measuring the electrical and metabolic activity of the brain and what they found is absolutely fascinating let's do this DMT stands for NN dimethyl tryptamine and it's a powerful psychedelic compound found all throughout nature including inside of you in the form of endogenous DMT DMT has been found in human cerebral spinal fluid and Trace Amounts of it in human blood and urine a precursor to DMT synthesis has been found in the lungs with some suggesting the lungs to be the primary source of endogenous DMT it's been speculated for years that the human pineal gland produces DMT but there is very little evidence to show that at this time exogenous DMT can be synthesized in a laboratory setting or extracted from Plants throughout nature it's typically consumed by vaporization but it can also be smoked injected intravenously uh injected intramuscularly or it could even be swallowed orally as long as it's done so with the presence of an MAO inhibitor Dr Timberman and his crew decided to go with the intravenous route because if you're going to give someone a powerful psychedelic strap an electrod net to their head and then shove them in an fmri machine I mean that's going to be the way to do it they began taking the simultaneous EEG fmri measurements 8 minutes before the DMT bullet was delivered and then stopped 20 minutes after the delivery now you may be thinking that's a pretty short amount of time I mean that's basically a half an hour but that's one of the most amazing things about DMT is that despite being a very powerful psychedelic the trip is extremely short usually lasting around 10 to 15 minutes using what's known as the fmri Bold signal it's possible to determine blood flow and oxygenation to various brain regions suggesting the connectivity of those regions if you remember back to the intro of the video I described a network of brain regions known as the parietal temporal occipital cortex or PTO with the fmri they were able to determine how metabolically active the PTO was at rest along with multiple other networks in the brain when they compared the resting activity of these networks to the activity during the peak of the trip they found something really fascinating the Integrity of the established networks like the PTO became less cohesive and the boundaries of separate networks throughout the brain actually became less segregated so that means the the neurological lines were blurred in regards to their connectivity so put another way regions of the brain that started working together that normally don't and regions stopped working that normally do now there's a few notable exceptions to this the salience frontoparietal and default mode networks were actually shown to have an increase in functional connectivity these networks are found all over the brain so it's not really easy to show you exactly where they are but it's important to note that they're responsible for highlevel cognitive functions like attention decision making and what's known as self-referential processing which is essentially processing information about yourself this suggests that DMT has the ability to not only dis regulate established networks but open up connectivity between networks all while increasing connectivity in regions associated with attention decision making and information processing that's relevant to oneself it's super cool and also just the tip of the ey Iceberg real quick I want to thank the sponsor of today's video Hensen shaving this razor is awesome as many of you will know I'm a veteran of the United States Marine Corps and shaving was an everyday thing regardless of where I was I can't tell you how many times I've taken a dry razor to my face while I was out in the field covered in dirt sweat crayons look I've used cheap razors expensive razor I've used razors that have like 35 different blades and could mow your lawn once it's done with your face this razor is better than all of them Henson shaving is a family-owned Aerospace parts manufacturer that has made parts for the International Space Station and Mars Rover and now they're bringing Precision 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shaving docomomo for you and use code anatomy and you'll get 2 years worth of blades free with your razor just make sure to add them to your cart that's 100 free blades when you head to hn s o n sh v.com anatomy and use code Anatomy I've been using this term transmodal quite a bit so it's probably best that I at least explain what a modality is in Neuroscience a modality is in reference to a stimulus so for example vision is one modality as is hearing touch scent and taste if a brain region only processes one modality it's what we call unimodal a good example of this would be the visual cortex which I'm circling here and this is what processes visual stimuli if a brain region processes multiple modalities it would then be called multimodal for example there are parietal and temporal regions that fuse visual auditory and somat sensory information transmodal regions process information in an abstract way inde depent of a specific modality so an example of a transmodal region would be the singulate cortices so this is the anterior singulate and then we have the posterior singulate they belong to the frontal lobe or frontal cortex and these regions receive information from unimodal regions and multimodal regions and it integrates them into higher order representations like Concepts goals and rules this information handoff is a neurological iCal hierarchy information is first processed at the unimodal and multimodal levels and then given to the transmodal levels for highlevel processing Dr Timmerman and his crew discovered that DMT essentially compresses this hierarchy making them less distinct basically unimodal multimodal and transmodal regions began to look functionally similar this doesn't necessarily mean that unimodal regions began processing abstract information since that would require them to start processing information in more complex ways then they're likely capable of doing but it could suggest that transmodal regions began processing information at a more grounded level to my understanding it's just not possible at this time to determine exactly what this means without speculating but it does seem to be important to that psychedelic experience and could provide some real insight into the nature of Consciousness and cognition as a whole because Dr Timmerman and crew also discovered that the regions most affected by DMT happen to have the highest density of Serotonin 5ht 2A receptors if you've seen our video on LSD then you're already familiar with the 5ht 2A receptor but for those who haven't seen it or if you just need a quick refresher let's do a rundown of Serotonin and its receptors serotonin belongs to the class of monoamine neurotransmitters along with dopamine norepinephrine and epinephrine it's derived from the amino acid tryptophan and is produced in both the brain and digestive tract serotonin participates or even outright regulates a wide range of effects in the body including appetite control bone health blood clotting sexual function temperature regulation digestion social behavior impulse control learning memory as well as the regulation of sleep and mood serotonin binds to a group of receptors known as The 5ht receptors these are G protein coupled receptors and lien gated ion channels found all throughout the nervous system there are many subtypes of 5ht receptors and the 5ht 2A receptor is specifically significant to us because besides binding to serotonin it also binds to numerous psychedelics including DMT LSD psilocybin siloc and mesculin are also known to bind to 5 ht2a receptors so we know this receptor plays a massive role in the Psychedelic experience previous positron emission tomography or PET Imaging Studies have mapped the distribution of 5ht 2A receptors in the human brain finding the highest density of 2A receptors are in higher order cortices such as the posterior singulate cortex or if I flip this over we can see the temporal cortex Dr Timberman found that the these same regions were most affected by DMT in terms of their increased connectivity and this lines up with previous data and provides further evidence that the 5ht 2A receptor underlies DM's effect on the brain and Consciousness one of the reasons I find this so fascinating is because the 5 ht2a receptor is implicated in many neuros psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia depression psychosis and hallucinations if we focus on depression for a moment select serotonin reuptake Inhibitors or ssris interact with the 5ht 2A receptor in a way that seems to modulate therapeutic effects I'm jumping ahead here a little bit but psychedelics seem to show real promise in treating neuros psychiatric conditions now whether or not DMT is the best psychedelic in each use case is yet to be seen But dialing into the effects that psychedelics have on these receptors is going to be very beneficial to our overall understanding in the long run so far everything we've disced discussed has been a result found in the fmri data so let's now take a look at what Dr Timberman found in the EEG data because it's equally fascinating now we did a pretty detailed breakdown of eegs and their Associated brain wave States in a previous video on meditation so we'll go ahead and Link that above if you'd like to know more about these states and what they're associated with but the super condensed version is that an EEG measures the electrical activity of neurons as neurons fire they do so in repeated rhythmic fashion and the synchronized voltage spikes are detected by the EEG and show up as waves slower waves such as Delta and theta waves are more associated with sleep and drowsiness while alpha waves are associated with internal Focus meaning your eyes are closed but you're awake and focusing on something in your mind beta and gamma waves are much faster with beta waves being more associated with normal wakefulness and gamma waves being associated with high degrees of focus and attention Dr Timberman and crew discovered that DMT significantly decreased Alpha power when compared to Placebo alpha waves are typically associated with an idling state of the brain you can think of it as though regions of the brain are waiting to be activated remember Alpha Waves become stronger when the eyes are closed and the focus is more internalized a decrease in Alpha power indicates less neuronal synchronization meaning the brain is no no longer idling but is instead able to enter into different brain wave States in unused regions on top of this they also discovered an increase in Delta and Gamma wave power in the frontal and occipital regions of the brain which are responsible for both high and low-level processing such as rational thinking and visual processing remember delta waves are typically found during sleep so it's interesting to see delta waves increase in the frontal cortical regions gamma waves have however are typically seen in wakeful and alert states that require a high degree of attention this to me is such an exciting finding DMT increased those low frequency delta waves while also increasing high frequency gamma waves so you have this increase in gamma bursts in the occipital region with this increase in the low frequency Delta in more of like a relaxed brain wave state in the frontal High reasoning areas combined with like this you know destabilization of you know neuronal activity throughout the entirety of the brain I mean this just fits the DMT experience perfectly a DMT trip while shorten duration is nothing short of chaotic users describe being shot through like a collidoscope of geometric patterns that are just like bursting and just like going all over the Place into the depths of space until they break through some kind of barrier and meet interdimensional beings it's it's incredible I mentioned this in the LSD video but it Bears repeating here we at The Institute of human anatomy are not advocating for recreational DMT usage it says schedule one drug here in the United States meaning the outside of research purposes its possession manufacturing and distribution are prohibited this is an extremely powerful substance and given everything that we've discussed it's probably not going to surprise you that this trip can have a profound effect on the user even if they're not really able to properly talk about it afterwards similar to you know the struggles of explaining a dream after it's happened but the overall mental state as well as the set and setting matter tremendously this is not something to take lightly with that said what excites me most personally about psychedelic research is the potential around neuroplasticity and managing traumatic experiences DMT has shown to connect regions of the brain in unique ways opening up the possibility for emotional and psychological connections that might not be able to be made without it there's a long way to go with psychedelic research but studies like this and other similar studies with other substances are extremely promising in the fact that they can help us unravel aspects of Consciousness that could help us develop non-addictive treatments for patients and they could potentially overcome or at least manage severe psychological issues My Hope Is that responsible psychological research like this will continue to grow throughout the world DMT and psychedelic research is growing here in the United States medical and psychiatric institutions through Yale University and John's Hopkins are diving into psychedelic research to see potential therapeutic possibilities again though there's a long way to go with this and it's important that we do so safely and responsibly along the way but you got to admit it's really cool stuff thanks for hanging out with me for a bit I'll see you in the next [Music] video

Channel: Institute of Human Anatomy

Views: 572,204

Keywords: DMT, Dimethyltryptamine, psychedelic, psychoactive, Brain, consciousness, serotonin, effects, uses, Neurochemistry, altered states, spiritual journey, Serotonin, receptors, neurotransmitters, brain chemistry, cognitive enhancement, brain function, Consciousness exploration, scientific studies, Altered states of consciousness, transcendental experiences, Visual effects, sensory perception, Transmodalities, cross-modal processing, cognition, perception, brain functions, Brain wave states

Id: VozUvhyXK2A

Length: 17min 33sec (1053 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 29 2023