Chimps, magic mushrooms and evolution!

[andyandy]

Inspired by this.....
http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2006/07_11_06.html

Using unusually rigorous scientific conditions and measures, Johns Hopkins researchers have shown that the active agent in “sacred mushrooms” can induce mystical/spiritual experiences descriptively identical to spontaneous ones people have reported for centuries.

The resulting experiences apparently prompt positive changes in behavior and attitude that last several months, at least.

The agent, a plant alkaloid called psilocybin, mimics the effect of serotonin on brain receptors-as do some other hallucinogens-but precisely where in the brain and in what manner are unknown.

are there any theories amongst evolutionary biologists regarding chimps' or man's evolution as a result of psilocybin or other hallucinogenic chemical use? psilocybin seems to affect human consciousness on some level - have any experiments been carried out on our hairy cousins? What effect would a mind-expanding substance have on a primate?

I've heard it suggested that religious belief played a role in human evolution....where a shared belief would be the building block for social cooperation.....so is the evolution of man down to a humble fungus?

Perhaps this is already a recognized theory, or perhaps it's all uninformed bumkin.......still it's an interesting thought

 

[andyandy]

oh well......I thought it was interesting......

 

[Axiom_Blade]

Wasn't this the basis of one of Terrance McKenna's books?
(Food of the Gods, I think.)

 

[BPScooter]

I'm interested because I just happen to have Hoffer and Osmond's book "The Hallucinogens" published 1967 (New York: Academic Press) and turned to page 480, and under heading "Psilocybin" the Introduction begins: "Psylocybin is 4-phosphoryloxy-N,N-dimethyltriptamine, the active psychotomimetic present in the hallucinogenic mushrooms found in Mexico. These mushrooms known by Indians and used for many centuries were recently rediscovered by R. G. Wasson and V. P. Wasson in 1957. their discovery brought Heim into this field who accurately described, identified, and named them. ..." This goes on for 20 pages of detail.

So I'm more curious about what on earth Hopkins guys are doing with mushrooms that wasn't already discovered a generation ago. One of the beefs among researchers was that the mass illegalization of psychedelics really did hamper access and publication, so the field might be rather fallow.

I admit I didn't click the link yet, but do summarize if you can. Some have speculated things like the Orphic and Dionysian cults of the ancients were using some sort of ergot-of-rye fungus concoction that was chemically like LSD. No clue whether primates or evolution have been brought into it.

 

[BPScooter]

OK, did click, wow, that's really interesting. A lot of those insights will seem sort of "well, duh" to the tripsters that have some experience with these incredibly powerful drugs. Huxley took psylocibin with Osmond supervising way back, and even Leary I think had the idea of how profound the experiences could be, although in his zeal to spread the good news probably did more damage.

I will be very very interested if this line of research helps illuminate some of the control mechanisms of the brain--Huxley called them the "reducing valves"--that take raw experience and filter out a lot of it so we can go about an ordinary life. I also got a chuckle out of their choice of active placebo--RITALIN! So Ritalin is on some level a changer of consciousness...humm...I thought it was just for hyper kids...


(last 2 posts edited for hasty spelling errors)

 

[andyandy]

here we go....

To summarize: McKenna theorizes that as the North African jungles receded toward the end of the most recent ice age, giving way to grasslands, a branch of our tree-dwelling primate ancestors left the branches and took up a life out in the open -- following around herds of ungulates, nibbling what they could along the way.

Among the new items in their diet were psilocybin-containing mushrooms growing in the dung of these ungulate herds. The changes caused by the introduction of this drug to the primate diet were many -- McKenna theorizes, for instance, that anesthesia (the blurring of boundaries between the senses) caused by psilocybin led to the development of spoken language: the ability to form pictures in another person's mind through the use of vocal sounds.

About 12,000 years ago, further climate changes removed the mushroom from the human diet, resulting in a new set of profound changes in our species as we reverted to pre-mushroomed and frankly brutal primate social structures that had been modified and/or repressed by frequent consumption of psilocybin.

McKenna's theory has great appeal and intuitive strength, but it is necessarily based on a great deal of supposition interpolating between the few fragmentary facts we know about hominid and early human history.

http://users.lycaeum.org/~sputnik/McKenna/Evolution/

There is really two separate theories here

1) that psilocybin or other hallucinogenic use amongst early humans was the source of religious "experience."

2) that psilocybin or other hallucinogenic use amongst primates was a catalyst for their evolution towards humans....

1) certainly seems plausible -
http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press.../07_11_06.html article....

2) seems much more speculative....


One of the striking elements of the Hopkins research is that they seem to have shown that not only has psilocybin a strong spiritual link, but that its effects on the mental state of the user is prolonged and largely positive.....

In the study, more than 60 percent of subjects described the effects of psilocybin in ways that met criteria for a “full mystical experience” as measured by established psychological scales. One third said the experience was the single most spiritually significant of their lifetimes; and more than two-thirds rated it among their five most meaningful and spiritually significant. Griffiths says subjects liken it to the importance of the birth of their first child or the death of a parent.

Two months later, 79 percent of subjects reported moderately or greatly increased well-being or life satisfaction compared with those given a placebo at the same test session. A majority said their mood, attitudes and behaviors had changed for the better. Structured interviews with family members, friends and co-workers generally confirmed the subjects’ remarks. Results of a year-long followup are being readied for publication.

http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2006/07_11_06.html

maybe it should be put in the tap water along with fluoride....

 

[BPScooter]

Right, that's what I meant by the tripsters' insights--prolonged and largely positive. Though it's not a clinical setting, it was discovered by rampant empiricism that these drugs are capable of making great and lasting changes on a human. Evidence: a Grateful Dead concert. These psychic empiricists also discovered "bad trips" and placebo effects and everything else under the sun. I think it's particularly cool how the Hopkins study seemed to have controlled for expectations, explanations, etc. and given the straight hallucinogen and then followed up with much more nuance than the old studies. Those ones, as I recall, were along the lines of "let's give this to some volunteers, see how bad the freak out in our hospital setting, and then work on giving it to the Russkies" or someting. Was it called MK-ULTRA? The one that Ken Kesey and Robert Hunter were part of? I think it was Stanford U.

Hee hee.. maybe these very "normal" Hopkins subjects will come out of this controlled drug study and write a great American novel or a bunch of great song lyrics... ha ha...

 

[BPScooter]

I used the word "fallow" but wasn't sure if it was what I meant, and it turns out to be good--here's what my onboard computer dictionary says:

"Plowed and harrowed but left unsown for a period in order to restore its fertility as part of a crop rotation or to avoid surplus production."

Psychedelic research has been fallow, to my knowledge. Harrowed I have gathered to mean "break up clods, remove weed, and cover seed."

 

[Dancing David]

Using unusually rigorous scientific conditions and measures, Johns Hopkins researchers have shown that the active agent in “sacred mushrooms” can induce mystical/spiritual experiences descriptively identical to spontaneous ones people have reported for centuries.

The resulting experiences apparently prompt positive changes in behavior and attitude that last several months, at least.

The agent, a plant alkaloid called psilocybin, mimics the effect of serotonin on brain receptors-as do some other hallucinogens-but precisely where in the brain and in what manner are unknown.

The last part is not true, psilocybimn is classified as a serotonin agonist, that means it latchs onto the serotonin receptors and causes the, to read positive to the nueron.

Unlike LSD which is a serotonin binder with much less potential to release from the receptor, an agonist will bind and then unbind just like a nuerotransmitter usualy does.

I learnt that in 1987, so it may have changed.

 

[Alphaba]

The last part is not true, psilocybimn is classified as a serotonin agonist, that means it latchs onto the serotonin receptors and causes the, to read positive to the nueron.

Unlike LSD which is a serotonin binder with much less potential to release from the receptor, an agonist will bind and then unbind just like a nuerotransmitter usualy does.

I learnt that in 1987, so it may have changed.

The in vitro and preclinical research program on psychedelics is a very active one since it really started half a century ago. While clinical (i.e. human) research almost stopped during two decades, and is slowly resuming since about 15 years, the preclinical/fundamental side grew unabatted. So yes, things have changed since 1987.

Furthermore, the view you are exposing is quite confusing and I doubt it was held as such by researchers in 1987: What makes an agonist an agonist isn't its kind of binding to the receptor, i.e. competitive (roughly equivalent to reversible) vs. non-competitive (roughly equivalent to irreversible), but its efficacy, i.e. its ability to 'activate' the receptor and one or more second messenger pathway(s). A ligand may perfectly be both an irreversible (non-competitive) binder and a full agonist at a given receptor. Both psilocybin and LSD are competitive binders, and considered partial agonists at 5-HT2A receptors.

For a well done and mostly correct review of what is known today, see: The Neuropharmacology of Hallucinogens: A Technical Overview

 

[BPScooter]

((I thought the funniest part of the definition of 'harrrow' was "break up clods" and "remove weed"))

 

[Nucular]

Interesting stuff. I wonder if this is the beginning of a new era of research into the hallucinogens? It seems like such a massive area of potential for understanding various things about awareness, self, perception, the neurochemistry of consciousness... the mass prohibition I'm sure has put these areas of science back decades.

I always had quite a hard time accepting that there are plants, which you eat, and which induce such odd experiences. I suppose the idea is that they are 'poisonous' plants, and that the hallucingenic chemicals are really sort of neurotoxins, which would put off or kill most animals? Is there any evidence that psilocybin is a good chemical defence, out of interest?

Wasn't this the basis of one of Terrance McKenna's books?
(Food of the Gods, I think.)

Why oh why oh why didn't he call his book Gastronomy Domine?

 

[BPScooter]

Interesting question, Nucular--I don't recall anything offhand about the particular reason that psylocibin shrooms, or any of the others evolved that particular trait. There's probably a vast literature on toxic plants in general, and I bet they deal with it, maybe categorizing different sorts of toxins that aim at different enemies. One would tend to think that these traits were selected *for*--in other words I suppose it's possible that a mutation might occur that was just neutral, and the toxicity is just accidental. I wonder if the effects on the human or mammalian brain are accidental, or maybe they were part of the selection process. Maybe the cavemen cultivated the dang things!

 

[BPScooter]

The Hopkins study was briefly written up in the latest print copy of Scientific American, September of '06. Digest of the main info here, so don't bother looking.

 

[BPScooter]

p. 36, author Charles Q. Choi, volume 295 no. 3 of Scientific American:

Psychedelic mushrooms have for millenia been said to trigger mystical experiences. The most rigorous scientific experiment with the hallucinogen, and the first in 40 years, proved capable of producing mystical states in the laboratory safely. Scientists at Johns Hopkins University selected 36 spiritually active volunteers, who might interpret the experiences best, and disqualified potential subejcts who had a family or personal risk for psychosis or bipolar disorder. One third of volunteers given psilocybin, the mushroom's active component, described it as the most spiritually meaningful experience of their lives, and about two thirds rated it in their top five. Some side effects occured: A third admitted significant fear in the hours following their dose, and some felt momentary paranoia. Two months later 79 percent reported moderately or greatly increased well-being or life satisfaction compared with those given a placebo. Further research could lead to therapies against pain, depression, or addiction, experts commented online July 12 in *Psychopharmacology.*

(edited for bad typing)