Ayahuasca retreats are all the rage these days, rising in popularity over the last few years. Defined as a “doorway to inner worlds that allows us access to higher states of consciousness and the experience of spiritual awakening,” these retreats are frequented by thrill-seekers from Silicon Valley, Hollywood and other places, all wanting to get a piece of a brewed concoction traditionally used by indigenous people for their ancient religious ceremonies. Made from a vine plant called Banisteriopsis caapi, drinkers usually experience short-term hallucinogenic episodes.
And now thanks to a team led by Michigan Medicine, rich people from Beverly Hills no longer have to go all the way to South America to experience a “life-changing” hallucinogenic episode. The team recently discovered that dimethyltryptamine (DMT), the active ingredient responsible for these psychedelic visions, naturally occurs in the mammalian brain, including us humans.
“DMT is not just in plants, but also can be detected in mammals,” said Jimo Borjigin, Ph.D., of the Department of Molecular and Integrative Physiology, whose interest in DMT came about accidentally.
René Descartes, an ancient philosopher, first claimed in the seventeenth century that the pineal gland is the “seat of the soul.” A small pinecone-shaped organ that’s located deep in our brain’s center, it’s been cloaked in mystery ever since. However, modern scientists now know that it controls melatonin production.
Borjigin, however, after seeing a mid-90s documentary made by Rick Strassman, Ph.D. with the University of New Mexico School of Medicine, went on a different route, following Strassman’s claims that the pineal gland makes and secretes DMT. This led to her contacting Strassman, suggesting that they work together to test his hypothesis.
Through a process called microdialysis, the two were able to confirm the presence of DMT in mammalian brain. She then set up an experiment with her graduate student Jon Dean, the paper’s lead author, to discover how and where DMT is synthesized.
“With this technique, we found brain neurons with the two enzymes required to make DMT. They are also found in other parts of the brain, including the neocortex and hippocampus that are important for higher-order brain functions including learning and memory,” said Borjigin.
Nevertheless, the team believes more research is needed to find out its specific function in our brains.