Study Reveals DMT’s Effects on the Human Brain in Unprecedented Detail

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A new study has unveiled how psychedelics achieve their perception-altering effects in the human brain. The research used a powerful combination of brain analysis techniques to provide the clearest picture yet of how the short-acting, but powerful psychedelic DMT (dimethyltryptamine) affects brain activity.



The research was published in the journal PNAS.

DMT: The key ingredient in ayahuasca

DMT has a storied history. Used for thousands of years in rituals and other ceremonies across Central and South America, it is the key active component of the potent psychedelic brew ayahuasca. More recently, the compound was synthetically created by German–Canadian chemist Richard Manske in 1931.

The DMT experience makes it particularly promising as a therapeutic psychedelic. The University of New Mexico’s Professor Rick Strassman, an expert in the compound, describes it as inducing effects like “visions, voices, a seeming separation of consciousness from the body, extreme emotional states and contact with seemingly discarnate intelligences.” But the compound does so over relatively short periods of time as compared to other classic psychedelics such as psilocybin. That makes it much more flexible as a tool for psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy. But no previous study has exploited this short duration to study the effects of DMT on the human brain in high detail before, during and after a DMT trip.



That has all changed with the release of the new paper. “This work is exciting as it provides the most advanced human neuroimaging view of the psychedelic state to date,” said study first author Dr. Chris Timmermann, from the Centre for Psychedelic Research at Imperial College London.

Study Reveals DMT’s Effects on the Human Brain in Unprecedented Detail​

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Published: March 20, 2023
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Ruairi J Mackenzie
A section of banisteriopsis caapi, an ingredient in ayahuasca that extends the brew's psychedelic powers. [Updated March 21, 2023] Credit: iStock

A new study has unveiled how psychedelics achieve their perception-altering effects in the human brain. The research used a powerful combination of brain analysis techniques to provide the clearest picture yet of how the short-acting, but powerful psychedelic DMT (dimethyltryptamine) affects brain activity.

The research was published in the journal PNAS.

DMT: The key ingredient in ayahuasca

DMT has a storied history. Used for thousands of years in rituals and other ceremonies across Central and South America, it is the key active component of the potent psychedelic brew ayahuasca. More recently, the compound was synthetically created by German–Canadian chemist Richard Manske in 1931.

The DMT experience makes it particularly promising as a therapeutic psychedelic. The University of New Mexico’s Professor Rick Strassman, an expert in the compound, describes it as inducing effects like “visions, voices, a seeming separation of consciousness from the body, extreme emotional states and contact with seemingly discarnate intelligences.” But the compound does so over relatively short periods of time as compared to other classic psychedelics such as psilocybin. That makes it much more flexible as a tool for psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy. But no previous study has exploited this short duration to study the effects of DMT on the human brain in high detail before, during and after a DMT trip.

That has all changed with the release of the new paper. “This work is exciting as it provides the most advanced human neuroimaging view of the psychedelic state to date,” said study first author Dr. Chris Timmermann, from the Centre for Psychedelic Research at Imperial College London.

Brain activity analysis

Timmermann and colleagues recruited 20 healthy volunteers, who were given a high-dose injection of DMT (20 mg) and then subjected to two types of brain analysis. They were fitted with an electroencephalography (EEG) cap and placed inside a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanner.

The cap measured electrical signals from the volunteers’ scalps over 31 different sites. At the same time, the fMRI scan detected the movement of oxygenated blood inside their brains as a proxy for brain activity. This allows the team to create a detailed image of their participants’ brain activity. Their trip lasted around 20 minutes in total. Over that period, there were dramatic changes in their brains.

Brain activity is usually segregated into discrete networks. After DMT injection, those networks appeared to break down, meaning that overall brain connectivity increased. This aligns with a previous study of the brain response to psilocybin published by senior author Robin Carhart-Harris. The most significant changes were detected in brain areas linked to high-level cognitive functions like imagination.

Timmermann summarized the findings: “What we have seen with DMT is that activity in highly evolved areas and systems of the brain that encode especially high-level models becomes highly dysregulated under the drug, and this relates to the intense drug ‘trip’.”

The team now hopes to prolong DMT’s psychedelic “peak” through a continuous infusion protocol. Carhart-Harris, now of the University of California, San Francisco, added, “Our results revealed that when a volunteer was on DMT there was a marked dysregulation of some of the brain rhythms that would ordinarily be dominant. The brain switched in its mode of functioning to something altogether more anarchic. It will be fascinating to follow up on these insights in the years to come. Psychedelics are proving to be extremely powerful scientific tools for furthering our understanding of how brain activity relates to conscious experience.”

Reference: Timmermann C, Roseman L, Haridas S et al. Human brain effects of DMT assessed via EEG-fMRI. PNAS. 2023; 120: e2218949120. doi: 10.1073/pnas.2218949120.

This article is a rework of a press release issued by Imperial College London. Material has been edited for length and content.

Correction: The image description erroneously suggested that Banisteriopsis caapi is a natural source of DMT in ayahuasca. Instead, it is a source of monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOIs) that extend the psychedelic experience.
 
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It’s pretty amazing and super intense stuff. I have done it twice. It took away my fear of dying which I have carried with me for 45 years.
Me as well. Ive experienced Ayahuasca countless times. It cured my addiction to pain killers, cocaine, and alcohol. It saved me from blowing my brains out. Theyve proven a rats pineal gland in the brain, which is quite similiar to ours, secrets DMT upon death. Im believe DMT is what death is actually like. Its the most beautiful experience a human can imagine, and nothing to be afraid of. Human language is too primitive to explain it, only art can. Look at Alex Greys work. The experience is light, sound, frequency and vibrations, mathematics, love, communication with other intelligent non-human entities, knowledge. One is never quite the same afterwards. I actually got really into yoga and jiu jitsu directly after. Its like it downloaded something into my brain. The ONLY way im comfortable during an ayahuasca journey is when the lights are out, in complete silence, as i contort my body in yoga positions i didnt even know i could do. Its like a self chiropractic adjustment, while your in a dream. Ayahuasca has taught me we are infinite souls, having a TEMPORARY human 'experience'. Its like your reborn, and life regains its luster and beauty again once we snap back to this reality/dimension. I Think everybody should take ayahuasca a few times a year to refocus. High doses of psilocybin mushrooms is a very very similiar experience to ayahuasca. Im convinced these plants that have been deemed illegal, bring our consciousness to a SPECIFIC destination. 'The other side'. The funny thing is DMT is one carbon atom away from being seratonin. And Dmt is in every single mammal and plant on the planet. Dmt IISSSSSSSS consciousness itself. Is that spark in us all. Its medicine for our soul, if not our soul itself.. I actually see the Egyptian God Horus every time i journey. You will never be the same once you see that Eye, There really IS something powerful watching. The eye of Horus can be broken down mathematically to the Fibonacci Sequence. Ya know, that pretty little spiral in sea shells, sunflowers, hurricanes. It connects you to something completely alien, yet so naturally organic.

The absolute craziest thing about the whole experience is when you come back to reality. THIIIIISSSSSSS life feels like the dream after being in that place. Thats because it is.. If our souls are infinite, the amount of time a human is alive, is just a snap of the fingers in the grand scheme of 'Time'
 

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