Your Brain Contains A Psychedelic Drug That Could Help With Strokes

Dimethyltryptamine, better known as DMT, is best known to most people as one of the most powerful psychedelic compounds on Earth, capable of producing intense visions and altered states in people who take it. What far fewer people know is that the human brain naturally produces it in trace amounts, and researchers have just published findings in the journal Science Advances showing that this endogenous DMT may play a meaningful protective role after a stroke, the second leading cause of death worldwide and a condition for which current treatment options remain severely limited. The study was led by researchers at the HUN-REN BRC Institute of Biophysics and the Semmelweis University Heart and Vascular Centre in Hungary, who found that DMT treatment significantly reduced the volume of brain tissue death and the formation of cerebral edema in a rat stroke model, and also repaired the blood-brain barrier, the brain's critical protective layer that controls which substances can enter brain tissue and that is typically severely damaged during a stroke.

The mechanism behind the protection appears to involve DMT's action on Sigma-1 receptors, specialized proteins found throughout the brain and immune system. When these receptors are activated, DMT reduced the production of inflammatory cytokines, the signaling molecules that drive the damaging inflammatory cascade that often causes as much harm to brain tissue after a stroke as the initial oxygen deprivation itself, and also reduced the activation of microglia, the brain's resident immune cells, which in excess can accelerate rather than repair stroke damage. At the same time, it improved the function of astroglial cells, the support cells that maintain the brain's structural integrity and chemical balance. Co-first author Judit Vigh said the dual action of DMT, protecting the blood-brain barrier while reducing brain inflammation, represents a novel and complex approach that could complement existing treatments. Co-lead author Mária Deli put it simply: it is amazing how we can always turn to nature to find ingenious solutions for health problems. DMT is already undergoing clinical trials to aid stroke recovery, and this study is the first to fully describe the mechanisms by which it may be working.

Source:https://www.earth.com/news/psychedelic-compound-dmt-may-help-the-brain-survive-a-stroke/