Description

Immediate dispatch from Somerset. Nice older book in good condition. Some tanning and marking due to age. Hardcover. English. See images for condition.

About the book >.>.> Ayahuasca is related to a group of chemicals known as harmala alkaloids. These are hallucinogens which work in a particular way and have an effect on the pineal gland an organ that is important to the materia medica of Ayahuasca. The pineal stores and secretes melatonin and serotonin. Melatonin is directly related to seasonal changes undergone by the body as a result of changing patterns of sunlight; with the increase of melatonin in the body as a result of less or no light (i.e. in the winter or at night while asleep) the subject succumbs to drowsiness. There are also longer-term effects of melatonin which are related to sexual maturation. Serotonin on the other hand is a neurotrans- mitter which is stored in the synapses and has its greatest concentration within the pineal gland. It facilitates the speedy promotion or inhibition of nervous responses. These two chemicals are linked. Their connection with ayahuasca is that the drug contains beta-carboline alkaloids which inhibit monoamine oxidase (MAO) an enzyme (usually found in the gut) which is essential to the breakdown of monoamines that are found in food and which could disturb the balance of our monoamine neurotransmitters in the brain. Serotonin and other neurotransmitters are rendered inactive by MAO but when the MAO is itself broken down by beta-carboline there is a consequent build-up of serotonin which when in excess in the pineal can be converted by certain other enzymes into a chemical (5-MeDMT) that has strong similarities to DMT and which has similar hallucinatory properties. Furthermore it has been shown that the biochemistry and molecular structures of some hallucinogens (such as the harmala group) are remarkably similar to that of neurotransmitters such as serotonin. (MP)