Hi nexians.

I've read and heard that psychedelics increase glutamate in the prefrontal cortex. Stress also increases glutamate. Too much glutamate kills neurons by overstimulation. Yet I have not ready anything about psychedelics being excitotoxins. Are they? I don't see why they wouldn't be. I do see how this effect may be counteracted however by the increased BDNF they provide...

no.

the psyches do not cause the extended high levels of depolarization needed to elicit excitoxicity.
you're basically talking about strokes and irreversible inhibitors.
high doses of alpha-thujone may do it

So the key factor here is the length of time the psych is active? You said the word "extended" which kind of implies that. How long would a psych have to be active for it to cause excitotoxicity? Or did you mean the word in a different sense (not time)? I'm just wondering about the glutamate connection here. High levels of glutamate are neurotoxic (right?) and psychs cause high levels of it (not high enough?)....

Sorry for my lack of understanding...

not high/extensive enough

and think of it like audio signals...if the cell depolarization level gets too high, it's kind of like audio clipping..with audio signals, if the amplitude is large enough, it can damage the speakers. same principle, as it applies to neurons.


if psychedelics caused excitotoxicity, they probably wouldn't be touted as being safe; they'd be labeled 'neurotoxins'.

Ok, cool. Thanks benzyme