Finally the much-awaited Barker and Strassman study regarding the detection of dmt in the pineal gland of rats is out (see attachment)! The article is a tad complicated for laymen but in a nutshell:

What they did
The researchers inserted a thin needle in the vicinity of the pineal gland of live rats, were flushing the needle with liquid and were collecting the liquid. They were sort of rinsing constantly out whatever the pineal has, and were sending for analysis what was rinsed out. Samples were collected during daylight hours, for two hours. This is the principle of microdialysis, more about it there: http://www.labautopedia....ialysis:_An_introduction


What they looked for
Most of the stuff that has to do with tryptophan metabolism, collectively:

2MTHBC, 2-methyl-1,2,3,4-THBC;
DMT, N,N-dimethyltryptamine;
DMTNO, DMT-N-oxide;
HDMT, 5-hydroxy-DMT;
HIAA, 5-hydroxy-IAA;
HNATA, 5-hydroxy-N-acetyl-TA;
HNMT, 5-hydroxy-N-methyl-TA;
HTA, 5-hydroxy-TA; HTHBC, 6-hydroxy-THBC;
HTRP, 5-hydroxy-tryptophan;
IAA, indol-3-acetic acid;
INMT, indole-Nmethyltransferase;
MDMT, 5-methoxy-DMT;
MIAA, 5-methoxy-IAA;
MNMT, 5-methoxy-N-methyl-TA;
MTA, 5-methoxy-TA; MTHBC, 6-methoxy-THBC;
NMT, N-methyl-TA;
TA, tryptamine;
THBC, 1,2,3,4-tetrahydro-β-carboline;
TRP, tryptophan

What did they find?

They found hydroxytryptamine, melatonin consistently in all of their samples, and tryptophan, 5-hydroxy-N-acetyl-tryptamine, 5-hydroxy-indol-3-acetic acid, indol-3-acetic acid, tryptamine and dimethyltryptamine. Quoted from the study:


What does it all mean?
It means that DMT, along with its precursor tryptamine and its metabolite indole-3-acetic acid can be found in the pineal gland of live rats (duh).

What it doesn't mean
The results do not demonstrate synthesis of dmt in the pineal gland, only its presence. Presence of tryptamine in the pineal dialysate means that dmt could get synthesized in the pineal. The case for synthesis would be stronger if they had detected NMT, the other dmt precursor.

Any caveats?
The technique itself (as per usual...). Albeit they were microdialysing the vicinity of the pineal gland (with the presence of melatonin in dialysates confirming that they were indeed probing the pineal) it is important to note that dmt or other tryptamines could be coming not from the pineal but, say, blood vessels. I would like to see if a control microdialysis at another region of brain would give similar or different results.

Wow. Thanks!

correct me if i am wrong, but hasn't NMT presence been shown in human pineal?

Has it? I do not know - is there a published study for this? Or do you mean the INMT enzyme, which was only reported in the pineal gland of macaque monkeys in a dubious abstract two years ago?

Regardless however, the barker-streassman study did not detect NMT in the rat pineal...normally for every almost every biological pathway one should be able to demonstrate presence of the intermediates, even if they are present in minuscule amounts.

INMT, the protein (enzyme?) which is responsible for methylating things was shown to be in the brains of primates i think is the study you might be a-talkin' about.

ALSO GOOD JOB INFUND!
THANK YOU!
now when I condescend hippies i can say "no no no, there's no evidence that it's made at birth or death or dreaming or made in the pineal, but yes, it is *IN* there."

Enzymes are, in their vast majority, proteins

I am a bit cautious about the INMT study in primate pineal as it is not published, i.e. not peer reviewed. Given that the data are 2 years old, I wonder why they have not been published... anyway their data in this abstract are open to quite a few criticisms, so it's be better not to cite their findings as true at the moment.


Thank you as well! I believe that one big step would be not to demonstrate that it is in the pineal, but that there is plenty of it or that there is a place of its synthesis.

Think about it, if dmt, tryptamine and indoleacetic acid are anyway found in the blood circulation, then they will be present wherever blood reaches, be it pineal or the toes.

Not to draw a thick broad line, but I guess I'll say it anyways. DMT is also present in urine. To assume urine itself synthesizes DMT is certainly unfounded.

I understand people want to believe in certain things. I just wish scientific studies weren't misinterpreted more often then they were understood. People only reading abstracts and conclusions may be one of the reason why this occurs.

Not that I am trying to imply that DMT is not synthesized in the pineal. Just restating that there is no convincing evidence for it yet in rats, and certainly not in human beings.

Infundibulum's posts in this thread clearly explain what one can and cannot conclude from this study.

But imagine if they hadn't found any dmt, the hypothesis that dmt is synthesized in the pineal gland would have been falsified (more or less). But the hypothesis passed the test and still stands. This is how science works, small steps towards the truth.

And as Infundibulum has explained, further research still needs to be done and the end result might go either way, but I for one see this as a win for the hypothesis.

no..
i can't seem to find it upon a cursory google search, but i remember something about someone pointing out that DMT might be in the pineal because NMT and 5-MeO-DMT were detected in the pineal, but benzyme corrected him saying that the 5-MeO-DMT came from a different metabolic pathway than from NMT>DMT>5-MeO-DMT

i will do some digging and see if i can find it.

i do not remember any scientific literature, but the way it was presented seemed to imply it was fairly well known.

EDIT: further searching only reveals more info about 5-MeO-DMT (Guchhait RB's 1976), which benzyme said is unrelated to INMT.

i could have sworn there was something about NMT as well... but after searching it seems that it is either buried in the depths, or my brain manufactured false information (the latter probably being the most likely).

nevermind then, disregard me and carry on

What's the point if you're only going to test one organ ? DMT has been found all over the place in all kinds of organs, yet nobody ever said X organ must therefore be the producer of DMT, but when it's found in the pineal gland, somehow this is extra noteworthy? What about the rest of that rats brain ?

EDIT: By the way I realise he is not literally saying the pineal produces DMT. But since he didn't test the other tissues, it seems kind of leading...

I'm still just waiting for proof that DMT is actually just the molecule that regulates toenail growth, and and that all the spiritual stuff is just kind of a fluke.

Then all my theories will be vindicated

Also I´m wondering, as always, why did they not test for 5-MeO-DMT and bufotenine, since these two are also potent endogenous psychedelics that people somehow tend to ignore..

Excellent point, and it is also a point that often gets overlooked.

I would normally assume that just by looking at the chromatograms of the pineal dialysates they could identify peaks corresponding to 5meo and bufotenine - but on the other hand I know little on the practical aspects of MS, especially when used in conjunction to such fine experiments as the ones the authors described.

I'm wondering why they're not also incorporating ELIZA and Western blot assays (like Thompson et. al, 1999), as these would be very selective and sensitive methods for determination of these metabolic byproducts, as well as their respective mRNA transcripts (very important to pinpoint in-situ production). Don't get me wrong, I love LC-MS (worked with it for two years), but looking for biomolecules, one needs to think like a biochemist.

as you've mentioned before, the blood carries many molecules with it. just because a certain
compound is found in a certain tissue, it doesn't necessarily mean it's produced there.

Given this statement is there a reason why it wouldnt be found in the pineal gland? Cause we already know it's produced in the body somewhere, or multiple places, so that would conclude you would find it everywhere in the body, which lends me to believe all this study concludes was that they did not find any evidence that it is produced in the pineal gland. Right?

Exactly - as an analogy,think of endocrine hormones hormones: hormones are are found all over the body and through blood circulation reach almost every tissue, but are produced from specific organs, i.e. T3 and T4 from the thyroid; steroid hormones from gonads and the adrenal; gonadotrophins from the pituitary and so forth.

Hey thanks a lot for a breakdown of the study and a link to the paper. Just a random thought on the presence/synthesis DMT-pineal front. Barker and peeps also looked for pinoline (6-methoxy-THBC) in the pineal gland and didn't find any evidence of it there, or its metabolites. This is interesting as correct me if I'm wrong but it is known to be synthesised in the pineal gland (at least at certain times or under certain conditions), and yet no evidence was found for its presence or synthesis there. So in this case absence of evidence may not be evidence of absence. Just a thought anyway. Talking to another researcher, can't remember who it was maybe McKenna or Frecska, they hypothesised that DMT production takes place in the lungs, as there is a good presence of INMT enzymes there, and it could be circulated very rapidly to all parts of the body from there.

They did look for bufo and 5-meo, they just called them a little differently.

HDMT, 5-hydroxy-DMT

MDMT, 5-methoxy-DMT

I wonder how different their findings would have been if they had done the study at night and/or when the rats were asleep? This study definitely deserves some follow up.

Damn it endlessness and infundibulum. Please stop masturbating when reading DMT studies!! You're overlooking important stuff!!

i don't believe that to be the case...