Here is a link to an Ayahuasca study by Callaway and Dennis Mckenna with quotes about
Tetrahydroharmine and it's upregulation of serotonin receptors (a positive effect):

https://www.erowid.org/c...ayahuasca_journal3.shtml
hxxps://www.erowid.org/chemicals/ayahuasca/ayahuasca_journal3.shtml

It appears to be one of the major healing components of Caapi.

Some great information, thank you.

Subjectively, it appears to be a strong 5-ht1a agonist, and over 80% of brain 5-ht receptors are 5-ht1a receptors according to Dr. Nichols. Imho, subjectively, due to it's 2-week tolerance but 11 hour half-life, it may have significant 5-ht2a activity as well. There is no tolerance to 5-ht1a agonism, but there is long lasting tolerance to 5-ht2a agonism according to Dr. Nichols. In nature, many 5-ht2a visual agonist are also 5-ht1a agonist in order to balance out each other, yin and yang. However, many man-made molecules of this nature lack this delicate balancing effect. I also remember ron used to call it the "coffee of the harmalas".

5-HT1a agonism is "inhibitory" which is what SSRI's do, by "shutting down serotonin signaling", mescaline and acid also target the 5-ht1a receptors strongly, this blocking of serotonin signals appears to be an important requisite of all the great natural oral entheogens. 5-Ht2a agonism is "stimulatory" and believed to be visually activating to a degree. I have seen persistant afterimages and even slow motion tracers during the 8 hour window of it's activity on certain doses of the material, leading me to believe it has some sort of 5-ht2a agonism due to these visual effects and it's mild stimulatory nature. It is also colorful, increases focus, and during the peak objects seem to shine with their own inner light, difficult to describe these visual effects which English has no names for, there is significant music enhancement when combined with the other Ayahuasca components, this beautiful music enhancement is absent if THH is omitted. It is best to use it in conjunction with harmine to balance out the mild pleasant stimulation with mellowness imho, just as Nature intended. Harmine=mellow, thh=mildly stimulating like coffee, harmaline=sleepy.

It's a rare find.

...alright, here is something we wanted to ask. The reason is that we do not currently own vacuum pumps, buchner filter, magnetic stirrer..etc. So we want to try something on the caapi analog brew side. Question:

If we was to make a nice, thick, dense, rue brew (with some ascorbic acid), and then move the pot to the cool verandah, then drop into it a handful of 99.9% (clean/brushed) magnesium ribbon shreds, cover the (pyrex) pot with a lid, and stirring it every couple of hrs over a period of 2 days....do you think that a considerable amount of harmaline would be reduced to THH? If yes, could the strained brew then be consumed 'as is'?


..is that true?

edit: what is the min PH required for the magnesium to sufficiantly release hydrogen into the brew? Would there be need to add more ascorbic acid after a some time?

Good thinking there Intezam, I would say it may or may not be possible however in my experience, only because when I followed Professor8's experiment with 30 crushed vitamin c tablets and 4 hours of stirring at boiling temps, zero percent of it converted as none of the ending material stained blue, i ended up with my original yellow-green staining under blacklight harmaline in the end. You might try using pure vitamin C powder as he recommends in his thread however. I got discouraged after the vitamin C tablet experiments, and decided not to pursue the pure vitamin C experiment. A blacklight is your best friend when performing these experiments. Just use a q-tip to take up some of your solution at any point, hold it under blacklight, it you observe a change to a light blue color under UV rays, then you are on the right track. I have seen 1lb of pure vitamin c powder for sale for less than $20. Your experiment may work if you use pure vitamin C powder, just give it a shot and use a blacklight, let us know how it turn out..I have run out of harmaline for future experiments unfortunately.

hmmmh yes, tho it wasn't about vitamin c reduction, but largely about magnesium reduction (using ribbon - not powder).
If professor 8 come to mind, just: ̶v̶̶i̶̶t̶̶a̶̶m̶̶i̶̶n̶̶C̶̶ ̶̶a̶̶s̶̶c̶̶o̶̶r̶̶b̶̶i̶̶c̶̶ ̶̶a̶̶c̶̶i̶̶d̶̶ vinegar so with permission, we'd like to uphold the question?

A metal reduction on a simple rue brew seems unwise, as it would also chemically alter other active alkaloids (the quinazolines) as well as other stuff. Do a manske before reduction, at the minimum.

You sure? We love, no we looooooooooove simple brews. What will the vasicine & vasicinone be altered into? And what would happen to the harmalol? We know that not much happens to the harmine (it stays harmine after reduction). But yes, we don't know, thats why we asking. Anyways, we have to know for sure if & what the other alks will be altered into, in order for intezam to skip this idea once and for good....if we can avoid the manske, for sake of experimental archeology, if we will?

The harmine doesnt react because of resonance stabilization. When double bonds go in rings they stabilize eachother and in harmine they are all in ring systems.
In harmaline one double bond is just hanging out there, unprotected on one side. Its the one thats reduced.
Similarly, on vasicine and deoxyvasicine a double bond is unprotected

Same go with vasicinone too, unless that carbonyl enolates, which I doubt would happen much (is there a phD in the house?)


Harmalol

could probably reduce to, um, 7-hydroxyharmane probably.

As for pharmacological and toxicological effects of any of these obscure critters, good luck finding that info

Auxin said:
Very interesting Auxin, good to know, what a chemistry guru!

thx Auxin, it's difficult to find information (even more so understanding the information, tho we try..) we found this: http://www.beilstein-jou...publicId=1860-5397-9-135 ...but it didn't really help

edit: given the fact that the quinazolines in p.harmala are already quiet toxic as they are and we partook in these nevertheless, and due to the fact that intezam lacks an uterus at the current rate, would there be reason to assume that the post reduction toxidity will increase plentifold or even be poisenous (deadly), or could/would one just proceed boldly bio essaying a small amount?

Hard to say unless we know what exact compounds are created with the reduction.

Quinazolines (not the unknown reduced compounds) are not toxic AFAIK, in fact they have several medicinal properties. They seem to only be dangerous for pregnant women.

In either case its very easy to separate them from the harmalas by doing the manske precipitation. all it takes is mixing 100-120g of salt per 1l boiling harmala solution and let it cool down slowly over a few hours. Then your harmala hcl will precipitate and quinazolines stay dissolved in the liquid.

Thx. We really feel there is a need to unleash p.harmala's great, fantastic potential using the simplest methods, those, that do not involve lab gear/extensive knowledge. We have a hunch that this could be better (due to the amount of harmaline) than harvesting arm-thick 25 y.o. red caapi trunks and more ecological, ethical, even when wild-harvested. It would also be very economical.

While pure THH is surely wonderful to obtain, many people will be more than very, very happy to have a simple working harmine/thh mix tek with a touch of harmaline, but separating the zinc is a pain....so what about using the magnesium ribbon?

Supposed, intezam did the manske precipation and dissolved the precipated *harmala hcl in some water with vinegar (or ascorbic acid), then added some (cleaned, 99.9%) magnesium ribbon shreds to the solution and moved the pyrex dish to the verandah, covered it with it's lid, ocasionally stirring it with a chop stick. Letting this sit and bubble on the verandah for 2-3 days...could the resulting liquid be drank 'as is'?

*harmalol will not precipate, right?

Simplicity, why not:
Not-separating harmine from harmaline, but leave them together, eliminating separation step, and end up after reduction with a mixture of [harmine] + [a-stripe-of-unreduced-harmaline] + [THH].

Only few want to use THH alone, and are willing to combine it with harmine anyway later on.
I realize that keeping track of the composition ratio will suffer. But heck, the unclear harmine-harmaline separation degree of success, and the unknown success of effectively harmaline reduction to THH, are a game spoiler too.
The simplicity would be to be simply contempt with just having some of your harmaline converted and feel fine with that.
Or would a non-separated (harmine from harmaline) mix make up for compromising the harmaline-reduction process in some way?

At the end of the excellent thread by Endlessness on Caapi Analysis, posted whatever new info I could find on THH and it's relative levels in an analyzed brew and what Callaway found when he analyzed 32 different caapi variety see (2):

(2)"Phytochemical Analyses of 32 Banisteriopsis Caapi and 36 Psychotria Viridis"
by Callaway, Ph.D., Brito, M.D., Neves, M.D.

https://www.dmt-nexus.me...osts&t=29967&p=4

One thing I wanted to add to this thread was that I recently bioassayed Bobinsana (Calliandra angustifolia) which is one of the very few plant sources of THH. I drank a tea of 5 grams bark powder steeped in boiling water, made like regular tea, no heat heavy extraction. During this experiment I was also MAO-A inhibited by 1 mg Methylene Blue, which I take everyday for anxiety/depression (although I'm switching back to afobazol for this purpose due to increased farsightedness and corneal toxicity worries).

Anyway Bobinsana contains only THH I believe, and I will say it was most definately active. My main purpose in the bioassay was to see if the plant had dmt/5-meo-dmt/bufo/etc. but there was no tryptamine psychedelia present. What did develop though was the most pleasant clearheaded serene betacarboline experience I have had. I have smoked caapi leaves and consumed the vine in tea, and have smoked and drank and eaten passionflower as well. This was clearly THH by tregar's description in this thread an elsewhere. I especially noted the 5ht1a agonism which I have much experience with having dosed Albizzia Silk Tree daily for depression, and experiences with 5-meo-mipt, oral 5-meo-dmt, and other plants on this research tangent. It was lovely, long lasting (i'm at 5 hours now, I drank it earlier today) which fits with tregar's 8 hour duration description, and I felt increased tactile pleasure (my furry blanket felt splendid!) strong antidepressant effect, an expanded more open headspace, definite energy flow up the spine and through the chakras like flowing water.

In short this is the most impressive non-hallucinogenic plant I have encountered and I hope to use it daily as an augmentation to my MAOI routine, which I am thinking it is used for in South America. When a brew needs more THH body/mindfeel I believe they would reach for this plant by my experience with it. Another added benefit is that if others have the same experience I have with this plant then extraction and isolation of THH from caapi might be unnecessary when whole plant Bobinsana appears to have it as the sole active chemical in considerable quantities.

The tea tasted delicious as well.

Very interesting and new to me thanks for the report