Another factor normally protecting the body from pineal production of psychedelic amounts of DMT resides within the pineal gland itself. A particular kind of small protein, first discovered in blood, has been shown to interfere with the activity of the DMT-forming enzymes. The pineal has quite high levels of this protein, a sort of "anti-DMT." If this inhibitor itself were blocked, DMT formation is more likely. Where better to provide an anti-DMT for preventing potentially dangerous excessive DMT formation than where it is made—in the pineal gland?

Dr. Strassman is a very nice guy; you could try asking him directly through his website.

And I'm no scientist, but doesn't MAO (monoamine oxidase) break down DMT, which is why when consumed orally we need to also ingest a MAOI (monoamine oxidase inhibitor)? So MAO could be the anti-DMT of which you speak.

We're looking at an enzyme that creates DMT by combining or modifying some precursor drug, sort of the opposite of what MAO does.

The theory presented here is that there is some compound in this body, that acts as an inhibitor of the enzyme that makes DMT. I imagine the direction this is going is that, under circumstances, the body stops producing this compound, allowing the brain to suddenly synthesize much more DMT than it normally does (giving the mythic 'endogenous DMT dump,' ).

I have serious doubts about this. Even if such a compound did exist, I'm not sure stopping it's endogenous production would suddenly cause the N-methyltransferases to start pumping out DMT.

Blessings
~ND

Data from psychosis research also support this contention. Individu-
als with schizophrenia received pineal gland extracts as an experimental
treatment in the 1960s. Their symptoms improved markedly. The expla-
nation for this finding was that the pineal extracts provided patients with
an additional dose of the anti-DMT that their own pineal glands lacked.
Thus, they were better able to combat pathologically high levels of DMT,
and their psychotic symptoms improved. 4

Pg. 87

The next paragraph goes on to say:


The citation given is:
L. Bigelow, "Effects of Aqueous Pineal Extract on Chronic Schizophrenia," Biological
Psychiatry 8 (1974): 5-15

Apologies, I am unable to find an electronic version of the full text. I'll look into obtaining and scanning a hard copy when I get the chance.

Investigated the finding that extracts of beef pineal glands have therapeutic value in schizophrenia. 10 19-31 yr old chronic schizophrenic patients were given daily intramuscular injections of either aqueous pineal extract or of placebo in a double-blind clinical study. The degree of psychosis as measured by a 28-item nurses' rating scale was reduced significantly in 5 patients. When all 10 patients were considered as a group, extract treatment was superior to placebo (p < .005). The degree of improvement in most cases was modest or consisted of accelerating an apparent trend to improvement. Since the material given is derived from a biological source, results may offer a clue to the etiology of some forms of schizophrenia. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

Besides, there were some studied carried out in the 60s on psychotic children using LSD that improved their condition dramatically, some were actually brought out of a psychotic episode.

The citation given is:
L. Bigelow, "Effects of Aqueous Pineal Extract on Chronic Schizophrenia," Biological
Psychiatry 8 (1974): 5-15

Apologies, I am unable to find an electronic version of the full text. I'll look into obtaining and scanning a hard copy when I get the chance.

2
Neuroscientists believe this barrier to pineal activation exists because it would be problematic for an animal to experience its environment as "dark" during daylight hours. Since the pineal normally releases melatonin only at night, daytime melatonin release would "feel" as if it were dark at the "wrong" time, and the animal would be disoriented. However, this explanation is weak. Daytime melatonin secretion is hardly "dangerous" enough to merit such a complex and efficient secu rity system. Melatonin effects are not immediate, but rather take hours to days to materialize. In addition, daylight almost instantly suppresses melatonin production to near zero, returning the system to baseline before any internal disruptions occur.

However, consider what might happen if stress easily triggered the pineal to produce DMT, rather than melatonin. DMT is physically immobilizing and produces a flood of unexpected and overwhelming visual and emotional imagery. Certainly, frequent bursts of DMT release would be much more dangerous for an animal than would be those of melatonin. It may be that melatonin is so hard to make during the day because any breach in the pineal security system is intolerable. The pineal erects a barrier to inordinate stress that protects equally everything behind it. So, one set of circumstances in which pineal DMT may form is when stress-induced catecholamine output is just too great for the pineal shield to withstand.

It also is possible that the pineal security system does not function normally in psychotic individuals. There are strong indirect data supporting this idea. Stress worsens hallucinations and delusions in psychotic patients. DMT levels in those patients are related to the degree of psychosis—the more intense the symptoms, the higher the levels of DMT. We know that DMT also rises in animals exposed to stress. More common levels of stress induced catecholamines may overwhelm inadequate pineal defenses in psychosis, thus producing too much DMT. This DMT then brings on or worsens symptoms in psychotic patients. 3

Another factor normally protecting the body from pineal production of psychedelic amounts of DMT resides within the pineal gland itself. A particular kind of small protein, first discovered in blood, has been shown to interfere with the activity of the DMT-forming enzymes. The pineal has quite high levels of this protein, a sort of "anti-DMT." If this inhibitor itself were blocked, DMT formation is more likely. Where better to provide an anti-DMT for preventing potentially dangerous excessive DMT formation than where it is made—in the pineal gland?

Data from psychosis research also support this contention. Individuals with schizophrenia received pineal gland extracts as an experimental treatment in the 1960s. Their symptoms improved markedly. The explanation for this finding was that the pineal extracts provided patients with an additional dose of the anti-DMT that their own pineal glands lacked.
Thus, they were better able to combat pathologically high levels of DMT, and their psychotic symptoms improved. 4

Here is the full text from sections referenced 2-4 in Chapter 4 of TSM.

Reference Number 3 is listed as:
Robin M. Murray, Michael C. H. Oon, Richard Rodnight, James L. T. Birley, and Alan
Smith, "Increased Excretion of Dimethyltryptamine and Certain Features of Psychosis. A
Possible Association," Archives of General Psychiatry 36 (1979): 644-49.

and 4 is the one previously listed:
L. Bigelow, "Effects of Aqueous Pineal Extract on Chronic Schizophrenia," Biological Psychiatry 8 (1974): 5-15.

The only reference to a protein present in these papers is in the references section of #3, which mentions the following paper:
Boarder MR, Oon MCH, Rodnight R: Mass spectrometric identification of N-monomethyltryptamine following incubation of tryptamine with brain protein and S-adenosylmethionine or 5-methyltetrahydrofolic acid. Biochem Pharmacol 25:2109-2112, 1976.

That paper is kind of a dead end as far as the "anti-DMT" protein search goes. It does mention a "dialysed supernatant protein" obtained from rat brain and gives the following reference for it:
Boarder, M.R. and Rodnight, R. Submitted to Brain Research.

A quick google scholar search turns up a paper that appears to be the one referenced:

Boarder, Michael R., and Richard Rodnight. "Tryptamine-N-methyltransferase activity in brain tissue: a re-examination." Brain research 114.2 (1976): 359-364.

This one only states that they used a "dialysed supernatant protein" from rat brain, human brain, and rabbit lung respectively. However it makes no mention of the makeup of those proteins and their use of these proteins is actually in demonstrating the ability of the brain to biosynthesize methylated tryptamines rather than inhibit them.

I also did some independent searching around scholar to see if I could identify this protein found in blood and present in the pineal that "has been shown to interfere with DMT forming enzymes." There is extensive research on using bovine and buffalo pineal extracts with schizophrenics and on rats, but I was unable to find any relevant citations to back up Dr. Strassman's claim.

It is rather curious the previous and following paragraphs are cited, but the "anti-DMT" one mysteriously isn't, particularly with the "has been shown" line included in there.

I'm beginning to think ND may be correct, we can't very well track down a reference that does not in fact exist. Maybe someone should shoot Rick an email and ask him wutsup withat?