Ecstasy Branches
Venice Sassone
There is nothing in the world more beautiful than the forest clothed to its very hollows in snow. It is the still ecstasy of nature, wherein every spray, every blade of grass, every spire of reed, every intricacy of twig, is clad with radiance.
We ended the day with a perhaps too late attempt at sledding the big hill just down the road. The sun was already melting the lone tire track down to gravel, making for a few scrapes down the hill. Not as fast as previous snows, but still not bad.
The real wildlife, especially the birds, have been very active since the storm. A group of American crows stopped by this morning, no doubt looking for some of the scattered seed. They are wary, so when I walked by the window they all took off, including the one that was brave enough to land in the yard. We checked out the track trail and tried to decipher what had happened. Look at it and decide for yourself before reading further to see if you agree with our conclusion.
I think the crow landed on the left side of the image, leaving a deep imprint of its body when it hit the snow (and a wing tip print on the far left). It then hopped up and turned to the right, leaving some wing tips seen at the top of the image. It took off from a position facing the right edge of the image, leaving two deep footprints and a sweep of its wings on both sides as it leapt off the snow. Let me know if you conclude something else.
It's no surprise that psychedelic drugs such as LSD and ecstasy alter brain function, leading to the drugs' "trippy" effects and possible hallucinations. But now, researchers have shown that these drugs can also physically alter the brain, changing the structure of brain cells.
The new study was done on nerve cells in lab dishes and in animals, but if the findings also hold true in humans, these drugs could have surprising benefits for patients with certain mood disorders, the researchers said.
In the study, published today (July 12) in the journal Cell Reports, Olson and his team found that psychodelic drugs increase the number of branches and dendritic spines on neurons, and also increase the number of synapses, or connections between neurons.
"Psychedelics are able to actually [change] neuronal structure, [and] that's really important because [brain] structure controls function," Olson told Live Science. That means it's possible that these drugs could help repair brain networks in the prefrontal cortex that might be damaged in conditions like anxiety and depression, he said.
Olson said the findings were comparable to how a drug called ketamine, which is used primarily as an anesthetic but is gaining popularity as a means of treating depression, worked. "Ketamine is probably the state-of-the-art, fast-acting antidepressant," Olson said. "When we first started this work, there really [weren't] many options for promoting [changes to the brain's structure]. Ketamine was one of the few."
Indeed, a major focus of the team's research has been to find compounds that have ketamine-like effects, to better understand the mechanism by which these drugs can change the brain, he said. Some psychedelics might have less addictive potential than ketamine, Olson added.
Yasemin is a staff writer at Live Science, covering health, neuroscience and biology. Her work has appeared in Scientific American, Science and the San Jose Mercury News. She has a bachelor's degree in biomedical engineering from the University of Connecticut and a graduate certificate in science communication from the University of California, Santa Cruz."}), " -0-10/js/authorBio.js"); } else console.error('%c FTE ','background: #9306F9; color: #ffffff','no lazy slice hydration function available'); Yasemin SaplakogluSocial Links NavigationStaff WriterYasemin is a staff writer at Live Science, covering health, neuroscience and biology. Her work has appeared in Scientific American, Science and the San Jose Mercury News. She has a bachelor's degree in biomedical engineering from the University of Connecticut and a graduate certificate in science communication from the University of California, Santa Cruz.
My research group has been studying the effects of psychedelics on neuronal structure and function, and we found that these compounds cause neurons to grow. A lot. Many of these compounds are well-known and include lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), psilocin (from magic mushrooms), N,N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT, from ayahuasca) and 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA, aka ecstasy).
These are among the most powerful drugs known to affect brain function, and our research shows that they can alter the structure of the brain as well. Changes in neuronal structure are important because they can impact how the brain is wired, and consequently, how we feel, think and behave.
Like ketamine, psychedelics have shown promise in the clinic for treating neuropsychiatric diseases. The DMT-containing herbal tea known as ayahuasca produces fast-acting antidepressant effects within a day, psilocybin eases the anxiety of terminally ill cancer patients and MDMA can reduce fear in those suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Our recent papers suggest the intriguing possibility that psychedelic compounds and ketamine might share a common therapeutic mechanism.
The biochemical machinery that regulates mTOR activity is intricate. As we tease apart how psychedelics and other psychoplastogens turn on mTOR signaling, we might be able to engineer compounds that only produce the therapeutic effects on neuronal growth while bypassing pathways that lead to undesired hallucinations.
Many diseases, such as depression and anxiety disorders, are characterized by atrophy of dendritic branches and spines. Therefore, compounds capable of rapidly promoting dendritic growth, like psychedelics, have broad therapeutic potential. The number of papers demonstrating that psychedelics can produce therapeutic effects continues to grow every year.
This article was written by David E. Olson, assistant professor, department of chemistry and department of biochemistry & molecular medicine at the University of California, Davis. It was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article here.
The University of California opened its doors in 1869 with just 10 faculty members and 40 students. Today, the UC system has more than 280,000 students and 227,000 faculty and staff, with 2.0 million alumni living and working around the world.
In video games the act of creation and the act of destruction are usually closely allied. In Minecraft one button builds and another breaks. So too in the plastic blockbusters of the LEGO series, where a mini-figure's flailing arm can smash a car, house or space-rocket into a shower of bricks, then follow up with mystical wave that rebuilds the debris into a new object, for new purpose. In Sim City et al you must clear and level the land before laying your first road or power plant. In Tetris you build a wall to destroy a wall to build a wall again. In first person shooters, you remove foes in order to gain ground.
In Prune, an elegant, loose puzzle game for iOS made by former Call of Duty designer Joel McDonald, destruction and growth are more closely allied than ever. Here, like the tender, patient gardener, you must snip the branches of a sapling as it shoots from the ground in order to encourage healthy growth elsewhere on the plant and, eventually, flowering.
You begin with a small, light-starved patch of glowing ground. An upward swipe of the finger will pull a silhouetted shoot from the soil. The process, once begun, cannot be stopped. Branches begin to sprout, twist and elongate in random yet predictable ways. Soon growth slows, quickened again only when you snip off a branch, an act that replenishes the plant's store of energy, and redirects growth into its remaining limbs. In this way you can shape and lure the tree, drawing it in a specific direction toward a life-giving ray of light. Touch the light and the relieved branch will begin to flower. Harvest enough petals and the stage is complete.
This central aim remains a constant throughout the game, but is made more intricate with the addition of dangers such as glowing orbs (which, if touched, will cause your tree to catch fire and progressively die, from the branch slowly down to the root), or buzz saws, which will rasp through the wood. Later, you must grow your trees in multiple directions, using one branch to, for example, push against a pressure pad to create an opening through which another branch can then stretch and flower. Like its trees, Prune unfurls in elegant, hypnotic ways.
Unlike, say, the art of bonsai, your aim in Prune is not to encourage beauty (although beauty is often a by-product of your tinkering). Rather you encourage life. The game is in no rush to hurry you from one stage to the next. Its rhythms match those of its subject matter. Here, effect follows cause only ponderously (the camera, for example, takes the time to follow your plant's falling petals, to enjoy the moment of noiseless, miraculous botanical triumph). Once you meet your petal target, you move on only when you're ready. This lazy tempo provides pockets of space in which to reflect. It's something close to the experience of the bonsai crafter, who in his miniature trees sees his resilience, persistence and effort reported. Here too you have chance to ponder your triumphs and mistakes, and see the ways in which you have helped nature, and the ways in which you have hindered its ambitious advances.
The game's lessons are simple and familiar. In Prune we see that often parts of us have to die for other parts to flourish. We see the value of tenacity when faced with adversity. We see that, with care, it is possible to blossom wherever we find ourselves, even in the most seemingly difficult of starting points. We see the ways in which humankind stands in opposition to nature (the factories, the pollution, the buzz saws) and the ways in which humankind can be nature's steward. We find that, in the words of Jeff Goldblum, life finds a way. Wilted clichs all, perhaps, but in this context they seem freshly alive, freshly potent.
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