u/AlwaysReady1
A 2026 mega-analysis in Nature Medicine mapped how DMT and other psychedelics rewire brain connectivity across 500+ brain scans. Now a research team from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine wants to find out if your brain's own DMT production does the same thing at a lower level
A major study published this year in Nature Medicine combined 11 independent neuroimaging datasets covering DMT, psilocybin, LSD, mescaline, and ayahuasca across 267 participants and over 500 brain-scanning sessions. The clearest shared finding is that all of these compounds increased connectivity between higher-level brain networks (default mode, frontoparietal) and sensory networks (visual, somatomotor). So far, it's one of the most comprehensive picture we have of what psychedelics do to brain circuit function.
The interesting part is that our brain already has the enzymatic machinery to produce DMT on its own. The enzymes INMT and AADC have been identified in human brain tissue, and trace DMT has been detected in cerebrospinal fluid. If exogenous DMT rewires brain connectivity in the dramatic ways the Nature Medicine study documented, what is endogenous DMT doing at lower concentrations?
A research team is trying to figure this out by using simultaneous fMRI and EEG to scan people and look for distinct neural connectivity patterns, called "brain biotypes," that correlate with endogenous DMT activity. The hypothesis is that people with different levels of natural DMT synthesis might have measurably different brain architectures at baseline. So, instead of measuring tissue concentrations (which has produced mixed results across labs), the approach is to look at the functional output. If endogenous DMT matters, it should leave a detectable signature in how the brain organizes its networks.
u/AlwaysReady1 — 4 days ago
I'm not sure how much science is discussed in here, but recently, I came across a research proposal that involves a genetic screen that I thought was interesting.
The core experiment: overexpress TBPH (the Drosophila ortholog of human TDP-43, the protein that aggregates in ~97% of ALS cases) specifically in retinal neurons, then use targeted RNAi to knock down candidate genes in the Imd/AMP signaling pathway. The readout is whether systemic antimicrobial peptide expression drops when specific relay genes are silenced.
The biological question behind it is whether the neuroinflammation caused by TDP-43 proteinopathy stays local or actively signals to peripheral tissues to mount an immune response. If the screen identifies specific genes that are required for this neuron-to-body inflammatory relay, that narrows down the signaling mechanism considerably.
For those familiar with the Imd pathway, I'd be interested to hear which relay candidates you'd prioritize. The pathway has some well-known branches and there's the question of whether humoral vs. cellular immunity would be differentially affected.
Being able to find a cure for ALS would be so huge, that disease is just so devastating.
u/AlwaysReady1 — 9 days ago
▲ 0 r/PeterAttia
So one of the things I've gotten from Peter over the years is that the bar for "does this intervention actually do anything?" should be way higher than most wellness people set it. Especially when it comes to inflammation and metabolic markers. Like, show me the hs-CRP, show me the IL-6, show me you actually measured something and didn't just vibe about it.
I was reading through this study proposal that revolves around a 16-week feasibility pilot on adults with cancer doing WHM (breathing + progressive cold exposure), led by Oxford researchers. They are trying to do some exploratory measurements on hs-CRP, IL-6, HOMA-IR, HRV, fatigue, sleep and mood.
They study proposed references a couple of papers from reputable journals such as PNAS and Nature on voluntary immune modulation, and cold-induced tumor suppression via BAT activation.
Do you guys think this could be legit? Research on Wim Hof for cancer sounds a bit far-fetched but the researchers seem to be legit.
Here's the full proposal if anyone wants to read through the actual protocol: https://www.researchhub.com/proposal/4459/researchhub-proposal-wim-hof-method-whm-cold-exposure-for-cancer-instructor-guided-citizen-pilot
u/AlwaysReady1 — 15 days ago
u/AlwaysReady1 — 19 days ago