Up Against the Wall of Neurotransmitters

After eating some plants with the CEO and Strategy Director of MAPS (the public benefit corp. taking MDMA through FDA clinical trials for PTSD), we were struck by the chemicals adorning our kitchen wall at work.

It reminds me of Michael Pollan, in his new book This is Your Mind on Plants: “How incredible is it that plants have evolved the precise molecular key to unlock your consciousness?”

It’s not an analog or mimic. Plants and fungi and bacteria synthesize our exact neurotransmitters, perhaps some evolutionary inheritance from signaling in the early days of federating single-cell organisms. 90 percent of human serotonin is made by the bacteria in our gut, not in our brain. Gut bacteria produce and respond to the same neurochemicals—such as GABA, serotonin, norepinephrine, dopamine, acetylcholine and melatonin—that the brain uses to regulate mood and cognition. Respect, on the kitchen wall.

Every culture on Earth has discovered and used a plant or fungus, often several, that alters consciousness. (Pollan notes one exception: the Inuit who live where nothing interesting grows)

Tim Ferriss interviewed Michael Pollan about his new book, and it’s quite good, here.