#11: 🗺 Mapping Psychedelic Trips to the Brain
A study of ~7000 hallucinogenic experiences connects descriptions of altered consciousness from drugs to neurotransmitters in the brain
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💪🏼 Fighting Aging with NAD+ Precursors
📈 BioDAOs are boosting biotech investments
🗺 Mapping Psychedelic Trips to the Neurotransmitters in the Brain
📚It’s About Damn Time by Arlan Hamilton
💪🏼 Fighting Aging with NAD+ Precursors
Your body has two main energy-carrying molecules, adenosine triphosphate (ATP) and nicotinamine adenine dinucleotide), NAD+. NAD+ levels decrease as we age, while ATP levels remain the same.
It is not fully understood why NAD+ decreases as we age, but a recent study showed that NAD+ is used up more quickly in animals as they get older.
NAD+ is essential for an epigenetic reaction called deacetylation, where a small chemical group called an acetyl-group is removed from proteins, such as histones.
A well-studied group of enzymes called Sirtuins require NAD+ to catalyze their deacetylase activity. Sirtuins are involved in a variety of biological processes, most importantly the transcription of genes, programmed cell death and aging.
Benefits of raising NAD+ levels include reversing neuronal degradation and improving neural plasticity. It is possible to boost NAD+ levels through diet and exercise, and supplementing with NAD+ precursors to reverse signs of aging.
NAD+ precursors are the building blocks for NAD+. Several forms of Vitamin B3 have been identified as NAD+ precursors, such as Niacin, Nicotinamide riboside (NR) and Nicotinamide (NAM) and nicotinamine mononucleotide (NMN).
NMN has gained a lot of notoriety to raise NAD+ levels, and is mentioned many times in Dr. David Sinclair’s book, Lifespan. Several studies have demonstrated the use of NMN for reversing age-related dysfunction, and improving cognitive and motor problems associated with age-related decline.
If you want to experiment with supplementing your NAD+ levels with NMN, be sure you are buying from a reputable supplier. A recent report shows that a number of NMN supplements sold on amazon inaccurately displayed the amount of NMN in the product, and some contained no NMN at all. Additionally, it is always advisable to check with your doctor before starting a new supplement regime.
Who’s commercializing this?
1️⃣ Wonderfeel, announced pre-clinical studies of its novel NMN supplement, Youngr™NMN, a molecule to nurture and augment the effect of NMN.
2️⃣ MetroBiotech developed a microcrystal form of NMN called MIB-626.
📈 BioDAOs are boosting biotech investments
A key challenge in biotech development is access to funding. Cryptocurrency is gaining traction amongst academics as a third pathway to fund their research, outside of public grants and venture capital.
By leveraging online networks of individuals interested in a common goal, like increasing healthspan & lifespan, decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) are forming around specific topics.
Spearheaded by Swiss company Molecule, VitaDAO, a DAO created by Molecule to fund longevity research has raised over $10 million through a token sale ($VITA), and plans to add another $4 million in institutional funding through it’s Institutional Genesis Raise from venture capital. Some of the first institutional funds to be accepted into VitaDAO come from pharma company, Pfizer, and venture capital fund, Shine Capital.
The first disbursement of VitaDAOs funds went to Dr. Morten Scheibye-Knudsen’s project at the University of Copenhagen to investigate pharmaceutical drugs for effects on lengthened lifespans. Inspired by the effects of metformin, a drug taken regularly by diabetics and showed that the diabetics taking metformin live longer than their counterparts not taking the drug, he dove into the health records of 7 million Danish to identify if any had taken prescription drugs and then proceeded to live a longer lifespan.
Over the last year, VitaDAO has funded 11 projects through two funding mechanisms, equity-financing and Molecule’s novel funding mechanism, the IP-NFT. By linking intellectual property (IP) to a non-fungible token (NFT), ownership of the IP can be fractionalized and owned by multiple participants - the inventors, the funders and participants in the DAO.
Following the momentum of VitaDAO, several other life-science DAOs are popping up to fund and accelerate scientific research. More than 19 life-science DAOs are listed in Dr. Joceylnn Pearl’s DeSci Wiki. Of these DAOs, some are hyper-focused on funding research in specific areas such as HairDAO focusing on funding to cure hair loss, while some have an investment thesis with a broader initiative such as AxonDAO focusing on medical investments in neuroscience.
While some DAOs intend to act like investment funds and invest using existing structures and equity-financing, some DAOs, like VitaDAO, are leveraging IP-NFTs, which have been received with a mix of enthusiasm and skepticism.
Critics of the IP-NFT are apprehensive that trading securities in the form of IP-NFTs could suffer if the DAO entity closes and/or the DAOs token value plummets. In this situation, the universities that have secured a deal via an IP-NFT may end up with an unprecedented legal case dealing with a security from a failed entity.
However, I could see the situation being resolved similarly to IP from a university that was licensed to a company which fails. In this case, the university would have the opportunity to buy full rights back from the closing company.
Despite the criticism, university Technology Transfer Offices are open to the IP-NFT structure. VitaDAO has issued 4 IP-NFTs and closed 7 equity-deals.
🗺 Mapping Psychedelic Trips to the Neurotransmitters in the Brain
In a recent study, scientists mapped descriptions of psychedelic experiences to the brains of subjects through gene expression analysis of neurotransmitters, in an effort to understand psychedelic-induced altered states of consciousness and find patterns across the experiences.
The study included 27 drugs and investigated 40 neurotransmitter subtypes across 6850 trips. The most frequently used words from free-form trip testimonials were analyzed using natural language processing tools.
Four leading factors were described across the study - ego dissolution, auditory sensation, visual themes and emotional themes.
Across the trip experiences, ego dissolution was described with prevalent words such as universe, space, world, consciousness, existence, and reality. Many of these words appear as an effort to describe mental expansion. Additionally, the presence of some words describing the presence of an “other” such as alien, being or spirit, which are characteristic of a mystical experience.
The neurotransmitters linked most strongly were D1, 5-HT7, KOR, 5-HT5A and Sigma-1, which were tightly linked with the drugs DMT, salvinorin A, 5-MeO-DMT and ketamine.
The third leading receptor-experience factor was visual themes, described in words such as patterns, color, eye, and suggested changes in normal vision with words like, moving, waves, tracers and swirling. These words were linked with the serotonergic receptors 5-HT2A, 5-HT2C and 5-HT1A, and the drugs DOI, 2C-T-7, 2C-D, 2C-C.
Many subjects reported auditory sensations with words such as pitch, sound, tone, buzz, and voice(s). This was linked to the serotonin receptor 5-HT1A. These experiences were overwhelming with the DiPT drug.
The emotional themes described included words like, friends, love, dancing and depression. These experiences were linked to drugs such as DiPT, MDMA, MDA and ketamine.
This large-scale mapping of the psychedelic experience uncovered themes across the drugs which may be useful in the future for better drug classification.
📚 Book of the Week
It’s About Damn Time by Arlan Hamilton.
If you don’t know Arlan Hamilton already, well…it’s about damn time you do. She is an absolute powerhouse in the VC world, having started the first VC fund for underrepresented founders, Backstage Capital.
She built her fund from the ground up, while being homeless. At one point she was sleeping at the SFO airport while taking meetings with LPs in the Bay Area. Now she’s invested in over 200 companies, founded by people who identify as women, People of Color, or LGBTQ.
Arlan openly shares her knowledge in her book and her podcast, Your First Million.
⚡️ Check this out
Beluga whales’ heads are SQUISHY. It’s all explained here.
I shall call him Squishy, and he shall by mine, and he will be my squishy. - Dory
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