while doing some research on self-experimentation (actually identity-experimentation is more accurate, i’m interested in developing some insight regarding understanding my own [and by extension one’s own – we’re very similar, you and i] affective relationships with environmental elements [a la Kurt Lewin’s Force Field Theory], and my cognitive biases- new year’s resolution…) i found a series of scientific american articles.
in the article on Alexander Shulgin, an octogenarian chemist known as the world’s foremost psychonaut, i read that “…rodents will happily ingest most intoxicants and narcotics —from marijuana to heroin—but not the headier psychedelics.”
while rats have something similar to our pre-frontal cortex (the place in our brain where dreams, plans, hallucinations, and other mental simulations are made) they don’t have a fully developed pre-frontal cortex as we do. i find this interesting.
i also find it interesting that the same article mentions “…Roland Griffiths of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, one of the researchers who is restarting basic research into psychedelics. His lab has shown that psilocybin, the active ingredient in the variety of fungi known as magic mushrooms, can bring on lasting feelings of well-being. This may indicate that it could be harnessed to help clinically depressed or addicted patients.”
i think i’ll catch that wave of volunteerism sweeping across the country.