Post: #21

You seem to take offense at my attempts to clarify thing an awful lot, GWTW. I'm so happy you appreciate the time spent on this.

If you snort seratonin in any appreciable amount I can guarantee it will kill you, not because it enters the blood stream but because it overstimulates the receptors that bind it, causing serotonin to release in huge amounts in the brain and preventing the reuptake of serotonin, which is deadly.

But if you disbelieve this and wish to try it anyway, be my guest. But I don't recommend it.

Diane

Post: #22

(10-30-2009 9:04 AM)Diane999 Wrote:  You seem to take offense at my attempts to clarify thing an awful lot, GWTW. I'm so happy you appreciate the time spent on this.

If you snort seratonin in any appreciable amount I can guarantee it will kill you, not because it enters the blood stream but because it overstimulates the receptors that bind it, causing serotonin to release in huge amounts in the brain and preventing the reuptake of serotonin, which is deadly.

But if you disbelieve this and wish to try it anyway, be my guest. But I don't recommend it.

Diane

No offense taken. The "seeming" may be due to my natural personality. ;)

Here's what is puzzling me. The ratio of the volume of the mucosa in the respiratory tract to the volume of blood must be several orders of magnitude. I'm guessing at least 5, although you can provide a much more accurate estimate. The concentration of inhaled chemicals can be expected to be orders of magnitude higher in the mucosa than the blood.

If concentrations of an inhaled chemical are not enough to cause significant changes in blood chemistry, the effects would be either through the transmission of nerve impulses to the brain, or the initiation of other chemical processes that could change blood chemistry. One would expect that either of these processes would be self limiting, because creatures that poisioned themselves through their own processes should be at a reproductive disadvantage and selected against.

Your thoughts?

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Later...

OK, the logic on concentrations above holds only for a transient exposure of the mucosa. If the atmospheric concentration persists for long enough all the body fluids should (absent active processes opposing) eventually come into equillibrium concentrations. This could be the case if one is wearing the source.

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I see you are soliciting comment on oils to go with your cops. I posted inquiring about spearmint, but then erased it. I'll ask here out of the public view. Have you considered that to see if it has any boost effect?

Post: #23

It's interesting Diane - I've often noticed strong self-effects from Pheromones myself - Not quite to the extent that you do... but still quite a bit more significant than most of the AD users tend to report.

I wonder if being ADD somehow makes us more culpable to feeling phero self-effects

ADD does reduce impulse control... perhaps that reduction makes us more sensitive?

I'm only mildly ADD (low in the spectrum) - Low enough that teachers just though I was bored through more pre-adult schooling... I suspect that if I went through school again today a teacher would have suggested ritalin to my parents (it seems like they are putting every kid on ritalin these days)

Post: #24

Well pheromones are a very diverse group of molecules.... sure they all have a steroid back-bone structure, but everything else about each of them is different.

I've been reading white papers and research papers, and compiled research about why the neurosteroids (which the pheromones that show actual self-effects have turned out to be, btw), and particularly looking at why they have bimodal and trimodal effects based on concentration. It turns out that these all hit the same class of receptors (GABA-A). But there are multiple binding sites accessible, some which bind preferentially at low concentration and some that bind at higher concentration only....

These pheromones don't bind at the main receptor binding site for Glu-A. They bind in place that change the shape of the receptor, opening up alternative binding areas, and either improving the receptor's ability to bind Glu-A, or making that binding a little more difficult to bind, or changing how tightly or loosely the receptor binds Glu-A.

Some of these neurotransmitters actually bind the cell membrane close to the receptor, and not the actual receptor... but the effects are similar in that they either make the GABA-A receptor more efficient at binding Glu-A or they inhibit to some degree that binding.

And to make it a little more interesting... there are different areas on the pheromone molecules that bind to the receptors depending on the concentration exposed to the receptor, and depending on the pheromone. So at one concentration you may have the 3-alpha hydroxy/5-alpha hydrogen binding; at a higher concentration, a keto group on that same molecule, or a 17-alpha hydroxy may become the binding site, etc.

And then there are dimorphisms that show up in individual from genetic variation. Not everyone will respond the same way because of minor differences in the proteins that make up these receptors.

These are very dynamic molecules.

Here is a good example of an excreted steroid molecule that has trimodal effects: allopregnenolone. At very low doses this molecule causes irritability. At moderate doses it causes euphoria and relaxation. At high doses it causes confusion, a loss of coordination, interference with memory processing and formation, and sedation.

Artificially used as a pheromone, you probably won't see the irritability affect, because even the lowest doses available are much higher than what you would see normally with this substance. But you would see the euphoria and relaxation and the confusion, memory problems and sedation with higher doses.

And then there are the downstream effects on the brain. Some molecules exert sexually-dimorphic responses downstream of the initial binding. TH-DOC is one that has this effect, effecting males exposed to it more strongly than females.

Diane

Post: #25

But to answer your main question... I think it is artificial.

The real question to my mind is... if a product that you are spraying on yourself (so that you are exposed to much higher concentrations than those around you).... is supposed to exert an effect on everyone around you, why is that seen as odd or different that it also has an effect on you?

I laugh about that... if it will effect people in a 10-20 foot radius from you... it had better also have effect on the person at ground zero. If it doesn't, it is just hype.

And if the majority of users don't get any self effects, that to me means that the majority of others exposed to those molecules, ipso facto, also won't be effected.

You and I are effected by pheromones... period, end of story. ADD may or may not be a piece of it but it isn't the whole story. Otherwise only people with ADD would respond to pheromones at all. And it is more complex than that, as much as many people would like it all to be simple and straightforward.

Diane

Post: #26

(11-13-2009 10:45 AM)Diane999 Wrote:  These are very dynamic molecules.

Here is a good example of an excreted steroid molecule that has trimodal effects: allopregnenolone. At very low doses this molecule causes irritability. At moderate doses it causes euphoria and relaxation. At high doses it causes confusion, uncoordination, interferance with memory processing and formation, and sedation.

Artificially used as a pheromone, you probably won't see the irritability affect, because even the lowest doses available are much higher than what you would see normally with this substance. But you would see the euphoria and relaxation and the confusion, memory problems and sedation with higher doses.

Diane, I have much respect for the amount of time and effort you have put into understanding these molecules and the mechanism by which they work. It's nice to see that we're beginning to get some real information (or maybe you've had it all along and I just didn't notice ) about pheromones, not just this VNO business.

Allopregnenolone, have you tried it before? If so, what dosages? It sounds like TAK to me from AD. Mostly the sedation at higher dosages. But at moderate doses, it could be seen as relaxing. I definitely have not seen any irritability. I also suspected that the TAK dosages of 5-50mu were much higher than necessary.

Post: #27

(11-13-2009 3:37 PM)Phya Wrote:  Diane, I have much respect for the amount of time and effort you have put into understanding these molecules and the mechanism by which they work. It's nice to see that we're beginning to get some real information (or maybe you've had it all along and I just didn't notice ) about pheromones, not just this VNO business.

Allopregnenolone, have you tried it before? If so, what dosages? It sounds like TAK to me from AD. Mostly the sedation at higher dosages. But at moderate doses, it could be seen as relaxing. I definitely have not seen any irritability. I also suspected that the TAK dosages of 5-50mu were much higher than necessary.

I don't think you'll ever see any "low dose" effects from any pheromones we currently are used to using, because even the low dose range of the pheromone products is thousands of times (or more) higher than would be seen in any natural context.

I may have tried allopregnenolone in the past. I suspect it is one of the P-series, like 102 or 103. Those are the only ones that I've tried that I would classify as sedating from the get-go even at moderately low doses.

But this is one of the ones I'm rooting for in the testing we all want to do.

Diane

Post: #28

Ah, I could see it being p103. That putative definitely gave me a euphoric feeling at dosages of around 25mu. I'll have to check my journal back at AD to be sure though. Is there any standard definition of a small, medium, and large dose? Say for example, Small: 0.5mu-15mu Medium: 15mu-45mu Large:45mu+?

Post: #29

(11-13-2009 7:18 PM)Phya Wrote:  Ah, I could see it being p103. That putative definitely gave me a euphoric feeling at dosages of around 25mu. I'll have to check my journal back at AD to be sure though. Is there any standard definition of a small, medium, and large dose? Say for example, Small: 0.5mu-15mu Medium: 15mu-45mu Large:45mu+?

P103 caused clumsiness, memory problems, and euphoria for me at 12.5 mcg. It also caused those problems for my husband and 3 sons. I had to limit my use of it in spray form to either 2.5 or lower dosage or to only use it when no one was driving anywhere... it nearly caused us to wreck on the freeway the first time I wore it at 12.5 mcg going out to dinner. And I wasn't driving.

Your question is good question, and the simple answer is no.

A more complete answer would be it depends on the molecule what a "low," "medium" and "high" dosage would be pheromonally. A molecule that is more volatile and can more easily reach its targets would take less to be effective at whatever dosage... so a very tiny amount of that might have an equal impact to a much higher dosage of something that doesn't have those qualities.

On the other hand, one molecule may powerfully effect the CNS pathways, while another does not.

So, it depends on the molecule and it depends on the strength of the effects of the molecule.

For example:

Allopregnenolone is a powerful CNS effecting steroid, but it is not volatile and so may not very easily reach its target. Alpha Androstenol is very volatile and can easily reach its target, but its CNS effects are not as overpowering. So you could potentially use more alpha Androstenol than you could Allopregnenolone, but it really depends on how much of it reaches its target.

And the effects of 12.5 mcg of Allopregnenolone might be very different from 12.5 mcg of Alpha Androstenol.

But, you'd have to judge these each on an individual basis, pheromonally, to determine what is a high, medium, or low dose of each.

Not enough is known about these molecules as pheromones. Even as neurosteroids, they haven't been fully studied, and that research has been going on since the mid 1970's.

As for P103, we don't know what that is at the moment, so all I can say is any dose that causes unwanted effects is too high, whatever that is for you. For me it is anything over 2.5 mcg.

Diane

Post: #30

I see, thanks for explaining Diane. It does sound like an interesting molecule to explore. Are there different versions of allopregneolone too? Is this something we can start testing for soon?