Dec 12, 2008

Oedipus complex could be maternally induced through release of oxytocin

Oxytocin AKA OT AKA love hormone, is a peptide hormone tightly linked to social bonding, love, reproduction and parental care: the whole set which we need to form life-long monogamous relationships and care for our descendents as long we are alive. 

OT <--> positive feelings/emotions

OT is released by experiences of romantic and maternal love, and pleasure produced by stimulation of erogenic parts of the body. This causes some parts of the brain responding to it to light up, some - related to negative feelings, social judgement and mentalizing- get inhibited. It's safe to say that recurrent  increases in ones OT levels leads to feelings of acceptance and warm, perhaps sexual feelings towards the one associated with them.  

And what would be a better way to increase OT levels than sucking tits almost 24/7? Nipple stimulation made by the baby can even produce an orgasm, the biggest natural releaser of OT after the number one: labor, produced by OT induced uterine contractions. After being born, the tit-sucking infant gets its first motherload of OT, still extremely high some time after giving birth. Nursing hours after labor makes the infant-mother bond stronger (according to Desmond Morris). After that its pretty much either sucking tits or sleeping. If a woman finds pleasure from this method of feeding her baby, the OT produced by it is transmitted to the baby through the milk. The bigger the impact on the mother, the bigger the impact on the child.

Maybe this could be the endocrino-neuropsychological reason why some childs associate their mothers with sex? This hypothesis could be easily tested by advanced background checking: number of oedipal children per n randomly selected children should be higher for children whose mothers had frequent orgasms during feeding compared to  mothers who didn't, and the incidence within both of these groups should be higher than with a group of childs who were bottle-fed from the start.

Just to clarify: Above does not agree with the ridiculous Freudian view that Oedipus complex is innate and universal, or disagree with the inbreeding-suppressing Westermark effect, a phenomena discovered by Finnish anthropologist Edvard Westermarck, which basically proves that humans living at close proximity during early childhood do not bond with each other at a sexual level at maturity.

Dec 10, 2008

Potheads should use melatonin supplements


Pineal gland-mediated melatonin secretion controls mammalian circadian rhythm. Melatonin is synthesized from serotonin, a product of tryptophan metabolism.
Synthesis involves an enzyme called arylalkylamine N-acetyltransferase, AKA 2.3.1.87 AKA AANAT AKA melatonin rhythm enzyme, which is inhibited by cannabinoids (THC, CBD, cannabinol) in a direct fashion, not involving the cannabinoid receptors.
Potheads with a sleep related disorder could benefit from melatonin supplementation; it has quite poor bioavailability (30-50%), though. It's metabolized (deaminated) by the monoamine-oxidase A enzyme in the stomach so IMO administration of less than 0,5 mg sublingually or intranasally earlier than an hour before bed-time would be the way to go.
Caution:
Among other effects (1, 2, 3) , melatonin has an antidopaminergic effect, acting a bit like haloperidol, so large dosages and chronic use could theoretically lead to antipsychotic effects, and nobody would want to be a zombie on purpose, right?
Cannabinoids could enhance dopaminergic signalling a bit through this route.
Some refs by name or a bit of relevant significance of them, in form: