Locus Ceruleus - The origin of Ne ?

[entropie]

Initial claim: I am an engineer, not a doctor

Ever heard of the locus ceruleus ? It is one area in the human brain that could be connected to the origin of Extroverted Intuition. I am deliberatly excluding introverted Intuition cause I am following the premise that the definition of Ne means to "connect the dots".

Said area becomes active when our brain notices something out of the ordinary. So lets say you are unspectaculary sitting in class or a meeting, someone is talking with a monotome voice and suddenly someone drops a glass bottle. You'll get an immediate adrenaline rush. Said area in the brain is said to be the sensor of the occurence.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locus_coeruleus

Now in further studies they examined the effects of LSD and mescalin in controlled dosages on the LC. Here's an excerpt:

http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/1981-09993-001

If you now think about the connection here: there are many drugs on the market which give you a "good feeling", so which manipulate your neurotransmitter levels. Only a few of those are called psychoactive, which means that people using the stuff start to think they are having a heightened awareness of their surroundings or a deeper understanding of the being and emotions of other people. The LC happens to be the principal site for brain synthesis of the neurotransmitter noradrenaline. I think thats the one peaking when you smoke pot.

So could that LC be a main driver for Ne ? What do you think, bogus ?!
Here's some music for pondering:

 

[INTP]

"The locus coeruleus is the principal site for brain synthesis of norepinephrine (noradrenaline)."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locus_coeruleus

"As a stress hormone, norepinephrine affects parts of the brain, such as the amygdala, where attention and responses are controlled.[5] Along with epinephrine, norepinephrine also underlies the fight-or-flight response, directly increasing heart rate, triggering the release of glucose from energy stores, and increasing blood flow to skeletal muscle. It increases the brain's oxygen supply.[6] Norepinephrine can also suppress neuroinflammation when released diffusely in the brain from the locus coeruleus.[7]

The actions of norepinephrine are carried out via the binding to adrenergic receptors."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norepinephrine

"The adrenergic receptors (or adrenoceptors) are a class of metabotropic G protein-coupled receptors that are targets of the catecholamines, especially norepinephrine (noradrenaline) and epinephrine (adrenaline).

Many cells possess these receptors, and the binding of an agonist will generally cause a sympathetic (or sympathomimetic) response (e.g. the fight-or-flight response). For instance, the heart rate will increase and the pupils will dilate, energy will be mobilized, and blood flow diverted from other non-essential organs to skeletal muscle.

"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrenergic_receptor

doesent really seem like Ne to me.

that study just says that you get easy flight or fight response under the effects of LSD, because it makes LC(locus coeruleus) to be easily stimulated.

noradrenaline is a stress hormone as i quoted above and its effects are somewhat similar(even sharing the binding sites and its structurally only 1 molecule away from adrenaline) and it is released for often the same reasons as adrenaline is(burn outs are often the cause of having constant stress, which keeps noradrenaline levels high and cause your body to be under constant stress reaction).

i found one interesting thing when reading the wiki page of LC. its in pons, which is one of the key elements on connecting cerebellum to regions on cerebral cortex. personally i think that N is by large a product of cerebellum seeing causalities of things and activating cerebral cortex accordingly.

LC and noradrenaline doesent seem like good candidates for this tho. amphetamines and cocaine are noradrenaline reuptake inhibitors, inhibits cleaning excess noradrenaline from synaptic cleft, making it have longer and stronger effects, similar to what depression medication does to dopamine etc. if LC would be the source of Ne, it would be that due to noradrenaline, but noradrenaline doesent really seem to be connected to Ne in any ways. there are few things like schizophrenics having high noradrenaline levels, but it might just be due to their heightened stress levels. and schizophrenics also have higher DMT, serotonin and other high levels.

 

[INTJMom]

Makes logical sense to me...

I don't know if this confirms or denies what you have said, but here's a little more input,,,

from Lenore Thomson Bentz

more at this web page...
http://www.personalitypathways.com/thomson/type2.html

 

[INTP]

Makes logical sense to me...

I don't know if this confirms or denies what you have said, but here's a little more input,,,

from Lenore Thomson Bentz

more at this web page...
http://www.personalitypathways.com/thomson/type2.html

that lenores model is total crap and doesent really represent reality at all. its based on some outdated info used with irrational research methodology and contradicts newer studies, like nardis work and general understanding of what different brain regions do.

 

[Eric B]

Be nice! Today's her birthday!
(Also, this was discussed on the thread on Nardi's book, and I don't think Nardi's work really contradicts this. And it's really from a guy named Niednagel, anyway).

 

[lunalum]

"Locus Ceruleus" sounded like a really promising name, though it seems like that its relation to so many other things may make any relation it has to Ne almost.... superficial?

On the plus side, that song is total win.

 

[entropie]

"The locus coeruleus is the principal site for brain synthesis of norepinephrine (noradrenaline)."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locus_coeruleus

"As a stress hormone, norepinephrine affects parts of the brain, such as the amygdala, where attention and responses are controlled.[5] Along with epinephrine, norepinephrine also underlies the fight-or-flight response, directly increasing heart rate, triggering the release of glucose from energy stores, and increasing blood flow to skeletal muscle. It increases the brain's oxygen supply.[6] Norepinephrine can also suppress neuroinflammation when released diffusely in the brain from the locus coeruleus.[7]

The actions of norepinephrine are carried out via the binding to adrenergic receptors."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norepinephrine

"The adrenergic receptors (or adrenoceptors) are a class of metabotropic G protein-coupled receptors that are targets of the catecholamines, especially norepinephrine (noradrenaline) and epinephrine (adrenaline).

Many cells possess these receptors, and the binding of an agonist will generally cause a sympathetic (or sympathomimetic) response (e.g. the fight-or-flight response). For instance, the heart rate will increase and the pupils will dilate, energy will be mobilized, and blood flow diverted from other non-essential organs to skeletal muscle.

"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrenergic_receptor

doesent really seem like Ne to me.

that study just says that you get easy flight or fight response under the effects of LSD, because it makes LC(locus coeruleus) to be easily stimulated.

noradrenaline is a stress hormone as i quoted above and its effects are somewhat similar(even sharing the binding sites and its structurally only 1 molecule away from adrenaline) and it is released for often the same reasons as adrenaline is(burn outs are often the cause of having constant stress, which keeps noradrenaline levels high and cause your body to be under constant stress reaction).

i found one interesting thing when reading the wiki page of LC. its in pons, which is one of the key elements on connecting cerebellum to regions on cerebral cortex. personally i think that N is by large a product of cerebellum seeing causalities of things and activating cerebral cortex accordingly.

LC and noradrenaline doesent seem like good candidates for this tho. amphetamines and cocaine are noradrenaline reuptake inhibitors, inhibits cleaning excess noradrenaline from synaptic cleft, making it have longer and stronger effects, similar to what depression medication does to dopamine etc. if LC would be the source of Ne, it would be that due to noradrenaline, but noradrenaline doesent really seem to be connected to Ne in any ways. there are few things like schizophrenics having high noradrenaline levels, but it might just be due to their heightened stress levels. and schizophrenics also have higher DMT, serotonin and other high levels.

Ok thanks for the clarification. I have seen a documentary about it where they gave controlled dosages of psychoactive drugs to patients which suffered terminal illnesses. They wanted to relief pain from them by doing that. And it worked and had the side effect that those people reported to having a better understanding of the loved ones as in they became more empathic and had a heightened awareness to their surroundings. They said the LC to be the cause for that. I am too uneducated tho in that department to make any definite claims.

The combination of psychoactive drugs and Ne is one thats not denieable. I regret making this thread cause I hope I dont motivate kids to take that stuff now. The question is if, by taking psychopharmaca, you really stimulate Ne or N regions as in some kind of abstract thinking or if that feeling is just illusionary and an effect of the drug. Its definitly an intresting topic, if you have some more reading material on it, I'ld be glad if you could share that.

 

[INTP]

The question of how these agents produce their striking alterations of consciousness has long
fascinated brain researchers. The first clue was that LSD, psilocybin, DMT, and many other
psychedelics bear a close structural similarity to the neurotransmitter serotonin. Research in
the 1970s showed that LSD temporarily suppresses the firing of serotonin-releasing neurons
of the raphe nuclei (Rechs & Rosecrans, 1982), a part of the brainstem reticular activating
system. These neurons send axons into widespread regions of the cerebral cortex and limbic
system, where they release serotonin when active. Because the raphe nuclei also go silent
during REM sleep, the notion that the psychedelic state represents “dreaming while awake”
became the standard account. However, subsequent research contradicted this interpretation
by showing that LSD and other psychedelics act postsynaptically as agonists at 5-HT2
receptors (Jacobs, 1987), the most common serotonin receptors in the brain. The silencing of
the raphe nuclei was due to LSD’s agonist action at presynaptic autoreceptors (inhibitory 5-
HT1) on the serotonin-releasing cells. Autoreceptors serve a negative feedback function such
that the neurotransmitter (in this case serotonin) inhibits its own release when extracellular
levels are too high. LSD thus acts like serotonin both presynaptically and postsynaptically,
inhibiting serotonin release via inhibitory 5-HT1 autoreceptors while simultaneously
activating excitatory postsynaptic 5-HT2 receptors; only the latter action is relevant to the
psychedelic state (Feldman, Meyer & Quenzer, 1997). This interpretation was bolstered by
the finding that serotonin antagonists can block psychedelic effects. Recent PET scans of
volunteers under the influence of psilocybin showed hyperactivity of the frontal and occipital
lobes, especially in the right hemisphere, presumably reflecting strong activation of excitatory
5-HT2 receptors in the cortex (Vollenweider et al., 1997).

so basically, lsd, dmt, psilocybin and some other psychedelics are similar enough to serotonin, which allows them to take serotonins place in brain chemistry when taken. LSD shuts down a central system which releases serotonin in areas involved in cognition and formation of consciousness(limbic system is basically something that all info goes into from cerebral cortex, where it is repressed, refined, combined with other stuff, where they are able to release memories etc etc and eventually form consciousness). this also happens in sleep, but the serotonin that was shut off, is now replaced with LSD, which is able to substitute it, boost up the activity of some serotonin reseptors, but with a little twist, which we call psychedelic experience, expanding our minds or what ever.

my theory is that when these 5-HT2 gets overactivated(and 5-HT1 shut down) due to LSD/psilocybin/whatevers replacing serotonin, there is less repression going on in these receptors, thus creating an larger stream of thoughts(which may get overwhelming to some) and which go through the whole system of brains trying to eliminate/repress irrelevant things/actionpotentials much much easier. this larger stream of consciousness is what the whole expanding your mind thing is all about, you now might figure out things that you didnt think about earlier, since your brains just shut down some thought before it was analyzed throughout.

i think psychedelics increasing intuition is pretty obvious, because for intuition you do need to consider things that doesent seem too relevant(unless Ni Te ofc ) and psychedelics help you do that and to look other angles for things. psilocybin has been proven to help boost openness scale in big 5(which correlates to N) for like a year after 1 session, also helping on depression. this is exactly because of the mind "expanding" capabilities of hallucinogens, which really is about seeing things from a new perspective instead of just seeing things from your ego point of view and the ability for hallucinogens to brake down that fixed ego point of view that we have and show you new ways of seeing things.

i dont think N is all that psychedelics increase, S is increasing aswell, but the main thing is that those two gets more tangled up with each other, since neither are repressed as much under the effects of hallucinogens. could write more about the subject, but cba now