An fMRI study has found evidence of a reduction in depressive symptoms after treatment with psilocybin:
A hallucinogen found in magic mushrooms can "reset" the brains of people with untreatable depression, raising hopes of a future treatment, scans suggest.
The small study gave 19 patients a single dose of the psychedelic ingredient psilocybin. Half of patients ceased to be depressed and experienced changes in their brain activity that lasted about five weeks.
However, the team at Imperial College London says people should not self-medicate.
There has been a series of small studies suggesting psilocybin could have a role in depression by acting as a "lubricant for the mind" that allows people to escape a cycle of depressive symptoms. But the precise impact it might be having on brain activity was not known.
Psilocybin for treatment-resistant depression: fMRI-measured brain mechanisms (open, DOI: 10.1038/s41598-017-13282-7) (DX)
(Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 15 2017, @05:22AM (2 children)
The next level up is using agar plates to transfer clean cultures in the still air box. You can use these [ziploc.com] which are also PP5 plastic. Poke a small hole in the side with a hot nail or drill and cover it with breathable tape. A heated mixture of agar powder, water, instant mashed potato flakes, and food coloring is added to each plate. Let them settle, then sterilize them in the pressure cooker.
Once you have the prepared plates, you can use them inside the still air box to clone a sample or create clean culture to use. Contamination should be apparent on the plates. Be careful not to cause a tragedy if you are flame sterilizing your knife and using isopropyl alcohol in the same box. Beginners will make contamination mistakes with the plates or improper handling when using agar to inoculate a jar, but experts can reduce contamination rates to near zero with these methods. This is your broke ass laboratory.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 15 2017, @06:58AM
Once you master the agar techniques, you can move to grain and monotubs. This has more complicated steps and less room for error, but just look at the results [shroomery.org]. That is shroom porn.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 15 2017, @09:52AM
agar plate art [google.com]