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 Ascension
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Registered: 01/13/05
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 Chat on the psilocybin molecule 
#5725910 - 06/08/06 07:13 AM (17 years, 10 months ago) |
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Reading a few extraction methods, the norm seems to be to pull the Psilocybin out of the material with ethanol being the prefered solvent.
Then reducing the solution and crashing out the crystals with water.
Now to me this leaves a few questions and opens up a few others.
Who to say that these crystals are Psilocybin, it could be any one of the alkaloids found in our shrooms, or all of them? the psilocybin could still be in solution and when the user drinks this crystal solution, they may be getting the effects from the Psilocybin in solution, not the crystals.
Now thats not such a big deal to me, as the aim of reducing the dose to a smaller form has been achieved.
What really got me thinking is, if the Psilocybin crystals were crashed out by the water, then this means our Psilocybin molecule must be pretty non polar. Which means when you eat them in shroom form, its not going to enter the blood stream till some stomach acids hit them to bring the PH down.
It would also explain why when shooting crushed shrooms with lemon juice, the Psilocybin can enter our blood stream though our mouth and and its way down to before it even gets to the stomach, which results in a stronger/quicker trip.
Am i just rambling on? or is this making sense.
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RogerRabbit
Bans for Pleasure
 
Registered: 03/26/03
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Loc: Seattle
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Re: Chat on the psilocybin molecule [Re: Ascension]
#5726523 - 06/08/06 12:12 PM (17 years, 10 months ago) |
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I'm certainly no chemist, but I've thought for a long time the crystals were just salts. Who said they're the psilo? IMO, just boil down to a shotglass or so of liquid and stop there. You can easily get a quarter pound of dry mushies reduced to a shotglass of everclear. Does it really need to be more concentrated? lol
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Ascension
Stranger
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Re: Chat on the psilocybin molecule [Re: RogerRabbit]
#5727875 - 06/08/06 06:36 PM (17 years, 10 months ago) |
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Yes thats true, but if the psilo molecule really is a water phobic molecule, that would explain why it takes so long to kick in normally when you eat shrooms.
And it would also explain why when mushrooms are mixed with acidic things like lemon juice they are more potent. As the body can easily absorb the molecule now, as a non polar substance would not dissolve easily in our body till it gets to our stomach.
Im not talking about making shrooms in a more concentrated dose, im talking about making it more bio-available to the body when ingested.
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Feelers
Anti-Myth-Rhythm-Rock-Shocker
Registered: 06/18/02
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Loc: Land of Oz
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Re: Chat on the psilocybin molecule [Re: RogerRabbit]
#5727918 - 06/08/06 06:47 PM (17 years, 10 months ago) |
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Psilocybin has both acidic and basic groups on it- which is why it is quite soluble in water- polar.
"Psilocin is an amine and forms salts with acids that are usually more stable upon storage."
The salt precipitate out just as hot liquids hold more ions. Perhaps pumping C02 in or adding some potassium sulphate or other big negative ion could be useful, might make it ppt out more easily?
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Ascension
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Re: Chat on the psilocybin molecule [Re: Feelers]
#5729503 - 06/09/06 03:02 AM (17 years, 10 months ago) |
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Yes thats what im trying to get at, Psilocybin is a freebase while in the fungus is it not? by adding a salt by mixing it with citric acid you create the citric salt of Psilocybin which makes it more bioavailable to the human body?
Thats why when one is extracting psy from shrooms, it must be done with a something like ethanol that will dissolve the freebase, or with acidic water to convert the psy to a salt so it can be extracted with the water.
Any salt would be more easily absorbed by the body then the freebase molecule of the same type will it not?
Which would explain the increased effects of shrooms with an acidic drink.
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Ascension
Stranger
Registered: 01/13/05
Posts: 156
Loc: Still trying to work it o...
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Re: Chat on the psilocybin molecule [Re: Ascension]
#5729580 - 06/09/06 03:51 AM (17 years, 10 months ago) |
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I didnt realize their is whole massive discussion going on over in The Psychedelic Experience forum. Including blackcurrent aswell, Will head over their and read up on other peoples findings.
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 fastfred
Old Hand
Registered: 05/17/04
Posts: 6,899
Loc: Dark side of the moon
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Re: Chat on the psilocybin molecule [Re: Ascension]
#5740515 - 06/12/06 01:17 AM (17 years, 10 months ago) |
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> by adding a salt by mixing it with citric acid you create the citric salt of Psilocybin which makes it more bioavailable to the human body?
That makes no sense.
> Any salt would be more easily absorbed by the body then the freebase molecule of the same type will it not?
No, further psilocybin is a zwitterion meaning it is it's own salt.
> Yes thats true, but if the psilo molecule really is a water phobic molecule
It's not. It's water soluble.
> I'm certainly no chemist, but I've thought for a long time the crystals were just salts.
I don't think that's the case. Unless you add something ionizable to the solution then you won't be salting anything out. Of course, any salts extracted will reform when concentrated. The crystals certainly aren't pure psilocybin, but psilocybin is extracted so anytime you concentrate the solution or saturate it and then cool some of the precipitate is going to be psilocybin.
So what are the crystals exactly? Well, it's going to be a mixture of anything that your extraction solvent pulls out. And what would that be you ask?
These quotes are taken from:
http://www.erowid.org/plants/mushrooms/mushrooms_article2-2.shtml
It's a great article on simple semi-quantitative testing of psiloc(yb)in using a spectrophotometer.
"Besides psilocybin, psilocin and baeocystin, their tentative conclusion is that the other spots represent N-methyl and tryptamine analogs of psilocin and psilocybin. Another tryptamine found in mushrooms is tryptophan."
"The common amino acid, glycine, is one such nitrogen containing compound found in abundance in the mushroom. Another nitrogen based compound which has been found in the mushroom is urea."
"Casale, in reviewing the literature, mentions that besides the compounds already mentioned, ergosterol, ergosteral peroxide and a,a-trehalose have also been found in the methanol extracts of the Psilocybe mushrooms."
"Agurell, Blomkvist and Catalfomo identified a lengthy list of possible tryptophan metabolites which might show up in the psilocybe mushrooms: 6hydroxytryptophan; kynurenine; tryptophan; kynurenic acid; xanthurenic acid; psilocin; tryptamine; methyltryptamine; dimethyltryptamine; 3-hydroxyanthranilic acid; anthranilic acid; N-acetyltryptophan; and indoleacetic acid. Agurell and Nilsson demonstrated in their paper a tentative biosynthetic route for psilocybin for which any of the intermediates could exist in the mushroom, too."
"The researchers, Beung and Bigwood found through their TLC work that they could isolate 12 distinct spots(i.e. different compounds) on the silica gel plate."
"I could only distinguish six spots in contrast to the twelve which Beung and Bigwood found when they used both detection schemes(i.e. Ehrlich's reagent and UV lamp)."
So it looks like there are 12 components in a polar extraction of mushrooms which can be resolved by TLC with an n-butanol:acetic acid:water solvent system. Further, there are only 6 components that can be *easily* resolved in a simple TLC system. Of these 6 components one is psilocybin and another is psilocin, leaving only 4 major unidentified components. I wish the author had included some semi-quantitative estimations of spot size, but I assume that the actives were the larger components. So using some manner of crystalization you stand a good chance of being able to get relatively pure psilocybin.
Here is an article by Dr. Shulgin, in which he concludes much the same thing about a similar extraction procedure.
http://www.cognitiveliberty.org/shulgin/adsarchive/extraction.htm
-FF
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It drinks the alcohol and abstains from the weed or else it gets the hose again. -Chemy
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