JohnP.
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Sunday 3/26/2017
Today is day 1. Dosed 2 caps on empty stomach with morning coffee.
I have been using nootropics for 3 years now and have used everything in Nootropimax except for Sceletium tortuosum..
The South African endemic plant Sceletium tortuosum has a long history of traditional use as a masticatory and medicine by San and Khoikhoi people and subsequently by European colonial farmers as a psychotropic in tincture form. Over the past decade, the plant has attracted increasing attention for its possible applications in promoting a sense of wellbeing and relieving stress in healthy individuals and for treating clinical anxiety and depression. The pharmacological actions of a standardized extract of the plant (Zembrin) have been reported to be dual PDE4 inhibition and 5-HT reuptake inhibition, a combination that has been argued to offer potential therapeutic advantages. Here we tested the acute effects of Zembrin administration in a pharmaco-fMRI study focused on anxiety-related activity in the amygdala and its connected neurocircuitry. In a double-blind, placebo-controlled, cross-over design, 16 healthy participants were scanned during performance in a perceptual-load and an emotion-matching task. Amygdala reactivity to fearful faces under low perceptual load conditions was attenuated after a single 25 mg dose of Zembrin. Follow-up connectivity analysis on the emotion-matching task showed that amygdala-hypothalamus coupling was also reduced. These results demonstrate, for the first time, the attenuating effects of S. tortuosum on the threat circuitry of the human brain and provide supporting evidence that the dual 5-HT reuptake inhibition and PDE4 inhibition of this extract might have anxiolytic potential by attenuating subcortical threat responsivity.
A randomized, double-blind, parallel-group, placebo-controlled trial of Extract Sceletium tortuosum in healthy adults.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23441963
Proof-of-Concept Randomized Controlled Study of Cognition Effects of the Proprietary Extract Sceletium tortuosum Targeting Phosphodiesterase-4 in Cognitively Healthy Subjects: Implications for Alzheimer's Dementia. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25389443
This trial is registered with ClinicalTrials.gov https://clinicaltrials.gov/show/NCT01805518
Acute effects of Sceletium tortuosum (Zembrin), a dual 5-HT reuptake and PDE4 inhibitor, in the human amygdala and its connection to the hypothalamus. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3828542/