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Muscimol
Muscimol (also known as agarin or pantherine) is the principal psychoactive constituent of Amanita muscaria and related species of mushroom. Muscimol is a potent, selective agonist for the GABAA receptors and displays sedative-hypnotic and dissociative psychoactivity. This colorless or white solid is classified as an isoxazole.
Contents
Muscimol synthesis fenderson5555
Biochemistry
Muscimol is the psychoactive compound responsible for the effects of Amanita muscaria intoxication. Ibotenic acid, a neurotoxic secondary metabolite of Amanita muscaria, serves as a prodrug to muscimol when the mushroom is ingested or dried, converting to muscimol via decarboxylation.
Muscimol is produced in the mushrooms Amanita muscaria and Amanita pantherina, along with muscarine, muscazone, and ibotenic acid. A. muscaria and A. pantherina should be eaten with caution and prepared properly to lessen effects of nausea; no official deaths from poisoning have been recorded from A. muscaria and A. pantherina. In A. muscaria, the layer just below the skin of the cap contains the highest amount of muscimol, and is therefore the most psychoactive portion.
Pharmacology
Muscimol is a potent GABAA agonist, activating the receptor for the brain's principal inhibitory neurotransmitter, GABA. Muscimol binds to the same site on the GABAA receptor complex as GABA itself, as opposed to other GABAergic drugs such as barbiturates and benzodiazepines which bind to separate regulatory sites. GABAA receptors are widely distributed in the brain, and so when muscimol is administered, it alters neuronal activity in multiple regions including the cerebral cortex, hippocampus, and cerebellum.
While muscimol is normally thought of as a selective GABAA agonist, it is also a partial agonist at the GABAA-rho receptor, and so its range of effects results from a combined action at both targets.
In patients with Huntington's disease and chronic schizophrenia, oral doses of muscimol have been found to cause a rise of both prolactin and growth hormone.
During a test involving rabbits connected to an EEG, muscimol presented with a distinctly synchronized EEG tracing. This is substantially different from serotonergic psychedelics, with which brainwave patterns generally show a desynchronization. In higher doses (2 mg/kg), the EEG will show characteristic spikes.
When consumed, some percentage of muscimol goes un-metabolized and thus excreted in urine, a phenomenon exploited by practitioners of the traditional entheogenic use of Amanita muscaria.
The psychoactive dose of muscimol is around 10–15 mg for a normal person. A Guide to British Psilocybin Mushrooms by Richard Cooper published in 1977 recommends a smaller dose, 8.5 mg, and suggests that it is possible for this amount to be present in as little as 1 g of dried A. muscaria but this is not consistent with most other reports which suggest 5-10g is necessary. A correct dose may be difficult to determine because potency varies dramatically from one mushroom to the next.
Effects
Many of muscimol's effects are consistent with its pharmacology as a GABAA receptor agonist, presenting many depressant or sedative-hypnotic effects. Atypical of the effect profile of sedative drugs generally however, muscimol, like Z-drugs, can cause dissociative changes in perception. Jonathan Ott describes the effects of Amanita pantherina below:
About 90 minutes after ingestion ... I noticed that I was experiencing changes in visual perception. These effects became stronger over the next hour or some, and were characterized by sensing an 'alive quality' in inanimate objects, wavy motion in the visual field like a Van Gogh canvas ... and mild distortion of size, distance and depth perception. Auditory hallucination were also prominent -- especially the effect, called 'anahata sounds' of yoga, of hearing fine high-pitched sounds like bells and violin strings.
Synthesis
It can be produced synthetically from the lithium acetylide derived from propargyl chloride. Treatment with ethyl chloroformate afford ethyl 4-chlorotetrolate, which condenses with hydroxylamine to give the chloromethylisoxazole. Anhydrous ammonia converts this chloride to muscimol. The overall yield achieved in the literature was 18.7%.
Toxicity
The LD50 in mice is 3.8 mg/kg s.c, 2.5 mg/kg i.p. The LD50 in rats is 4.5 mg/kg i.v, 45 mg/kg orally.
Australia
Muscimol is considered a Schedule 9 prohibited substance in Australia under the Poisons Standard (October 2015). A Schedule 9 substance is a substance which may be abused or misused, the manufacture, possession, sale or use of which should be prohibited by law except when required for medical or scientific research, or for analytical, teaching or training purposes with approval of Commonwealth and/or State or Territory Health Authorities.