Beginning at minute 39 and 30 seconds, Stamet describes a study that demonstrates the diminishing of Trace Fear Conditioning, the main proponent of PTSD, by microdosing Psilocybin. He explains the mice in the study were, somewhat unceremoniously shocked for the good of science. They were shocked after a low tone was played for 30 seconds, and after a number of shocks, like maslows dogs, the PTSD would have them cowering whilst hearing the tone, expecting a shock.
After macrodosing psilocybin, it took them 10 cycles of the noise, without the shock, to diminish the PTSD response, where on microdosing, amazingly, they only required two cycles, demonstrating that microdosing could be more impactful than macrodosing at reducing the trace fear conditioning. You can read more about this below which shows the diminishing or extinction of the trace fear conditioning.
What is Trace Fear Conditioning?
Trace fear conditioning is a type of classical conditioning in which an organism learns to associate a neutral stimulus (such as a tone or light) with an aversive stimulus (such as a shock or loud noise) that follows it after a brief time delay (the trace interval).
During trace fear conditioning, the neutral stimulus (conditioned stimulus, CS) is presented for a short period of time and then terminated, followed by a delay period (trace interval) during which there is no stimulus. After the trace interval, the aversive stimulus (unconditioned stimulus, US) is presented. Through this process, the organism learns to associate the CS with the US and begins to show fear responses (such as freezing behavior) in the presence of the CS alone.
Trace fear conditioning is often used as a model for studying fear learning and memory in both animals and humans, and has been implicated in the development of anxiety disorders and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
What does this demonstrate regarding PTSD and Psilocybin?
The presentation demonstrates that low doses of nearly imperceivable Psilocybin has the potency to increase the strength of your brain. The Psilocybin diminishes or removes all together the trace fear conditioning which should have an extraordinary effect on PTSD patients. The low doses tended toward neuroregeneration where the high doses did not, perhaps even restricting neuroregeneration, perhaps due to being washed with such a high dose, it restricts neuroregeneration with an overload to the senses. Also, neurons takes days to grow, which may also explain why microdosing impacts a higher level of neuroregeneration than macrodosing.
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