Would eating raw human brains make you high?

██████████@lemmy.world to Showerthoughts@lemmy.world – -28 points –

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/7156263

With all the hormones and whatnot inside. Dopamine, adrenaline, melatonin, whatever. Also, there's this Hunter S. Thompson bit on the.. pineal gland?

If it had an effect on you, wouldn't it be a really messed up high, all over the place? With uppers, downers etc mixed? (Not including the emotional implications of eating raw human brains.)

7

You will get Kuru or other prion disease, which are all fatal.

Incubation period is long, anywhere from 13 years up to 50 years.

You can only get kuru from eating brains that have kuru themselves.

Isn’t this how mad cow disease started? Cows eating cow brains…

Basically, it's a prion disease and you never want a prion disease because it leads to death 100% of the time I believe. It also looks like a brutal way to go...

No, neurotransmitters don't work that way. It's like asking if capturing the energy from your house wifi's radio signals, and using it to charge your laptop, would cause your housemates' browser history to show up on your screen.

The popular conception of dopamine as reward/reinforcement is almost entirely incorrect. While your brain does use dopamine in reward-related signaling, it also uses it in aversion-related signaling, which is just the opposite. And also in motor coordination, which is why Parkinson's involves dopamine problems and is treated with dopamine-related drugs like levodopa. (And levodopa is not addictive, contrary to the popular conception of dopamine.)

i like your thinking and the answer is probably not.

it's a fatty organ so if you eat a lot of it brains then you'd probably gain weight and elevate your risk for heart disease. some folks also get gas from a high fat diet :)