Did you ever ask yourself what would happen if you feed spiders with psychoactive substances? - No, and you do also not know how one might get this idea?
So then here is the great answer:
It all started with the coziness of man, because in 1948 the zoologist H. M. Peters worked on garden spiders and how they build their webs. Since they usually web between 2am-5am he asked his friend, a swiss pharmacologist, Peter N. Witt if he could somehow influence and shift their time of productivity. And what did the pharmacologist do?...
Witt tested spiders with a range of psychoactive drugs, including amphetamine, mescaline, strychnine, LSD and caffeine, and found that the drugs affect the size and shape of the web rather than the time when it is built.
. . .
In 1995, a NASA research group repeated Witt's experiments on the effect of caffeine, benzedrine, marijuana and chloral hydrate on European garden spiders:
Spiders on marijuana had good attempts, but after a while lost their concentration and did not finish their work properly. Those on benzedrine (Speed), spun their webs with great verve, but little planning leaving big holes unfinished.
Surprisingly, the two strongest impairments in the ability to spin a ordinary web were found with chloral hydrate (an ingredient of sleeping pills) and caffeine!
And why is all of this not just funny nonsense?
The scientists claim that their research demonstrates, that web-spinning spiders can be used to test drugs towards their toxicity. Their original intention was to be able to draw conclusions about toxicity by quantifying the reduced order of spider webs.
This would have saved ‘higher' animals like micea and also time and money.
However, because of limited explanatory power and strict regulations on the determination of toxicities, there is - to my knowledge - no general use of this.
But keep the following in mind:
"It appears that one of the most telling measures of toxicity is a decrease, in comparison with a normal web, of the numbers of completed sides [of a web]; the greater the toxicity, the more sides the spider fails to complete", the scientists said.
. . .
This statement is particularly astonishing when you recall that the most consumed beverage by humans worldwide is coffee!
I hope you liked this scientific insight, and if so follow me for more!
Best,
mountain.phil28
References:
- Spiders on Drugs, a Science Alert
- Results of experiments with Spiders and Drugs, a KScience Report
- NASA Tech Briefs, Vol. 19, No. 4, Pg. 82, April 1995
- Effect of psychoactive drugs on animals, a Wikipedia Article
WAW it's great and it reflects reality in fact. psychoactive drugs can boost the body in the short term but myen and long-term can upset all the metabolism and destroy brain cells.
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STOPFor image source of first image klick here!
Phil that's very interesting -- hate to think what would happen to mosquitoes :-)
Wonder why they didn't include alcohol?
Thx. :-)
Mhmmm yes that's a good point. Would be interesting! - Go get some spiders. xD
I like the idea (i.e. a non-invasive, easy-to-use toxicity endpoint), but, like you mentioned in your post, there's no way this could be extrapolated to human toxicity, which is still the primary goal when performing preclinical toxicity studies. Anyway, thanks a lot for this very interesting post!
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Wow! interesting information. Thank you for sharing!
If you like to read about travels and circus life please welcome to my friends @annamur
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Even if true, this information is hilarious!
First off, the only thing scarier than a spider is a spider on psychoactive drugs haha
Do you know what doses were given to the spiders in terms of how it correlates with a human dose? I am just curious if it ended up being ridiculously high doses.
Anyway great article! I am going to be giving you a follow now!
Haha that's a valid statement. xD
Mhmmm no I do not know about the dosage, but I guess one can look it up and that they have not been too high, since then the lethality would have prevented experimental results. Furthermore, of you are interested, you can also find videos where they show how it was done. - Just give Google an request. ;-)
Thank you very much! :-)
Best,
mountain.phil28
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noo i havent asked my self that BUUUT i do now LOL
conclution, we do know why marijuana users aint ALL that productive^^
soo why did they EVEN try chloral hydrate's?? makes no sence as the purpus was stimulis, correct???
Did i lose what happend to the hopefully swoop/move in time they did their webs?? <feels fuzzed O.o
Love the post, suuper job 💕
The purpose was to somehow quantify the strength of the effect of psychoactive substances and therefore it is legit to test chloralhydrats. Also getting dizzy/sleepy can be quantified. ;-)
Thanks for your praise! 😄
Best,
mountain.phil28
hm <noot buying them cookies your selling :P hang on must walk dogs, and think about this.... brb ;)
Ok yes i get that :p but dizzy/snozy isent quantified BY compairing to ex> amphetamine ;0 as they give opposit effects, right? IF they/we are talking quantyfying drugs effects, suure il bite :D but they/ you are stating -' H. M. Peters worked on garden spiders and how they build their webs. Since they usually web between 2am-5am he asked his friend, a swiss pharmacologist, Peter N. Witt if he could somehow influence and shift their time of productivity'
and also we must look into amount of ex caffein used as 10-13mg koffein/kg is increasing productivety BUT 150mg-kg is leathal on a person ;) & ampthetamin 1-1.5g/ day :p
I think, my problem is that on marijuana and chloral hydrate , your NOT supose to be hiigh performing ;) BUT as test of toxisety, i do agree and say good way to think :D Do NOTE>>> coffeein has a halflife of 6h whiich i find should have been effective on the spiders, a bit fuzzing i must say.. Hmm FOR how long did they do study?? it will need a long time spann as swooping time takes time... hm, still FAB intressting post :D tnx
The effects were not quantified by comparing directly the webs constructed by spiders influenced with different drugs, but only by an computer-performed algorithmn 'measuring' the increasing geometric dissorder. > Then this results could bei compared to each other. (Giving pretty much the same image one is intuitively seeing as you have your first look on the webs.)
As i already stated in the article, this method misses explanatory power, since it is a whole different organismn and it also does not tell you what is going on in the test-organism, but only how strongly the normal behavior of the test-organism is affected by a given substance.
jupp i figured that ha ha i just hope you got my point :)
Hm yes i see & know you did, il guess thats what bugs me,<pun soooo intended ^^ as i said, you did FAB hun, im nitpicking ;) :P
i do find it intressting from what it started out from, to what they ended up actually testing :D ha ha and the fact of WHIIICH drugs was used, yes it still fuzzez me :p
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STOPHuUnnYy?? we <means ME^^ :P 💖💖💖 needs moore fab post to <heavely bounce on DA UPvote button.......
Thx for your support, but I will have to take some time off for the next week. Got so much else to do. :-(
💖💖💖💖💖
I am back my ONLY SWE-dragon! :D
welcome dear💖
<ratflol :P