Overview of Salvia divinorum –Substance-induced psychosis

Summary

The review discusses the effects of natural psychosis inducers, particularly Salvia divinorum, which contains secondary metabolites that can influence human mental health. These compounds may lead to hallucinations and delusions, affecting the central nervous system and specifically the hippocampus, which is associated with memory. The review highlights the dual role of these chemicals as both protective agents for plants and mind-altering substances for humans.

Study at a glance

Abstract

As per the literature, humans ingest a comprehensive range of food materials including drugs along with dietary supplements which are mainly derived through medicinal plant products and modifying the purpose of the central nervous system (CNS). These psychoactive based properties are mainly attributable to the existence of plant-derived secondary metabolites. Most of the cases or studies showed the effects of these phytochemicals derived from secondary metabolites on the human CNS might be linked either to their ecological roles or molecular along with biochemical based properties are reported in case of plants along with higher animals. One of the mental health disorders, psychosis where person losses its capacity of critical thinking, they perceive things differently as compared to the people around. They see or hear things that other people cannot see or hear (hallucination) or even believe things that are not true (delusion). There are so many synthetic psychosis inducer synthetic cannabinoids (SCs) as well as semi-synthetic and natural. Psychosis is a disorder which shows the effect for long-term or sometimes for the short term on an individual. In this review we will mainly look for natural psychosis inducers like Salvia divinorum and this plant may produce some secondary metabolites. Still, many of these are found to show an effect on human health in some or the other way which may range from hallucination to organ failure. These secondary metabolites affect the hippocampus region of the human brain, which is linked with memory. It is interesting to note how one chemical is used for an organism for protection and that one chemical act as a mind-altering chemical for the higher class of organism – the humans.