brock_h

I always hear about people "giving up everything" and traveling the world. However, most people have worries about their economic status. Can you speak to yours at the point when you embarked? How much money had you saved, did you have any debt, what did you do with your belongings (Were there things you stored somewhere because you did want to sell or get rid of them? Did you pay for storage?), did you create a plan to generate additional income (e.g., plans for side jobs while traveling), and have you thought how to re-integrate into the "working world" when you traveling concludes (or are you hoping YouTube, etc. supports you)? Thanks!

This post is oversimplified and misleading. Serotonin is popularly misunderstood, and psychopharmacology is often complex even for those who are educated to understand it.

The principle effects of MDMA act on synaptic terminals in the sympathetic nervous system (part of the peripheral nervous system, not the central nervous system where the brain and spinal cord are located) through noradrenaline which is released acutely in large amounts some time after administration. This acts very similarly to amphetamines and carries similar physiological side effects. In the central nervous system, MDMA acts via "serotonin-depletion," and causes degeneration of serotonergic systems with repeated use. Serotonin is involved in a lot more than what you listed and is popularly associated with (it is really vague to associate serotonin with "mood" when there's different measurements - i.e. aggressiveness, social behavior, etc). One of these is muscle contraction (people who take MDMA often are physiologically tense), and there's a lot of issues with having neurodegenerative serotonin systems (look up serotonin syndrome). I'm also wary of "connection between the parts of the brain" as that is particularly complex.

Fish spirit? Isn't that a crustacean spirit?!

I'm getting discouraged with how little time there is for anything that's not memorizing pathways or something.

The reality is there isn't any time during medical school, internship, or residency. You don't really have a lot of intellectual freedom until after you're done with training (i.e. out practicing independently). This is part of the issue with medical education, but it's a difficult issue to alleviate considering the realities of medical practice and the knowledge base, discipline, and time requirements.