Short answers, pulled from the story.
The main psychoactive agents in Amanita muscaria are muscimol and ibotenic acid, both discovered in the mid-20th century. Muscimol is a potent GABAA receptor agonist structurally related to the inhibitory neurotransmitter GABA, while ibotenic acid acts on NMDA glutamate receptors. Drying the mushroom converts ibotenic acid into the more potent muscimol.
Fatal poisonings from Amanita muscaria are extremely rare with modern medical treatment. The North American Mycological Association has stated there were no reliably documented cases of death from toxins in these mushrooms in the past 100 years. Many field guides list it as deadly, but mycologist David Arora has argued this overstates the mushroom's actual toxicity.
Indigenous peoples of Siberia, including the Koryak of eastern Siberia, used Amanita muscaria as an inebriant and entheogen in a non-sacred, often recreational way. Shamans would consume the mushrooms and others would drink the shaman's urine, which still contained psychoactive muscimol but reportedly with fewer side effects such as sweating and twitching. The Koryak also reported that reindeer were attracted to the urine of intoxicated people and became intoxicated themselves.
Google searches for Amanita muscaria rose nearly 200 percent in 2024 compared to the previous year. An article in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine linked this trend to the sudden commercialisation of Amanita muscaria products on the internet. The FDA subsequently banned A. muscaria extracts from food products in December 2024 following an outbreak of poisonings and at least one death.
R. Gordon Wasson proposed in 1968 that Amanita muscaria was the soma described in the Rigveda, pointing to descriptions of a red, rootless substance and references to urinating soma. Vedic scholar John Brough from Cambridge University rejected the theory in 1971 as too vague. There is now established scholarly consensus that soma's botanical identity is Ephedra, particularly Ephedra gerardiana, Ephedra intermedia, or Ephedra equisetina.
Parboiling Amanita muscaria and discarding the cooking water removes most of the water-soluble toxins, including muscimol and ibotenic acid. Georg Heinrich von Langsdorff published the first known detoxification instructions in 1823. In Nagano Prefecture in Japan, the mushroom is most commonly salted and pickled after preparation.