Where does DMT come from? The natural history of a molecule made by plants, animals and perhaps people

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DMT is often described as “everywhere in nature”, a phrase that is half right. This guide sets out what reviews and experiments actually show about where it occurs, how living things make it, why they might, and what traces of human use survive in the archaeological record. Each factual paragraph ends with an evidence label. For the molecule itself, start with the pillar guide, what is DMT.

Where does DMT come from in nature?

From living things, across kingdoms. A 2018 review calls DMT “ubiquitous, being produced by a wide variety of plant and animal species”, and notes it is one of the few psychedelic compounds produced by mammals (Cameron and Olson, 2018). Its natural occurrence in plants was first reported in 1946 by the microbiologist Oswaldo Gonçalves de Lima (Barker, 2018). Evidence: established.

“Ubiquitous” needs care. It means the molecule turns up in many unrelated species, not that every plant or animal makes it, or makes it in meaningful amounts. Related compounds, such as 5-MeO-DMT, are also described as produced by a variety of plant and animal species (Ermakova et al., 2022). Evidence: established for wide occurrence; how widespread, species by species, is beyond what these reviews quantify.

How do living things make DMT from tryptophan?

Tryptophan is one of the amino acids every organism uses to build proteins. The route to DMT has two kinds of step, and it is broadly the same in plants and animals (Berman et al., 2026; Barker, 2018):

1. Decarboxylation: tryptophan loses its carboxyl group and becomes tryptamine. In plants the enzyme is tryptophan decarboxylase (TDC); in mammals the same job is done by aromatic L-amino acid decarboxylase (AADC).
2. First methylation: an N-methyltransferase (an enzyme that moves a methyl group onto a nitrogen atom) turns tryptamine into N-methyltryptamine (NMT).
3. Second methylation: a methyltransferase adds a second methyl group, giving N,N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT).
4. Breakdown: in animals, the enzyme monoamine oxidase A (MAO-A) quickly breaks DMT down.

For plants, this was a proposal until recently. A 2026 study identified two pairs of TDC and methyltransferase enzymes from two plant species used in traditional rituals, and rebuilt the full pathway in a laboratory plant. The methyltransferases were promiscuous, meaning they accepted several related starting molecules (Berman et al., 2026). Evidence: established for the enzymes identified; whether all DMT-producing plants use the same enzymes is unresolved.

Animals have their own versions. A 2023 study reported a new methyltransferase from a toad that converts primary tryptamines into tertiary ones such as DMT, and found that similar enzymes from several frog species were inactive (Chen et al., 2023). In mammals, the enzyme long credited with both methylation steps is indolethylamine N-methyltransferase (INMT), but knockout studies have cast doubt on that, as explained below. Evidence: established for the toad enzyme; preliminary for its role in the animal.

The mammalian pathway was worked out first. After the discovery of an indole N-methyltransferase in 1961, researchers tested whether mammalian tissues could make DMT. In 1972, Juan Saavedra and Julius Axelrod reported that tryptamine placed into the fluid around the brain of living rats was converted to NMT and DMT, the first demonstration of DMT forming in brain tissue in a living animal (Barker, 2018). In rat brain, the messages for INMT and AADC occur in the same cells, while in rat peripheral organs they rarely overlap (Dean et al., 2019). Evidence: established for these experiments.

Why would plants make DMT?

Nobody has shown why. The general background is well developed: plants make a wide range of secondary metabolites, compounds not needed for basic growth, which serve as defences against herbivores, microbes and competing plants, and as signals. A review notes that some, such as alkaloids, appear tuned to animal neurotransmitter receptors (Wink, 2015). Evidence: established as a general account of plant chemistry.

Evolutionary biologists have argued that most commonly used drugs are plant neurotoxins that evolved to punish, not reward, consumption by herbivores (Sullivan et al., 2008). Neither source tests DMT specifically, and we found no study that has measured whether DMT deters any animal from eating a plant. Applied to DMT, the defence idea is a reasonable hypothesis, not a finding. Evidence: unresolved.

There is a chemical clue worth noting, though it is not an answer. In a 2023 lab study of a toad enzyme and its products, adding the two methyl groups to most tryptamines made them more resistant to breakdown by liver enzymes (Chen et al., 2023). Whether stability matters to the organisms that make DMT has not been studied. The same review of plant chemistry stresses that many such compounds act on several targets at once, so a single purpose may not exist (Wink, 2015). Evidence: preliminary for the chemistry; the ecological role is unresolved.

Do animals and humans make DMT?

In rats, yes. Using microdialysis, which samples the fluid around brain cells in a living animal, a 2019 study measured DMT in the visual cortex of freely moving rats at levels comparable to serotonin. Removing the pineal gland made no difference, and DMT rose after experimentally induced cardiac arrest (Dean et al., 2019). Evidence: preliminary, one lab’s animal finding. The rat brain study explained covers the details.

The enzyme question is open. Rats with the INMT gene knocked out still showed the same tryptamine-methylating activity, but the products were neither NMT nor DMT (Glynos et al., 2023), and INMT-knockout mice showed no obvious drop in their own psychedelic tryptamines (Hatzipantelis et al., 2025). Both teams suggest another pathway exists in rodents. Our INMT article follows that debate. Evidence: unresolved.

In people, DMT has been detected and measured in blood and urine. Only a handful of studies have tried to detect it in the human brain, and only indirectly, through cerebrospinal fluid (Barker, 2022). Human autopsy tissue carries the genetic message for INMT in the cortex, pineal gland and choroid plexus (Dean et al., 2019). Whether a living human brain makes meaningful amounts is unknown; see does the brain make DMT. Evidence: established that DMT is detectable in people; brain production is unresolved.

Even where the body does make DMT, its job is unclear. A 2018 review calls DMT’s biological function in human physiology “a mystery” (Cameron and Olson, 2018). Another stresses the need to separate any natural role of the body’s own DMT from the effects seen when DMT is given from outside, which are what most studies measure (Barker, 2018). Evidence: unresolved.

How is DMT different from 5-MeO-DMT and bufotenine in animal secretions?

Toad secretions are a mixture, not pure DMT. The skin and parotid glands of certain toads accumulate a mix of compounds, including toxic steroids and three related tryptamines: DMT, 5-MeO-DMT (5-methoxy-DMT) and bufotenine, in varying amounts depending on the species (Chen et al., 2023). The three differ by one group on the indole ring: none for DMT, a methoxy group for 5-MeO-DMT and a hydroxyl group for bufotenine, also called 5-OH-DMT (Rick et al., 2025). Evidence: established.

Small structural differences matter. 5-MeO-DMT binds most strongly at the 5-HT1A serotonin receptor, while DMT acts mainly at 5-HT2A, and 5-MeO-DMT is reported to produce fewer visual effects (Ermakova et al., 2022). The same review finds no conclusive historical evidence of Indigenous use of desert toad secretions before a 1984 booklet popularized them. Our 5-MeO-DMT vs DMT guide compares the two in depth. Evidence: established for receptor preference; preliminary for experiential differences.

What does archaeology show about traditional use?

The oldest direct chemical evidence is from the Andes, and it is evidence of snuffing. At Chavín de Huántar, a Peruvian ritual centre of the Middle–Late Formative Period (about 1200–400 BCE), residue analysis found DMT, bufotenine and nicotine in six of 23 bone tubes and similar artifacts (Rick et al., 2025). Evidence: established.

In southwestern Bolivia, a ritual bundle radiocarbon dated to about 1,000 CE held traces of bufotenine, DMT, harmine and cocaine. The authors note it is the first documented ritual bundle with both harmine and DMT, the two main ingredients now associated with ayahuasca (Miller et al., 2019). Evidence: established.

The plants that contain these compounds come from distant ecological zones, which the authors read as evidence that such plants moved across long distances. That shows the compounds were present together, not that anyone drank a brew. For more, see ancient DMT snuffs and archaeology. Evidence: established for the chemistry; how the contents were used is unresolved.

Why doesn’t this article list plants that contain DMT?

Because a list of species is the first step of a sourcing guide, and this site is an educational resource, not one. It would also add nothing to the science above. In Canada, N,N-dimethyltryptamine and any salt of it is item 7 of Schedule III of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, and the entry makes no exception for DMT that occurs naturally (Justice Laws, CDSA). This is general information, not legal advice; see is DMT legal in Canada. Evidence: established.

What we still don’t know

• What DMT does for the plants that make it; no study we found has tested a defence role.
• Whether all DMT-producing plants use the same enzymes as the two species studied in 2026.
• Which enzyme or enzymes make DMT in mammals, now that INMT knockouts still make related compounds.
• Whether the living human brain makes meaningful amounts of DMT.
• How the people who used Andean snuff tubes and bundles understood the compounds in them.

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