Myristicin is a phenylpropene, a natural organic compound present in small amounts in the essential oil of nutmeg and to a lesser extent in other spices such as parsley and dill. It is insoluble in water, but soluble in ethanol and acetone. Myristicin is a psychoactive drug, acting as an anticholinergic, and is the traditional precursor for the psychedelic and empathogenic drug MMDA. While myristicin has been widely accepted as the main psychoactive component of nutmeg (along with elemicin), both the differences in subjective effects observed between nutmeg and synthetic myristicin, as well as the fact that myristicin is not a major component of the seed (therefore is possibly not present in high enough quantities) suggest it does not fully explain the effects of consuming raw nutmeg. Myristicin can alter the toxicity and / or metabolic pathway of some compounds.
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