Nicotine Normalizes Brain Activity Deficits That Are Key to Schizophrenia • Hacker News Board

Re: Nicotine Normalizes Brain Activity Deficits That Are Key to Schizophrenia

#31

Post by abandonliberty » Mon, Jan 23, 2017, 10:41 PM UTC

eganist wrote: post #5

Original DOI link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nm.4274 Edit: Please read abandonliberty's comment below before reading mine. I didn't properly elucidate the position on the harms v. benefits tradeoff (net harm) the way abandonliberty did. My own opinion: it wouldn't be terribly surprising to see many harmful substances only be harmful to a majority subset of a population space, though that's why the scheduling system (…

Clarifying: Nicotine harms everyone. Net harm to a schizophrenic may be negative, but they are still harmed.

"Self-medication hypotheses" exist for many abused substances. Rather than accusing the addicted of poor education, self control, or intelligence it argues (with mounting evidence) that there is a structural or genetic issue that contributes for some addictions.

Ideally we would figure out the mechanism of action and design something with less negative life altering side-effects.

There's always an opportunity to examine freedom of choice/free will for the more philosophic among us :)

Re: Nicotine Normalizes Brain Activity Deficits That Are Key to Schizophrenia

#32

Post by seizethecheese » Mon, Jan 23, 2017, 10:43 PM UTC

derefr wrote: post #25

This makes me wonder what the modern world would look like if all "recreational drugs" suddenly disappeared, and so all the people who were implicitly, unknowingly self-medicating for a mental illness by using recreational drugs, suddenly weren't. What percentage of the population would go from seemingly neurotypical, to perceivably mentally ill? How much more common would conditions like schizophrenia be?

Alcohol: Anxiety disorders

Marijuana: OCD

Caffeine: ADHD

Re: Nicotine Normalizes Brain Activity Deficits That Are Key to Schizophrenia

#33

Post by losteric » Mon, Jan 23, 2017, 10:45 PM UTC

seizethecheese wrote: post #32

derefr wrote: post #25

This makes me wonder what the modern world would look like if all "recreational drugs" suddenly disappeared, and so all the people who were implicitly, unknowingly self-medicating for a mental illness by using recreational drugs, suddenly weren't. What percentage of the population would go from seemingly neurotypical, to perceivably mentally ill? How much more common would conditions like schizophrenia be?

Alcohol: Anxiety disorders Marijuana: OCD Caffeine: ADHD

Or just MJ for everything

Re: Nicotine Normalizes Brain Activity Deficits That Are Key to Schizophrenia

#34

Post by BurningFrog » Mon, Jan 23, 2017, 10:45 PM UTC

jessaustin wrote: post #7

It won't really be a surprise, when science learns that most "harmful addictive" substances can improve aspects of brain function for many people.

Cigarettes are very harmful and addictive.

Nicotine is only somewhat addictive and even less harmful.

Re: Nicotine Normalizes Brain Activity Deficits That Are Key to Schizophrenia

#35

Post by jMyles » Mon, Jan 23, 2017, 10:46 PM UTC

derefr wrote: post #25

This makes me wonder what the modern world would look like if all "recreational drugs" suddenly disappeared, and so all the people who were implicitly, unknowingly self-medicating for a mental illness by using recreational drugs, suddenly weren't. What percentage of the population would go from seemingly neurotypical, to perceivably mentally ill? How much more common would conditions like schizophrenia be?

Although the answer to this question is mostly unknowable, I think that, as an inquiry, it represents a far more compelling approach to mental health than the current system, for at least two reasons:

1) The current approach completely disregards the data point of, "which psychoactives have worked for you (and presumably, those similarly situated to you) in the past?" This seems so absolutely reckless it's amazing it continues.

2) The current approach regards some portion of the population as "normal," and attempts to treat the rest. By looking instead at diet (ie, "self-medicating") as a spectrum, along which a great many healthy approaches lie, we respect and leverage the underlying psychological diversity of the population.

Re: Nicotine Normalizes Brain Activity Deficits That Are Key to Schizophrenia

#36

Post by k-mcgrady » Mon, Jan 23, 2017, 10:46 PM UTC

thomasjames wrote: post #8

For those who have seen severe mental illness up close, this is not surprising in the least. Many, many people with schizophrenia or other disorders characterized by psychosis self-medicate heavily with cigarettes. Huddled masses of patients smoking outside are fixtures of most psychiatric treatment facilities.

I wouldn't jump to the conclusion that those people are medicating the condition with nicotine. It is incredibly useful (anecdotally at least) in dealing with stress which is probably higher in people with mental issues.

Re: Nicotine Normalizes Brain Activity Deficits That Are Key to Schizophrenia

#37

Post by camperman » Mon, Jan 23, 2017, 10:47 PM UTC

abandonliberty wrote: post #31

eganist wrote: post #5

Original DOI link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nm.4274 Edit: Please read abandonliberty's comment below before reading mine. I didn't properly elucidate the position on the harms v. benefits tradeoff (net harm) the way abandonliberty did. My own opinion: it wouldn't be terribly surprising to see many harmful substances only be harmful to a majority subset of a population space, though that's why the scheduling system (…

Clarifying: Nicotine harms everyone. Net harm to a schizophrenic may be negative, but they are still harmed. "Self-medication hypotheses" exist for many abused substances. Rather than accusing the addicted of poor education, self control, or intelligence it argues (with mounting evidence) that there is a structural or genetic issue that contributes for some addictions. Ideally we would figure out the mechanism of act…

"Nicotine harms everyone. Net harm to a schizophrenic may be negative, but they are still harmed."

This is also true of chemotherapy and many of the tricyclics.

Re: Nicotine Normalizes Brain Activity Deficits That Are Key to Schizophrenia

#38

Post by qrybam » Mon, Jan 23, 2017, 10:48 PM UTC

Tangential self experimentation anecdote:

I was intrigued by reports that nicotine can improve cognition in otherwise healthy people so I read through as many studies/articles I could find online. After deciding that I'd done enough research I took the plunge and began self experimenting with 2mg gum. I took it daily throughout the day at regular-ish intervals for around 2-3 months.

The affects I experienced were as follows:

* it had a positive impact on my focus

* it provided a boost to my wakefulness if I had a bad night's sleep

* my brain felt like it would "tighten up" while I was taking it

* my body felt like it was experiencing higher blood pressure

Short term I was happy with the results.

I am a fit and healthy, non-smoking, cognitively normal (afaik) middle aged male.

After almost 3 months of taking nicotine gum I developed a cyst in one of my retinas brought on by "high pressure damage to the blood vessels".

When I measured my blood pressure, my base pressure had increased by ~10% (as compared to pre-experiment, measured over several days). The real problem would happen if I was under stress, my BP would spike to dangerous levels when it never had done before. I also felt that I would get stressed more easily.

My blood pressure took a few weeks to drop back to normal. I didn't have any withdrawal symptoms save for the sensation of chewing gum.

I won't be repeating this experiment.

Sharing this story in case you're considering long term usage, whether for medical or experimental purposes.

Medical literature seems to support this experience (although supposedly the effect is smaller in women, sorry couldn't find the source for this particular point):

[0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12356338

edit: spelling

Re: Nicotine Normalizes Brain Activity Deficits That Are Key to Schizophrenia

#39

Post by abandonliberty » Mon, Jan 23, 2017, 10:48 PM UTC

derefr wrote: post #25

This makes me wonder what the modern world would look like if all "recreational drugs" suddenly disappeared, and so all the people who were implicitly, unknowingly self-medicating for a mental illness by using recreational drugs, suddenly weren't. What percentage of the population would go from seemingly neurotypical, to perceivably mentally ill? How much more common would conditions like schizophrenia be?

The effect on the underlying conditions are relatively small - otherwise we would have noticed that nicotine is a cure for schizophrenia.

So the addicted will get slightly improvements from their drug. Some of them enough to reduce their chance of a clinical diagnosis.

Most people won't be close enough to (the very blurry) line to swap between diagnosed and subclinical.

Re: Nicotine Normalizes Brain Activity Deficits That Are Key to Schizophrenia

#40

Post by dragonwriter » Mon, Jan 23, 2017, 10:48 PM UTC

BurningFrog wrote: post #34

jessaustin wrote: post #7

It won't really be a surprise, when science learns that most "harmful addictive" substances can improve aspects of brain function for many people.

Cigarettes are very harmful and addictive. Nicotine is only somewhat addictive and even less harmful.

Nicotine is the addictive agent in cigarettes, but not much of the harm.