Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Nicotine Normalizes Brain Activity Deficits That Are Key to Schizophrenia

neurosciencenews.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 246 posts

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

#171

Post by surement »

DanielleMolloy wrote: post #138
qrybam wrote: post #38

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…

How many of those 2mg nicotine gums did you chew during a day? I am asking because the stimulating effects appear to exist during microdosing of nicotine, e.g. 1mg for those who have not been exposed to nicotine before.

Not GP but as someone who's never smoked, 2mg is quite a bit and I've rarely found myself taking more than one per day (after lunch), pretty much never more than two. I've never found a gum that was less than 2mg though (I've only seen 2mg and 4mg). I did it for a few years, completely stopped when I had access to nap rooms at work since I didn't have to push through that post-lunch crash anymore.

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

#172

Post by sfilargi »

tomcam wrote: post #69
_m8fo wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not just get more, higher quality sleep? It provides all of the upsides that you mention with no downsides.

Not parent, but nothing I have tried improves my sleep. Baseline is just bad. Exercise, meditation, alarms – nothing works. The only thing that raised the baseline was quitting caffeine.

What works for me is a couple cups of Chamomile tea before bed.

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

#173

Post by andy_ppp »

SparkyMcUnicorn wrote: post #126
andy_ppp wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually don't think vaping is good because it allows the nicotine user to never realise it's possible to get over their addiction instead requiring constant replacement of smoking. This is not needed if they accept fully the difficulty of giving up but realise that every exertion of will power promotes their escape and weakens smokings hold on the user.

Counter arguments. 1. Many people that vape use it as a method to wean themselves off of nicotine completely. Since you can adjust the level of nicotine, they just use less and less until they aren't having any at all. Out of people I know that vape 3 have quit vaping/nicotine completely after a year or two, 1 vapes with no nicotine, and I vape with 1mg/ml of nicotine. 2. If someone has tried to quit smoking but keep…

I just believe vaping makes it harder to quit for me; it is better if instead I can convince myself that it's a process that takes time but I'm improving at. For example hardly wanting to smoke after a delicious dinner tonight is great progress, if I'd have vaped I would have got a nicotine hit that wasn't as enjoyable as smoking and I would have wanted to smoke keeping me trapped in the idea I need a puff to be happy.

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

#174

Post by agentgt »

DrScump wrote: post #170
agentgt wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tried a bunch of supplements and herbs. Some worked, some had nasty side effects, and most did squat. The short list is I tried: Piractem, GABA, Rhodila Rosea, Cocamine (chocolate extract), gluractone (red bull ingredient), various ephedrine like stuff, various methly caffeine things (ie green tea), Yohimbine (I highly recommend you never ever take this). I used to have lab like jars of the stuff at work and my cow…

do not take Yohimbine Did you take actual, pharmaceutical-grade Yohimbine HCl, or an herbal? Actual, unrefined Yohimbe has other alkaloids that have adverse effects, and it oxidizes quickly.

I do not recall the manufacture but it was a very small white pill (I have seen the extract pills you might be referring to which are reddish).

I just don't think I can try the experiment again but I'm fairly sure it was the yohimbine (this was after repeated tries of different products).

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

#175

Post by narrator »

qrybam wrote: post #38

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…

Nicotine also accelerates cancer growth. Specifically, nicotinic acetylcholine receptor overstimulation is associated with growth and metastasis of pancreatic cancer [1]. Thus, I'd say that nicotine is unhealthy for long-term chronic use. Caffeine, on the other hand, has shown long-term health benefits in studies.[2]

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26264026

[2] http://www.theverge.com/2017/1/16/14285210/coffee-caffeine-i...

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

#176

Post by losteric »

tsomctl wrote: post #60
losteric wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or just MJ for everything

If you can recommend a strain that helps with ADHD while still allowing you to be alert and cognizant, I would really like to know. I've been looking for years.

https://www.leafly.com/news/strains-products/best-cannabis-s...

I have had the most success with vaping green crack at 210C. Oil concentrates also work, but I tend to overshoot the functional sweet spot and end up recreationally high.

Smoking was much harder to nail down. It worked occasionally, enough to justify buying the vape... But the vape is way better.

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

#177

Post by BurningFrog »

kruhft wrote: post #70
BurningFrog wrote: post #14

That Schizophrenia patients smoke a lot is well known. I guess this explains it. The other weird Schizophrenia fact is that blind people are never Schizophrenic. Congenital Blindness, that is. Poking your eyes out won't cure Schizophrenia once you have it.

> blind people are never Schizophrenic That is an interesting observation. Do you have a source?

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-imprinted-brain/201...

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

#178

Post by rikelmens »

eduren wrote: post #9

Can anyone with access to the paper give a few technical details? The abstract mentions "Chronic nicotine administration" does this mean the nicotine dosage is high enough to not be a viable basis for treatment? The linked article claims that this could be a basis for new drug research, which sounds exciting, but how much do we already know about drugs that affect the nicotinic receptors?

Full article: http://sci-hub.cc/10.1038/nm.4274

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

#179

Post by chimeracoder »

agentgt wrote: post #122
anigbrowl wrote: post #48

“This defines a completely novel strategy for medication development,” says lead author As someone with schizoaffective problems and raging ADHD, I find quotes like this acutely annoying. I've told every psychiatrist I'eve ever dealt with about the experiential costs/benefits of smoking (and consuming various other recreational drugs). They all nod sagely and say things like 'but smoking is bad' (no shit Sherlock!) w…

I have never been addicted to cigarettes and do not smoke but I do chew nicotine gum all the time for ADD (and yes there is a difference between ADHD and ADD). I took me a while to figure out that nicotine is a superior stimulant over caffeine, adderall, ritalin and even chocolate extract (albeit chocolate was surprisingly effective). The big plus with nicotine is that it doesn't have the after downer that the above…

> (and yes there is a difference between ADHD and ADD).

Not anymore. Under the new classifications, there is only ADHD. However, ADHD can come in three forms - "Predominantly Inattentive", "Predominantly Hyperactive", or "Combined".[0] So, confusingly, a person can have ADHD without any symptoms of hyperactivity, in which case they are diagnosed with "Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder - Primarily Inattentive".

The differential diagnosis between the three types is time-consuming and oftentimes not worth the trouble or expense except in more severe cases, so it's common for doctors either to subjectively apply the one they feel fits the individual without comprehensive testing, or to default to "Combined".

[0] It's actually slightly more complicated than that, depending on whether you use ICD-9, ICD-10 or the DSM V, but ICD-10 and the DSM V both agree that ADHD is the canonical term, and ADD is "deprecated" (to appropriate the software terminology).

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

#180

Post by mgcross »

agentgt wrote: post #140
sova wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for sharing your experience. As a substance nerd I find all this info very helpful and illuminating. Are you familiar with Erowid?

I tried a bunch of supplements and herbs. Some worked, some had nasty side effects, and most did squat. The short list is I tried: Piractem, GABA, Rhodila Rosea, Cocamine (chocolate extract), gluractone (red bull ingredient), various ephedrine like stuff, various methly caffeine things (ie green tea), Yohimbine (I highly recommend you never ever take this). I used to have lab like jars of the stuff at work and my cow…

Yohimbine is a horrible experience. Used clinically to induce anxiety attacks, and does so very well.
Post reply on HN