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Nicotine Normalizes Brain Activity Deficits That Are Key to Schizophrenia

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

#221

Post by wryun »

anigbrowl wrote: post #63
abandonliberty wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Well we might have noticed it a lot earlier if psychiatrists did a better job of listening to their patients instead of scribbling a prescription and telling them to come back in 3 months. My last psychiatrist is regarded as one of the leading researchers in his sub-specialty and did very little to earn the $500/hour I was paying him. Your comment assumes the psychiatric profession is generally meretricious and evide…

You might want to look up the meaning of meretricious :)

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

#222

Post by abandonliberty »

anigbrowl wrote: post #63
abandonliberty wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Well we might have noticed it a lot earlier if psychiatrists did a better job of listening to their patients instead of scribbling a prescription and telling them to come back in 3 months. My last psychiatrist is regarded as one of the leading researchers in his sub-specialty and did very little to earn the $500/hour I was paying him. Your comment assumes the psychiatric profession is generally meretricious and evide…

Sorry to hear about your psychiatrist. I suspect this falls into the university trap: "Great" professors are in fact great researchers; there's comparatively little reward in being a great teacher (or listener to your patients).

Hmm perhaps also because smoking behavior probably doesn't change much without accompanying lifestyle changes and confounding factors.

Still we didn't have schizophrenics who happened to pick up smoking and were completely cured, right? (right?) So the magnitude of effect is helpful, but not curative.

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

#223

Post by noonespecial »

DanielleMolloy wrote: post #129
zeta0134 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing that finally worked for me was blackout curtains in my room. I didn't realize just how much the incoming light from outside my window was affecting my sleep. In pitch black darkness, I'm out like a light and have the deepest sleep imaginable. (It's so effective that I have to set an alarm to wake myself up, otherwise I'll stay asleep for 10-12 hours) I'm able to replicate this somewhat using a sleeping mask…

I grew up in a house that had the massively thick kind of exterior blinds everywhere, the ones that really make your room pitch dark ("Außenrolläden" in my native language). After moving out from my parent's house I have lived in several places, but often in older buildings without decent blinds. I didn't realize the influence this may have had on me before a temporary room mate pointed out that the room is far too b…

Mine did as well. I absolutely loved them. When I was having our house built in America I tried everything I knew to get them built in. Apparently they are a fire hazard(1) here and so are not permitted by code.

(1) Then again, the house I lived in that had them was nearly 100% concrete as most houses in Germany were. American houses, not so much. Sure would be useful here in Florida come hurricane season though.

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

#224

Post by ivanhoe »

yarou wrote: post #109
mona_simpson wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Take-away from that is to look up the literature /before/ carrying out the self-experimentation. It could have saved the nasty experience with the retina cyst which sounds very nasty. I guess we normally only get to hear of the self-experiments with great results and advances for science and medicine. The not-so-good results can tend to get buried both figuratively and literally. Hope you're fully recovered.

I'm sure someone who's never exercised before could die of cardiac arrest as soon as they step on a treadmill. I think it's slightly disingenuous to suggest that one should never take risks because there are possible downsides. Nicotine exists in tomatoes, potatoes, etc. Should I remove these from my diet because they contain nicotine, which might possibly cause a cyst in my retina? Surely, we would both agree that a…

Lots of unhealthy or actually poisonous chemicals exists in your tomatoes, but in very low levels... dosage is what makes the difference...

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

#225

Post by derefr »

tritosomal wrote: post #211
pizza wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The older I get, the more "neurotypical" becomes synonymous for capitalism-compatible. No matter the size of your parachute/coping mechanism, if you fall on Jupiter, it's not the (decelerated) fall that kills you, it's the jostling torture of simultaneously hitting fluid from under you, and being crushed by the weight of fluid above.

I'm inclined to agree with you. ADHD seems to be simply a code word for prescribing amphetamines to people who are confronted by the genuinely boring reality of sitting in the same room with the same people who do nothing and go nowhere for years on end. Unfortunately other economies and models of social order demand similarly horrific obedience, and capitalism is not alone. It's just the thing we got stuck with. Fee…

> ADHD seems to be simply a code word for prescribing amphetamines to people who are confronted by the genuinely boring reality of sitting in the same room with the same people who do nothing and go nowhere for years on end.

No. I have ADHD. The most obvious symptom has nothing to do with "being bored"—it's that I can't gather the motivation to practice any skill that I'm not already naturally good at, even when I really really want to be good at that skill. Similarly, I can't take care of pets, or even plants; I can't be anywhere on time; and I forget at least one thing I absolutely need to bring with me every time I leave the house. (Also, I'm absolutely never able to decide where to go to eat, rather than only unable to do so when worn out from work.)

Just as a clinically depressed person will still experience subjectively negative qualia even in a perfect world, a person with ADHD will be unable to remain focused on working toward even what they would subjectively consider the most wonderfully worthwhile goals.

ADHD medication allows me (that is, the part of my brain that holds my sense of identity) to take control of what "I" (that is, the part of my brain that decides whether things are worth doing right now) want to do with my life. If I (brain piece #1) am the rider of an extremely petulant horse (brain piece #2), the medication is a spur on the boot of #1, by which #2 can be brought to heel.

(Now, my case is probably unusual: I went to a psychiatrist after taking an ADHD self-assessment as an adult, rather than being diagnosed as a child. But I assure you that there is at least a core group of people within the "diagnosed with ADHD" group who, like me, consider their ADHD a thing they suffer from just as much as clinical depression is for those who have it, and would find it just as much of an obstacle to enjoying their lives even if they lived alone in a cabin in the woods.)

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

#226

Post by tallanvor »

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.

I understand completely. I have a sleep disorder where most of my sleep is as it should be, but when I enter REM, I "wake up" throughout the REM portion of the sleep cycle. The end result is I get very little REM sleep leaving me constantly exhausted. Changes to diet (including making sure I quit eating earlier in the day, for example, cutting out caffeine and alcohol, etc.) haven't made any difference, and neither have changes to the bedroom - making it darker, getting a new bed, and all that.

Right now I'm taking Gabapentin, which helps a little. So far the sleep specialists I'm working with (both a neurologist and a psychiatrist) haven't been able to find anything that helps more.

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

#227

Post by DanBC »

BatFastard wrote: post #130
tcj_phx wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Edited to add that I quit tobacco ~7 years ago using chantix, which I totally recommend. Unfortunately my mental ilnesses have become harder to deal with over the same period. I learned from someone here (about 4 months ago [1]) that nicotine is not so addictive by itself. It is the combination of MAOI-like chemicals in tobacco that makes it hard for smokers to quit. MAOI's were the "first generation" anti-depressa…

>but caused high blood pressure when combined with fine aged cheese. Are you serious about this?

People taking MAOIs need to follow a careful diet to avoid many types of food.

http://www.gloshospitals.nhs.uk/SharePoint110/Antibiotics%20...

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

#228

Post by DanBC »

jayajay wrote: post #104
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…

These days, I would think they would recommend vaping over smoking. Vaping is apparently much safer, and only contains nicotine (plus glycerin/glycols). In my experience, cigarettes are much more relaxing and calming than vapes. I would think that the other compounds in cigarettes add to the overall soothing effect. Something about pure nicotine doses like through vapes just doesn't feel as good as a cigarette. One o…

There's been a kneejerk reaction to ban e-cigarettes in English MH hospitals. Justifications vary from "we don't know it's safe", "we think the nicotine is harmful unless it's being used to quit smoking and also being tapered down", to "The batteries are dangerous".

This ban isn't just on actively vaping inside the hospital, but having the unpowered device, or vaping in the hospital grounds.

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

#229

Post by PakG1 »

mona_simpson wrote: post #44
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…

Take-away from that is to look up the literature /before/ carrying out the self-experimentation. It could have saved the nasty experience with the retina cyst which sounds very nasty. I guess we normally only get to hear of the self-experiments with great results and advances for science and medicine. The not-so-good results can tend to get buried both figuratively and literally. Hope you're fully recovered.

At the same time, I would not restrict what a grown rational and self-aware human (emphasize rational and self-aware) is and isn't allowed to do with themselves. See biohackers, attempts at cyborg conversion, and Dallas Buyers Club. I don't recommend it. But whatever, they are individual agents. Of course, if they're actively promoting misinformation, especially that which affects people negatively, as Ron Woodroof apparently did with AIDS drugs, that's another story....

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

#230

Post by austinjp »

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.

This is odd. I've met a blind schizophrenic.

Edit: ah, "congenital" blindness. The person I met lost their sight very early in life, I think immediately after birth.

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