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Serotonin booster leads to increased functional brain connectivity

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Re: Serotonin booster leads to increased functional brain connectivity

#41

Post by noduerme »

freehorse wrote: post #37
alwayslikethis wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One warning about 5-HTP here. It seems that it can be potentially cardiotoxic at higher doses, or so as I read.

This warning can never be overstated for 5-HTP. Higher doses/longer term use can have a lot of negative effects in the heart, as well as in the serotonin and dopamine system (even up to serotonin syndrome in the most extreme cases). A major problem is that the body does not have mechanisms to regulate conversion of 5-HTP to serotonin (5-HT), which is not a really good property of a supplement. One should do their sea…

Correct me if I'm wrong, because I don't have a great grasp of drugs or biological pathways. The following is my extremely lay understanding:

* The reason people started taking MDMA was that it caused their brains to release large bursts of seratonin, which felt good.

* Receptors to seratonin tended to be overwhelmed, which caused people in the short term to be unable to achieve the same levels of ecstasy, and in the long term caused them to (grow new receptors? or at least...) have a perceived deficit of seratonin; causing short and long term depression in MDMA users.

Surely, injecting yourself with the chemical that causes your brain to be happy can't just work forever...right?

Re: Serotonin booster leads to increased functional brain connectivity

#42

Post by maliniakh »

noduerme wrote: post #40
phreeza wrote: post #12

A note for people not familiar with the terminology - "functional connectivity" is a specific technical term that really just means temporal correlation between brain areas, as opposed to "structural connectivity" which refers to the actual neural pathways that are formed between brain areas. If you rephrase the headline as "Serotonin booster leads to increased correlation between activity in different brain areas" i…

Getting neuron pathways that otherwise don't signal between each other to suddenly light up is also basically what LSD does, right?

yes, actually all the improvements mentioned in the article reminiscence me of positive effects of psychedelics. They happen to act on serotonin receptors, too.

Re: Serotonin booster leads to increased functional brain connectivity

#43

Post by MavisBacon »

bflesch wrote: post #16
mobiuscog wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As with anything like this (especially anecdotal), how much did you take each day, and did you change anything else over the same period ?

he changed season, sun exposure and lockdown :)

Bingo. It can really be tough to determine where progress is coming from over that period of time

Re: Serotonin booster leads to increased functional brain connectivity

#44

Post by noduerme »

freehorse wrote: post #39
ljf wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Certainly and some people also get serotonin syndrome if they mix this with other antidepressant medications. Read up before taking but to me this just highlights the impacts it can have. If it were patentable it would have had far more research I'm sure.

> to me this just highlights the impacts it can have. I believe it also highlights that the body cannot regulate its conversion to serotonin, as it does with L-tryptophan (which needs to be converted to 5HTP) for instance, which can result to these issues. Also, the body does not regulate where in the body the conversion happens, you _really_ do not want it do be converted to serotonin in peripheral tissue (as it can…

>> Heart palpitations is a very common side effect due to it.

This is the first time I've heard that, but - at some point in my life I found a technique for triggering mass bursts of seratonin when I want them. It's not that complicated; when I'm depressed and really need it, I just focus on a time when I felt my brain flooded with it. I habitually live with very low happiness but I'm familiar with the feeling of overwhelming joy - and love of everything around me - and I can put myself there, at a cost. Usually measured in hours or minutes.

I also have an arrhythmia. When I do this, I often get heart palpitations lasting from 10-15 minutes.

(I'm aware that the process I'm describing is also totally undocumented, but I've been doing it for years).

Re: Serotonin booster leads to increased functional brain connectivity

#45

Post by noduerme »

maliniakh wrote: post #42
noduerme wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Getting neuron pathways that otherwise don't signal between each other to suddenly light up is also basically what LSD does, right?

yes, actually all the improvements mentioned in the article reminiscence me of positive effects of psychedelics. They happen to act on serotonin receptors, too.

Do you mind if I ask you - how have you had an account here since 7/5/12 and you only have 1 karma point? I'm flattered that you're responding to my post.

Re: Serotonin booster leads to increased functional brain connectivity

#47

Post by mtlmtlmtlmtl »

psychphysic wrote: post #31
mtlmtlmtlmtl wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main reason it's not too exciting to me is much simpler. They tested it for 6 days. You can do all sorts of wonderful stuff with a drug for a few days. But for most drugs, the effects simply cease if you keep taking it due to tolerance. And there doesn't seem to be a huge amount of leeway to up the dose either because it's a laxative.

I think this is a overly pessimistic take. It would be nice to see a longer term study. And no people shouldn't be buying this in IndiaMart but critical analysis of studies isn't just about being as pessimistic as possible. It's overly pessimistic as it's not constructive. Instead of asking for longer term studies you declare the effect probably won't last. There are loads of criticisms one could make of the study an…

I would think it's pretty clear that the implication is longer term studies are needed and that people reading can infer that on their own.

Re: Serotonin booster leads to increased functional brain connectivity

#48

Post by theaussiestew »

bbor wrote: post #36
code51 wrote: post #34

Could this potentially help schizophrenia, emotional regulation, impulsivity, reward processing, ADHD etc because of an improvement in functional connectivity?

This comment sums up why I’m so sad to be living in what I feel will be looked back on as the dark ages of neuroscience - these very very smart people are limited to “more correlated brain activity might help with everything!” OTOH perhaps I don’t want to live in a world with happy pills… we should all be grateful

Seems like psychiatry is throwing things at the wall and going with whatever sticks. That plus spurious statistical correlations supporting the use of certain medications.

Re: Serotonin booster leads to increased functional brain connectivity

#49

Post by Gareth321 »

freehorse wrote: post #37
alwayslikethis wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One warning about 5-HTP here. It seems that it can be potentially cardiotoxic at higher doses, or so as I read.

This warning can never be overstated for 5-HTP. Higher doses/longer term use can have a lot of negative effects in the heart, as well as in the serotonin and dopamine system (even up to serotonin syndrome in the most extreme cases). A major problem is that the body does not have mechanisms to regulate conversion of 5-HTP to serotonin (5-HT), which is not a really good property of a supplement. One should do their sea…

I took 5-HTP longterm (two years) and started experiencing panic attacks, among other symptoms. I had to stop. I had supposed this to be a natural supplement without side effects, but I was wrong. I suppose each person is quite unique, so your mileage will vary.

Re: Serotonin booster leads to increased functional brain connectivity

#50

Post by simiones »

noduerme wrote: post #41
freehorse wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This warning can never be overstated for 5-HTP. Higher doses/longer term use can have a lot of negative effects in the heart, as well as in the serotonin and dopamine system (even up to serotonin syndrome in the most extreme cases). A major problem is that the body does not have mechanisms to regulate conversion of 5-HTP to serotonin (5-HT), which is not a really good property of a supplement. One should do their sea…

Correct me if I'm wrong, because I don't have a great grasp of drugs or biological pathways. The following is my extremely lay understanding: * The reason people started taking MDMA was that it caused their brains to release large bursts of seratonin, which felt good. * Receptors to seratonin tended to be overwhelmed, which caused people in the short term to be unable to achieve the same levels of ecstasy, and in the…

Serotonin doesn't cause you to be happy. Its effects are more basic in some ways, but also more complex in others. It is a chemical which serves a purpose in at least all forms of multi-cellular life, from plants to animals - so you can imagine how old and fundamental its role is.

Also, depression is not caused by low serotonin levels:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41380-022-01661-0

> The main areas of serotonin research provide no consistent evidence of there being an association between serotonin and depression, and no support for the hypothesis that depression is caused by lowered serotonin activity or concentrations. Some evidence was consistent with the possibility that long-term antidepressant use reduces serotonin concentration.

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