Serotonin booster leads to increased functional brain connectivity • Hacker News Board

Re: Serotonin booster leads to increased functional brain connectivity

#221

Post by ambicapter » Wed, Jun 14, 2023, 3:49 PM UTC

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #173

Roark66 wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish I could upvote your comment twice. Based on my observation how a childhood friend of mine was treated for a psychiatric condition I think all of the "science" of using drugs to treat mental issues is at the level of advancement comparable to medieval blacksmiths doing dentistry. It essentially comes down to "hey, try this, are you better or worse, worse? Try something else. Better, have more of it". All the th…

> I think all of the "science" of using drugs to treat mental issues is at the level of advancement comparable to medieval blacksmiths doing dentistry. Discounting an entire field of science like this, based on a second-hand observations, is exactly the kind of hubris the parent comment was talking about: There’s something about psychiatry and neuroscience that makes a lot of people who are good at engineering/softwa…

> You’re right that psychiatry and medication is a lot of trial and error, but that’s the most efficient and accurate way to determine which medications work with a patient.

> Note they practitioners aren’t just guessing and hoping for the best.

Soooo, which is it? You can't have it both ways, either trial and error or "educated guess".

Re: Serotonin booster leads to increased functional brain connectivity

#222

Post by BizarroLand » Wed, Jun 14, 2023, 3:55 PM UTC

pgt wrote: post #210

p_j_w wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GP is not appealing to authority, he/she is advising caution based on the fact that HN is not largely made up of medical professionals.

That is an appeal to authority.

You're wrong

Re: Serotonin booster leads to increased functional brain connectivity

#223

Post by VoodooJuJu » Wed, Jun 14, 2023, 3:56 PM UTC

hombre_fatal wrote: post #101

DiscourseFan wrote: post #19

Something in our industrial processes must be screwing with people's serotonin levels because Psychedelics and other serotenergic drugs are becoming the defacto treatment method for a whole host of ailments. I personally suffer from IBS, migraines, sleeping problems, and mood swings, if I haven't taken a dose of psychedelics in the last 6 months. Now, getting regular exercise, eating well, staying hydrated, sleeping…

> Something in our industrial processes must be screwing with people's serotonin levels because Psychedelics and other serotenergic drugs are becoming the defacto treatment method for a whole host of ailments. This is a comically bad inference. P1: We have ailments that can be treated with class X of drugs that act on body process Y P2: We increasingly use those drugs Conclusion: Z is messing with body process Y

>This is a comically bad inference.

A rude and unwelcome comment, more appropriate for reddit than HN.

Re: Serotonin booster leads to increased functional brain connectivity

#224

Post by dwaltrip » Wed, Jun 14, 2023, 3:58 PM UTC

fargdarg wrote: post #68

noduerme wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Hi

First comment in 13 years! Amazing.

Nice to have ya around. Enjoy your lurking :)

Re: Serotonin booster leads to increased functional brain connectivity

#225

Post by aphatankha » Wed, Jun 14, 2023, 4:03 PM UTC

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #204

tnel77 wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like HackerNews because the conversations are mostly intelligent and polite. Not always, but it’s far better than my experience with Twitter and Reddit.

> I like HackerNews because the conversations are mostly intelligent and polite Comment sections like this one highlight the risks of mistaking comments that look intelligent and polite for authority. The number of confident, polite posts in this comment section that are giving out factually incorrect information is incredible. Someone down below was speculating about this drug’s cardiotoxicity in ways that could be…

Agreed. There’s a viral meme HN is “better” but little evidence it is true the content is more often accurate.

Still a lot of noise and little signal even if the noise is not emotional like 4chan or Twitter

Re: Serotonin booster leads to increased functional brain connectivity

#226

Post by mjtlittle » Wed, Jun 14, 2023, 4:07 PM UTC

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #179

DiscourseFan wrote: post #19

Something in our industrial processes must be screwing with people's serotonin levels because Psychedelics and other serotenergic drugs are becoming the defacto treatment method for a whole host of ailments. I personally suffer from IBS, migraines, sleeping problems, and mood swings, if I haven't taken a dose of psychedelics in the last 6 months. Now, getting regular exercise, eating well, staying hydrated, sleeping…

> Psychedelics and other serotenergic drugs are becoming the defacto treatment method for a whole host of ailments. They are definitely not. Anecdotes aside, psychedelics are extremely overhyped right now and the downsides are heavily downplayed online. The studies about psychedelics and depression use heavy amounts of therapy and careful professional guidance, which the at-home experimenters don’t get. Psychedelics…

Not sure why your getting pushback on such a leveled take.

I am also increasingly feeling like this is the case. Not to say that there is no value in psychedelics (definitely looks like there is in clinical settings), it just seems like some people are touting it as a miracle solution to all mental problems. Something that can be self administered with no oversight.

I have read a couple threads over the past few months on reddit about how mushrooms increased the posters' suicidal thoughts, and that they decided to abstain from taking them because of that.

I think this perspective is even reinforced by recreational users: the first thing you are told before participating is to be in a familiar set and setting, and also to be in a good place in life. However, in certain states of mind (ex. depression or some other condition), I wouldn't trust the individual to be able to make such informed judgements. The risk is known.

Re: Serotonin booster leads to increased functional brain connectivity

#227

Post by danaris » Wed, Jun 14, 2023, 4:16 PM UTC

naasking wrote: post #160

bla3 wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you heard (intelligent!) non-tech people talking about tech? Why would (intelligent!) tech people fare better talking about non-tech? Domain knowledge is more important than intelligence almost everywhere.

> Have you heard (intelligent!) non-tech people talking about tech? Why would (intelligent!) tech people fare better talking about non-tech? Becoming an effective programmer trains one's strict logical and causal reasoning skills, since we're always building or debugging large and complex systems from simpler components. We see all kinds of crazy emergent behaviours all of the time, and learn to understand how such t…

"Sure, lots of people have very rigorous training in critical thinking, research skills, and other important aspects of analysis as part of their scientific, medical, or academic background, but we programmers are the specialest boys who are uniquely able to understand absolutely everything better than anyone else."

C'mon; I'm a programmer too, but this is just rank arrogance.

Re: Serotonin booster leads to increased functional brain connectivity

#228

Post by danaris » Wed, Jun 14, 2023, 4:18 PM UTC

pgt wrote: post #210

p_j_w wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GP is not appealing to authority, he/she is advising caution based on the fact that HN is not largely made up of medical professionals.

That is an appeal to authority.

"Someone who has gone through years of medical school to get a degree is more likely to be correct on matters concerning medicine than someone who has not" is not an appeal to authority.

Re: Serotonin booster leads to increased functional brain connectivity

#229

Post by svnt » Wed, Jun 14, 2023, 4:20 PM UTC

simiones wrote: post #176

svnt wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> 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 I did not read your paper, but believe parent is making a different claim: it is not lowered serotonin levels or reduced activity, but an increase in receptors (perhaps a proxy for expected serotonin levels) that i…

The paper is specifically claiming there is just no association between serotonin activity and depression. By my understanding, that should include increased/decreased receptors, reuptake, breakdown etc.

Ok, I read the paper. Here is the most pertinent part on receptors:

> Fourteen different serotonin receptors have been identified, with most research on depression focusing on the 5-HT1A receptor [11, 34]. Since the functions of other 5-HT receptors and their relationship to depression have not been well characterised, we restricted our analysis to data on 5-HT1A receptors [11, 34].

So they reviewed two 2016 meta analyses of one out of fourteen known receptors involved in the process.

> Both meta-analyses were based on studies that predominantly involved patients who were taking or had recently taken (within 1–3 weeks of scanning) antidepressants or other types of psychiatric medication, and both sets of authors commented on the possible influence of prior or current medication on findings.

So both meta analyses were very sensitive to temporally proximate relevant medication use.

Of the two receptor analyses:

> one analysis was of very low quality [37], … and one was strongly influenced by three studies and publication bias was present [38].

This is about as little (and sadly as much) as one could do to address receptors, and about as far from a dismissal of association of receptor count and depression as it is possible to get.

Re: Serotonin booster leads to increased functional brain connectivity

#230

Post by burnished » Wed, Jun 14, 2023, 4:23 PM UTC

tnel77 wrote: post #190

bedobi wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> intelligent people fall into where they think their intelligence in one area means they’re qualified to make assessments or reach conclusions in fields outside of their own you're describing 99.99% of hackernews, lol (and I'm not even sure people here are that intelligent in the first place) (in case anyone is reading this thinking I'm saying I'm intelligent, rest assured I'm not)

I like HackerNews because the conversations are mostly intelligent and polite. Not always, but it’s far better than my experience with Twitter and Reddit.

Like everyone else apparently I don't think the level of intelligence here is particularly noteworthy - but I absolutely agree that the average conversation here is polite and topic focused. For the most part I think the less productive conversations tend to occur as a product of genuinely misunderstandings. I think the moderation policies help a lot with this.