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Crowdfunded research into how amphetamines work

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Re: Crowdfunded research into how amphetamines work

#21

Post by bennyg »

dmix wrote: post #19
nowarninglabel wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Either you live in a country with much more liberal drug laws than the UK or US, or you are a bit misinformed. These countries have very strict regulations on who can possess quantities of scheduled narcotics, even for research. It took nearly a decade to get regulatory approval to schedule a MDMA research study in the U.S. It's hard to find source on this stuff, but you can see as noted here: http://www.newscientist…

MDMA is not used clinically like Amphetamines are. You can find amphetamines at pharmacies in the USA under the brands: Adderall, Dexedrine, Dextrostat, Desoxyn, Didrex, ProCentra, and Vyvanse. In addition, the article doesn't say they are specifically going to use Meth, only amphetamine.

Exactly. Desoxyn is brand name for dextro-methamphetamine, the CNS-active stereo isomer. Levo-methamphetamine is found in those little Vicks nasal inhalers you stuff in each nostril to clear your sinuses.

Re: Crowdfunded research into how amphetamines work

#22

Post by dhbanes »

nowarninglabel wrote: post #16
dmix wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amphetiamines are used by the military to keep pilots awake and has a plenty of other legal uses. Methamphetiamine, for example, is prescribed by doctors to treat ADHD in low doses. What exactly is illegal about researching the effects of the drug on the brain? The usual difficultly in studying this stuff is finding funding.

Either you live in a country with much more liberal drug laws than the UK or US, or you are a bit misinformed. These countries have very strict regulations on who can possess quantities of scheduled narcotics, even for research. It took nearly a decade to get regulatory approval to schedule a MDMA research study in the U.S. It's hard to find source on this stuff, but you can see as noted here: http://www.newscientist…

MDMA is Schedule I and amphetamines are Schedule II in the US. There's a pretty big difference (legally) between those two classifications.

Re: Crowdfunded research into how amphetamines work

#23

Post by the_erd »

Maybe it's just me, but looking at molecular accumulation in this way doesn't seem that promising. However, there are other problems here...

In order to get this kind of research funded in a traditional way, the author would need a much more detailed explanation of the work: specifically, a compelling and well-referenced account of why drug accumulation in mouse brain sections will be helpful in understanding the mechanism of stimulant function. I would also like to see more detailed methodology and an account of how the researcher will responsibly conduct the research (in terms of accounting for hazardous materials and maintaining researcher safety). These are essential components that any PI would need to provide in order to get research funded, because they are necessary to ensure that the researcher can actually conduct the research (has the knowledge and resources), and get it published (missing some of these features would prevent publication in an academic journal).

It seems to me that other kinds of analysis, such as molecular state-space based approaches (transcriptomics, metabolomics, etc.) would be much more useful than cellular and sub-cellular accumulation, especially since we have very little knowledge of how spatial tissue, cellular, and sub-cellular neurobiology relate to brain function.

Please let me know if I just missed these essential details...

Re: Crowdfunded research into how amphetamines work

#24

Post by polyfractal »

digitalpacman wrote: post #17

I don't get it. All of these people on the project would typically have amounts of money for research on whatever they want to do. Why do they need more money? I guess I am missing the point. I've heard of a bunch professors from friends that have huge research funds. They can even give portions of their research grants to students.

As an ex-academic type, your statement is both true and false. Some professors have large research grants, and indeed, their grants are what pay the salaries of grad students and post-docs.

Other professors (the vast majority) struggle to get appropriate funding. It's a horrible rat race to scrounge up enough money to continue your research. God forbid if you aren't tenured - your job literally depends on how much funding you can bring in (not enough papers = not enough funding = sacked for someone else).

That said, $25k is laughably small amount of money in research. At my old lab, I performed an experiment where I was easily blowing $1000 per week. And I was just a single technician in a lab. Hell, I spent more in supplies than I was paid in salary (probably by some multiple).

Re: Crowdfunded research into how amphetamines work

#25

Post by djkn0x »

I made a $100 contribution (which gets the "talk science over a round of beer" reward) earlier this month. The researcher, Ethan Perlstein, is actually in the Bay Area at the moment... he reached out to me and we're having beers in Palo Alto this afternoon. If you've contributed to the project and are in Palo Alto feel free to join us for a chat / beers in the Science Exchange office (459 Hamilton Ave).

Re: Crowdfunded research into how amphetamines work

#26

Post by [deleted] »

djkn0x wrote: post #25

I made a $100 contribution (which gets the "talk science over a round of beer" reward) earlier this month. The researcher, Ethan Perlstein, is actually in the Bay Area at the moment... he reached out to me and we're having beers in Palo Alto this afternoon. If you've contributed to the project and are in Palo Alto feel free to join us for a chat / beers in the Science Exchange office (459 Hamilton Ave).

[deleted]

Re: Crowdfunded research into how amphetamines work

#27

Post by keefe »

dmix wrote: post #10
keefe wrote: post #8

> How will we spend your money? on lawyers

Amphetiamines are used by the military to keep pilots awake and has a plenty of other legal uses. Methamphetiamine, for example, is prescribed by doctors to treat ADHD in low doses. What exactly is illegal about researching the effects of the drug on the brain? The usual difficultly in studying this stuff is finding funding.

>What exactly is illegal about researching the effects of the drug on the brain?

Unless you dot all your i's and cross all your t's, you'll end up ending with illegal precursor substances in your possession. Synthetic drugs are one of the most serious causes of death in the club scene, stuff like 5MAOI-MIPT, 2CI etc.

For the record, the air force has switch from amphetamines to modafinil and yes, it is adderral for "ADHD"

Re: Crowdfunded research into how amphetamines work

#28

Post by keefe »

dmix wrote: post #19
nowarninglabel wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Either you live in a country with much more liberal drug laws than the UK or US, or you are a bit misinformed. These countries have very strict regulations on who can possess quantities of scheduled narcotics, even for research. It took nearly a decade to get regulatory approval to schedule a MDMA research study in the U.S. It's hard to find source on this stuff, but you can see as noted here: http://www.newscientist…

MDMA is not used clinically like Amphetamines are. You can find amphetamines at pharmacies in the USA under the brands: Adderall, Dexedrine, Dextrostat, Desoxyn, Didrex, ProCentra, and Vyvanse. In addition, the article doesn't say they are specifically going to use Meth, only amphetamine.

MDMA still has limited clinical use and is under research, as is LSD but it is under quite tight controls.

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02791072.2008.104...

http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/1987-01824-001

Re: Crowdfunded research into how amphetamines work

#29

Post by pedrobeltrao »

digitalpacman wrote: post #17

I don't get it. All of these people on the project would typically have amounts of money for research on whatever they want to do. Why do they need more money? I guess I am missing the point. I've heard of a bunch professors from friends that have huge research funds. They can even give portions of their research grants to students.

I just got a group leader position in the UK (currently a postdoc in the bayarea) and I am paying some attention to these experiments in crowdfunding for academic projects. In almost all group leader or faculty position, the research budget is covered by applying for grants. These are very competitive with typical rejection rates of 90%. This is an interesting alternative but there are many caveats. As someone has already noted in one of the comments, you would typically need to write a scientifically grounded proposal. One fear of crowdsourcing for science would be that many "unreasonable" or pseudo-science projects might attract funding if they are popular. This is slightly less of a concern with for-profit projects since popularity needed for the crowdsourcing might be correlated with financial success. The same is not true at all for academic success. The other issue that has already been hinted at is that the required funds are probably too high. A good grant might bring in on the order of 1 million so is it worth more fighting to improve your social networking and fundraising skills or getting more grants submitted ?

Re: Crowdfunded research into how amphetamines work

#30

Post by najmanovich »

the_erd wrote: post #23

Maybe it's just me, but looking at molecular accumulation in this way doesn't seem that promising. However, there are other problems here... In order to get this kind of research funded in a traditional way, the author would need a much more detailed explanation of the work: specifically, a compelling and well-referenced account of why drug accumulation in mouse brain sections will be helpful in understanding the mec…

A lot of the information that you are curious about can be found in Ethan Perlstein's website.
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