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Schizophrenia drugs may have been off target for decades, study finds

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Re: Schizophrenia drugs may have been off target for decades, study finds

#101

Post by throw18376 »

calibas wrote: post #52

I have a theory. Antipsychotic medications just need to make the person more "manageable" to be considered effective. It doesn't need to eliminate the psychosis directly, it could just make the person more sedated, and it would appear to be "working" properly.

this is unfortunately part of how they are used, especially in inpatient settings with way too high doses.

but also, if you've had a conversation with someone in active psychosis, vs. on the right dose of medication, there is a really incredible distinction in the clarity of their thinking and speaking -- night and day sometimes. so the drugs do work at genuinely treating some of the problems. and good psychiatrists do look carefully for this kind of improvement.

Re: Schizophrenia drugs may have been off target for decades, study finds

#102

Post by BurningFrog »

pixl97 wrote: post #21
BurningFrog wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can also think of "the brain" as a collection of 10-20 separate organs, rather than one super complex one.

While true, the complexity of each organelle in the brain is still much higher than that of the typical organ elsewhere in the body. That and there is a high degree of connectivity and feedback between components where the API is completely and totally undocumented. It's not that you don't know what the known API calls do, you don't have any clue on how many API calls there even are. Accidently emulating one of these…

The fact that these APIa are undocumented clearly disproves the existence of a (benevolent) God.

Re: Schizophrenia drugs may have been off target for decades, study finds

#103

Post by [deleted] »

Broken_Hippo wrote: post #9
whats_a_quasar wrote: post #5

The brain is really complicated, and all psychiatric medications affect multiple receptors and subsystems. Framing this study as "antipsychotics were off target" is an editorial choice. The title could just as easily have been "Improved understanding of antipsychotic action means we may be able to design better antipsychotics." Edit: It also ought to be noted that the study was on mice that had been given amphetamine…

The story could just as easily be "Improved understanding of antipsychotic action means we may be able to design better antipsychotics" And that would be a more accurate understanding of it - and I hope its true. Current antipsychotics are helpful but imperfect.

[deleted]

Re: Schizophrenia drugs may have been off target for decades, study finds

#105

Post by whats_a_quasar »

FeteCommuniste wrote: post #74
whats_a_quasar wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Schizophrenics are less violent than the general population. In general, schizophrenia is not dangerous to others around, even untreated. People who are in a psychotic episode act oddly, which can scare others, but the perception of danger comes from that erratic action, not from actual danger.

"Individuals with schizophrenia are 4 to 7 times more likely to commit violent crimes, such as assault and homicide [4,5], and 4 to 6 times more likely to exhibit general aggressive behavior, such as verbal and physical threats [10,11], compared with the general population." https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6852683/ That isn't to say that schizophrenia necessarily causes the violent behavior: the two vari…

Huh! Thanks for the reference. I think that my perception was based on one of the studies the review mentions that found schizophrenics weren't more violent. Wasn't aware of this other research.

Re: Schizophrenia drugs may have been off target for decades, study finds

#106

Post by MichaelZuo »

aatd86 wrote: post #86
horsawlarway wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The anaesthetic agent is not a drug that one is supposed to take for the remaining of their life and has no observed side-effects in general. This is notably untrue. General anaesthesia is associated with higher risks of dementia. Especially the older the person being treated. While there's some disagreement here - short term cognitive decline is inarguable as a side-effect (called post-operative cognitive decline)…

I don't see how your link establishes that what I said is notably untrue.

It has serious, observed, side effects for a sizable fraction of the population?

Yet your comment said "and has no observed side-effects in general."

Re: Schizophrenia drugs may have been off target for decades, study finds

#107

Post by neuronerdgirl »

FollowingTheDao wrote: post #95
astrange wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, and psychiatrists never believed it was "low serotonin" at all, or at least claim to have never believed it. For ADHD, stimulants actually do treat it by fixing "low dopamine"… in specific areas of the brain. But "low dopamine" is also a description of Parkinson's disease. But SSRIs don't work like stimulants do; they take a lot more than half an hour to take effect. We don't actually know how SSRIs work in the…

> But SSRIs don't work like stimulants do; they take a lot more than half an hour to take effect. Sorry, need to be an anecdote for you. Prozac makes me manic in about 5 hours. We know how SSRIs work, the problem is they are treating a symptom not the cause of depression which is immune dysfunction. If SSRIs did not increase serotonin there would be no risk of them causing serotonin syndrome, and they do.

> the problem is they are treating a symptom not the cause of depression which is immune dysfunction.

Yeaaaaa that's gonna be a serious "citations (plural and trustworthy) needed" from me there

Re: Schizophrenia drugs may have been off target for decades, study finds

#108

Post by strken »

P_I_Staker wrote: post #87
ChrisClark wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Now she has been out of hospital for a while, unmedicated You're wrong, it obviously worked. Might want to check into your own beliefs about why the doctors are trying to sap all your bodily fluids.

I don't think you read my comment. This issue is actually highly contentious. If a remedy consistently has poor results, it's a bad remedy. Simply saying "it works for the ones that are righteous" is absurd. If you break it down that's generally what people are saying, but usually use words like lazy, stupid, crazy, addict, etc. If most patients can't or won't follow a treatment maybe it doesn't work so well. > Might…

The issue of entire treatment plans not working when the patient is unable to follow them might be contentious, but whether the medication works when taken isn't, and that was the topic being discussed.

Convincing people to agree to treatment that's in their own interests is fascinating and raises moral questions, but is also completely irrelevant.

Re: Schizophrenia drugs may have been off target for decades, study finds

#109

Post by strken »

whats_a_quasar wrote: post #105
FeteCommuniste wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Individuals with schizophrenia are 4 to 7 times more likely to commit violent crimes, such as assault and homicide [4,5], and 4 to 6 times more likely to exhibit general aggressive behavior, such as verbal and physical threats [10,11], compared with the general population." https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6852683/ That isn't to say that schizophrenia necessarily causes the violent behavior: the two vari…

Huh! Thanks for the reference. I think that my perception was based on one of the studies the review mentions that found schizophrenics weren't more violent. Wasn't aware of this other research.

I've read disengenuous claims that they're less violent, but omit any mention of per capita risk.

Re: Schizophrenia drugs may have been off target for decades, study finds

#110

Post by strken »

FollowingTheDao wrote: post #96
m_0x wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pardon my ignorance and prejudice, but how are you not a danger to the people that surround you? Or is schizophrenia a spectrum very much alike as autism?

hey, that was a pretty, uh, stigmatizing statement. schizophrenics are no more of a danger to others than the general population. It is because society treats them like shit and so they take drugs to cope that makes them violent. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6852683/ "Patients with schizophrenia without comorbid substance abuse have only a slight increased risk of violent crime compared with the gener…

What proportion of the general population's violent crime is caused by substance abuse? If around 40% is attributable to substance abuse[0][1] then you're comparing clean schizophrenics, for whom 0% of crime is attributable to substance abuse, to a population where 40% is.

Note that "attributable" doesn't mean causation, but in reality it usually indicates it to some degree.

[0] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33739484/

[1] https://www.aic.gov.au/publications/tandi/tandi439

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