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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

#261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HN comments are absolute garbage on anything medical, endless uneducated "theories" and emotional anecdotes you don't need to share your personal backstory, everyone knows someone with mental health or cancer or alzheimer's, your idea that DNA is like compiled code makes me think you should go read a book, and your self-medication is probably not scientifically founded

Yea obviously DNA is like bytecode. RNA is the compiled code (it was jitted from DNA).

It's an analogy. It might fit or not. The same problem exists the other direction though. A biologist or doctor may not understand the relevant parts of the analogy and call it nonsense.

Re: Serotonin booster leads to increased functional brain connectivity

#262
post #210
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.

Advising against blind trust in non-experts' statements doesn't imply a recommendation to blindly trust experts' statements.

Re: Serotonin booster leads to increased functional brain connectivity

#263
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post #73

I’ll probably be downvoted for pointing this out but I feel like it’s important. 90% of the comments at the time of my posting this are great examples of the logical fallacy a lot of 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. This would be the same error in judgment that’s turned the noot…

> 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)

Not really, a huge chunk is a comment like yours which is a meta commentary about the subject at hand.

Re: Serotonin booster leads to increased functional brain connectivity

#264

For anyone coming to this comment section in hopes of understanding this further: This comment section is full of misinformation and discourse about drugs that are completely unrelated to what’s discussed in the article. Serotonin isn’t a singular system in the brain. Psychedelics generally don’t interact with the receptor mentioned in this article (5-HT4) so all of the anecdotes talking about LSD or mushrooms do not…

Is there any actionable take away from the information being discussed in the article or comments here?

Re: Serotonin booster leads to increased functional brain connectivity

#265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> 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 ove…

Wouldn’t this come with a crash as a payback?

It does. That's why I use it very sparingly.

Re: Serotonin booster leads to increased functional brain connectivity

#266
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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…

Oh, that's disappointing. I was hoping for a drug that will finally help me understand how monads are just simply monoids in the category of endofunctors.

No, rather in the category of endocrine functors.

Re: Serotonin booster leads to increased functional brain connectivity

#267

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

Incredible! I feel like I just discovered a secret level in the world. Fitting that it happened in a post about acid.

Re: Serotonin booster leads to increased functional brain connectivity

#268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Serotonin syndrome. I believe that qualitative effects of the MDMA would also be significantly reduced.

It's a highly specific HT4 agonist, I'm not sure why you'd be more likely serotonin syndrome by combining it with MDMA vs MDMA alone - it doesn't affect release or transport, nor does it have have significant activity at other binding sites. Am I missing something?

No, I'm just parroting the common wisdom of the drug crowd. But looks like there might not be much to worry about indeed: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5931730/

Re: Serotonin booster leads to increased functional brain connectivity

#269

Isn't there a theory that any nootropic substance needs to have a downside or we would have naturally evolved it by now? I am amused thinking of the idea that this drug being a laxative is that downside

> Isn't there a theory that any nootropic substance needs to have a downside or we would have naturally evolved it by now?

Couldn't that be applied to all modern technology? Humans obviously weren't meant to fly or we would have evolved flight; therefore airplanes bad. Why is this any different? Evolution is an extremely blunt force with only so many tools at its disposal. Besides, there would need to be selective pressure for being happy and content with life, even into late adulthood. Is there? That's not clear at all.

Re: Serotonin booster leads to increased functional brain connectivity

#270

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? 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.

Of course, a lot of strawman arguments are...
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