What if we prescribed video games, and not Ritalin, to treat ADHD? • Hacker News Board

Re: What if we prescribed video games, and not Ritalin, to treat ADHD?

#31

Post by no_psuedo_bs » Fri, May 22, 2015, 7:17 PM UTC

DanBC wrote: post #27

derefr wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This bullshit has got to stop. Let me explain neurochemical imbalances generally, once and for all. Your brain is a machine to enact your choices. "You" are a small part of your brain; the executive center that makes moral judgements about potential courses of action and makes plans to get what you want. Your brain has reference ranges of neurochemicals. When it is within those ranges, you have a full spectrum of cho…

> Let me explain neurochemical imbalances generally, once and for all. You know that the neurochemical explanation for depression is mostly bullshit, right? Note that I'm not saying that meds don't work, but there's a reason why first line treatment for depression or for anxiety disorders in the UK is not meds but is a (more expensive) talking therapy: the evidence is stronger. EDIT: also, stop feeding the fucking tr…

No, the evidence is not "stronger" for the efficacy of psychotherapy over medication in moderate to severe depression. Nor is it "stronger" for mild depression - they appear to be about as efficacious.

And no, the "neurochemical" explanation for depression isn't bullshit.

But please do enlighten us with your own scientific theory on what scientific process other than chemicals underlies phenomenon like mood, motivation, focus, etc.

Stop peddling psuedoscience.

Re: What if we prescribed video games, and not Ritalin, to treat ADHD?

#32

Post by no_psuedo_bs » Fri, May 22, 2015, 7:18 PM UTC

fit2rule wrote: post #14

derefr wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes you have. You've just never met a person diagnosed with ADHD. Even in the US, the diagnosis rate of ADHD is way below the statistical rate of occurrence in the population (and yes, that is true even when you only say something is "ADHD" if it is critically impairing the person's life.) But in other countries, diagnosis is virtually nonexistent, despite similar prevalence. In those countries, people with ADHD are…

ADHD is a cultural representation. Its not an actual condition. If you believe in the Religion of DSM, then you've got a problem: you live in a box. Not everyone on planet Earth actually considers that attention-deficiency requires drugging and dependency on industrialized pharmaceutical dealers. Its probably part of the "American supremacy" package, though - which is not necessarily only a US infliction, but more of…

Kindly take your pseudoscience to CrystalsRUS.com

Re: What if we prescribed video games, and not Ritalin, to treat ADHD?

#33

Post by derefr » Fri, May 22, 2015, 7:23 PM UTC

DanBC wrote: post #27

derefr wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This bullshit has got to stop. Let me explain neurochemical imbalances generally, once and for all. Your brain is a machine to enact your choices. "You" are a small part of your brain; the executive center that makes moral judgements about potential courses of action and makes plans to get what you want. Your brain has reference ranges of neurochemicals. When it is within those ranges, you have a full spectrum of cho…

> Let me explain neurochemical imbalances generally, once and for all. You know that the neurochemical explanation for depression is mostly bullshit, right? Note that I'm not saying that meds don't work, but there's a reason why first line treatment for depression or for anxiety disorders in the UK is not meds but is a (more expensive) talking therapy: the evidence is stronger. EDIT: also, stop feeding the fucking tr…

No, the serotonin insufficiency explanation for depression is mostly bullshit. Here is exactly the link for you: http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/04/05/chemical-imbalance/ (and a sequel: http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/04/18/polemical-imbalance/)

> but there's a reason why first line treatment for depression or for anxiety disorders in the UK is not meds but is a (more expensive) talking therapy

It's not actually that the evidence is stronger (as in, there is more supporting evidence) but rather that the evidence suggests the effect size is stronger. Talk therapy is a really good way to treat anxiety in particular. It's a good prosthetic!

I'm not arguing that there's a 1:1 mapping of neurochemicals to disorders; in fact, that's almost certainly the opposite of the case, and one of the main reasons drugs don't seem to beat placebo is that there are bimodal distributions where a given drug will only work on the subset of people with a given symptom where that symptom is caused by that particular chemical imbalance.

Sometimes what clinical depression needs is a dopaminergic (e.g. Wellbutrin). Sometimes what social anxiety needs is an SNRI. It's all a mess. But that doesn't mean that it's not all chemicals, and that there isn't a combination of chemicals that wouldn't put things right in proper dosages. Neurotransmitters are how your brain does multicast electrochemical signalling; any message that's not just a local one between two synapses is travelling via a neurotransmitter.

(I apologize for feeding the troll; I just wanted to write that post above for a long time, and figured this would be a good time to do it. To said troll: I will note that I'm not arguing for the pharmaceutical industry as it stands. My own personal desire is to figure out a set of non-invasive tests that can measure effective "executive weight normalization" on various axes the way dual-N-back measures effective IQ, and then give people a "chemistry kit" of various -ergics, reuptake inhibitors, and inhibitors, and let them do their own science.)