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Tripping on Xenon Gas (2023)

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Re: Tripping on Xenon Gas (2023)

#41

Post by digging »

janalsncm wrote: post #26
digging wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Clearly the symptoms aren't the same as just holding your breath, which makes me think that it is not, in fact, completely nonreactive. (But I'm a total noob to biochemistry.) Similar to Nitrous Oxide, which definitely has a powerful psychedelic effect and is not at all simply hypoxia.

I wouldn’t call nitrous oxide “psychedelic” although it is certainly psychoactive.

It depends on your definition of psychedelic then, as I find different sources supporting either argument, but NO2 produces powerful hallucinations, euphoria, dissociation, and sometimes creativity much like typical psychedelics, but on a compressed timescale.

Re: Tripping on Xenon Gas (2023)

#42

Post by lpribis »

schoen wrote: post #9
IsTom wrote: post #3

Wouldn't it be the same as breathing any other nonreactive gas? Isn't this just symptoms of hypoxia?

Yeah, how can the body tell which noble gas it's breathing? As the article mentions, the xenon is exhaled in its original form without having been metabolized or having caused any chemical changes in the body!

> having caused any chemical changes in the body

But it does cause chemical chsnges. Noble gasses can weakly interact. It does not need to form bonds to influence potential gradients, protein shapes, or other reactions.

Re: Tripping on Xenon Gas (2023)

#43

Post by eigenvalue »

It's fascinating to me that a pure element would have such immediate and significant effects on the human mind. I would think that this would generally require a more complex molecular shape that can fit with various receptors in the body and trigger the release of dopamine and other neurotransmitters.

Apparently, Xenon does this by acting as an antagonist of the N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor, a subtype of glutamate receptor, and also by enhancing the effect of ("potentiation of") gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA). Other drugs that act along the NMDA pathway are Ketamine and Memantine (an Alzheimer's drug). And other drugs that act along the GABA pathway are Benzodiazepines (e.g., Diazepam, Lorazepam-- i.e,. Valium). And apparently Nitrous Oxide (N2O) uses both mechanisms as well.

Re: Tripping on Xenon Gas (2023)

#44

Post by alan-hn »

digging wrote: post #41
janalsncm wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn’t call nitrous oxide “psychedelic” although it is certainly psychoactive.

It depends on your definition of psychedelic then, as I find different sources supporting either argument, but NO2 produces powerful hallucinations, euphoria, dissociation, and sometimes creativity much like typical psychedelics, but on a compressed timescale.

Many people also consider ketamine a psychedelic and the primary mechanism of action is NMDA antagonism preferring the NR2B subunit

Re: Tripping on Xenon Gas (2023)

#45

Post by sneak »

perihelions wrote: post #10

[flagged]

There’s nothing possibly lethal about 30 seconds of breathing pure Xenon unless you do it standing on a tightrope.

A desire to experiment with a relatively safe psychoactive on a 30 second basis doesn’t come near “pathological”.

Re: Tripping on Xenon Gas (2023)

#46

Post by lpribis »

mrob wrote: post #35
lpribis wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, xenon is a NMDA antagonist meaning it has dissociative/anaesthetic effects like ketamine or nitrous oxide. TFA talks about the effects coming on "within seconds" of inhalation, so it is clearly not just hypoxia which takes tens of seconds or minutes to manifest.

Asphyxiation with inert gases causes hypoxia very quickly. It's not like holding your breath. Lungs don't actively pump oxygen; gases just diffuse along their partial pressure gradients. Air has higher partial pressure of oxygen than blood does, so the oxygen diffuses from the air to the blood. If you fill the lungs with inert gas the oxygen diffuses back out again. You're effectively breathing in reverse. Filling th…

Either way, it has been known for a while that xenon is an NMDA antagonist (hypoxia aside).

Re: Tripping on Xenon Gas (2023)

#48

Post by mrob »

lpribis wrote: post #46
mrob wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Asphyxiation with inert gases causes hypoxia very quickly. It's not like holding your breath. Lungs don't actively pump oxygen; gases just diffuse along their partial pressure gradients. Air has higher partial pressure of oxygen than blood does, so the oxygen diffuses from the air to the blood. If you fill the lungs with inert gas the oxygen diffuses back out again. You're effectively breathing in reverse. Filling th…

Either way, it has been known for a while that xenon is an NMDA antagonist (hypoxia aside).

And, importantly, it's always mixed with oxygen when used that way.

Re: Tripping on Xenon Gas (2023)

#49

Post by time0ut »

opprobium wrote: post #21

The Xenon episode of Hamilton's Pharmacopeia is one of the very best episodes of that series, I don't know the best way to find it on streaming currently, it was available I believe on Netflix (or maybe it was Hulu?): https://www.vicetv.com/en_us/video/xenon-the-perfect-anesthe... The full episode takes very disturbing twists and turns, worth a watch.

Not sure if this is the whole thing: https://youtu.be/dj25HO48Gxw

Edit: I think this is it but have not watched https://youtu.be/ZVahys8MWLo

The shorter clip is the one I was thinking about and my mind went right to it when I saw this article.

Re: Tripping on Xenon Gas (2023)

#50

Post by ttyprintk »

alan-hn wrote: post #39
digging wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Clearly the symptoms aren't the same as just holding your breath, which makes me think that it is not, in fact, completely nonreactive. (But I'm a total noob to biochemistry.) Similar to Nitrous Oxide, which definitely has a powerful psychedelic effect and is not at all simply hypoxia.

React is not a good term to use here but rather interact. Saying something reacts means that we are moving around electrons and possibly forming covalent or ionic bonds. Intermolecular interactions are quite a bit different

Or displace, in this case exotic xenon for ambient argon and nitrogen.
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