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Do It Yourself Brain Stimulation has Scientists Worried

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Re: Do It Yourself Brain Stimulation has Scientists Worried

#81

Post by chongli »

eurleif wrote: post #80
glenra wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where cocaine was legal, people used the cocoa leaf to make a tea they drank all the time, the way we drink coffee or caffeinated soda. When heroin was legal (from the Bayer company!), addicts took it in pill form and it caused no particular social or financial or health problems - the primary negative effect of long-term heroin use is constipation. The vast majority of the harm illegal drugs do to people is due to t…

>people used the cocoa leaf to make a tea they drank all the time, the way we drink coffee or caffeinated soda. Coca leaf tea is one thing. What about crack? Don't say it would never have been invented without criminalization; everything is invented eventually.

>What about crack?

What about it? Serious drug addiction is a mental health problem. We'll never solve this problem without focusing on it directly. Trying to "get drugs off the streets" is focusing on the symptom, not the cause.

Re: Do It Yourself Brain Stimulation has Scientists Worried

#82

Post by eurleif »

chongli wrote: post #81
eurleif wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>people used the cocoa leaf to make a tea they drank all the time, the way we drink coffee or caffeinated soda. Coca leaf tea is one thing. What about crack? Don't say it would never have been invented without criminalization; everything is invented eventually.

>What about crack? What about it? Serious drug addiction is a mental health problem. We'll never solve this problem without focusing on it directly. Trying to "get drugs off the streets" is focusing on the symptom, not the cause.

I tend to agree, but the comment I was responding to was claiming that drugs only cause harm because they're illegal.

Re: Do It Yourself Brain Stimulation has Scientists Worried

#83

Post by gojomo »

ultramundane8 wrote: post #8

I may run into a lot of experts (from multiple fields) here on HN with strong opinions to the contrary, but here are my two cents. If I could double my cognitive ability for 5 years, then die from an unknown complication with this type of therapy, I would do it without blinking an eye.

Are you already over 60, or cognitively impaired?

If not, that's an awful lot of life to give up. What utility do you expect from doubling your cognitive ability? (Are the people you observe with far more cognitive ability than you always more happy/effective?)

You're also giving up value from the potential that the enhancement-without-death will become available in year 6.

Re: Do It Yourself Brain Stimulation has Scientists Worried

#84

Post by tzakrajs »

Ihmahr wrote: post #63
larrys wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Billions, perhaps trillions of dollars that are part of the drug trade " Serious question. If the friction is removed (illegality is friction) and this process is legal and available what will prevent people from deteriorating into 24/7 pleasure seekers (much like some people get addicted and spend their life in crack houses?)

Arn't most of us '24/7 pleasure seekers' even though we don't use drugs?

I think the fear is that we will deteriorate into 24/7 pleasure receivers until we perish.

Re: Do It Yourself Brain Stimulation has Scientists Worried

#85

Post by Jun8 »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #7

I am convinced that at some point some smart sod will figure out how to create a 'high' by using something along the lines of this. Put on a headband, flick the switch, and blam! high as a kite. Turn the switch off, and back to being sober. When that happens, the world will change in a very unpredictable way. Billions, perhaps trillions of dollars that are part of the drug trade will suddenly have no where to go. All…

I wouldn't expect anything to change, governments will declare it illegal and that device will be the new drug.

Note that there's nothing expensive about drugs, I remember reading that the cost of manufacturing a gram of cocaine is about 50 cents

Re: Do It Yourself Brain Stimulation has Scientists Worried

#86

Post by halorhodopsin »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #7

I am convinced that at some point some smart sod will figure out how to create a 'high' by using something along the lines of this. Put on a headband, flick the switch, and blam! high as a kite. Turn the switch off, and back to being sober. When that happens, the world will change in a very unpredictable way. Billions, perhaps trillions of dollars that are part of the drug trade will suddenly have no where to go. All…

i'm not convinced. the "high" of alcohol and benzodiazepenes is caused by GABA receptor agonism. the "high" of MDMA is caused by serotonin reuptake inhibition and dopamine release. the "high" of Ketamine is caused by NMDA receptor antagonism. the "high" of psychedelics like LSD or DMT are caused by a unique cocktail of selective agonism of serotonin, dopamine, and adrenergic receptor subtypes, and so on.

the one common element is that all "highs" are caused by ligands with very specific molecular properties binding to neurotransmitters. a headband will never be able to bind to a neurotransmitter.

Re: Do It Yourself Brain Stimulation has Scientists Worried

#87

Post by gtani »

ultramundane8 wrote: post #8

I may run into a lot of experts (from multiple fields) here on HN with strong opinions to the contrary, but here are my two cents. If I could double my cognitive ability for 5 years, then die from an unknown complication with this type of therapy, I would do it without blinking an eye.

That's sort of the choice Marco Pantani and Paul Erdős made (Pantani is the bike racer with the highest recorded power (sustained wattage) outputs in the Tour de France, and passed away at the age of 34. He is still recorded as the 1998 Tour and Giro d'Italia winner, not having been nabbed for any drug positives before the era of strict testing in the sport

http://velonews.competitor.com/2013/06/news/new-report-prese...

Erdős took amphetamines for the last 25 years of his life (he lived to 83)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Erd%C5%91s

Re: Do It Yourself Brain Stimulation has Scientists Worried

#88

Post by gtani »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #59
ultramundane8 wrote: post #8

I may run into a lot of experts (from multiple fields) here on HN with strong opinions to the contrary, but here are my two cents. If I could double my cognitive ability for 5 years, then die from an unknown complication with this type of therapy, I would do it without blinking an eye.

I'm both a tCDS user and a Modafinil user. I'm 30, and don't mind trading life expectancy for higher cognitive function.

do you think you can develop (stronger) synesthesia?

Re: Do It Yourself Brain Stimulation has Scientists Worried

#89

Post by glenra »

eurleif wrote: post #82
chongli wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>What about crack? What about it? Serious drug addiction is a mental health problem. We'll never solve this problem without focusing on it directly. Trying to "get drugs off the streets" is focusing on the symptom, not the cause.

I tend to agree, but the comment I was responding to was claiming that drugs only cause harm because they're illegal.

When drugs are illegal, the economics of an illegal market tends to push them towards more concentrated highs. When heroin was legal people took it in pill form, which is much safer than "shooting up" but is a relatively inefficient delivery mechanism so you don't use it when the chemical gets to be really expensive per unit volume.

When alcohol was legal SOME people went for the harder stuff but beer was a lot cheaper and more common; under prohibition, whiskey was cheaper than beer. If you are selling an illegal product, your legal risk is generally proportional to the volume of product being smuggled or kept so you want to maximize the number of effective doses per unit volume. The economics thus favors high-concentration forms of whatever drug. It also favors faster, more intense highs, in that if people are going to all that risk to get something they want to be sure the payoff is proportional and can't afford to wait around for the effect. So cocaine becomes more available relative to pot, and becomes available in more concentrated and more convenient forms as technology permits (versus the old way of making tea from cocoa leaves and using it as a pick-me-up beverage)

So yes, "crack cocaine" was the result of prohibition. Yet even crack could be used responsibly - it's exactly like regular powder cocaine or caffeine in that regard. But responsible use is more likely if it's legal.

Re: Do It Yourself Brain Stimulation has Scientists Worried

#90

Post by ChuckMcM »

halorhodopsin wrote: post #86
ChuckMcM wrote: post #7

I am convinced that at some point some smart sod will figure out how to create a 'high' by using something along the lines of this. Put on a headband, flick the switch, and blam! high as a kite. Turn the switch off, and back to being sober. When that happens, the world will change in a very unpredictable way. Billions, perhaps trillions of dollars that are part of the drug trade will suddenly have no where to go. All…

i'm not convinced. the "high" of alcohol and benzodiazepenes is caused by GABA receptor agonism. the "high" of MDMA is caused by serotonin reuptake inhibition and dopamine release. the "high" of Ketamine is caused by NMDA receptor antagonism. the "high" of psychedelics like LSD or DMT are caused by a unique cocktail of selective agonism of serotonin, dopamine, and adrenergic receptor subtypes, and so on. the one comm…

It is true you cannot bind to a neurotransmitter from a headband. The research that these efforts are based on involved direct activation of the neuron ganglia by inducing currents in them through the absorption of electromagnetic energy (in the case of DBS) and by increasing electron flow in the case of tDCS).

Hiker and Voger's work [1] (and a bunch of others, just look for DBS and dopamine) which looks at Dopamine response and Gandiga and Hummel [2] who look at tDCS and whether its effects are effective in neuroretraining, or in the case of our hobbyists, enhancing existing neurotraining.

[1] http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/mds.10297/abstrac...

[2] http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1388245705...

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