DMT-Nexus member
Posts: 641 Joined: 03-May-2009 Last visit: 24-Mar-2023
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What students on ketamine tell us about schizophrenia http://www.newscientist....y-interesting-about.html
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analytical chemist
   
Posts: 7463 Joined: 21-May-2008 Last visit: 03-Mar-2024 Location: the lab
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Quote:"But, it's a bit simplistic. They are mimicking just one aspect of a very complex disorder" yeah it is. "Nothing is true, everything is permitted." ~ hassan i sabbah
"Experiments are the only means of attaining knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." -Max Planck
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DMT-Nexus member
Posts: 3555 Joined: 13-Mar-2008 Last visit: 19-Aug-2020 Location: not here
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Quote:Quote:
"But, it's a bit simplistic. They are mimicking just one aspect of a very complex disorder"
yeah it is. I don't think it will ever be possible to perfectly mimic schizophrenia in any model without actually having an individual with schizophrenia. Drugs can only touch on certain aspects of the disease. Regardless its still a useful approach to finding good treatments. Every time you find a drug that has some similarities with psychosis once you figure out its mechanism you have the potential for a new treatment.
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analytical chemist
Posts: 7463 Joined: 21-May-2008 Last visit: 03-Mar-2024 Location: the lab
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every chemical ligand which mimics some aspect of schizophrenia merely represents a quantum dot color in a vast array of hues. "Nothing is true, everything is permitted." ~ hassan i sabbah
"Experiments are the only means of attaining knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." -Max Planck
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Posts: 981 Joined: 24-Dec-2009 Last visit: 13-Oct-2022
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As soon as i saw this i thought here we go again... another drug 'mimic's' schizophrenia. The media will likely latch onto this and claim that ketamine causes schizophrenia in everyone that uses it. Another day at the circus.
“Right here and now, one quanta away, there is raging a universe of active intelligence that is transhuman, hyperdimensional, and extremely alien... What is driving religious feeling today is a wish for contact with this other universe.”
― Terence McKenna
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DMT-Nexus member
Posts: 162 Joined: 15-Aug-2010 Last visit: 08-Nov-2013 Location: Colorado
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xtechre wrote:As soon as i saw this i thought here we go again... another drug 'mimic's' schizophrenia. The media will likely latch onto this and claim that ketamine causes schizophrenia in everyone that uses it.
Another day at the circus. Agreed, it really is no wonder why drugs particularly the good ones have such a bad stigma. They used to tell everyone cannabis caused black guys to rape white women to help get it made illegal. *The above text represents a fictional alter ego, none of it is based on the experiences of a real person.*
"Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation." Oscar Wilde
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DMT-Nexus member
Posts: 4639 Joined: 16-May-2008 Last visit: 24-Dec-2012 Location: A speck of dust in endless space, like everyone else.
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One of my main objections is that many substances only lead to bahaviour or thinking patterns that could apear to be 'like schizofrenia' from the ouside, but that this is just some perception of the outcome of the whole drug/brain-proces without ever knowing if the processes taking place inside the persons skull even remotely resemble those of schizofrenia.
The fact that someone speaks incoherently about vague concepts like a schizofrenic could do, is no proof that his brain is actually functioning like that of a schizofrenic.
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DMT-Nexus member
Posts: 1952 Joined: 17-Apr-2010 Last visit: 05-May-2024 Location: somewhere west of here
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Scizophrenia is an umbrella term for a number of conditions which have some key features in common but there are certainly distinct differences between the sub-divisions. There are many ways to 'reproduce' certain aspects of the condition (or certainly appear to do this) and this involves tinkering with many different neurotransmitter systems. As with most psychiatric ailments which are commonly diagnosed, we certainly lack a full understanding of what goes on.I think the interplay of all the different neurotransmitters is relevant, and because the number of such transmitters is large, its the relative interplay between them which causes the symptoms to become apparent.The different permutations are quite numerous. I am paranoid of my brain. It thinks all the time, even when I'm asleep. My thoughts assail me. Murderous lechers they are. Thought is the assassin of thought. Like a man stabbing himself with one hand while the other hand tries to stop the blade. Like an explosion that destroys the detonator. I am paranoid of my brain. It makes me unsettled and ill at ease. Makes me chase my tail, freezes my eyes and shuts me down. Watches me. Eats my head. It destroys me.
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DMT-Nexus member
Posts: 3555 Joined: 13-Mar-2008 Last visit: 19-Aug-2020 Location: not here
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Even if a drug only appears to superficially mimic an aspect of schizophrenia it can lead to the development of new drugs which treat real disease symptoms. This has already happened many times. Ketamine and related substances are leading in the same direction. This is a positive thing as it will lead to new treatments. Its already happened with substances that effect the dopamine and serotonin systems.
I don't view this article as putting a negative spin on ketamine. It doesn't say that ketamine causes schizophrenia and there is no evidence that it does. There are many other articles developing schizophrenia type models with ketamine.
Interesting to me anyway it seems different drugs can mimic different types of schizophrenia. Amphetamines can mimic the kind of paranoid delusions, ketamine the catatonic, and hallucinogens the visual and delusions of grandeur. Again all incomplete but all useful.
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John Murdoch IV
Posts: 2038 Joined: 18-Jan-2008 Last visit: 19-Aug-2022 Location: Changes from time to time.
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polytrip wrote:One of my main objections is that many substances only lead to bahaviour or thinking patterns that could apear to be 'like schizofrenia' from the ouside, but that this is just some perception of the outcome of the whole drug/brain-proces without ever knowing if the processes taking place inside the persons skull even remotely resemble those of schizofrenia.
The fact that someone speaks incoherently about vague concepts like a schizofrenic could do, is no proof that his brain is actually functioning like that of a schizofrenic. Thanx for getting this point through. ––––––
DMTripper is a fictional character therefore everything he says here must be fiction.
I mean, who really believes there is such a place as Hyperspace!!
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