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New MRI Studies Show SSRIs Bring Rapid Changes to Brain Function
A story at the Los Angeles Times reports that researchers at the Max Planck Institute have found that Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors, various of which are widely used in anti-depressant medications, cause changes in healthy subjects' brain architecture just hours after ingestion. As the article mentions, one reason that this rapid change is surprising is that patients taking SSRIs to treat depression typically take considerably longer (weeks) to perceive a change in mood. A slice from the story:
When more serotonin was available, this resting state functional connectivity decreased on a broad scale, the study found. This finding was not particularly surprising -- other studies have shown a similar effect in brain regions strongly associated with mood regulation. But there was a two-fold shock: Some areas of the brain appeared to buck the trend and become more interdependent. And all the changes were evident only three hours after the single dosage. ... The rapid connectivity shifts noted by the study might therefore be precursors to longer-term changes, perhaps starting with remodeling of synapses, the microscopic gaps where chemical neurotransmitters such as serotonin flood across to an adjacent brain cell, the study suggests. But this type of brain scanning can’t pick up changes at such a scale, so the hypothesis will have to be tested other ways[.] ... Study subjects did not have diagnoses of depression, so researchers will need to generate similar maps among those diagnosed with depression, and re-map them during and after depressive episodes, as well as after treatment, Sacher said. Comparisons might then show whether a certain initial architecture predicts treatment success.
I found that the SSRI that I took for a total of about 18 months (for diagnosed depression) was mostly helpful in allowing me some clarity to so that I could identify, build and grow the coping mechanisms that helped me maintain clarity without the SSRI. I've been free of needing the drug now for about 8 years and have found ways to cope on my own (changing my mind among others as Tim Leary used to say)...
The study is interesting however, it is notable that no one studied had a diagnosis of depression. It so happens that I am autistic and have Autistic Spectrum Disorder and suffer from Major Depressive Disorder. Being autistic, I have certain stimuli that I am very sensitive to and others not so much. I noticed almost an immediate difference when I started to take Prozac. I've always been sensitive to medicines and I noticed some initial feelings along the lines of things seemed clearer somehow.
You cut up his brain, you bloody baboon!
SSRIs are also the preferred treatment for PMDD and in small doses, about 5% of the usual dose for depression.
In this application it also works almost immediately, no waiting 6 weeks for something to happen. The original article I saw speculated that it affects the amount of GABA in the brain.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Premenstrual_dysphoria
http://www.ssristories.org/
I found that SSRIs change my decision making and how I act (in a somewhat negative way). I found myself saying things I wouldn't normally say. And the headaches, which basically forced me to stop within a week of starting. No idea why SSRIs are so different for so many people.
Is figure out why so many who are on SSRI's or had recently stopped taking them, become suicidal or go on shooting rampages, or both.
When I took an SSRI ( Prozac ) prior to taking the stuff I had trouble
conecntrating on on thing at a time. The analogy I would use to describe
this among the folks who read Slashdot is : it was as though my brain
had too many "apps" open at the same time. Or perhaps "too many
open windows on the desktop".
Within a few days of starting the drug I experienced a dramatic increase in my
ability to think about one and only one thing without unrelated thoughts intruding.
Feelings of depression and helplessness were also reduced significantly. Having
said the preceding, I still faced the same real-world problems but the SSRI somehow
made my situation seem far less overwhelming and I had a feeling that things were not
as hopeless as they had seemed mere days before.
One other thing --- I was left with a nagging disquieting feeling that experimenting with my own
brain chemistry could have long-term consequences which would not become apparent
until much later. Sure, these drugs were approved by the FDA, but that doesn't mean
all these chemicals which affect neurotransmitters are safe. Only time will tell how safe
these substances really are or are not.
/
.
Is mood a state-to-be achieved (intentional in some way), or is it some symptom of the total complex and state of brain chemistry at a certain moment.
'Mood regulation' to me smacks too much of some homunculus.
Tthe summary says:
Study subjects did not have diagnoses of depression
If they do not have the problem, how could we hope to see something about the problem improvement?
The premise of the story is flawed. While SSRIs take a week or two to show positive results, the initial effects of the drugs are almost immediate. I've taken anti-depressants and I can say that there is a very quick emotional reactions to them. Not a positive reaction, but there is one there. Friends who have taken the drugs and I agree, there first few days brings a roller coaster of emotions and a sick-to-the-stomach feeling. That eases off after a few days followed by a dull fuzzy feeling, followed by the realtive calm around 10 days into the experience.
This idea that researches were surprised that SSRIs started affecting the brain immediating is either bad reporting or a sign the researches had no idea of what anti-depressants do to people. Any shrink or SSRI patient could have told them the affects on the brain are almost instant.
This is no secret to anyone who has popped one of his GF's Lexapro pills to last longer in the sack with said GF a few hours later.
A long time ago, I took an SSRI called Luvox in order to treat OCD. Within a month, the drug had turned pain signals into pleasure. Headaches, burning myself via a hot water faucet--I would literally feel pleasure from these normally painful experiences. I stopped right away, and those effects lingered for a decade. Prior to that, I had taken Prozac and Zoloft without significant effects that I remember. But after seeing an SSRI make my particular brain sadomasochistic, I never popped another SSRI pill and I never will again. They really do change the brain, and I'm convinced that the outliers (read: really smart people with non-normal brain chemistry perhaps--at that time, I was pretty damn smart :)) have brain chemistries that react in vastly different ways than the baseline. I know this isn't exactly on topic, but it was shocking how much my brain changed from what should have been just the early trial period of the drug and for how long that lasted, and frankly how much it pushed me into brand-new areas of being f'ing crazy. I would heartily recommend against using these things, especially to the types of people that are going to read 0-level comments on slashdot. :) I'm also convinced that even if it seems kinda normal, it could very well not be and be royally messing up other parts of your consciousness that just aren't as apparent as suddenly pain=pleasure. And I highly suspect this kind of thing is happening when kids who see psychiatrists and are on drugs, smart loners, go f'ing nuts and kill people. Random rewiring of the brain because they have unique chemistries. That's just my theory though, just knowing how "crazy" I got. I figure it more or less follows from giving these things to so many people and knowing how drastically wrong they can go. And sadomasochism may not be the right term as it didn't involve sexual feelings or anybody else. It's just like my wires got crossed and stayed that way, tapering off, for a decade.
but I got better!
Just checked Wikipedia on this. Apparently 17% of people experience an increase in appetite. Huh, with me it was 15lbs a month every month I was on it. It was like I couldn't stop eating. I think the whole lot of them should simply be banned. It isn't right to mess with people's heads and bodies with such toxic sludge.
We know that depression is not linked to serotonin levels. In fact SSRI's are used for many things, including to reduce pain. People in SSRI's tend to report blunted effect, apathy, mania, increases in aggression and suicidal tendancies..
http://www.madinamerica.com/
Because we know the whole medical model method of describing these medications was always wrong, it's safe to assume that chemical imbalances are not responsible for depression. But we do know the drugs can knock out pathways, and make serotonin and other neurons less useful through dysregulation. What happens is the neuron losses the ability to regulate certain key neuro-transmitters, losing the ability to send the signal specified, knocking out it's function. This is a chemical lobotomy, and certain signals and impulses reduce or become more, I cannot say what happens. But if the brain can't do what it tries to do, it just doesn't work.
In the end this can impact a persons energy levels, make them high, make them intoxicated, make them unable to feel or tell reality, make them unable to feel pain and nerve impulses in general. emotions get fucked up, as many people even self report feeling like a zombie on the drugs.
In essence, we create mental illness, to disrupt ones experience & totally fuck up peoples brains. More articles and videos on this @ http://www.oregonstatehospital.net/resources.html.. An even worse class of drugs exists, called major tranquilizers or antipsychotics, that work by severing neuron connections by nearly completely blocking receptor sites between neurons. This has the effect of erasing thoughts, memories, and occasionally voices, but in the end causes brain loss, dementia, and encephalopathy.. Got it all in the toxicology affidavits on the resources.html page.
Furthermore, antidepressants aren't generally more effect than placebo for this reason, while exercise and psychotherapy and art therapy and other fun things do tend to work at higher rates. I think the study said exercise was 80% effective, they even prescribe it in other countries including the UK. But not in the USA, because profits off useless brain damaging drugs trumps!
Robert Whitaker's book, "Anatomy of the Epidemic" explores how the drugs are essentially making citizens permanently disabled and unable to recover from the severe damage.. also got reviews of this book, linked to on resources.html.
I think SSRI's (& others pharmaceuticals like it) are extremely dangerous. I would rather them be prescribed Indica or Sativa depending on the need...
That said, I have to agree with this part in theory...I mean to say it sounds plausible:
Again...fsk pharma companies...but given what TFA has to say about its effect on brain structure it may very well do almost the same thing at the cellular level
1. I can imagine a scenario where, given a secure living situation and support system, the SSRI's function to help your mind heal itself more quickly
2. I need to see alot of studies before I credit this neurological behavior only to SSRI's...in other words, we have to by default investigate other drugs to see how they compare
It bolsters your positive case study.
Also, I have a friend who was stressing about how SSRI's change your brain chemistry. I suggested she tell the psychologist about her concerns and she already had done so. Her counselor showed her that her dosage was 1/6th of what they normally prescribe for one dose...and she was only taking half of one of those every few days...
So I'm happy to hear that big pharma doesn't destroy everyone's life who uses these drugs...I'm just saying let's get scientific and compare it with weed.
Thank you Dave Raggett
New MRI Studies Show Hammers Bring Rapid Changes to Brain Function
On July 2, 2012 UK-based GlaxoSmithKine (GSK) agreed to plead guilty to criminal charges of fraudulent promotion of its drugs and pay the US Government a settlement of US$3 billion. If accepted, this will be the largest fine imposed on a drug company, surpassing the $23 billion paid by Pfizer for inappropriate marketing in 2009. The amount adds to GSK's $750 million settlement in 2010 over manufacturing quality. What is particularly egregious about GSK's fraud is the calculated deceit and potential human cost of its aggressive and misleading marketing. For instance, while evidence was emerging that showed an increased suicide risk in adolescents prescribed selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors SSRIs for depression, GSK was actively encouraging off-label prescription of paroxetine to individuals younger than 18 years. This was not an isolated incident; off-label use was also encouraged for bupropion. For rosiglitazone, safety data were withheld from the US Food and Drug Administration and altered, potentially delaying restrictions on the drug's use and putting people to whom it was prescribed at increased risk of cardiovascular complications. The company is also accused of cheating Medicare. Such behaviour is not only illegal, it is immoral.
work in progress
Yes, whenever I started taking antidepressants I could feel SOMETHING happening within a few hours, so that's not a surprise. But as others have said, the depression doesn't lift for a while - weeks to months. In fact, the nervousness and anxiety gets worse than ever for the first week. (No surprise that suicide is common soon after starting them.)
I think the reason is that at least some kinds of depression (anxious depression) are like having over-sensitive ears, and being bothered by the random noises that occur in daily life, which make us fearful and easily hurt, and hence we avoid certain kinds of situations, taking chances, socializing, etc.
SSRIs are like turning on a loud, steady noise, which at first overwhelms those sensitive ears, making us even more uncomfortable. But after a while, the body adjusts, and the ears become less sensitive, effectively turning down the volume until the loud noise is barely noticeable. After that, all the little, random noises that happen throughout the day are also barely audible. And those background noises were what was making us nervous before, but now that we can't hear them, they don't. (Of course I'm not talking about actual noises, that's just an analogy, but rather anxious/emotional/fear-based stimuli.) This process of physical adjustment takes about two weeks. (A number which has been validated directly in other experiments on how quickly the brain adapts by changing receptors. In this case, the receptors for serotonin recess into the cell wall and deactivate - the "turning down the volume", making them less sensitive to stimuli.)
Then, after we're no longer extra sensitive, we start taking more chances, being bolder and more outgoing (maybe without realizing it), because we stop anticipating the fear and hurt of rejection or failure. And after a while, we realize we can actually achieve things, have friends, be confident... and that's when we start feeling good about ourselves. This process can take months or years.
my roomate's aunt makes $88 an hour on the laptop . She has been out of a job for 10 months but last month her payment was $21559 just working on the laptop for a few hours. learn this here now ....
http://www.wikiwages.com/
Tell us more here, please!
this error isn't as common as "weed makes you lazy" or "weed gives you the munchies" but I've seen it
Indica and Sativa are two main species of Cannabis (the third, Ruderallis doesn't get you high but is good for hemp)
For many reasons, Indica is probably the first and/or only kind of weed most users in North America have smoked.
First I'll tell you *why* and then why it matters...
> Indica is easier and cheaper to grow...it flowers noticeably more densely and grows faster. Since weed is still illegal in most states, most low to mid level growers plant Indica (or Indica-dominant hybrid) because it is easier to grow surreptitiously and it yields a higher profit margin.
> It matters because Indica's effects on the body are relaxing and the mental effects cause long daydream-like thoughts...it's not a "stimulant/depressant" binary. Your mind is very active but your body is relaxed, as if you are in a sauna. These effects combined typically cause the user to sit or lay down for long periods of time...which may or may not involve video games, movies, or music.
Also, Indica lowers your blood sugar...which makes you hungry...
Sativa is virtually the opposite on all counts...it's like caffeine almost...
Most weed is a hybrid of course, but they usually have a noticable dominant characteristic...which also can help explain all the interesting names given to weed strains...
**the name of the weed strain is a clue to its effects**
maybe techies should name their creations in the same manner ;)
Thank you Dave Raggett
someone publishes a study that says weed does more or less the same thing and 10 million stoners jump up and shout 'science is fucking bullshit, man'
I'd love to read the original article. I am not sure how they detected structure, but fMRI most certainly was not it. If fMRI was used, then it can only be a functional difference, there is no way to observe a structural change with fMRI unless it is something gross (like a 5x5x5mm cube of brain tissue suddenly went missing). If T2-weighting was used, then one is still limited to fairly gross changes (lets say a cube that is 1 mm^3 in volume). Finally, we arrive at the various diffusion MRI techniques, which have no established ground truth, but whose models can provide sub-voxel resolution. Not enough information to really evaluate in the OP.
Thanks to heavy marketing, serotonin uptake inhibitors were wildly successful when they first appeared. After a few years that success fizzled out. Many, many studies have established that the placebo effect is extremely powerful. The money drug manufacturers shovel into promotion is also at work in another important way. Researchers who get the right results get invited to speak at conferences in exotic countries, where they are put up in 5 star hotels and offered the finest food and women. Their research is underwritten and they are offered high paying prestigious positions. So it pays to get the right result.
https://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/06/health/views/06depress.html?_r=0
http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=185157
The fist link is a NYT article that references the second. From the JAMA link:
“Conclusions: The magnitude of benefit of antidepressant medication compared with placebo increases with severity of depression symptoms and may be minimal or nonexistent, on average, in patients with mild or moderate symptoms. For patients with very severe depression, the benefit of medications over placebo is substantial.”
I did not read the entire JAMA article (it's a bit of a slug without the required knowledge base) so I can't address the qualitative/quantitative nature of “substantial” in the conclusion. Note the jump from moderate to “very severe”. Is there nothing that falls between moderate and very severe? There surely must be some patients that fall between the two. Figure 2 in the JAMA article seems to indicate that the number of data points above a “clinically significant difference at a baseline HDRS score of 25” were scant compared to the number below. [“The size (area) of the circles is proportional to the number of data points that contributed to each mean.”]
In short, SSRIs are most often indistinguishable from a placebo. Psychiatrists are the alchemists of the medical field, use with caution.
Given the number of people who have been on SSRIs, I suspect you could construct a similar collection with innumerable other common factors (as long as they're reasonably common). Sort of like somebody looking at all the suicide reports during the big anti-D&D hysteria, and pointing out that, if those were all the suicides associated with D&D use, D&D must be reducing the suicide rate.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes