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Common Medications Sway Moral Judgment
sciencehabit sends news that two commonly-prescribed drugs have been shown to influence how the human brain makes moral decisions. Citalopram is an SSRI used to treat depression, and levodopa is often used to combat Parkinson's disease. A new study (abstract) asked subjects to set a monetary value on receiving painful electric shocks — for themselves and for others (e.g. "Would you rather endure seven shocks to earn $10 or 10 shocks to earn $15?"). The study found that subjects on citalopram (which affects serotonin levels) were willing to give up more money to reduce shocks, both for themselves and others. Those on levodopa (which affects dopamine levels) made people just as willing to shock others as they were to shock themselves, when those on a placebo tended to be more reluctant to shock others.
[Neuroscientist Molly] Crockett says those effects could suggests multiple underlying mechanisms. For example, excess dopamine might make our brain's reward system more responsive to the prospect of avoiding personal harm. Or it could tamp down our sense of uncertainty about what another person is experiencing, making us less hesitant to dole out pain. Serotonin, meanwhile, appeared to have a more general effect on aversion to harm, not just a heightened concern for another person. Such knowledge could eventually develop drugs that address disorders of social behavior, she says.
Unfathomable! Stop the press!
We need a study measuring the effects of alcohol-influenced people holding firearms on responses to obvious headlines. I volunteer as a test subject.
If common medications can do all that, just think what uncommon medications might do.
-kgj
I bet if you did a study on how sleep, hunger, low-level chronic pain, being annoyed (e.g. arriving late at work after being stuck in traffic), or just about anything else affected moral thinking, I bet you would find most things that affect emotions also affect moral decision-making. I know from a lifetime of empirical study on myself that sleep, hunger, etc. do affect my emotions and general decision-making. I have not studied my moral decision-making in light of these factors enough to draw a firm conclusion. Since the sample size (n=1) is small and there was no control group, I hesitate to extrapolate even the results that I do have to the general population. More study is required.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
I want to be on the committee that decides what sort of behavior justifies drug intervention.
Have gnu, will travel.
Did anyone seriously doubt that psychoactive drugs can and do affect just about all decision making processes ?
Too bad it turned out to be bunk (in the episode).
Isn't that what ectacy is? I thought there was a reason those didn't really exist as medication.
Somebody I know started taking antidepressants some time ago, and they helped the depression quite a bit. One curious thing, though, is that once she is taking them, she assumes that I can read her mind; that I obviously know what she is thinking. She stopped taking them for a while, and it was immediately apparent that she no longer felt that way, then when she started taking them again, it was back.
I love Mondays. On a Monday, anything is possible.
This isn't new.
Side effects of SSRI based anti-depressants - in addition to subduing the creative thought process and destroying the sex drive - include what has been termed emotional blunting.
In effect, blunting erodes one's ability to feel emotional response or empathy - such as being able to feel the 'warm fuzzies' in a relationship. This is a very dangerous road that can lead to sociopathy.
The stated side effects of SSRI based anti-depressants also include violent and/or suicidal behavior.
It is also interesting to note that the majority of mass shooters in the last 25 years have been under the influence of - or withdrawing from - SSRI based anti-depressents. John DeCamp, lawyer for the Columbine shooters, and author of The Franklin Cover-up, attempted to use the side effects of SSRI's as a defense. Details here.
Simply put, these drugs are terrible and should never have been allowed to be marketed.
Instead of reaching for pills, people with depression should instead get some regular exercise, a good diet and a positive attitude.
Pills are not the answer. Especially these pills.
Political correctness is really just herd psychology pushed by insecure people who desperately seek social conformity.
I was thinking mind control, MK-Ultra, medically programmable assassins -- that sort of thing.
But okay, improved health would be a good peace dividend.
-kgj
(1) Arbitrarily describe some weird experimental conditions by some grand sounding, general, important term (e.g., "moral judgment")
(2) Vary experimental conditions randomly.
(3) After about 100 experiments, you will find one that gives an effect with statistical significance at the 1% level. Chances are better if you pick experimental conditions involving psychoactive drugs and/or pain.
(4) Publish your results and bask in the accolades of your peers and the press coverage.
"I was thinking mind control, MK-Ultra"
Yes, they (the CIA) did a lot of testing on unsuspecting patients here in Canada who went to see Dr. Ewan Cameron for depression.
LSD and other experimental drugs were used on patients without their knowledge or consent.
There is even a movie about it, called The Sleep Room.
Political correctness is really just herd psychology pushed by insecure people who desperately seek social conformity.
, but that the patent protection is long since expired.
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Most of what I know about CIA mind control, I read in Journey into Madness by Gordon Thomas.
I don't have the book right at hand, but as I recall, Thomas made it quite clear that Dr. Cameron was valuable to the CIA precisely because he was Canadian -- an American doctor would be more closely scrutinized, more vulnerable to exposure.
Also as I recall, Dr. Cameron was quite vigorous about his business. He was not a tool to be deceived or coerced by American spooks. He did what he did of his own active volition.
His two lab assistants -- they were the super-creeps, the Igor assistants to Herr Doktor. The ones who spent a lot of time with patients, carrying out the doctor's orders, and whatever: drugging patients into comas, shocking patients into comas, drugging patients out of comas, making patients wear headphones repeating short loops of their own voices, over and over for hours ("psychic driving").
Of course, for "patients" read "torture victims".
Christ, what a world we live in.
-kgj
If you are interested in the subject of MK-Ultra, another interesting (and sad) story is that of Paul Bonacci.
Political correctness is really just herd psychology pushed by insecure people who desperately seek social conformity.
I'm seeing a lot of negative postings about unnecessary drugs and implying doctor's don't know what they're doing. I went through an episode about a year ago where if I tried to sleep my face would start burning. If I got up, it would fade away. I suffered on roughly one hour's sleep per night for a year before I went to see a doctor. The solution was to take one pill per day, and in a few weeks I was sleeping full nights again. It took years to recover though, because that level of extended sleep deprivation is very damaging. Even now, I'm still not quite as sharp as I was before.
When I look back I can see how stupid I was. I suffered that entire year, and had years of recovery, for nothing. Why? Because people who don't have a hot clue about psychology said that the doctors don't know what they're doing, the medicine is as bad as the disease, those pills are over-prescribed, etc. etc. But guess what? If your meds turn out to have bad side effects you can stop taking them, or just ask for different ones. Such a simple thing. And yet so many people who could benefit from them are turned away by fear, uncertainty and doubt.
Sorry.. outdated link.
See here.
Political correctness is really just herd psychology pushed by insecure people who desperately seek social conformity.
Maybe they keep doing research like this and eventually SSRIs won't be the first line treatment for anything and everything. I've trialled nearly _every_ damn SSRI with terrible side effects and with no intended effect over the last few years. Then with a change of doctor due to him leaving that office, the new doc says "Well I see you've tried SSRI X before, but what if we try it at a different dose this time. Or if that doesn't work we can try SSRI Y and we'll add in Wellbutrin to mitigate the side effects. The drug reps must be really fucking good at their jobs...or maybe psychiatrists know almost nothing about what they are shoving down my throat. When I say "Every morning when I take this pill, for the next 2 hours I have 6/10 level shocks from my head down my spine. Can we please stop this and try something different?" and every single doctors response is 'Well I've never heard about that being caused by this med. Maybe we should just lower your dose and step you up more slowly...' Nevermind the fact that even a cursory google search about "painful zinging down spine on medication X" has a billion pages of forum posts showing that it is pretty common. I wish my head wasn't this broken because I would never step foot into a psychiatrists office again.
OMG facts!
When someone uses the phrase "common drugs" it is assumed that they are OTC drugs that are commonly found in people's homes. There is nothing "common" about either of the drugs in the summary unless you are being treated for depression or Parkinson's disease! Way to go with the tabloid headline writing and the death of editorial ethics in its entirety on /.
That doesn't mean the MJ caused him to be violent. He may have been trying to mellow out but couldn't get enough to do the job.
Yup. You're more likely to be at shot at by the crazy guy in the red house growing weed in the basement while you ski past his backyard than by his end users.
Oh, wait...
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
But a drug company isn't going to push out an IND application for a drug that they aren't going to gain patent exclusivity for. So we aren't likely to see MDMA being marketed as a treatment for PTSD or anything else any time soon.
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http://ssristories.org/
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
Solving more than one problem there, eh?
I'm betting if it were legal to grow, He would STILL BE SHOOTING AT POTENTIAL THIEVES, dumass.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
So certain psychoactive drugs have an influence on moral judgment. OK, cool science...I guess.
But damn, whoever is designing these experiments is a sadistic mo-fo who needs a freaking intervention! WTF people!
Scientist: "Oh, I know...we can pay grant money to people to let us give them painful shocks!" (scientist's leg starts twitching, obviously aroused). "Yes...yessss...pain..so much pain, and pleasure. Too bad we couldn't get funding for the ball gags and leather straps."
Left MS Windows for Linux Mint and never looked back!
Vote for Bernie in 2016!
I wonder how long it will take them to discover that all of these mind altering drugs stop the brain working properly, and that outside certain acute situations where stopping the brain's normal working is not the most pressing issue (acute mania, extreme depression, etc.), they don't achieve much, and can get in the way of recovery. Unfortunately the truth is not particularly helpful to pharmaceutical profits, and is not particularly useful to doctors who only think in terms of 'this disease means that drug' and have nothing besides drugs to offer.
John_Chalisque
"Still, the study did not measure levels of dopamine or serotonin in the brain to confirm that they were elevated while the subjects were taking the test,"
Citalopram needs to be taken approx 1-2 weeks to become effective as an anti-depressant. I have been on a couple of time.
This is a bullshit/troll study unless you are trying to promote Soma...
As everyone should know, amphetamines increase dopamine levels. Just a coincidence that they were brutal, or was their national drug habit in part to blame for their behaviour? North Korea has a huge amphetamine problem too, and treats humans just as badly.
If you regulate it when minimally, problem solved.
If you put it out in the open, maybe problem solved.
If you grow only for yourself, not enough to steal, problem solved.
If you keep growing in the basement, well, hard to say. Where I used to ski, problem not solved.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.