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Depressed? Have Some Special K
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| musicsnob_NOT |
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy...6092501387.html
Ketamine, sweet ketamine, answer to our glutamatergic dreams. In the long November night of the soul, in the ever-dark downpour of depression, it turns out that there might be a better umbrella than Prozac and Zoloft and Paxil and their serotonin-loving ilk.
Of course, when it comes to antidepressants, nobody really knows anything, anyway, so why not go with ketamine, a mild hallucinogen known to club freaks as Special K?
Yes, yes, break out the male Wistar rats and the injection needles -- researchers at the National Institute of Mental Health announced a study recently in which 18 chronically depressed patients infused with low dosages of ketamine improved within two hours. Seventy-one percent improved within a day, and nearly 30 percent were depression-free by that time. In 24 hours! These were people who had been dealing with depression from three to 47 years. They had failed to respond to just about every drug on the market.
Most of them stayed depression-free for up to a week.
Chronic depression, one of the most common, debilitating diseases known to mankind, blown away like a flower petal on a passing breeze.
Is it not the modern nirvana, the utopia of a neurotic generation, the idea that the demons lurking in the nether regions of the cerebral cortex could just . . . evaporate? Reigning there in the wet muck of the Freudian dark, the gargoyles of the mind took ketamine like a hit of kryptonite.
Doesn't it make Prozac and friends look like punks? The subsequent news stories focused on the speed -- antidepressants generally take two weeks or longer to work -- but the true breakthrough, scientists say, is that ketamine seems to do something entirely new. It focuses on glutamate, a chemical neurotransmitter that is involved in electrical flow among brain cells. It has not been targeted by any other antidepressant medication.
Think of depression as a leaky water faucet in the kitchen of the mind. Prozac and friends start working on the problem back at the water plant and, in about half of the cases, eventually find the problem.
In this trial, glutamate (and the "glutamatergic system") was shown to be a wrench-toting plumber who makes house calls. It got right to the problem.
"It's not quite the director of the orchestra, but it's involved with many other systems in the brain than other antidepressants," said Carlos A. Zarate Jr., chief of the mood disorders research unit at NIMH, and lead author of the study.
"It's early, but this is exciting because this gives us a new target, and it's a heck of a first move on it," said J. Raymond DePaulo Jr., chief of the Department of Psychiatry at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and one of the nation's preeminent researchers on depression. He was not involved in the ketamine trials. "This is working on . . . a different set of chemicals. It says the malfunction may be in several different parts of the brain. Ketamine has problems with potential negative effects, but we could create 100 drugs to hit this target of glutamate."
If, you know, that is where the demon actually resides.
Click link for the rest. |
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| oldschool420 |
| Very interesting read. Thanks:) |
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| Mr. Sketchy |
Sorry, But I knew this for years..... I works for me well. E makes my girlfriend and I emotional, K fixes it. We don't do a lot, just a little. Only after a party, it really helps. Try it. Cracked out miserableness, none. Terrible Tuesday, nope.
Drugs are great, but only used responsibly, in moderation, every once in a while. They are just like everything else. Too much of anything is bad. Be responsible people, have fun, you only get one life |
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| jchung52 |
| how bout no drugs at all |
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| Hantu |
| quote: | Originally posted by jchung52
how bout no drugs at all |
Thats crazy talking. Be gone with this nonsense. |
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| oldschool420 |
| quote: | Originally posted by jchung52
how bout no drugs at all |
Did you even read the article? or did you just come in here to preach?
As for the article, it's very interesting news. I don't know how many negative affects ketamine would have if someone was to take it to treat something, but only research will tell. |
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| Lightshow |
Great read, Yet another point on the scoreboard for party drugs, TAKE THAT ANTI-DEPRESSANTS!!!
it is true that everything is ok in moderation, so popping this and sniffing that every once in a while wont kill you, and apparantly it keeps you away from depression. but doing too much of something can hurt you, as we recently found out that even drinking too much water can kill you. |
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| *~LiSa-LoO~* |
| quote: | Originally posted by Lightshow
Great read, Yet another point on the scoreboard for party drugs, TAKE THAT ANTI-DEPRESSANTS!!!
it is true that everything is ok in moderation, so popping this and sniffing that every once in a while wont kill you, and apparantly it keeps you away from depression. but doing too much of something can hurt you, as we recently found out that even drinking too much water can kill you. |
Will too many lightshows kill me? |
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| DarkAngel |
Pass them viles here please.
| quote: | Originally posted by jchung52
how bout no drugs at all |
Ban + GTFO |
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| musicsnob_NOT |
| quote: | Originally posted by jchung52
how bout no drugs at all |
As someone who has never done K I still found it to be an interesting read. |
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| FunkyCrew |
| quote: | Originally posted by oldschool420
Did you even read the article? or did you just come in here to preach?
As for the article, it's very interesting news. I don't know how many negative affects ketamine would have if someone was to take it to treat something, but only research will tell. |
when it comes to drugs as a cure for something (pain relief, anti-depressants, etc), drug usage and any debate around it becomes really iffy, it is a double edged sword then |
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| jchung52 |
| im just being a punk. im going clean for a bit |
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