[HN Gopher] Serotonin selectively influences moral judgment and ...
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Serotonin selectively influences moral judgment and behavior
Author : pier25
Score : 146 points
Date : 2022-01-09 16:35 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.pnas.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.pnas.org)
| nybsop wrote:
| This study tests judgement but then makes conclusions about
| behavior when behavior was never actually tested.
|
| Is this science?
| daenz wrote:
| >This harm-avoidant bias after citalopram was also evident in
| behavior during the ultimatum game, in which subjects decide to
| accept or reject fair or unfair monetary offers from another
| player. Rejecting unfair offers enforces a fairness norm but also
| harms the other player financially. Enhancing serotonin made
| subjects less likely to reject unfair offers.
|
| So essentially a subject with enhanced serotonin was more likely
| to be exploited?
|
| >Enhancing serotonin made subjects more likely to judge harmful
| actions as forbidden, but only in cases where harms were
| emotionally salient.
|
| What does "emotionally salient" here mean?
| whatshisface wrote:
| "A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths are a
| statistic." - Joseph Stalin
|
| It's saying that serotonin doesn't make you a better person or
| more fair in an objective sense, it just strengthens your
| feelings of empathy, which makes you a better person whenever
| the good and your feelings about it are by chance aligned.
| jollybean wrote:
| "Enhancing serotonin made subjects more likely to judge harmful
| actions as forbidden, but only in cases where harms were
| emotionally salient. "
|
| "Together, these findings provide unique evidence that serotonin
| could promote prosocial behavior by enhancing harm aversion, "
|
| I object to the notion that 'less harm' is necessarily 'pro
| social'.
|
| You can see the _emotional_ attachment to 'harm' which confirms
| my biases in that people have difficulty mapping the moral issues
| with harm against their emotional reaction.
|
| Case and point: A man robs a bank, is running from police,
| shooting at them, the police shoot the man, he dies.
|
| I believe the 'seratonin' response is to condemn the 'terrible
| harm' done by the police officers.
|
| It takes second order rationalization to contextualize the
| situation.
| therealcamino wrote:
| "Harm aversion" is an interesting lens through which to view
| people's motivation and behavior. (They mention aversion to
| social harms specifically, but some of the examples are physical
| harms.) I've heard of loss aversion and of course risk aversion,
| but that's a new one for me.
| woopwoop wrote:
| The use of the word "prosocial" in the abstract is very confusing
| to me. They seem to be using it to describe actions which sound
| good but result in much worse real-world outcomes, right?
| netizen-936824 wrote:
| >worse real-world outcomes
|
| This is subjective. Pro social just means that its beneficial
| for a social relationship(s)
| Terry_Roll wrote:
| As does Histamine.
| captainoats wrote:
| Mirtazapine is a great example of this and can have profound
| effects on behavior
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| And yeast (via gut bacteria). I'm pretty sure we have been
| cultivated to breed more of them, not our decision just because
| they're delicious.
| Terry_Roll wrote:
| Bacteria that's crossed the blood brain barrier can affect
| behaviour.
|
| In European woman, the most common bacteria in a woman's
| vagina's is Lactobacillus largely due to the milk product
| consumption in their die.
|
| However whilst Western medicine considers Lactobacillus to be
| a probiotic, other cultures who do not consume milk products
| in as large a quantity have different bacterial profiles in
| their vagina's.
|
| Japanese people claim to be able to smell gone off milk
| oozing from the pores of westerners.
|
| The presence of a particular strain of bacteria (whose name I
| dont have to hand right now) in a woman's vagina will also
| predict whether they have freckles or not.
|
| Biology is a fascinating subject and very much open to
| debate.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| If we've "been cultivated", they're delicious because our
| (non) ancestors who didn't like the taste got weeded out by
| evolution.
| metadat wrote:
| Are you able to elaborate on this? I take a lot of anti-
| histamines and haven't noticed any difference other than it
| helps me medically.
|
| But I'd like to be on the lookout so I can be my best self.
| antics9 wrote:
| I second this.
|
| I take antihistamines from April to September. Loratadin
| absolutely has a negative effect on my mood. Mostly because I
| feel tired I believe. Switched to Ebastin and no more
| tiredness. However, I am starting to suspect that it also
| does affect my mood in some way or another.
|
| During winter I take a pill as a precautionary if I'm going
| to be in any dusty spaces. The day after I sometimes
| experience mood swings that I cannot explain.
| whatshisface wrote:
| I have found that n95 masks work wonderfully for working in
| dusty spaces. A dividend of the pandemic I suppose.
| selectodude wrote:
| They sell 3M N95 masks at Home Depot for a reason :)
| throwaway2331 wrote:
| Have you tried mast-cell stabilizers? Ketotifen is one
| (albeit, still an antihistamine).
| heavyset_go wrote:
| Levocetirizine doesn't cross the blood-brain barrier like
| other antihistamines such as loratadine does.
| Terry_Roll wrote:
| It increases IQ, histidine, a precursor for histamine,
| doubled the IQ of people with downs syndrome in an experiment
| over several months, but histamine also increases aggression
| which probably explains why you dont see many aggressive
| people with Down Syndrome.
|
| Aged food & drink is higher in histamine. Red wine more than
| white wine. Dark spirits more than clear spirits. Red meat
| more than white meat. It can cause spontaneous erections,
| 60mg of histamine can be used for erectile dysfunction.
| Histamine can increase blood saturation levels and help
| reduce the symptoms of COPD and other respiratory problems.
|
| If you consumed alot of histadine, like several heaped table
| spoons with meals throughout the day, depending on your age
| and health you will notice some or all of the above. Its one
| of the fastest amino acids into muscle, its untouched by the
| liver.
|
| I dont know why you are taking anti-histamines, histamine
| helps the white immune cells move through tissue, it causes
| inflammation, there is also a histamine feedback loop in the
| brain which affects sleep patterns, which is why anti-
| histamines can help people get to sleep, but lots of
| histamine can improve sleep conversely.
|
| Loads of studies exist that can be found on Google Scholar,
| but multiple chemicals affect peoples personality, and their
| health.
|
| If you want to read up on this, also look at the pathways and
| other chemicals which work with histidine (or any other amino
| acid) for that matter.
| netizen-936824 wrote:
| How do you know it increases IQ?
| Terry_Roll wrote:
| Because I've tried it and noticed improvements in myself.
| suikadayo wrote:
| Anecdotal experience of 1 person doesn't make it the same
| for others
| cplusplusfellow wrote:
| Can you expound upon this? As someone with severe allergies I
| tend to take quite a bit of antihistamines.
| nick__m wrote:
| An old antihistamine1 was used as the blueprint for
| development of the first commercialized SSRI. Similar first
| generation antihistamines2 also have a significant effect on
| SERT (serotonin transporter).
|
| Reciprocly, the weight gain induced by certain SSRI is tought
| to be caused by an antihistaminic effect3.
|
| It would not be surprising if other antihistamines (at least
| those that cross the BBB) had similar effects because
| antihistamines are frequently promiscuous (i.e. they have
| significant affinities with a lots of targets other than the
| one that make a drug effective) but I would be surprised if
| histamine, or its inhibition, was directly (with the
| exclusion of the miserable feeling that comes with allergies)
| implicated in moods changes.
|
| 1- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brompheniramine
|
| 2- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chlorphenamine
|
| 3- https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27593622
| ajuc wrote:
| I wonder how long before people propose to use it for happier
| society. Just like Stanislaw Lem predicted in short story about
| Altruzine in Cyberiad [1] :)
|
| [1]
| https://books.google.pl/books?id=xhbFAgAAQBAJ&pg=PT264&lpg=P...
| colechristensen wrote:
| Huh, given that something like 15% of Americans are on SSRIs, I
| wonder how this affects the political landscape (which seems
| overrun with a new kind of moralizing in the last few decades)
| PeterWhittaker wrote:
| Reductions in empathy, increases in "hey what's the harm"...
| kind of like society over the last few years?
| mpol wrote:
| Ouch, that is a lot.
|
| There is something like Serotonin Irritation Syndrome which can
| cause aggressive feelings and thoughts. Personally I tried to
| increase my serotonin twice, once with Tryptophan a few years
| ago and recently with Inositol. Both times I felt very
| aggressive. Maybe I should use it right before a chess game,
| who knows it helps ;)
|
| It is sometimes mentioned that for people who are sensitive to
| psychosis (like me) this can be a tipping point towards
| aggressive behaviour.
| astrange wrote:
| If anything a more likely cause is statins in older people,
| which are known to cause violent rage.
| twofornone wrote:
| You should be more concerned with the psychological effects of
| birth control, which in my opinion are drastically understated
| and underesearched. We are toying with the hormones of tens of
| millions of women and the vast majority are unaware of the
| potential differences in decisionmaking and behavior.
|
| There are secondary effects as well, for example, women have
| been shown to select for more dominant, aggressive men when
| fertile and meeker providers when not - how might that shape
| our social landscape, if a sizable proportion of women are kept
| permanently in a hormonally induced infertile state?
|
| 0. https://magazine.tcu.edu/fall-2020/hormonal-birth-control-
| br...
|
| 1. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15236788/
| rossdavidh wrote:
| Just FYI, when reading any article with Marc Hauser as one of the
| lead authors, one should at least read up on the controversy
| regarding his methods:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Hauser#Scientific_miscond...
|
| This article was published in 2010, he had to resign his faculty
| position at Harvard in 2011, and was found guilty of scientific
| misconduct in 2012 by the government Office of Research
| Integrity.
| radu_floricica wrote:
| > They concluded that Hauser had fabricated data in one study,
| manipulated results in multiple experiments, and incorrectly
| described how studies were conducted.
|
| Yeah, not the sexy kind of misconduct.
| o10449366 wrote:
| (Just my personal, anecdotal experience - I have strong family
| history of depression and anxiety on both sides of my family and
| it's something that's afflicted me since I was a teenager.)
|
| I will be extremely hesitant to take antidepressants and anti-
| anxiety medications ever again after my last experience with
| them. For me, the medications helped by tempering all of my
| feelings - I no longer felt sad or anxious, instead I just felt
| mellow and apathetic about everything. And feeling apathy is an
| incredibly scary thing because I also no longer derived any joy
| from my hobbies, from sex, from exercise, etc. I could no longer
| feel sad but I could no longer feel happy, either.
|
| Even worse, I found myself engaging in behaviors I would never
| have engaged in otherwise, like compulsive lying. My moral code
| was compromised because I no longer felt the guilt and shame that
| normally inhibits unscrupulous behavior. I look back on that time
| now and I think about some of my actions and I feel nauseous.
|
| There is value to medications that inhibit or regulate serotonin,
| and every individual's experience will be slightly different
| based on their genetics and the circumstances of their life.
| However, for me, even though I benefited from them at various
| points in my life (especially as a teenager), as an adult now I'm
| much more likely to depend on coping strategies I've learned
| through therapy than medication when it comes to dealing with my
| mood.
| throwaway2331 wrote:
| The assortment of medication available for depression is
| laughable. Even for other neurological disorders, they're so
| unselective and "broad spectrum," affecting numerous other
| systems, that it turns into an absurdity: how are we this far
| behind? Wasn't modern medicine supposed to equal better living?
|
| It's like zero thought has been put into quality of life by
| practitioners, so long as their metrics are met
|
| E.g. "x, y, z attributes on the ABC scale went down. Looks like
| you're in remission!"
|
| "But doctor, my dick doesn't work, I've gained 40lbs, and
| everything feels flat."
|
| "We can prescribe a stimulant for appetite suppression, a
| vasodilator for the libido... but the 'flat' is all in your
| head. I'm going to write you a recommendation to a psychologist
| so they can talk to you about it."
|
| Absolute ninnies.
|
| I understand what you mean about engaging in out-of-personality
| behaviors, lack of moral code, and the nausea and panic that
| accompanies the memories of "who you were" on a certain
| medication (they do go away, with time. And they lose their
| emotional impact once you accept that it was due to medication,
| and rationalize it away). They warn you that there might be
| personality changes, and you'll feel different, but I don't
| think they understand the absolute gravity of what that means.
| Even pharmacists go on their soapbox every time you ask for a
| different brand (because X brand doesn't feel the same, and the
| FDA has issued numerous warnings about quality control): "the
| only thing different about brand name medication is the
| marketing. They're all bio-equivalent and it's all in your
| head." Fuck off.
|
| This isn't even addressing that it's likely most of the "anti-
| depressive" effect is placebo in SSRIs and the like. "Oh I feel
| very different now from this medication. That means it's
| strong, and effective, and I should be getting better now";
| it's in the same vein as chiropractic, except with more woo-woo
| and theatre ("modern medicine!!!").
|
| There are better substances that can be used off-label/aren't
| "copyrighted" that actually solve emotional issues by
| (properly) regulating neurotransmitters and genomic expression
| to achieve pro-humanist results, instead of soulless pro-
| metrics and "quantitative" results. But they're not being
| marketed, because the current batch of psychoactive chemicals
| is riding on decades of marketing and "works" (see: generates
| outsized profits).
|
| In my opinion, almost all of these have been a net-negative on
| society. Opiates, benzos, "anti-psychotics," "anti-
| depressives," and the like: they're all shit.
|
| There are better chemical (and lifestyle solutions) to these
| problems, but right now the medical complex has a hard-fought
| monopoly on health treatment; so anything that would usurp
| power from them is a no-no (a la "fuck pro-consumer, I'm
| getting mine").
| CamelRocketFish wrote:
| What are these better off label substances?
| throwaway2331 wrote:
| Hormones:
|
| Most people's androgen:estrogen balance (and levels) are
| absolutely off kilter, if they live a modern life (no
| exercise/only exercise is the gym, lack of sunlight,
| sitting down all day, living in a city, braindead birth
| control protocols with only estrogens, etc.).
|
| Tuning that would be the most beneficial. And it would get
| to the root of the problem viz. fixing a mismatched
| upregulation/downregulate of neurotransmitter receptors
| (f.e. increasing sensitivity of GABA receptors, decreasing
| sensitivity of noradrenaline receptors, and so on) --
| instead of just a simple and stupid "hur dur lets flood the
| synaptic cleft with serotonin/dopamine/catecholamines."
|
| Barring that, there exist others that do not disrupt one's
| natural HPTA, and are more "targeted" towards neurons,
| rather than the whole body.
|
| Peptides:
|
| There are an assortment of peptides, but their main uses
| are specifically in gene expression/and cell signal tuning.
| They're hit or miss. A lot of woo-woo shit going on, and
| many people hype them up as a cure-all (because there's
| money to be made); when that's taken into account (and the
| lack of extensive research), you'll find an assortment of
| chemicals to play around with.
|
| Russian synthetic adaptogens:
|
| These are their own category of "adaptogens" popular in the
| Russian medical community (and seeing Western adoption).
| E.g. semax, bromantane, selank etc. They act as
| hormones/signaling molecules by changing the expressions of
| genes (leading to downstream changes of natural peptide
| levels, behavior of psychological/catecholamine systems,
| and so on).
|
| -------
|
| All of these, in my opinion and experience, are leagues
| better than the garbage that is peddled by the U.S's
| medical community -- because this actually changes shit on
| the genomic level, rather than fucking with the physical
| processes outright (ex. imagine the difference between
| cloud seeding to get more rainfall vs. diverting rivers, to
| fill aquifers. One of these is much more sustainable and
| has less side-effects).
| peanutcrisis wrote:
| Might it be SSRI-induced indifference[0]? I had a similar
| experience when I was on SSRI antidepressants.
|
| [0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2989833/
| johnchristopher wrote:
| > My moral code was compromised because I no longer felt the
| guilt and shame that normally inhibits unscrupulous behavior.
|
| Hope I am not out of bond but I think this demonstrates why a
| moral code also has to be an intellectual thing and not just an
| instinct thing.
| o10449366 wrote:
| I agree and for me it is, but what I learned from that
| experience is how powerful and influential our emotional
| state is. It really made me feel like a psychopath at times
| because I would understand how I "should" feel or do in a
| given situation, but without a strong emotional signal it
| felt like it didn't matter what choices I made.
| selectodude wrote:
| As a contra-point to this (I feel like these sorts of threads
| bring out everybody who ever had negative experiences with xyz
| drug and that can be very harmful to those with mood
| disorders):
|
| The only reason I'm still alive is due to SSRIs, they have
| definitely taken away some of the highs of life but they also
| took away the incessant thoughts of suicide. They have side
| effects. They suck and the idea of being physically and
| mentally addicted to a mood stabilizer is a huge bummer. But I
| know that the people around me (and you) want us around, even
| if it's not 100 percent of who we really are. If your meds are
| working for you, messing around with them because you want to
| "hack" your brain isn't necessarily the best course of action.
| Be smart.
| loceng wrote:
| Did you try or were offered anything else before trying
| medications?
| selectodude wrote:
| Yes, >1yr of talk therapy.
| loceng wrote:
| Thanks. Was it same person who also prescribed the
| medication?
| selectodude wrote:
| No, I continued to decline and created a plan to end my
| life. I told my psychologist and she referred me to a
| psychiatrist to begin a concurrent pharmaceutical
| treatment to go along with talk therapy.
| 999900000999 wrote:
| Lost Connections is a very good book on the topic. Read it, the
| author points out in countries where people don't have 3k a
| month for pysc meds, somehow they aren't all miserably
| depressed. One story is really sweat, a poor farmer is helped
| by his community after being left unable to work. In the west
| we'd say file for SSI and get some SOMA.
|
| The entire mental health industry is focused on extracting as
| much from vulnerable people as possible. Unless you have a
| spare 1200$ to 1600$ a month laying around you won't be able to
| afford therapy anyway...
| andrei_says_ wrote:
| I would like to recommend a lecture by George Lakoff - The
| Neuroscience of Language and Thought
|
| https://youtu.be/JJP-rkilz40
|
| Within the first 10 minutes he speaks of the fact that rational
| thought as we see it simply does not exist. All our choices are
| based on the ability to distinguish a preference and that
| ability is based on emotion.
|
| It would only make sense that medication impairing our emotions
| would also impair our choice making.
| Enginerrrd wrote:
| Not only that, but if meditation has taught me anything, it's
| that your "conscious rational thought" isn't really
| conscious. ...like, basically at all. The decisions are
| getting made unconsciously and then kicked up to your
| conscious attention, already made.
| mirekrusin wrote:
| There is a proof for this - when you're dreaming and hear
| some noise that wakes you up, in many cases the plot of
| your dream in last second or so will be constructed around
| that sound - in other words, your brain would have to know
| the future if it was all realtime, it leaks out faking
| reality perception.
| loceng wrote:
| Have you ever researched or tried MDMA? It's "single use" vs.
| daily and habit/dependency forming.
|
| MAPS.org did clinical trials, MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for
| veterans with treatment resistant PTSD, to great success.
| meiji163 wrote:
| One should know the long-term risks of these drugs. Long term
| outcomes on psychiatric drugs are no better than placebo, and
| discontinuation after long-term usage is associated with higher
| relapse rates [0,1,2]. So unless you're ready to gamble on
| lifetime dependence, I'd suggest trying something like exercise
| [3].
|
| The common belief that these drugs are effective treatments
| (esp. in the US) I can only guess is a remnant of the pharma-
| backed "chemical imbalance" propaganda campaign and reporting
| bias [4].
|
| [0]: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9559348/
|
| [1]: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/the-british-
| journal-...
|
| [2]: https://www.clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT00021528
|
| [3]: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11020092/
|
| [4]:
| https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/fullarticle/...
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| I spot-checked your first citation and it doesn't support
| your claims in the slightest. It literally says that patients
| who continued taking their medication had lower relapse rates
| than those who stopped:
|
| > > Compared with patients whose antidepressants were
| discontinued, those with continued treatment showed much
| lower relapse rates (1.85 vs. 6.24%/month), longer time to
| 50% relapse (48.0 vs. 14.2 months), and lower 12-month
| relapse risk (19.5 vs. 44.8%) (all p < 0.001).
|
| It literally says that antidepressants work.
|
| > The common belief that these drugs are effective treatments
| (esp. in the US)...
|
| They diverge from placebo and are effective treatments. It's
| not a US thing _at all_. I don't know why you think it's
| limited to the United States, but then again the rest of your
| post is full of misinformation.
|
| Please stop parroting this anti-psychiatry nonsense and
| trying to use studies that say the opposite of the
| misinformation you're trying to spread.
| ikiris wrote:
| I hear insulin is the same way. Eventually they still die,
| and OMG IF THEY STOP THEY DIE TOO.
|
| /sigh.
|
| please stop this, you're contributing to the stigma both in
| terms of mental health, and that lifesaving medication is
| somehow an addition.
| mitchdoogle wrote:
| The person you're replying to has multiple sources to
| defend their comment. It's not a big secret that
| antidepressants are overprescribed and extremely easy to
| obtain. Sure, they have their uses and may be life saving
| to some, but their use should also be questioned from time
| to time.
| hellbannedguy wrote:
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| > The person you're replying to has multiple sources to
| defend their comment.
|
| Click their first citation. It's a study that shows that
| people who discontinue their antidepressants are more
| likely to relapse than people who continue taking them.
|
| It also says that relapse is more likely if the person
| was depressed for longer before receiving treatment (e.g.
| excessively delaying treatment made relapse more likely)
|
| It doesn't support their wild anti-psychiatry rant _at
| all_. Don't be fooled by off the wall comments that try
| to overload you with a list of citations that they know
| most people won't read.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| > There is value to medications that inhibit or regulate
| serotonin, and every individual's experience will be slightly
| different based on their genetics and the circumstances of
| their life.
|
| Not just slightly different. It can be extremely variable from
| person to person.
|
| It's well-known in medical research and clinical practice that
| medications likes SSRIs range from helpful to neutral to net
| negatives depending on the patients and situation. Sadly, too
| many people fixate on the potential negative side effects and
| avoid trialing treatments altogether.
|
| For anyone suffering: It's true that medications might not work
| out for you, but if they _do_ address your condition and you're
| one of the many people whose lives benefit greatly, then it
| would be tragic to avoid medications based on fear of potential
| negative outcomes.
| kbenson wrote:
| > Not just slightly different. It can be extremely variable
| from person to person.
|
| Not just SSRIs. I had a _very_ bad experience with Mucinex D
| (or DM?) about 12 years ago, the first time I tried it. I can
| only imagine it was what clinical depression is like. For two
| days (until I stopped taking because I was so scared) I lost
| all interest in my life. I wasn 't interested in my young
| children, ow my wife, or watching anything on TV I usually
| like, or playing a game. I was questioning my work life
| choices as well because nothing at work held the slightest
| interest. I would go home, do what was required of me, then
| sit in bed and stare at the wall until I went to bed.
|
| That is, to this day, one of the scariest experiences in my
| life. I've since heard of one or two other people that had
| similar experiences with it.
| danrochman wrote:
| This is how some people feel all the time. I wonder if I
| was exposed to Mucinex in the womb...
| aos wrote:
| Mucinex DM has dextromethorphan[0] which can act as a non-
| selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor.
|
| [0]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dextromethorphan see
| section on dependence and withdrawal
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| Serotonin is only a small part of what it does. It can
| impact everything from NMDA to opioid receptors.
|
| It's not interchangeable with SSRIs, obviously.
| tsol wrote:
| It's much stronger effect is as an NMDA antagonist,
| similar to Ketamine. This blocks one of the primary
| excitatory neurotransmitters in the brain. That would be
| a better candidate for a depressant effect than its minor
| SRI property
| kbenson wrote:
| Well, that makes sense then. Thanks for the additional
| info. Honestly have been kinda scared of the whole class
| of medication that affects mood since this experience,
| but I've been lucky enough to not feel the need for
| medication nor been prescribed any of that sort, so
| haven't had to make that choice.
| foverzar wrote:
| These medications don't really address your condition, but
| rather just treat symptoms.
|
| IMO, the fear is not really about short-term negatives, but
| about it turning into drug abuse, without actually tackling
| the root cause.
|
| Such drugs should only be used in extreme cases.
| tsol wrote:
| What is the root cause of depression? That's a huge
| subject, and for some people even with community and a job
| and hobby they still feel depressed. Sometimes the
| underlying condition really is a chemical imbalance.
|
| For example, adverse childhood experiences are highly
| correlated with depression. What's the underlying problem
| to tackle with a 50 year old adult who is depressed as a
| result of abuse as a child? Some things just change you and
| no amount of therapy can undo that
| [deleted]
| 0xcde4c3db wrote:
| I'm not exactly an expert on psychiatry, but I've looked
| around quite a bit and have yet to see any method claiming
| to treat "the root cause" whose evidence base isn't even
| sketchier than that of SSRIs.
| treeman79 wrote:
| Had similar. Was suffering from clots and doctors decided it
| was anxiety. I stopped caring about anything. Saw a love one
| injured. I felt nothing at all. Someone whom I was normally
| very protective. Never took another pill.
| dave_sullivan wrote:
| Not sure if you ever tried a DSRI but it could be your
| serotonin levels are fine but your dopamine levels are out of
| whack. SSRIs are just one class of drug. Speaking from a
| history of anxiety and depression, the wrong drugs were not
| helpful, but the right drugs opened up a whole new version of
| self. In my case, that was buproprion.
| mattgreenrocks wrote:
| Same situation as you. SSRIs seemed mostly ineffective, or
| sometimes had crazy side effects (will never forget Effexor-
| induced zaps despite tapering off following the directions to
| the letter). Bupropion has been fantastic for me since I
| started and I wished I'd found it 20 years ago.
| wincy wrote:
| That's great! Bupropion caused a psychotic episode for me
| maybe ten years ago. Most terrifying day of my life, when
| the razor blades were calling out to me telling me to cut
| myself. To be clear, I've never had anything like that
| happen before or since. My daughter spent 9 months in the
| NICU and got genetic testing for various drugs, with 1
| being the baseline expected (I'm going off memory here) and
| 9 or 10 being "wtf this is super weird". She got a 9 for
| bupropion. I'm assuming she got that from her father.
| GeorgeTirebiter wrote:
| Wow, sorry. Bupropion is an SNRI, not SSRI. SSRIs are
| 'dangerous' IMHO, except for the special cases mention
| here (suicide ideation, extreme non-functioning).
|
| I would have hoped clinicians would start at the lowest
| possible dose, and titrate up. I've certainly heard of
| the "you need about xx mg, use this dose" first doses,
| tho.
|
| To me, this is Yet Another reason one should never
| receive medical advice alone, especially when thinking is
| impaired. That trusted friend / partner needs to ask the
| hard questions of the prescribing clinician; but rules
| make any 3rd party except spouse difficult for adults.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| It's an NDRI, not an SNRI.
| [deleted]
| tablespoon wrote:
| > My daughter spent 9 months in the NICU and got genetic
| testing for various drugs, with 1 being the baseline
| expected (I'm going off memory here) and 9 or 10 being
| "wtf this is super weird". She got a 9 for bupropion.
|
| I've never heard of that. Why would they be testing an
| infant for their reaction to an antidepressant drug? Just
| curious.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| The genetic tests use genotypes to make statistical
| inferences about efficacy and metabolism for certain
| drugs. Wellbutrin is a common medicine, and the testing
| company probably had it as part of their panel.
| plutonorm wrote:
| Not available in the UK because reasons.
| qwertyuiop_ wrote:
| Do these work for panic attacks ? I think anxiety and
| depression are related. I was prescribed SSRI for anxiety.
| mattgreenrocks wrote:
| > I think anxiety and depression are related. I was
| prescribed SSRI for anxiety.
|
| They often accompany one another. I've had panic attacks in
| the past, and was diagnosed with generalized anxiety
| disorder. I can't claim that bupropion fixes panic attacks
| proper, and I'm not a doctor, but it does help me with my
| depression. (I haven't had a panic attack in a long time.)
|
| It's not a silver bullet; you can still find yourself in
| mentally stuck states, the difference is the physical side
| of things seems to be 'gated' at the low end so that your
| spiraling down isn't as deep as it is before. There's still
| a lot of work to do to recognize + slow that descent, but
| it is a tool to help with that.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| Mirtazapine can help with depression, anxiety and panic,
| and it isn't an SSRI. There are also newer drugs that are
| marketed as SMS drugs instead of SSRIs, like vilazodone and
| vortioxetine. Buspirone binds to 5HT1A directly, instead of
| inhibiting the serotonin transporter like other drugs.
|
| Wellbutrin and NDRIs typically aren't that great for
| anxiety, but they can help.
| laurent92 wrote:
| For me, serotonin blockers just made me asexual. It was a flat
| organ even when activated. It also defeats the purpose of
| taking antidepressants to enter a more positive spiral with
| girls... But it is also very frightening as a man.
| Findecanor wrote:
| I've used SSRIs a long time ago with therapy, and without a few
| years ago.
|
| In my opinion, SSRIs should only be used as a tool to help make
| the patient more receptive to therapy.
|
| It should never ever be used a substitute for therapy. I too
| have noticed that without someone to help keeping your
| behaviour in check, some undesirable (but not necessarily dark)
| personality traits could take over. Not to mention that someone
| needs to be there to check on you during the first weeks of use
| when the drug actually causes a deeper depression before it
| starts mellowing your feelings.
|
| BTW. My second SSRI use also left me with permanently dry eyes
| and nose: me needing eye drops and to avoid dusty, dry
| environments for the rest of my life.
| sjtindell wrote:
| I loosely agree. I feel SSRIs should be used in cases where
| someone feels so down they cannot function. Once they are
| functional enough for therapy and other support, they may
| want to consider carefully stopping.
| Jerrrry wrote:
| Similar thoughts. I think SSRI's are the wrong direction.
|
| Acute drug experiences with therapy and behavioral modification
| are the future.
|
| do some molly and ketamine and have a good talk.
| nobodyofnote wrote:
| As someone who has done both on multiple occasions and not
| come out of the experiences suffering any less, I can say
| that these are by no means the panacea they're often held out
| to be. It's fantastic that these options seem to be very
| helpful to many, but I feel that MDMA and Ketamine - as well
| as Psilocybin - are suggested with far too much confidence on
| the outcome.
| KittenInABox wrote:
| Caveat: If you have dissociative symptoms, are prone to
| anxiety, have a family history of psychosis or have a
| psychosis in your symptom profile, seriously reconsider the
| above advice.
| andrei_says_ wrote:
| How does the dissasociative ketamine help?
| loves_mangoes wrote:
| Ketamine (as its S-isomer) is approved by the FDA for
| treatment-resistant depression.
|
| Note that while the evidence for Ketamine's antidepressant
| effect is actually strong, that does not mean you should
| get into the habit of snorting a gram of special K a day.
|
| Ketamine abuse is known to cause serious, practical damage
| to the GI tract, the urinary system, the liver, and the
| brain.
| tsol wrote:
| Although a ketamine treatment plan for depression
| requires subanesthetic doses once a week at first, and
| then once every two weeks. It's also habit forming enough
| that it's difficult to not overdo it due to its effects
| on dopamine. It has some definite utility, but it's the
| kind of medication that is hard to use alone
| astrange wrote:
| If you don't want to mess with serotonin don't go take
| MDMA...
| pure_simplicity wrote:
| Lot's of cases of depression actually start with inflammation
| in the gut or in the brain, or other gut related diseases.
| Diet and lifestyle is a safer and better treatment.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| That truthfully sounds like symptoms of hypomania, which can be
| exacerbated by antidepressants. If that's the case, then
| antidepressants alone were not a good choice for you, because
| they are meant to only treat depression.
| sorethescore wrote:
| This is why antidepressants should only be used during periods
| of crisis when a person is at risk; in my opinion, for no
| longer than 3-6 months at most, after which they should be
| tapered off and transitioned to a more sustainable long term
| treatment modality.
| aantix wrote:
| Have you tried any supplements?
|
| SSRIs aren't the only promising solution.
| tablespoon wrote:
| > Have you tried any supplements?
|
| > SSRIs aren't the only promising solution.
|
| I don't think it's very helpful to vaguely bring up
| "supplements" like that. There are _so many_ , and they range
| from being harmful, to being placebos, to being actually
| helpful. Plus there's a huge amount of _utter quackery_
| around them.
|
| Do you have any specific "promising" ones in mind?
| tsol wrote:
| My experience was the opposite. In fact, after taking
| medication to fix it I later stopped because of this
| naturalistic fallacy. I knew it was bunting some of my emotions
| and I figured whatever the drugs are doing I can do with
| lifestyle changes. 10 years later, a daily habit of exercise
| and cold showers, a variety of daily natural supplements like
| turmeric and magnesium, and a career later.. I was no
| different.
|
| I'd wonder why everything felt so hard for me, why I was so
| stressed out all the time. And how it could be that no one else
| seemed to be horrified by the existential realities of life. At
| the same time I wanted to participate in life so I could help
| change things for the better-- but damn every morning was a new
| battle. And then I decided to start the same medication again,
| and boom.
|
| About a year later and I feel normal. It's amazing. I'm like..
| is this how people feel all the time? You guys just wake up and
| don't dread the day? Lol it's almost funny now. They blunt my
| emotions.. but turns out i was hyper sensitive to everything.
| In an awful , stressful way. I still have white hair from that
| period of life.
|
| Sometimes, medication is the answer. I had a perfectly fine
| life on paper yet couldn't be happy. My theory is this was
| because of some adverse childhood events I experienced, that
| seemed to change something in me. Thank God for modern
| medicine.
|
| And I learned sometimes the best advice is don't listen to
| others-- only you know what's best for you. People are
| complicated and therapy doesn't always work.
| thelittleone wrote:
| > My theory is this was because of some adverse childhood
| events I experienced, that seemed to change something in me.
|
| Have you considered some sort of regression therapy such as
| hypnotherapy or if more adventurous, plant medicine? I sat
| next to a pretty senior FBI guy on a domestic US flight once.
| He was a hypnotherapist who claimed that in almost all cases
| they were able to use hypnosis to get information about what
| happened even if the conscious person was completely unable
| to recall any details.
|
| In most shamanic traditions, a lot of work is devoted to
| bringing up and purging out past trauma. Examples include
| plant vapor baths to sweat things out, purgatives to release
| emotional trauma (often present in the stomach / belly) and
| plant medicines such as ayahuasca that act as both a
| purgative and help form new perspectives of past experiences.
| twofornone wrote:
| >He was a hypnotherapist who claimed that in almost all
| cases they were able to use hypnosis to get information
| about what happened even if the conscious person was
| completely unable to recall any details.
|
| There's no guarantee that the information they received was
| true. I imagine hypnosis is in the same category as lie
| detectors with respect to its...interpretability.
| rjh29 wrote:
| Anecdotally I had the same response. I found they helped
| anxiety a lot, but did not help depression as I just felt even
| more disconnected and apathetic to things.
|
| What helped me was switching away from a first-line SSRI and
| onto something a bit more niche: Mirtazapine. It's definitely
| worth trying a variety of SSRIs because everyone is different
| and it's really common for the first one or two that you try to
| not work well.
|
| I agree that ultimately therapy/coping strategies are the right
| cure, medicine is a way to bootstrap otherwise incapable people
| into persuing exercise, therapy, social stuff etc. If you can
| achieve that without the help of meds, more power to you!
| tamaharbor wrote:
| Does the Mirtazapine make you sleepy all the time?
| LASR wrote:
| Not OP, but to answer your question: no, not all the time.
|
| If you take it before bedtime, it sedates you in a deep
| sleep. But 3-4 hours later, if you wake up, it would be
| like you didn't take anything.
|
| You may even have trouble going back to sleep if you wake
| up early.
|
| Of course all this varies greatly for every individual.
| SavantIdiot wrote:
| Sounds like anomie. What did your therapist say about this?
| Different anti-depressants have different effects. Not sure
| what you were on, but if it was an SSRI, perhaps a tricyclic
| would have been better, or vice versa.
|
| The symptoms you explain are why it is important to pair
| therapy with antidepressents.
|
| I'm very surprised your therapist did not alter your scrip.
| o10449366 wrote:
| They did. If it's prescribable as a medication to treat
| anxiety or depression in the United States, I've tried it. I
| try and keep a very open mind, so even when many medications
| didn't work, I continued to try new ones and combinations
| with sufficient trial periods, but in the end what worked
| best for me (at that point in my life) was just not taking
| anything at all.
|
| I'm not saying medication is not effective - it was extremely
| effective for me in different phases of my life and probably
| saved me from suicide, however in my adult life I found the
| emotional blunting and apathy that came with not just SSRIs
| but DSRIs and other classes of medications to be extremely
| concerning.
| grouphugs wrote:
| vadiml wrote:
| So how about daily serotonin injections to all elected officials?
| echopurity wrote:
| nosianu wrote:
| This reminded me of this BBC article about the brain effects of
| ordinary drugs:
|
| "The medications that change who we are"
|
| https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200108-the-medications-...
|
| > _They've been linked to road rage, pathological gambling, and
| complicated acts of fraud. Some make us less neurotic, and others
| may even shape our social relationships. It turns out many
| ordinary medications don't just affect our bodies - they affect
| our brains. Why? And should there be warnings on packets?_
|
| > _We're all familiar with the mind-bending properties of
| psychedelic drugs - but it turns out ordinary medications can be
| just as potent. From paracetamol (known as acetaminophen in the
| US) to antihistamines, statins, asthma medications and
| antidepressants, there's emerging evidence that they can make us
| impulsive, angry, or restless, diminish our empathy for
| strangers, and even manipulate fundamental aspects of our
| personalities, such as how neurotic we are._
|
| > _If these claims are true, the implications are profound. The
| list of potential culprits includes some of the most widely
| consumed drugs on the planet, meaning that even if the effects
| are small at an individual level, they could be shaping the
| personalities of millions of people._
| Ozzie_osman wrote:
| It's crazy how our brains and bodies are just a cocktail of
| hormones and neurotransmitters. Change that mix, and it can
| change the very nature of who we think we are. Things that you
| might associate with your very identity, like optimism/pessimism,
| ability to focus, moral judgment, how collaborative or generous
| you are, aggressiveness, all can be influenced by hormones or
| neurotransmitters.
| netizen-936824 wrote:
| Its really not just a cocktail or mix. Its far more ordered
| than that and these compounds and receptors are found in very
| specific areas and circuits
| symlinkk wrote:
| Yes it brings up uncomfortable questions about free will. Like
| "why did he murder that guy? did he choose to do it or did the
| chemicals in his brain force him to?"
| zwkrt wrote:
| "Your honor, I claim that the real culprit here is the laws
| of physics and the initial conditions of the universe at the
| Big Bang."
| thenerdhead wrote:
| Maybe we are living in the world of "Brave New World" where there
| will soon be "Soma" pills of different colors depending on how we
| feel and how we want to feel.
|
| The big question is ethics. How far do we go to understand,
| engineer, and change the very nature of what makes us human?
| Changing the very negative emotions for the future generation
| would change the world of great art like the next Poe, Van Gogh,
| Plath, and more.
|
| This changes the very nature of what makes us unique. If everyone
| is happy, nobody is happy, right?
| imbnwa wrote:
| >Enhancing serotonin made subjects less likely to reject unfair
| offers.
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