[HN Gopher] The anesthetic effect of air at atmospheric pressure
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The anesthetic effect of air at atmospheric pressure
Author : luu
Score : 97 points
Date : 2023-08-14 05:37 UTC (17 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)
(TXT) w3m dump (pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)
| sergioisidoro wrote:
| What if instead it's helium that is a slight stimulant?
| jlawson wrote:
| Do stimulants reduce reaction time? Waking someone up isn't the
| same as actually improving their performance.
| LoganDark wrote:
| Some people can treat their ADHD using stimulants, and your
| reaction time tends to be better in that circumstance
| (citation needed though, I guess).
|
| IME, too much stimulants causes hyperreflexia, but I'm not
| sure if it's because of a decreased reaction time.
| AnotherGoodName wrote:
| Essentially true by definition. If something is the norm then
| replacing that norm with helium and seeing enhanced performance
| isn't signal of the norm being restrictive. It's signal of
| helium being performance enhancing.
| adrian_b wrote:
| The effect of nitrogen varies with its pressure, i.e. with its
| concentration, while no changes are seen when the helium
| pressure is varied.
|
| This allows the conclusion that nitrogen has anesthetic effect
| and helium does not have stimulant effect.
|
| Because it appears that the anesthetic effect of inert gases
| depends on their molecular mass, being much stronger for heavy
| gases like xenon, it is possible that helium also has an
| anesthetic effect, but one that becomes noticeable only at
| higher pressures than can be safely tested.
| makeworld wrote:
| Are there any historical relations to this? For example has
| nitrogen concentration varied across centuries? Or have
| innovations occured more frequently at higher altitudes?
| pdc56 wrote:
| How many minutes until someone applies to YC with HaaS Co -
| Helium and facemask as a service subscription startup.
| crdrost wrote:
| This was roughly speaking my first thought as well. I thought
| "Well we always laughed at the sci-fi depictions of people with
| big cans of air for sale, come pay for premium filtered air ...
| but this is how that all starts, isn't it. Rich people pay for
| an air that might make them think 10% faster, then as it starts
| to normalize to the middle-class, they care less and less about
| pollutants in the air and eventually we just regard that as a
| poor-peoples' problem."
| That-Dude wrote:
| _It concluded that the nitrogen in ambient air slightly but
| measurable impairs human performance compared with a non-
| anesthetic gas such as helium._
|
| This seems like a massive reach. Is it not possible the body is
| just perceiving that something is "wrong" about its current
| situation while breathing helium and is activating a threat
| response? The study authors didn't even bother to monitor heart
| rate, let alone blood concentrations of adrenalin and cortisol.
| This might have been a neat study in 1975 but it is not nearly
| rigorous enough.
| superkuh wrote:
| The action potential is an electrical manipulation of reversible
| abrupt phase changes in the lipid bilayer. Normally the lipid
| bilayer is in a liquid phase but the the switching out of
| monovalent sodium for bivalent calcium ions changes the number of
| phospholipid carboxyl head groups each ion is electrostatically
| associated with. This changes the heat capacity and causes the
| lipid membrane to become a solid/gel phase. The action potential
| itself is the propagation of this solid phase.
|
| This is how thermodynamics can effect neurons. And this is why
| dissolving gases into the lipid membrane, like nitrogen in the
| article, cause change the thermodynamic properties like the heat
| capacity and retard the solid phase a bit. Light gases increase
| liquidity. That's the anesthetic effect that reduces firing
| rates. And that's why local atmospheric pressure matters in gas
| anesthesia dosing.
|
| It's not that the old hogkin-huxley purely electrical circuit
| model is "wrong", it's a fine approximation of some effects. But
| it certainly can't explain the reversible uptake and release of
| heat during a passing action potential, nor the changes in
| birefringence and optical scattering, nor why nitrogen can act as
| an anesthetic like in this case.
| Robelius wrote:
| Are you saying that what's happening is the permeability of the
| cell membrane changes with their physical states (from a scale
| of "more liquid" to "more solid")and that change impacts the
| transmission rate of the neurons? And an example of this would
| be an anesthesiologist putting you under is them making your
| cell membrane more solid to increase the resistance those
| neuron transmissions experience, just like adding more
| resistance to a circuit to reduce the voltage?
|
| Disclaimer that biological sciences aren't my strength so I'm
| just trying to understand what you're saying.
| superkuh wrote:
| No, it's not about ions going through the membrane or
| membrane pemeability. It is not about resistance to ions flow
| across the 10nm they travel perpendicular to the membrane.
| Transport of ions across through ion channels are _required_
| for the effect but the membrane itself (usually) is not
| leaking and I 'm not talking about changes in leakage.
|
| It is about how the various ions like Na+ and Ca+2 associated
| with the membrane itself to change the membrane's physical
| properties. When there's lots of light gas anesthetic
| dissolved in the lipid membrane keeping the heat capacity low
| (disordered) it is thermodynamically harder (requires more
| energy) to form the organized 'solid' (actually more like a
| gel) state that propagates as the action potential.
|
| ref: https://arxiv.org/abs/1805.11481 - good overview paper,
| http://erewhon.superkuh.com/library/Neuroscience/Lipid%20Mem.
| .. - other papers/books on the subject.
| tiffanyg wrote:
| _Mm-hmm, Mm-hmm... Oh! Oh, yeah... mm, mm. Mmm!_
|
| _I know some of these words!_ *
|
| More seriously - thanks for that description! It's always
| interesting to see just how many "principles" &/ "laws" etc.
| (our compartmentalized / simplified models) underlie certain
| kinds of physical behavior (and, sort of, emergent properties
| thereof). Even just sticking together enough of the simplest
| models can be kind of surprising and not so easy to reason
| about / handle with much "facility".
|
| I've never learned much about anesthesia, and the little bits I
| have learned, here and there - and usually only in very
| specific contexts, makes it so most of this info doesn't really
| stick in my head. So, I appreciate getting a bit of refresher /
| learning every now and again. Particularly, in how it ties
| together with everything else involved.
|
| Thanks!
|
| * https://youtu.be/sl2W85KKzgc
| topaz0 wrote:
| Worth noting that, while this model has been around for a few
| decades, it does not have many adherents among neuroscientists.
| Which is not to say that it is wrong necessarily, just that I
| wouldn't want readers to get the wrong idea that this is a
| consensus view.
| genewitch wrote:
| neuroscientists are just mad that "gut feeling" is actually
| the truth, and we're generally being manipulated by the
| billions of microbes in our guts. Simple example: why do
| people crave cake when they're on a diet that doesn't allow
| cake? There are microbes that convert stuff in grasses (corn,
| etc) into opioids. Opioids are great, make us feel great, and
| if we are used to having opioids and suddenly stop, we go
| into opioid withdrawal.
|
| I haven't really put a fine point on the grand theory of gut-
| mind-body interaction, but i'm fairly certain that nearly
| every disorder or disease that isn't external (like radiation
| or malaria) will eventually be traced back to gut flora, from
| auto-immune disorders to depression.
| gamblor956 wrote:
| Cake does not generally contain grasses...and if it were
| true that there were trains of gut flora that converted
| sugars to opioids almost everyone in America would live in
| a perpetual state of intoxication. Sugar withdrawal is also
| not even remotely similar to opioid withdrawal.
| mholm wrote:
| A 10% increase in reaction time could be fairly significant in
| many sports. Could we start seeing football players, sprinters,
| or baseball players breathing from masks between plays?
| kaibee wrote:
| Forget sports. I want my surgeon to be on a heliox mix when
| he's doing a complicated operation on me.
| _Adam wrote:
| If your operation has reached the point where milliseconds
| matter..something likely has gone wrong.
|
| I'd be curious to see data on how other cognitive metrics
| change in absence of atmospheric nitrogen. Abstract reasoning
| / mental math abilities / etc. It's possible some actually
| improve, just like I might rush and make more errors while
| doing something after drinking a few coffees.
| slau wrote:
| While scuba diving, nitrogen narcosis stops the instant you
| ascend a bit (the typical recommendation is to reduce the
| ambient pressure by one atmosphere). I don't think there is
| anything in this study that indicates the effect lasts more
| than a few minutes after exposure ceases.
| jjk166 wrote:
| Depending on exactly what one's doing, it's easily
| conceivable that the exposure can be concurrent with the
| activity. Maybe not football, where lugging around a
| compressed gas tank on the field is likely impractical if not
| dangerous, but a sport like Formula 1 or many E-sports would
| likely be quite conducive for an individual, and other sports
| like wrestling or swimming could probably be done entirely in
| a room with a modified atmosphere.
| ambicapter wrote:
| I've always wondered if fighter pilots ever had a system to
| pump different gases into their masks whenever they
| encounter a high-stakes situation.
| MaxwellsDaemon wrote:
| Here comes the juice!
| scythe wrote:
| Would be awkward for moving sports. My first thought upon
| seeing this was that it would be a real improvement in the
| _Melee_ reaction tech-chasing meta.
| Raidion wrote:
| You already see this. Google "NFL oxygen masks". I'm sort of
| surprised I haven't heard about it in the context of shorter
| physical sports: I'd wonder what effect it would have on an
| 100m/200m/400m time or shotput distance to oxygen saturate like
| free divers do.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| Elsewhere in the thread, someone claims that oxygen has a
| similar narcotic effect. Does the NFL use a helium-oxygen
| mixture, or pure oxygen?
| slau wrote:
| Just completed my deep (40m/120ft) diver certification. A
| significant amount of the course was focused on nitrogen
| narcosis, and how to handle/detect it.
|
| Apparently, some divers will start feeling the narcotic effect
| between 20-30m. Beyond 30m, a significant amount of divers can
| feel the effects.
|
| Beyond 40m is the realm of tech diving, with trimix
| (helium/nitrogen/oxygen) or even heliox (helium/oxygen). I know
| nothing about this, so I'll let others comment.
|
| The interesting thing about this research is that it sort of
| makes sense, and yet is very surprising. We're basically
| continuously narked, we're just so used to it we don't even know.
|
| Fun fact: the exact cause of nitrogen narcosis is not exactly
| understood. It is most likely the fact that at higher partial
| pressures nitrogen is able to enter the fatty tissues surrounding
| our nerves. Except for helium, no other gas exists which does not
| have some form narcotic effect at higher pressures.
|
| Considering the prices of helium, this also explains why many
| deep divers are starting to consider rebreathers.
| jerf wrote:
| "We're basically continuously narked, we're just so used to it
| we don't even know."
|
| Just because one direction on the gradient means that we
| respond in a way that looks like a narcotic does not mean that
| the other direction will respond in the opposite manner.
|
| I'm sure the nootropics folks would have discovered being
| _super not high_ by now if it were as easy as breathing a
| mixture that doesn 't have nitrogen in it.
| hn8305823 wrote:
| > I'm sure the nootropics folks would have discovered being
| super not high by now if it were as easy as breathing a
| mixture that doesn't have nitrogen in it.
|
| Maybe this is what Oxygen Bars are actually about but nobody
| knows it yet.
| karagenit wrote:
| O2 actually has a stronger narcotic effect than N2, so
| probably it would have the opposite effect if any.
| gojomo wrote:
| You'd hope mind-hackers would've explored &
| confirmed/refuted/quantified the effect, but stuff like this
| often lies underexplored for decades, despite hints like this
| 1975 study - which actually shows the 'gradient' of clearer
| thinking continues in the other direction, no hand-wavy
| extrapolation required. It's what they found! In 1975!
|
| How long did it take for society to fully recognize, &
| remediate, the effects of environmental lead? How many people
| & orgs remain oblivious to the cognitive deficits caused by
| high indoor CO2 levels?
|
| I hope mind-hackers do some fresh research on this, with the
| advantage of 2023 levels of wealth/free-time/returns-to-
| improved-cognition/SCUBA-equipment. There could be some
| potential for positive surprise around what you're "sure"
| should've already been discovered.
| genewitch wrote:
| as siblings commented, pure oxygen gets you high. a couple of
| breaths of pure oxygen will relieve pain and induce euphoria.
| I am not entirely clear on the definition of "narcotic" so i
| may be being redundant.
|
| My issue, though, is i can't find a way to safely generate
| oxygen for a decent price. I know electrolysis works, but
| these atomic sieves look safer. They're also difficult to
| acquire without a prescription, at least from my searches in
| the US. And i know lithium can react to generate oxygen, but
| that's not what i consider "safe".
| tonyarkles wrote:
| Someone else in this thread mentioned diving. When I was
| doing my advanced open water course, we did an exercise to
| demonstrate nitrogen narcosis. Super simple test: we had a
| card with the numbers 1-16 written on a 4x4 grid in random
| order. You have to tap the numbers in order and it's a
| timed exercise. We did it on the surface in the boat and
| again at 30m depth; my performance was maybe 20% slower, my
| buddy was more like 40-50% slower.
| dsr_ wrote:
| "Except for helium, no other gas exists which does not have
| some form narcotic effect at higher pressures."
|
| I assume the narcotic effect of fluorine, chlorine and bromine
| are basically unstudied...
| genewitch wrote:
| i got a lungful of chlorine gas once and it wasn't narcotic
| in the slightest. I wheezed and coughed for about 20 minutes.
| gumby wrote:
| If you get more of it you definitely won't wake up.
| aaronscott wrote:
| Your comment about being continuously narked reminded me how in
| early human history people relied on low-alcohol beer as a safe
| water supply. So back then it was a double-whammy.
|
| https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-conflicted-hi...
| alentred wrote:
| As far as I understand, historically, alcoholic beverages
| were primarily invented and used as a water disinfectant. Rum
| was used in British navy to disinfect fresh water in barrels.
| Wine was used to dilute it in water till the 20th century.
| Fun fact, in ancient Greece people who drank pure wine (not
| diluting it in water) were considered alcoholics and could be
| publicly denounced. Beer was used as a typical beverage
| accompanying a meal in many populations (a sandwich with a
| beer was the closest analogy to the "fast food"). It appears
| that it is only recently that we have started to consume
| alcohol for pleasure.
| sithadmin wrote:
| I'm not sure I buy your claim that rum was ever used to
| 'disinfect' fresh water on British Navy ships. The 'grog'
| mix they used was not of sufficient ABV to disinfect the
| water, as it was handed out at a 4:1 ratio of water:rum. It
| was moreso about making the daily rum ration difficult to
| hoard, and much more efficient to transport than beer or
| wine.
| jaggederest wrote:
| Grog was at least 10% alcohol, plus lime juice. Navy rum
| was 65% or 130 proof. That's more than enough to inhibit
| most waterborne diseases such as cholera (inhibited in
| wine at 6.25% abv, though wine has tannins and phenols).
| vondur wrote:
| Yikes, I just checked, and Captain Morgan's is 35%
| Alcohol. I'm aware of Bacardi 151 (75.5% alcohol) which
| is like fire water to me. Can't imagine drinking
| something so concentrated regularly.
| jrockway wrote:
| I suppose that's why 1 part of rum got mixed with 4 parts
| water and some limes.
| tobinfricke wrote:
| Previously:
|
| "Were Early Modern People Perpetually Drunk? (2016)
| (hypotheses.org)"
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13535868
| nichohel wrote:
| Typo "signiGicant" in abstract.
| jlawson wrote:
| I wonder how much it would cost to fill my office with
| helium/oxygen mix to maximize my productivity.
|
| Would sound odd during calls, though!
| Terr_ wrote:
| > Would sound odd during calls, though!
|
| I find myself thinking how you might dress or act to disguise
| it, and then this climactic (i.e. spoiler) scene from "Who
| Framed Roger Rabbit", and finally anxiety about the weird
| places my mind goes.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDrqCq4fGRE&t=73s
| gorkish wrote:
| Although it's clear you are being facetious, let's see where it
| goes. I would surmise the best and most economical gas mix to
| breathe long term at ambient pressure would be somewhere
| between 80/20 and 75/25 mix of Argon/Oxygen.
| FreeFull wrote:
| Argon wouldn't work, it has a stronger narcotic effect than
| Nitrogen
| [deleted]
| cwillu wrote:
| I expect that the cost of the helium would dwarf the cost of of
| a fancy voice-shifting mic.
| [deleted]
| qwertyA wrote:
| Should I move to the mountains to finish my phd?
| ejdanderson wrote:
| Does your PhD require increased reaction time?
| bottlepalm wrote:
| Sometimes I feel like the increasing carbon dioxide in the air is
| making us collectively dumber over time..
| anamexis wrote:
| Well, it is.
|
| https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/04/200421090556.h...
| LoganDark wrote:
| Just curious, is this responsible for any of the effects of
| hyperventilation?
| [deleted]
| gumby wrote:
| While anesthesia isn't particularly well understood, the thing
| that weirds me out is not the neurological mysteries, but that
| noble gasses like Xenon are anesthetics!
| RedShift1 wrote:
| What about the soothing effect of air at room temperature in the
| room temperature room?
| sideshowb wrote:
| Anecdotally, as a mountaineer, I love the effect of a little less
| atmospheric pressure.
|
| Not loads less, above 3000m it starts getting inconvenient. But
| 1000-2000m my mind feels more clear and focused than at sea
| level.
|
| I wonder if this is related?
| pdc56 wrote:
| I've found this too, but assumed it was placebo.
|
| I lived at 6500' for a while - that was too high.
|
| The sweet spot for me is a particular mountain I go to which
| starts at 1200m and goes to 2000 (although I don't spend time
| at the peak - it's a ski field).
|
| Thanks for your anecdote, now I feel I can take my observations
| more seriously
| thehappypm wrote:
| Mount Washington?
| eastbound wrote:
| It could also be the sheer concentration of CO2. I work in a
| forest: 400ppm in the office every morning. Back at home, in
| the city, 5km away: 580ppm minimum all day long. Maybe cities
| make people stupid :D
| sideshowb wrote:
| Probably not in my case, haven't measured co2 but I am
| lucky to live in a small village.
| gojomo wrote:
| My understanding from the lit, & experience, is that there's a
| natural high/mild-euphoria from moving to higher-altitude
| (despite slight cognitive impairment) for the 1st 24-48 hours.
| That can then give way to crankiness, until slower adaptation
| progresses.
|
| And: theres some evidence depression/suicide rates higher even
| at the mild elevations of places of like Reno NV (~4500'), Bend
| OR (3500'), or Boulder CO (5500').
| Luc wrote:
| [1975]. Funny concluding paragraph: "Both theories of anesthetic
| action and the evidence cited in this report suggest that the
| nitrogen concentration in atmospheric air causes a measurable
| performance decrement in man, that the "nitrogen blanket" effect
| suggested by Miles[10] is a real phenomenon, and that human
| history has proceeded under partial narcosis. Perhaps this
| explains the current state of world affairs"
| FriedPickles wrote:
| I wonder if there's a cheaper filler gas we could use besides He.
| Perhaps methane, hydrogen, or acetylene, though they're quite
| flammable.
| mmanfrin wrote:
| My partner deeply disliked when I attempted a study of the
| effects of methane in our bed.
| [deleted]
| mrob wrote:
| I wonder how pure oxygen (at low pressure to avoid toxicity)
| would work. There's still a substantial fire risk, as the
| Apollo 1 fire demonstrated, but unlike flammable filler gases
| it won't immediately kill you with a single spark. With a
| sufficiently fire-proof environment, and a full body fire-proof
| suit, maybe it could be done.
|
| EDIT: Although it seems the Apollo 1 fire happened with a
| pressurized oxygen atmosphere, not reduced pressure. Still,
| reduced pressure has its own dangers, because there could be
| sudden re-compression if the vacuum chamber failed. Re-
| compression barotrauma appears to be poorly studied (people
| don't usually work in partial vacuum). Or you could get crushed
| to death by the vacuum chamber imploding.
| ambicapter wrote:
| Apollo 1 was high pressure oxygen, since the capsule was
| still on earth, and they wanted to simulate the positive
| pressure difference between the inside of the capsule and
| space. In space it would have been low-pressure oxygen, just
| enough to satisfy human breathing requirements (so 0.19 atm).
| convolvatron wrote:
| I don't know if you've ever taken a good whiff of acetylene,
| but I would hate to have to live off it (maybe is it truly
| odorless, and its just common contamination?)
| dragonwriter wrote:
| My understanding is that the characteristc smell of
| industrial acetylene is a result of sulfur compounds added as
| odorants (a common practice with odorless gases that create
| hazards, to make them noticeable.)
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