Brains are *weird*

[brynndragon]

metahacker mentioned it in passing yesterday and today brewergnome posted this article from Nature.com about how Special K might end up being one of the best antidepressant we've got right now. I love the part about how companies are making drugs to take with ketamine to reduce the "side effects", presumably referring to the fact that it's a psychedelic.

Comments

[brewergnome.livejournal.com]

And the fact that it will kill you and cause brain damage after a while...

[benndragon.livejournal.com]

You mean something used a horse tranquilizer can cause brain damage? Whodathunkit? ;P

I'm just amused by the term "side effects", when it includes the exact effects people want in the first place. I'm all for eliminating the side effects of brain damage and death, and I'm sure the raver kids would agree ;P.

[digitalsidhe.livejournal.com]

[posted after my comment below]

I'm just amused by the term "side effects", when it includes the exact effects people want in the first place.

Oh, okay. That makes more sense. Sort of like the medical marijuana folks who are taking it to give them back their appetite - what most other people would consider a "side effect" is, for them, the main (and desired) effect.

[catya.livejournal.com]

well, you know. unintentional psychadelics are no fun :)

[benndragon.livejournal.com]

This is quite true, and the reason some folks I know actively avoid certain cough suppresants ;P.

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

You're not supposed to enjoy your drugs...look at the whole medical marijuana thing.

[digitalsidhe.livejournal.com]

Well, there are undoubtedly people are depressed, who don't want to be depressed, but who also don't want to be tripping all the time. Indeed, no matter how much fun tripping might be, I suspect it would get really tiring after a while.

[benndragon.livejournal.com]

This is very true - if the goal is normalicy (and in general it is, natch) constantly tripping would suck. But since the anti-dep effect hits after the high, I wonder if the high can be bypassed altogether while still keeping the anti-dep by using a similar but completely different drug (or if the high is somehow a pre-req for the anti-dep effect, which would be really interesting and annoying as hell).