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Coaster
Baʿal



Registered: 05/22/06
Posts: 33,501
Loc: Deep in the Valley
Last seen: 12 years, 3 months
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Ketamine Will Change The Way Depression Is Treated
#14363169 - 04/27/11 07:43 PM (12 years, 9 months ago) |
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If you've gone in for surgery, it's likely that your anesthesiologist has told you to count backward from 100 — and that you'll wake up after a nice deep sleep.
But that's not exactly true.
"Sleep is not the state you're going in, nor would it be the state in which someone could perform an operation on you," explains Dr. Emery Brown. "What we need to do in order to be able to operate on you — to perform a procedure which is, indeed, very invasive — is to put you in a state which is effectively a coma which we can readily reverse."
Brown, a professor of anesthesia at Harvard Medical School and a practicing anesthesiologist at Massachusetts General Hospital, recently co-authored a study in The New England Journal of Medicine outlining what scientists know and don't know about anesthesia. Unlocking its many mysteries, he says, will help scientists better understand consciousness and sleep — and could lead to new treatments for pain, depression and sleep disorders.
Anesthesia And The Brain
One of medicine's biggest questions is how anesthesia — which knocks patients unconscious, renders them immune to pain and keeps them immobile during procedures — actually works in the brain. Brown's team has been conducting imaging studies on volunteers under anesthesia to see how different parts of the brains change activity levels as the volunteers lose and then regain consciousness. From 'The New England Journal of Medicine' General Anesthesia, Sleep And Coma
"We would like to understand, when the drugs are given, what areas are turned off and turned on in what sequence to get some sense of how the drugs work," Brown tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross. "We know a lot about the properties of the drugs — in terms of how they're metabolized by the body and certain behavioral effects they might have. We also know a lot about certain receptors they bind to, but these receptors are all over the brain and central nervous system. But the state of anesthesia is this very complex behavioral state. So to decipher it, we are at first order using the imaging where it is happening. Then, from there, we can start asking other questions: Is this the way we want to do it? Are there other ways to achieve the same state which might be better for our patients?"

So far, researchers have learned that different drugs create different patterns in the brain, Brown says. For example, propofol — one of the most widely used anesthetics — is a very potent drug and initially puts the brain into a state of excitation. Related NPR Stories Even basic sensory maps in the brain can be remapped in a matter of months, says neurologist V.S. Ramachandran.
"It doesn't really cause a state of sedation or anesthesia [initially]," Brown says. "Then what we actually see next is the brain start to slow. [So first you see] a period where the brain is active, and then [when you give] a higher dose, the brain starts to slow."
In contrast, the drug ketamine — which is used in conjunction with anesthesia to make certain drugs work better — puts the brain into a state of excitation even at higher doses.
"The state of unconsciousness you get with ketamine is created by making the brain active," Brown says. "As you transition through this active state, you very frequently hallucinate. It's this hallucination or sense of euphoria or dissociative state that people who are using it as a drug of abuse are seeking."
Depression And The Brain
Recent studies conducted by scientists at the National Institute of Mental Health have indicated that administering extremely low doses of ketamine can help treat patients with chronic depression. Brown says he is excited by these findings.
"If this turns out to be reproducible, it could change tremendously how chronic depression is managed," Brown says. "For 70 to 80 percent of patients [in the study who received low doses of ketamine], they felt better almost immediately. This is an exciting finding, because right now there is no way to make a chronically depressed patient feel better immediately. So this is an exciting finding, and if it's shown to hold, I think it may change tremendously the way chronic depression is treated."NPR
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veggie

Registered: 07/25/04
Posts: 17,504
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Re: Ketamine Will Change The Way Depression Is Treated [Re: Coaster]
#14363227 - 04/27/11 07:55 PM (12 years, 9 months ago) |
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skatealex2
////////////////



Registered: 07/04/08
Posts: 18,699
Last seen: 3 months, 26 days
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Re: Ketamine Will Change The Way Depression Is Treated [Re: Coaster]
#14363363 - 04/27/11 08:21 PM (12 years, 9 months ago) |
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hell yea
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tripp23
Kratom Freak



Registered: 05/21/08
Posts: 4,030
Loc: Florida, US
Last seen: 1 year, 2 months
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Re: Ketamine Will Change The Way Depression Is Treated [Re: skatealex2]
#14363686 - 04/27/11 09:22 PM (12 years, 9 months ago) |
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i dont know why they keep studying the same thing like this.. you think they come to the conclusion that.. yes ketamine does cure depression for a period of time. but nope..
how many articles do i have to see before htey actually do something about these medicines and actually change this shit for the better.
-------------------- Experience my nightmarish first time of smoking Ganja!

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mr_minds_eye
Disposable Wage Whore


Registered: 01/22/02
Posts: 1,948
Loc: Samsara
Last seen: 11 years, 16 days
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Re: Ketamine Will Change The Way Depression Is Treated [Re: tripp23]
#14364287 - 04/27/11 10:56 PM (12 years, 9 months ago) |
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Powders don't normally get me all hot and bothered but god damn do I love me some ketamine! You know a good K hole leaves you with such an amazing afterglow. It is waking up and asking if you are a man dreaming you are a butterfly or a butterfly dreaming you're a man.
-------------------- Our quest for discovery fuels our creativity in all fields, not just science. If we reached the end of the line, the human spirit would shrivel and die. But I don't think we will ever stand still: we shall increase in complexity, if not in depth, and shall always be the center on an expanding horizon of possibilities. -Stephen Hawking
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Cyclohexylamine
Turn on, Tune in, Drop out



Registered: 09/08/10
Posts: 14,327
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Re: Ketamine Will Change The Way Depression Is Treated [Re: mr_minds_eye]
#14365354 - 04/28/11 06:21 AM (12 years, 9 months ago) |
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Yeah!!! :Feelsketamineman:
Also when I am depressed a nice line always makes me smile. Its like powdered happiness.
-------------------- Yes this is tymo - I just changed my name Have you ever had a dream that you were so sure was real? What if you were unable to awake from that dream? How would you know the difference between that dream world and the real world? There is NOTHING better than feeling that warm dissociative fuzz creeping up your body from IM K Something abut that anaesthetic rush... Qualitative Research Chemical Effects and Experiences The Wonderful World of Methoxetamine The 3-Meo-PCP Chapters, Part One
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German Kahuna
Facepalmer of Stoopid



Registered: 10/31/08
Posts: 15,798
Loc: On a Chemical Vacation
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Re: Ketamine Will Change The Way Depression Is Treated [Re: Coaster]
#14365625 - 04/28/11 07:46 AM (12 years, 9 months ago) |
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MJ should have used himself some Special K instead of Propofol, then he'd still be all
-------------------- "Vegetarian" [ /ˌvedʒəˈteəriən/] - Ancient slang meaning "village idiot who can't hunt, fish or ride".
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Coaster
Baʿal



Registered: 05/22/06
Posts: 33,501
Loc: Deep in the Valley
Last seen: 12 years, 3 months
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Re: Ketamine Will Change The Way Depression Is Treated [Re: German Kahuna]
#14367932 - 04/28/11 04:19 PM (12 years, 9 months ago) |
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You know I thought the same exact thing stupid doctor...
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