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Schwip
Never sleeps.


Registered: 06/27/05
Posts: 3,937
Last seen: 11 years, 2 months
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Injection appears to give speedy depression relief (ketamine!!!!)
#5943224 - 08/08/06 04:04 AM (17 years, 5 months ago) |
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My jaw dropped when I got to the part about what the injection actually is: ketamine!!

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http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2003182477_depress08.html
Injection appears to give speedy depression relief
By Shankar Vedantam
The Washington Post
WASHINGTON — Government researchers announced Monday that they have had striking success in treating depression in a matter of hours, using an experimental injectable drug that acts much more quickly than conventional antidepressants.
The study, based on a small sample, is part of a push by researchers to develop treatments that can bring quick relief to patients with mental disorders. Patients and their doctors report it often takes weeks or months for most available antidepressants to improve symptoms.
Much more work needs to be done before patients can see benefits from the breakthrough, the researchers said. Among the unanswered questions are whether patients will be able to tolerate the drug for long periods, and whether it will continue to be effective.
Researchers said they hope the finding will prompt the pharmaceutical industry to develop similar compounds with fewer side effects that can then be tested on a large scale.
"Psychiatrists have gotten used to the idea we have to wait weeks or months, but we can break the sound barrier and get an antidepressant effect within hours," said Dr. Carlos Zarate Jr., chief of the mood-disorders research unit at the National Institute of Mental Health.
Zarate and his colleagues published a paper about their findings in Monday's issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry.
In the study, 18 patients were injected with a drug called ketamine, which has long been used as an anesthetic. Patients briefly experienced a well-known side effect of the drug — a mild feeling of dissociation, where they felt disconnected or found it difficult to put thoughts into words.
Ketamine is a controlled substance and can produce mild euphoria.
But the dissociative symptoms disappeared within a couple of hours, and shortly afterward, patients and physicians reported a dramatic improvement in mood. Half the patients had a 50 percent decline in depression symptoms, and by the end of the first day, 71 percent reported a similar improvement. More than a third continued to report such a benefit after seven days, and nearly a third reported a complete end of symptoms.
Conventional antidepressants approach those kinds of numbers only after eight to 10 weeks of treatment.
advertising "We can truly raise the bar on what we can expect of antidepressant treatments," said Thomas Insel, director of the NIMH. "A modest response after six weeks is what we used to define as success. What I love about this project is it redefines success not in terms of weeks, but in terms of hours."
Rather than go after the conventional targets of serotonin and norepinephrine, the new drug targets an entirely different neurotransmitter in the brain called glutamate.
"This is not a subtle change," Insel added. "It is almost like rebooting a computer. It is a chemical reboot and the striking thing is the effect lasts for about a week."
Copyright © 2006 The Seattle Times Company
-------------------- -------------------------------- " If the sky were to suddenly open up there would be no law. There would be no rule. There would only be you and your memories... the choices you've made, and the people you've touched. If this world were to end there would only be you and him and no-one else. " .............. "MAN! You know there aint no such thing as left over crack!"
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slamdunk
MexicanGang-Banger
Registered: 05/09/05
Posts: 223
Last seen: 16 years, 3 months
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Re: Injection appears to give speedy depression relief (ketamine!!!!) [Re: Schwip]
#5943277 - 08/08/06 05:29 AM (17 years, 5 months ago) |
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Something I think we've known all along. Giving people drugs makes them happy!
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special_k
Ketamine is myLSD

Registered: 08/04/06
Posts: 242
Loc: TX
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Re: Injection appears to give speedy depression relief (ketamine!!!!) [Re: Schwip]
#5943331 - 08/08/06 06:43 AM (17 years, 5 months ago) |
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So thats why I'm always in a good mood  have you had your special k today?
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Organic
Lloyd

Registered: 04/14/02
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Re: Injection appears to give speedy depression relief (ketamine!!!!) [Re: Schwip]
#5943452 - 08/08/06 08:54 AM (17 years, 5 months ago) |
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A drug with euphoriant effects makes you feel better, thank you researchers!
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SuperD
Cacti junky


Registered: 10/05/03
Posts: 6,648
Loc: The bridgesii bridge
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Re: Injection appears to give speedy depression relief (ketamine!!!!) [Re: Organic]
#5943811 - 08/08/06 11:33 AM (17 years, 5 months ago) |
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i just did a few bumps in honor of this thread
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   D Manoa said: I need to stop spending all my money on plants and take up a cheaper hobby, like heroin. Looking for Rauhocereus riosaniensis seeds or live specimen(s), me if you have any for trade
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heidegger
Stranger

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Re: Injection appears to give speedy depression relief (ketamine!!!!) [Re: SuperD]
#5945178 - 08/08/06 06:48 PM (17 years, 5 months ago) |
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The interesting thing about this study is that Ketamine has a LASTING positive effect on depressed individuals. They are talking about effects that last over a week. Obviously, the mechanisms behind this effect are different from the euphoria elicited right after dosing.
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Hugh
Midnight Toker

Registered: 04/13/06
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Re: Injection appears to give speedy depression relief (ketamine!!!!) [Re: Schwip]
#5945580 - 08/08/06 08:30 PM (17 years, 5 months ago) |
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This has been known for quite some time. In the early 90's Russia did experiments with ketamine to treat drug addiction (specifically heroin). The results were quite good (better than other treatment methods). Ketamine, like dextromethorphan and Ibogaine among other things, is an NMDA receptor antagonist which effectively treats multiple different drug addictions (tobacco, ethanol, cocaine, opiates..). Also noted from the experiments with ketamine is that not only does it treat drug addiction through its role as an NMDA antagonist, but also due to the fact that it treats depression (lifts mood) for a period after its use. For these reasons I came to the conclusion (in a paper a wrote for a psychology course) that ketamine is superior to both Ibogaine and DXM for treating drug addiction.
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heidegger
Stranger

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Re: Injection appears to give speedy depression relief (ketamine!!!!) [Re: Hugh]
#5948092 - 08/09/06 05:31 PM (17 years, 5 months ago) |
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But there is a difference between moodlifting/antidepressant effect and an antiaddictive effect. I would cleanly separate the two, albeit they are surely interdependent.
I'm not sure if Ketamine is a good choice for drug addiction, since it quite addictive by itself.
Ibogaine is interesting, but its mechanism of action is still unclear. A recent paper that I found quite interesting stated that ibogaine leads to an increase in the concentration of glia derived neurotrophic factor (GDNF) in the brain, which is also associated with anti-addictive effects. However, large doses of Ibogain are not very interesting for broader use either, because it is wildly neurotoxic in such doses. I would strongly recommend against using ibogaine in hallucinogenic dosages.
By the way, Ibogaine was also marketed as an antidepressant in the early 20th century. In fact, it was one of the first antidepressants that were sold as such.
Edited by heidegger (08/09/06 05:33 PM)
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eclipse
Stranger


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Re: Injection appears to give speedy depression relief (ketamine!!!!) [Re: heidegger]
#5948511 - 08/09/06 07:40 PM (17 years, 5 months ago) |
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well considering that people with depression basically have a problem associating the things in their life with any sort of positive emotions is it all that surprising that a DIS-ASSOCIATIVE anaesthetic would alleviate that.As for the drug addiction thing, it wasn't only Russia that experimented with Ketamine for curing addicts.It is used right here in the good ole US of A for ultra rapid detoxes from opioid drugs and possibly benzodiazepines.It works wonders in the short term for alleviating the physical effects of withdrawal but has not had the greatest response by clinicians because of most of the people who have gone through it think it is a cure all end all to their addictions and because of that a lot of them do not follow up with psychological treatment and support groups so the relapse rate is astronomical.
-------------------- All that is now All that is gone All thats to come And everything under the sun is in tune But the sun is eclipsed by the moon. PF
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Hugh
Midnight Toker

Registered: 04/13/06
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Re: Injection appears to give speedy depression relief (ketamine!!!!) [Re: heidegger]
#5948796 - 08/09/06 09:09 PM (17 years, 5 months ago) |
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Quote:
heidegger said: But there is a difference between moodlifting/antidepressant effect and an antiaddictive effect. I would cleanly separate the two, albeit they are surely interdependent.
I'm not sure if Ketamine is a good choice for drug addiction, since it quite addictive by itself.
Ibogaine is interesting, but its mechanism of action is still unclear. A recent paper that I found quite interesting stated that ibogaine leads to an increase in the concentration of glia derived neurotrophic factor (GDNF) in the brain, which is also associated with anti-addictive effects. However, large doses of Ibogain are not very interesting for broader use either, because it is wildly neurotoxic in such doses. I would strongly recommend against using ibogaine in hallucinogenic dosages.
By the way, Ibogaine was also marketed as an antidepressant in the early 20th century. In fact, it was one of the first antidepressants that were sold as such.
I did not intend to mean that anti-depressive/mood lifting effects are the same as anti-addictive. However, having a good mood (not being depressed) is thought of as very critical for treating drug addiction and increases the success of breaking said addiction.
Ketamine may be addictive, but when used clinically, there is basically no chance of addiction.
While it may be true that the mechanism for treating drug addiction of Ibogaine is unclear, there is very strong evidence to support that it does it through its role as an N-Methyl-D-Asparate receptor antagonist. Yes, Ibogaine is thought to be neurotoxic (this is not a certainty, but I wouldn't take it). However, compounds responsible for Ibogaine's NMDA receptor antagonism have been isolated from Ibogaine. These compounds are not neurotoxic and have been shown to succesfully treat drug addiction.
Back to the evidence for Ibogaine treating drug addiction due to NMDA antagonism. I feel that the strongest evidence for this comes from the fact that there have been so many different experiments conducted with NMDA receptor antagonists that have shown significantly useful for treating drug addiction (everyone I have read has had good results). All of the followinf are NMDA antagonists and have been shown to treat drug addictions: dextromethorphen, Ibogaine, a few compounds from Ibogaine, MK-801, and ketamine.
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