Questions tagged [psychopharmacology]
For questions about the scientific study of the effects of pharmaceutical and general drugs on perception, behavior, mood and cognition.
93
questions
0
votes
0
answers
16
views
How is the CNS protected from toxin entry through the CTZ?
Some regions of the brain, like the chemoreceptor trigger zone, are unprotected by the blood-brain barrier. This makes sense, given its role, but how is the rest of the CNS prevented from this influx ...
4
votes
1
answer
52
views
Could opiate addictions be treated with esterase inhibitors?
Since heroin is a prodrug (i.e inactive) and must be metabolized into morphine by certain esterase enzymes in order to produce psychoactive effects, would some esterase inhibitors theoretically ...
- 146
3
votes
1
answer
149
views
Medical treatment for depression
Should depression be treated with excitatory or inhibitory medications?
Normally I have seen inhibitory drugs being prescribed for depression, hence my question.
2
votes
1
answer
56
views
Is there good evidence that long-term stimulant usage in children has no harmful effect when stopped?
Essentially, I am looking for an RCT done on children, where they went on a stimulant drug for at least 3 years, and then stopped administering the drug.
What I'm worried about is long-term lower ...
- 23
0
votes
1
answer
49
views
Is it believed that ketamine has less side effects compared to SSRIs?
I was told that recent research shows that ketamine is equally effective to, and not more effective than, SSRIs when used as a regular medication, for example as a nasal spray.
However, is it believed ...
- 295
1
vote
1
answer
54
views
Why do SSRIs take multiple weeks to reach their full effect?
What is it about SSRIs that they require 2-4 weeks for their long-term effect to become present?
Is this the result of small accumulations over time in some aspect of the brain?
Are there other ...
- 295
2
votes
1
answer
87
views
Why are there substances that give positive psychological effects but become unhealthy addictions?
In a very general way, why is the brain a system that responds euphorically in response to certain stimulants yet over time that substance may be addictive and have negative health effects?
What is it ...
- 295
0
votes
1
answer
91
views
Is there any medication which is molecularly similar to alcohol?
I have found alcohol to have beneficial and desirable effects on me, and I have been exploring the question of why alcohol is not given the same level of pharmaceutical legitimacy as other medicines ...
- 295
1
vote
0
answers
17
views
Are self-reported depression scores from inpatient facilities used to measure the efficacy of different pharmaceuticals?
In the United States, patients with clinical depression are somtimes hospitalized for sucidal ideation or attempted suicide. It is common practice to prevent patients from discharging themselves from ...
- 149
1
vote
0
answers
48
views
Caffeine modulating substances in coffee
From personal experimentation I know that caffeine affects me differently than coffee. Are there any known caffeine modulating substances found in coffee?
- 428
2
votes
2
answers
68
views
Are there methods of evaluating the effects of psychoactive drugs that use free-form verbal reports?
If one wished to study the effects of a psychoactive drug such as LSD, what strikes me as a natural primary starting point would be to ask participants what they actually experienced. For example, ...
- 295
0
votes
0
answers
43
views
What are the pharmacodynamics (Ki nM) of the monoamine neurotransmitters?
Ok, so any psychoactive drug will have different affinities for different receptor types. For instance, sertraline has an extreme affinity for the SERT and very little affinity for the 5-HT1A receptor....
- 169
4
votes
1
answer
257
views
How does the chemical structure of a drug determine potency?
I'm rather new to neuropharmacology, and I am particularly interested in why some psychotropic medications are more potent than others despite being in the same category of one another, (i.e.: ...
- 43
5
votes
2
answers
135
views
"Reverse Tolerance" Hypothetical
Let me use Caffeine as an example for this question, because it's a classically understood case of drug tolerance.
Caffeine is an adenosine antagonist; it works by blocking the adenosine receptors in ...
- 103
0
votes
1
answer
18
views
What is the size limit of molecules entering the intracellular sections of a neuron?
As voltage sensitive organic dyes enter the inside of neurons and quantum dots are seeking to replace these due to their higher quantum yield, I was wondering what the seize limit is, as quantum dot ...
- 151
5
votes
0
answers
25
views
Any statistics on the likelihood of, consumption frequencies and dosages required for serotonin syndrome to occur with LSD?
This may be too obscure of a question to have sufficient, if any, statistics on it. If that's the case, any relevant information is appreciated.
From what I've gathered, very high doses and/or very ...
- 271
0
votes
0
answers
109
views
What medication would best treat buspirone induced insomnia?
The anxiolytic buspirone causes insomnia in a small minority of patients. What existent medication would theoretically (or in practice) best treat this insomnia? Buspirone from my understanding is an ...
- 1
6
votes
2
answers
967
views
Cannot find a journal paper on a study on caffeine, even though it is registered at clinicaltrials.gov
Can somebody help me find the following study:
Effects of Low Doses of Caffeine on Mood, Physiology and Mental Function, listed under trial identifier NCT00487227 on ClinicalTrials.gov.
It's a very ...
- 428
1
vote
1
answer
90
views
What is meant by "serotonergic" in "serotonergic psychedelics"
"Serotonergic psychedelics" is apparently a sub-class of psychedelics. Now, I believed that the pharmacological definition of psychedelics is that they all agonise 5HT receptors, especially ...
- 271
0
votes
1
answer
41
views
Is the oscillatory power inversely proportional to the frequency?
I'm trying to understand neuronal synchronization/desynchronization and oscillation, as well as the psychedelic state. The following sentence confused me a bit.
Psilocybin reduced spontaneous ...
- 271
0
votes
0
answers
29
views
How do psychedelics work? [duplicate]
I realize my question is more of a pharmacological one than a neuroscientific one, but I didn't know where else to ask this question.
As far as I've read, there's two components to how psychedelics ...
- 271
3
votes
2
answers
96
views
How to take advantage of the withdrawal symptoms of antidopaminergics?
So this may be a stupid question as I am not trained in neuroscience or psychology at all, but I had an idea about a somewhat counterintuitive approach to psychotropics and was wondering whether if it ...
- 31
1
vote
1
answer
406
views
Can anticholinergics like benztropine be used to treat Catatonia?
I found an old paper describing a case study where a catatonic patient was successfully treated with benztropine (Cogentin). However, I can't find any modern guidelines that calls for this treatment (...
- 163
4
votes
1
answer
136
views
What can happen if a human takes SB-243213?
SB-243213 acts as a selective inverse agonist for the 5-HT2C receptor.
The 5-HT2C receptor is one of many 5-HT receptors which are receptors that bind serotonin, and seems to play a major role in ...
- 41
1
vote
0
answers
30
views
Applying psychoactive drugs locally
I wonder if there are approaches to apply psychoactive drugs (more) locally, e.g. by drug carriers.
Usually psychoactive drugs are taken orally/enterally and thus flood the brain unspecifically: each ...
2
votes
3
answers
614
views
Predicting the individual effects of psychotropic drugs
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/23796468/
I have searched the national library of medicine but I could not find any papers about predicting both the therapeutic and adverse effects on the ...
1
vote
1
answer
78
views
How can we eliminate the effect of psychiatric medication on neuropsychological research with schizophrenic patients?
It is delicate to conduct studies with schizophrenic patients, considering that the results may be altered by the medication factor. What strategies should be used to counteract this effect?
- 61
3
votes
1
answer
63
views
Triptans and SSRIs
When talking about triptans used for migraines such as Zolimitriptan, such drugs are selective serotonin receptor agonists.
SSRIs, as their function states, are Selective Serotonin Reuptake ...
- 12.1k
3
votes
1
answer
70
views
When the DEA says a drug is X times more potent than another, what do they mean?
E.g.
Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid that is 80-100 times stronger than morphine.
What does that refer to?
According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potency_(pharmacology):
The IUPHAR has ...
- 10.2k
1
vote
1
answer
103
views
Are there ways to accelerate the recovery from depression via novel pharmacological antidepressants?
Are there any scientists making substantial progress in the development of far more effective antidepressants? Are there any groups of people interested in developing antidepressants based on genetic ...
- 247
2
votes
1
answer
74
views
Ritalin for treating attention and lack of focus in depression
I’d like to know if there’s research about the use of ritalin for treating attention deficit in Major Depression Disorder.
1
vote
0
answers
45
views
Is there any empirical support to "chemical imbalance theory" for mental illness?
Has it been proved by measurement of chemicals in the brain that psychiatric disorders have either their origin or continuance due to chemical imbalance in the brain? I saw the documentary Diagnostic &...
- 29
3
votes
1
answer
254
views
How to test whether THC or CBD gives a mental boost?
Studies have shown significant reduction in seizures in babies to adults when taking marijuana. I would call that amazing but what does it do in improving cognitive abilities in normal people?
...
- 1
4
votes
1
answer
376
views
Are neural adaptation and drug tolerance to psychoactive drugs related?
Neural adaptation is "...a change over time in the responsiveness of the sensory system to a constant stimulus". The example given is placing your hand on the surface of a table. Eventually, you no ...
- 141
6
votes
2
answers
224
views
Can drugs support emotional developement in personality disorders?
Some personality disorders are associated with a degree of emotional blindness or coldness with narcissistic PD being such an example. I wonder whether there are drugs that - in addition to ...
- 191
1
vote
0
answers
525
views
Why does venlafaxine have lower incidence of sexual dysfunctions at higher doses?
Venlafaxine at low dosages strongly inhibits serotonin, at moderate dosages also norepinephrine and only high dosages it also inhibits dopamine.
The ratio is the following.
serotonin : ...
- 191
2
votes
1
answer
60
views
Unknown unit/mL
In the book Kaplan and Sadock's synopsis of psychiatry:
Clozapine. Clozapine (Clozaril) levels are trough levels determined in
the morning before administration of the morning dose of medication. ...
- 121
3
votes
1
answer
165
views
How does caffeine work as an analgesic adjuvant?
Caffeine is used an adjuvant in over-the-couner pain medication, e.g. added to paracetamol and/or aspirin.
A brief look at the Wikipedia page on caffeine doesn't indicate any analgesic effect of ...
- 10.2k
5
votes
2
answers
311
views
How addictive is Heroine?
I keep hearing that "*Heroine is so addictive the very first dose is enough to get you hooked on it*".
Personally, I have a hard time believing any substance could do that to you.
But I could believe ...
- 151
3
votes
0
answers
95
views
Study purportedly proving psychedelics induce a "heightened state of consciousness"
The Guardian headlines on 28 Nov 2017: "Psychedelic drugs induce 'heightened state of consciousness', brain scans show".
Healthy volunteers who received LSD, ketamine or psilocybin, a ...
- 10.2k
2
votes
0
answers
79
views
Caffeine any-dose tolerance study
Lifehacker says:
A 1995 study suggests that humans become tolerant to their daily dose of caffeine—whether a single soda or a serious espresso habit—somewhere between a week and 12 days.
They don'...
- 10.2k
2
votes
0
answers
346
views
Can tapering reduce the risk of sedative kindling and brain damage?
So we know that repeated withdrawal from GABAeric substances like alcohol and benzodiazepines will cause kindling and worsen future withdrawal symptoms. Also, it appears that withdrawal from alcohol ...
- 171
0
votes
1
answer
96
views
What genetic polymorphisms are linked to aggression or violence?
Anecdotally, there are reports of varenicline causing agression, but larger studies tended towards the finding of no effect over controls.
This got me into thinking about possible genetic ...
- 1,247
2
votes
1
answer
80
views
experimental tracking and treating bipolar disorder
Is there a way to measure what neurotransmitters (and in what amount) are present in a person via blood or other method? I feel like if such information was available there could be experiments ...
2
votes
1
answer
38
views
Stroke amelioration
Excessive sugar, like Pepsi, is considered harmful. However, I am wondering if it could be helpful if taken by a victim of stroke during or immediately after a stroke, or somewhat after a stroke? My ...
- 121
1
vote
0
answers
55
views
Polypharmacy involving sumatriptan, tramadol and serotoninergic antidepressants and risk of serotonin syndrome [closed]
Let us consider the following clinical vignette:
A 61 y/o male presents complaining of migraines on the order of 2 or 3 times a month. When he gets them, the only thing that helps to mitigate them is ...
- 11
3
votes
2
answers
5k
views
Can you get addicted from using topical or local anaesthetics to ease pain?
I've been wondering if there was such a thing as developing some kind of physical or psychological dependence on things that relieve pain. While we often hear about opioid addiction, which is ...
- 279
3
votes
1
answer
48
views
Do hallucinogenics affect chronic pain?
As noted in a previous question, hallucinogenics, such as psilocybin, have been used to treat depression with some success. Chronic pain is affected somewhat by a top-down process from the brain, as ...
- 8,833
1
vote
1
answer
245
views
Are many anticonvulsants just coincidentally also psychoactive?
Many of the antiseizure I'm aware of are described as having the potential for behavior altering side-effects. I am curious about this.
Is there something about the chemistry of the brain that ...
- 19
7
votes
1
answer
88
views
How to counteract the deterioration of speech in stutterers by targeting sympathetic arousal?
I am quoting a good overview from a Quora member about the reasons why people stutter when exposed to stress:
...The underlying physiological basis of why stress provokes stuttering
has been ...
- 71