2008-04-10
Move test to Monday.
One of the things I want to point out here - stimulation of GABA. You can go buy GABA tablets at supermarket stores. It is a soluble tablet. It will not hurt you. You cannot take too many. It is a mineral supplement. It helps to calm the autonomic system. If you have anxiety issues during some event, try taking GABA 30 minutes before hand, stick it on your tongue and let it dissolve. It just takes the energy out of the anxiety. You can get it at any health food stores. It does not make you sluggish. It just makes you not so freaked out. It is actually a precursor to a neurotransmitter. What it is, it's a precursor, so your body takes the components and builds something else, so GABA + serotonin byproducts.
Anti-psychotics. Are used to gradually reduce psychotic symptoms of hyperactivity, mental confusion, hallucinations, delusions. Decrease dopamine, used with schiozphrenia. These antipsychotics are hardcore. You may as well use an elephant tranquilizer. These are hardcore. You would not be prescribed an antipsychotic unless you're having extreme obsession with OCD, obsessive suicidal thoughts with bipolar affective disorder, delusions, schizophrenia, etc. With tardive dyskinesia you can lose the use of appendages. It helps, yes, but the side-effects suck. Side effects are drowsiness, constipation, cotton mouth, resembles Parkinson's disease can also cause tardive dyskinesia - involuntary writhing and tick like movements in the mouth, tongue, face, hands, feet. Many people with mental health drugs, well, they've gone through many different drugs to figure out what's worked. That's just how human biochem works.
New drugs are atypical antipsychotic (clozapine, olanzapine, quetianpine) have fewer side effects and TD. Oxy-cotton is an opiate, it works on the pain blockers as opposed to the neurons, it's addictive and can lead to delusions and suicidal thoughts - it's intense, it's prescribed and regulated, and it's highly used on the streets and it's as scary as hell, you don't want to take that stuff. Clonapine, olanzapine, quetianpine are all related.
Anti-depressants. Gradually elevate mood brings people out of depression. Tricyclics (Elavil) fewer problems than MAOi (like Nardil). New drugs are SSRI's selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors which slow the reuptake process at serotonin synapse (Prozac, Praxil, Zoloft) fewer side effects (decrease in sexual drive) and can be used with OCD. Lithium - used to control mood swings in patients with bi-polar, controls norepinephrine. Must monitor blood can lead to death and destruction of kidney and thyroid.
The anti-depressant's job is to bring you to normal, not to happy. Part of it is the expectation that you expect to feel better immediately, like with Advil or Tylenol. In higher doses than recommended, anti-depressant thoughts can cause suicidal thoughts. Especially in teenagers. Prozac, Paxil, and Zoloft cause suicidal thoughts in teenagers. Do not go see your doctor for this. If you go see your doctor, they're going to go say "Hey, you do sound depressed, here's some anti-depressants." Most drugs are regulated just because of addiction, not because of any other effects. That's the only reason why they are regulated - addiction. They used to put lithium into 7-up. Good old cocaine leaves in coke, until 1957. They had pure cocaine in it in the 1800s, and then coca leaves. It was like a big-time energy drinks: have a coke and a smile. And pepsi, pepped you up because they had coke in you, and 7-up lifted your lu because it had lithium in it.
Puckett had a meth lab bust in her neighborhood over at Slaughter and Manchake.
We do not know why electroconvulsive shock therapy works (ECT). An electric shock is used to produce a cortical seizure with convulsion. 30's Hungarian Meduna created it for schizophrenia. Attach it to temporal lobes shock either side (unilateral shock to right hemp. Most used). They put a shock grip in your mouth so that you do not shatter your teeth. It is extremely painful. You don't remember it because your brain is reset. They actaully bring flat-line electricity, and your brain flatlines, and then comes online. You could actually experience amensia. What we usually do is shock the right hemisphere, which manages the left portion of your body, and it's mostly responsible for linear thought and logic, so we reset that portion of the brain. You're going to get 30 seconds of massive voltage through your brain, and you get 6 to 20 treatments within a week or so. It's not just one, it's a series of it. This definitely helps with depression, this works for some reason. It brings them out of depression. Epilepsy is an electrical storm in the brain, it's like lightning, and so if you apply electricity to shut it down and then to boot it all up, it comes back as normal.
http;//www.humanillnesses.com/Behavioral-Health-Br-Fe/Electroconvulsive-Therapy.html
Psychosurgery - prefrontal lobotomy and destruction of the frontal lobe, '30-50s with extremely violent or schizophrenic, depression, bipolar, OCD patients. Usually this means scrambling the prefrontal cortex. There's a surgery in the 50s where they would cut a hole in your forebrain and put what looks like a helicopter blade on what looks like the end of the blender and completely scramble it. Cuts the emotional attachment of the brain, used only when nothing else will work. And if you were to get a frontal lobotomy, you'd get the ice-pick treatment - it can penetrate 4 cm in. Stick it in, pop, stick, scramble, pull it out, check if the patient is crazy. No nerve endings in the brain. In this picture, there's a person with a bolted system stable to his head, and they are implanting a diode deep into the brain.
Current trends and issues in treatment
- Managed care, which means we can't afford to put you in a hospital, so we're going to have some at-home care, and if you're somewhere in between, this is a positive thing - somebody comes around and checks your vital signs and so on. And this is becoming more popular since it allows you more freedom. But this depends on your prognosis.
- Empircally validated treatments. Before, they were doing 'scientifically proven treatments' - well. We're getting to the point where we say 'if it works, we are happy' - so we are still going to manage it, but we don't have a real understanding of it. A little more human approach. However. The psychopharmacotherapy industry runs a great deal of our laws. These big, huge pharmaceutical companies are bringing in profits of over 100% per year, and have incredible political influence. They have more power than the people who need the care have. Especially drugs released too soon. We've got heart medication that was recently recalled, blood thinner recently recalled, because they were killing people. And we are not in the position to put people into institutions. There are many folks that need to be institutionalized and they aren't getting that ... such as in the 80s when we were cutting down the government. During the 60s, we had more hospitalizations, and then in the 80s we had a drop, and it's continued to go down. We've provided less and less care every year.
Computational simulations to come up with new drugs