I taught recitation for a drugs and behavior class, and am in contact with a lot of undergrads. It seems most of the undergrads I come in contact with have been on some powerful narcotics, uppers, downers, or both uppers and downers. All prescribed. One guy said he took vicodin every day before he went to work. I asked if he did a lot of heavy lifting…”not really”. One student was on Seroquel to go to sleep. These are useful medications, though as the article points out the old ones may be just as useful as the new ones for the right patient. I’m just irritated when they are overprescribed for off-label use, often in conjunction with other drugs prescribed for off-label use.

Good thing about 1000 kids a year now have obesity surgery, known as Roux-en-y gastric bypass in the clinical parlance.

Check these symptoms out: Wernicke’s encephalopathy (a B1 deficiency related loss of memory), seizures, psychosis, deafness, pain or weakness in the extremities.

I use isoflurane for small animal surgery so this story hits home. We have a pretty good ventilation and recovery system, these days. Don’t let your grandma go under on this stuff!

Update: It’s on the Nature newspage now

All the news stories recently about this new epidemic warrant two comments on my part. One, the DSM IV-TR was released in 2000 and the bar for diagnosing autism has been lowered. A small percentage of the cases of kids diagnosed with autism, or aspergers, or “autism + ADHD” do not fit the standard criteria for these disorders, in a sense autism can become a miscellaneous bin for anyone showing slight social or communication impairment. This doesn’t apply to Amanda below; she is a true positive.

Second, there is a still controversial theory that says that maternal perinatal (around birth) stress can affect certain genetically predisposed babies adversely, resulting in higher incidence of these disorders. We can learn a lot from people like Amanda, and next time you see someone like Amanda in the grocery store or walking down the street, remember they are just as much a person as you are and have had a much tougher life.

Now, I’m posting this for two reasons. One, I’m analyzing brain waves like the scientists here (theta, gamma, etc.) Two, I am throwing this out there to demonstrate that marijuana has negative as well as beneficial effects on mental health. Like most of these posts on these science blogs they are far too glib with their conclusions:

Example:
Because theta and gamma oscillations are thought to play a critical role in creating and storing short-term memories–and fast ripple oscillations may allow such short-term memories to be moved into long-term storage–this suppression could mean missing memories for the rats.

In truth we know very little about how theta and gamma work together in creating and storing memories, and much, much less about fast ripple oscillations. We do know that strong theta in the hippocampus is correlated with good working memory, but we know less about how theta is generated in seperate parts of the brain. Basically, these conclusions made by the scientific american blogger tend to gloss over the specific effects of MJ, at which sites. In other words, are MJ’s effects localized to the thalamus, cortex, hippocampus, and which generators of these different brain waves are effected and how? Practically any psychoactive drug will cause changes in these brain waves, but this in and of itself tells us little about how the drug works.

Hey guys this summer I did recitation for a drugs and behavior class. Part of my responsibility was to bring up some discussion points regarding drugs legal and non. Anyway I found this blog on the topic and shared it with the class; I don’t think they were ready to read for the most part, and certainly not ready to think outside the box so to speak. I know the same doesn’t apply to our faithful readership. An excerpt:

By Trent McBride:

Any claim that paternalism is an artifact of medicine’s past is simply wrong. Even though the culture has improved recently, it still lives with us today and it has no appearances of going away anytime soon. In other industries, service models revolve around a customer who hires someone to serve her needs. In medicine, doctors, with an assist from the federal government, have a dominant position with regard to the patient and have a unique amount of control over their paying customers. Many people may disagree with this characterization, but I fail to see anything different in spite of recent efforts to change this relationship. Patient autonomy does not exist in any way like it should.

In no area is this more apparent than in the prescription-only status of most medicines. It always amazes me that this fact is never called into question, especially among my medical school colleagues. There is no shortage of debate in and about medicine on just about any other topic, but we accept this culture of the gatekeeper almost without question. You would think just once you would here somebody say, “Doesn’t anybody find it odd that it is illegal for this patient to by this drug unless I write it down on a little piece of paper and then sign it.” Maybe I lack imagination, but I can’t think of another aspect of the human experience where one set of people, not members of the government, wield that amount of power over others.

the entire post is very thought-provoking. Click the link above to read.

Y’all might be starting to notice a pattern here. Enjoy.

Posted at 09:52 pm by Johnny B

	Posted by BP @ 03/02/2006 10:09 AM PST
	I’m in…I’m sold…and can adjust my New Year’s resolutions accordingly.

Serotonin receptor protein found to be linked to depression. It is nice to see serotonin get some attention, most everyone is still focused on dopamine these days.

Posted at 09:16 pm by Johnny B

One interesting news item came up the other day: