I have some more refurbished posts up on Psychology Today - some are updated, and/or combined posts, and a couple of them have some pretty intense information that deserves a refresher even if you have read it before ;-)
Autism and Ketogenic Diets
ADHD and Mom's Serotonin Deficiency
Sunlight, Sugar, and Serotonin
Also, a big thanks to the lovely people at the British Journal of Psychiatry, who have granted me persmission to use their graph in my Season of Birth and Anorexia Nervosa post from the end of last month.
As for new stuff, I'll likely have a post on inositol (and its uses for depression) up in the next day or two, followed by some cannabis posts.
Happy Wednesday!
Loved the point about autistic kids and lowering of glutamate. Totally fits with neurosurgery literature effects of excitotoxins. And the serotonin post was good too. It hink the excessive carb angle is key as it burns out receptors and there by changes the real concentration of serotonin in the brain and in the plasma. That is why we see reports of depression in cases of low and high serotonin levels. It seem wrong to have both high and low and still have depression but it makes complete sense when you realize it is about the currently cellular homeostasis and not the absolute level. People's phenotype is the basis for receptor health and sensitivity. That always seems to be a mystery to most people trying to decipher a paper. It's about context of the cellular environment.....not the absolute level. Nice posts!
ReplyDeleteYes, the recent experiment where the rodent researcher made his mice all anxious by increasing serotonin (via excess tryptophan and carbs in the diet) is important in figuring out homeostasis vs high/low serotonin - both are bad! Both could be caused by issues with diet along with genetic vulnerability, as far as I can tell. In general functional scanning has shown people with symptoms of depression and history of suicide measure low for serotonin in the CSF in the brain areas associated with those types of symptoms, but I'm assuming we are scanning the "burn out" phase so to speak... very interesting.
ReplyDeleteOne more thing - the best evidence that we can, indeed, burn out those serotonin receptors is XTC. Need to look more into that literature
ReplyDeletemy bet is that even if the burn out....the organism will not fry his circuit...just his source in the brain. 60% of serotonin is found in the small bowels enterochromaffins cells so if the receptors are fried the neuron undergoes apoptosis ......we see a concommitent rise in NF kappa beta and BCL-2......stimulates new nerve cells and ser receptors. It however requires an intact gut to recycle......which most XTC dont have. But I bet an experiment could prove that XTC dmage can be repaired by apoptotic replacement or autophagic recycling of the nerve and receptor. This would require an intact sleep pattern which is also unlikely as well.........
ReplyDeleteI think there's a study of SSRIs and XTC in monkeys - I have to chase it down. It's been more than 10 years I think since I saw it so my memory might be off
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