Posted by metric on May 5, 2009, at 11:04:31
In reply to Re: drug for motivation!, posted by linkadge on May 4, 2009, at 17:34:38
> Not necessarily. There is the same phenomina with smoking. Some studies show that smokers will smoke to reach a certain level of MAO inhibition. In certain animal models of depression there is an increase in prefrontal dopaminergic neurotransmission. The same appears to be true in humans. Depressed patients who responded to ketamine for instance experienced a decrease in prefrontal cortex metabolism. See:
>
> http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/05/080506112416.htm
>
> Increasing prefrontal cortex function doesn't always result in improved mood. There is a threshold effect beyond which you can worsen mood. For certain depressions, drugs which increase prefrontal metabolism can substantially worsen depression. Wellbutrin for instance, makes some people acutely worse.Hi Link,
I'm not arguing that "increasing prefrontal cortex function" necessarily improves mood -- just that there's so much other stuff going on that it's impossible to make inferences about subtle human behaviors based on observational correlations of changes in regional brain activity.
poster:metric
thread:893899
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20090505/msgs/894339.html