ice9

Ironically not targeted via Birdwatch, but rather by an immediate automated check against some poorly-coded sentiment analysis. It did not understand scare-quotes. Case study in inept censorship. Waiting out appeal for now.

@winocm The amount of dogma in favor of monoamine targeting as the solution to practically everything is unsettling. I cannot tell how much is from drug company convenience vs. oversimplification by practitioners vs. historically more limited research vs. retconned existing practices.

Recent discussion reminded-- As noted before: sarcosine, a mere amino acid, outperformed popular SSRI antidepressant citalopram in head-to-head RCT sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/… No side effects pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23562005/ Mechanism is enhanced glycine signaling jbiomedsci.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.11…

@winocm However: your point above again rather ominously suggests that the anti-monoaminergic and particularly anti-dopaminergic approach to the primary subject at hand may be fundamentally misguided in at least a considerable fraction of cases (many, many people report APs do not help).

@winocm It does not seem to have much of a viable alternative to the usual approaches, in most cases, overall. Some interesting blood pressure medication (guanfacine). A failed antidepressant (atomoxetine) for people with norepinephrine-specific issues. Rest is mainly just stimulants.

@winocm Generally

Interestingly sarcosine outperformed D-serine, a different co-agonist at the NMDA glutamate receptor, in schizophrenia studies. Just anecdotally, I have noticed sarcosine seems much more useful than D-serine for depression as well. Again YMMV N=1 on this point.

Further: glycine itself is also effective in schizophrenia: jamanetwork.com/journals/jamap… Benefit persists: pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11806864/ It is depleted in schizophrenia: sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/… Speculatively: may synergize with sarcosine (sarcosine seems to inhibit glycine transporter).

@winocm How common is visual snow?

@winocm Ffs yes it does

@winocm Hmm. That would explain a lot. Glycine is needed for NMDAR function as you alluded and NMDARs are cholinergic. Recall what happens on too many anticholinergics. I wonder whether effects could be further potentiated with exogenous glycine. Low BBB permeability but not zero.

@winocm @eiritana off-topic, apologies hope the notes above were at least marginally useful, even if only in concurrence or less

@winocm @eiritana and yes it is one of the ~3 core reasons for the recent near-silence on the accounts others: more general personal real-world economic-administrative-etc needs, and frustrated boredom with the tbh already-solved nature of the technical side of the typical subject, respectively