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Re: BDNF connection?

Posted by hyperfocus on September 23, 2011, at 14:36:57

In reply to Re: BDNF connection? » linkadge, posted by Bob on September 17, 2011, at 20:20:11

It's like the old joke about 3 blind men trying to describe an elephant. One says it's like a snake, another that it's sharp and pointy, the third that it's broad and flat. When observations on things like BDNF contradict each other it means there is a whole mass of hidden variables we don't yet know about. Clearly we''re still very much in the dark about mental illness and how psych drugs work.

A while back I read some speculative article similar to this about parts of the brain that begins to degenerate due to chronic anxiety and stress, causing dysregulation of thinking and memories as well as reducing the 'reward' we get for normally pleasurable activities, which of course leads to more anxiety and stress. The brain becomes trapped in a set of thinking it cannot biochemically escape because physical brain structures have degenerated to the point where there is not enough circuitry to support anything else. The actions of ADs were speculated to be primarily neurogenerative - repairing the brain so there is a higher payoff and more circuitry to support positive thinking and behavior and emotions and memories. BDNF was speculated to play a primary role in this.

I've observed that in those short periods of hypomania we all experience, my thinking remains the same. Like my mood might be significantly elevated, but it's like there are these deep groves in my mind that my thinking has to follow no matter what. The expectation is that someday these groves will eventually disappear due to less stress and more rewards from positive behavior, leading to more full-spectrum thinking.

Right now I guess we're still in the age of Galileo and Copernicus in psychiatry - we have some observations that are consistent and theories that partially work, but there's a lot we still can't make sense of. What we really need is some Isaac Newton to develop a theory that unearths all the hidden variables in mental illness.


C-PTSD: social phobia, major depression, dissociation.
Currently: 300mg amitriptyline single dose at night.
Also: Allegra, 1000mg Vitamin C.
Improving.


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URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20110914/msgs/997669.html