All drugs are in our heads?

[Derleth]

@Ludovic

I do believe that the plural of anecdotes is evidence in some cases.

Only if you control for confounding effects, and even so, case-control studies (what you’re talking about) can’t demonstrate causal links and can’t tell you about how much correlation exists between factors.

[njtt]

@Leo_Bloom

ECT has a phenomenal success rate for certain kinds of mental illness, far far more than drugs. It is true that its mechanisms are not well understood (IAMND), but it works; the cranial magnetic stimulation has less of a track record.

FWIW, I was hospitalized for a month for clinical depression, after every known cocktail of drugs was tried. Long story short, ECT saved my life.

That is as may be, but we were talking about this idea:

@ralph124c

Excuse me, but why haven’t we moved away from drugs…to actual electrical stimulation of the brain? This would be the solution for drug addiction-you could “dial in” the amount of stimulation you wanted, and dispense with dangerous and addictive drugs.

That is what Ludovic was (rightly) saying can’t be done without drilling holes in the skull, and you to mentioned ECT and TMS in answer to him. They may be valuable techniques for some purposes, but they will not do what ralph124c, Ludovic, and I were talking about.

[Moe]

@Ludovic

I agree with your description of “woo”, and while Radiolab doesn’t openly promote it, a lot of times they imply they believe in it, operating in “just asking questions” mode sort of like I would imagine the Discovery channel does if I were to watch it, as if pseudoscientific explanations are as likely as mainstream scientific ones.

It’s sort of like the inverse of a normal scientific program. The timeline of a normal scientific program would be something like:

– Statement of the problem
– Investigate a pseudoscientific or traditional solution
– Show why this is wrong or unsatisfying
– Show how a scientific solution is discovered.

Radiolab seems to work out like this:

– Statement of a problem
– Interviews with experts declaring the standard accepted scientific solution
– Show why this is wrong or unsatisfying
– Show why the answer may be a new, obscure, untested or unscientific solution.

Then they just end, not backing this up with scientifically satisfying answers (to me at least), implying that the possible far-out solution is the most likely.

It seemed that the worm therapy might have been an exception to this. After all, the program itself wasn’t really making a claim, and unlike many people I do believe that the plural of anecdotes is evidence in some cases.

But I was listening throughout the segment for the hook (no pun intended), and at the end I found it: the guy was selling the worms. BAM! 15 minutes of interesting third party anecdote ruined by conflict of interest.

ETA: they could also do with about 1/3 as much “entertainment-style” editing. It wears thin after a couple minutes.

Well, I’m hesitant to continue the hijack, but just briefly, I don’t agree with much of this. I don’t see them ever showing why the standard scientific explanation is wrong, BUT I will agree that they do express why it sometimes might be unsatisfying. One reason that science turns off so many people is that it often leads to conclusions that are counter-intuitive. I find one of the great strengths of RL, is that the interplay between the 2 hosts helps express this.

The conversational tone allows a story to unfold, and that’s the real power of the show - the drama of storytelling. But I can’t ever remember the conclusion of the story being the unscientific POV. Usually it’s one guy expressing incredulity while the other, with the help of interviews and studies, informs and enlightens (helped by some great sound art in the background).

But the hookworm segment really didn’t sit well with me. Fascinating, yes. But to give this non-FDA approved, inadequately tested, and potentially harmful form of treatment a 15 min. commercial? Disappointing. But anomalous.

[Bayesian_Empirimancer]

The statement of drugs being in our brain is essentially true, but only in one sense. For example, there are cannabinoid receptors in the brain that people make use of. Depending on the drug, for example, SSRIs affect the neuromodulatory pathways, the way that they take effect, from what I understand, is modulate the release of Ca++ from the neurons.

This is even more particular in some other cases, like the example of DMT and 5-MeO-DMT. I’m reading a book right now called DMT, the Spirit Molecule. The proposed spirit molecule, DMT, is secreted during times of spiritual enlightenment, so in a sense, it is already in the brain. But that was not the original function.