4 ms·

This doesn’t make sense to me. Pretty much every purported treatment for depression involves either increasing the amount of sensory stimulation you’re getting

This doesn’t make sense to me. Pretty much every purported treatment for depression involves either increasing the amount of sensory stimulation you’re getting or else becoming more attuned to sensory stimulation: exercise, acupuncture, aromatherapy, drugs, meditation, float tanks, social interaction, music, intensely flavored foods, cold therapy, saunas, electroshock therapy, etc. Occam’s razor would suggest its more likely that lack of sensory stimulation causes some sort of brain damage, e.g. inflammataion or receptor density changes, and that it just takes a few weeks to reverse. I’m not seeing what evidence there is for this pereptual confidence model beyond what I’m proposing. I wouldn’t doubt if people do get more confident in some aspects of their sensory experience, but it would seem difficult to prove this as an explanatory model.

Klockan 9y ago
> exercise, acupuncture, aromatherapy, drugs, meditation, float tanks, social interaction, music, intensely flavored foods, cold therapy, saunas, electroshock therapy, etc. None of those are guaranteed to work though, a significant number of depressed people never gets over it and it wouldn't be that way if we knew effective treatment methods.
- trapperkeeper74 9y ago
  The current answer is we don’t yet have full functional pathologies of types of depression, noninvasive, specific mood disorders classified down to exact neurological dysfunctions, accurate and precise knowledge of how existing antidepressants work and evidenced-based application of particular therapies based on such scientifically-identified presentations. Clinical psychiatry has been mostly a scattergun, guesswork that lacks scientific rigor. For example, I just tapered-off mirtazepene as it stopped working after 9 years and, so far, bupropion isn’t helping. I’d really like to try S32212 if it proves safe enough in human models because it likely lacks the GI and weight-gain issues.
  - 123jay7 9y ago
    It's probably not even you, it's probably your life.
  - pault 9y ago
    I've tried almost every anti depressant on the market and none of them worked. What did work for me is kratom. I've been taking it daily for about six months and it has completely turned around my mood and general enthusiasm. There are some minor side effects but they went away after six weeks or so. I know it might frowned upon to recommend what is basically an opiate for depression, but it has been a minor miracle for me.
    - eradicatethots 9y ago
      And what if your depression is cause of beliefs/behaviors and not curable with pills?
  - girvo 9y ago
    Sublingual ketamine has worked well for my girlfriends depression. Dissolved into water at 30mg/mL, she takes 1mL every three to four weeks. A threshold dose, the dissasociative effects are rather weak there, but the antidepressant effects are rather rapid and work wonders for her. If you’re in the US, I believe you can go to clinics and have it administered by a doctor which is safer.
Sharlin 9y ago
Depression to take a few weeks to reverse if you just get enough stimulation? Gee, nice to hear. Maybe I'll just try that.
- Alex3917 9y ago
  > Depression to take a few weeks to reverse if you just get enough stimulation? On average it will reverse regardless since the half-life of depression is only a few weeks, unless you take antidepressants in which case it's perhaps less severe but is also less likely to go away.
  - TillE 9y ago
    > but is also less likely to go away. Why are you posting absolute nonsense here?
    - Smaug123 9y ago
      Charitably, the parent has misphrased the following sentiment: "taking antidepressants correlates with having worse depression (in the same way as taking antibiotics correlates with having worse infections)".
  - pragone 9y ago
    > the half-life of depression is only a few weeks Are you referring to a single major depressive episode? And presumably not referring to the various other depressive disorders that last months to years? FWIW, this one of many things that makes treating "depression" challenging - there are many different forms of depression, and not infrequently the underlying pathology is quite different.
    - Alex3917 9y ago
      > Are you referring to a single major depressive episode? Yeah if you read Anatomy of an Epidemic, Robert Whitaker has a good research review of all the large scale NIMH/NIH studies.
vanderZwan 9y ago
What you're saying is not in any way in conflict with the predictive processing model, as far as I can see. You might want to read the article he posted earlier where he reviews Surfing Uncertainty[0]. It discusses this model in more detail. [0] http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/09/05/book-review-surfing-uncertainty/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/09/05/book-review-surfing-unc...
whiddershins 9y ago
For context check out the book he's referencing, or at least his review of it: https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/09/05/book-review-surfing-uncertainty/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/09/05/book-review-surfing-un...

Klockan 9y ago

> exercise, acupuncture, aromatherapy, drugs, meditation, float tanks, social interaction, music, intensely flavored foods, cold therapy, saunas, electroshock therapy, etc. None of those are guaranteed to work though, a significant number of depressed people never gets over it and it wouldn't be that way if we knew effective treatment methods.

trapperkeeper74 9y ago
The current answer is we don’t yet have full functional pathologies of types of depression, noninvasive, specific mood disorders classified down to exact neurological dysfunctions, accurate and precise knowledge of how existing antidepressants work and evidenced-based application of particular therapies based on such scientifically-identified presentations. Clinical psychiatry has been mostly a scattergun, guesswork that lacks scientific rigor. For example, I just tapered-off mirtazepene as it stopped working after 9 years and, so far, bupropion isn’t helping. I’d really like to try S32212 if it proves safe enough in human models because it likely lacks the GI and weight-gain issues.
- 123jay7 9y ago
  It's probably not even you, it's probably your life.
- pault 9y ago
  I've tried almost every anti depressant on the market and none of them worked. What did work for me is kratom. I've been taking it daily for about six months and it has completely turned around my mood and general enthusiasm. There are some minor side effects but they went away after six weeks or so. I know it might frowned upon to recommend what is basically an opiate for depression, but it has been a minor miracle for me.
  - eradicatethots 9y ago
    And what if your depression is cause of beliefs/behaviors and not curable with pills?
- girvo 9y ago
  Sublingual ketamine has worked well for my girlfriends depression. Dissolved into water at 30mg/mL, she takes 1mL every three to four weeks. A threshold dose, the dissasociative effects are rather weak there, but the antidepressant effects are rather rapid and work wonders for her. If you’re in the US, I believe you can go to clinics and have it administered by a doctor which is safer.

Sharlin 9y ago

Depression to take a few weeks to reverse if you just get enough stimulation? Gee, nice to hear. Maybe I'll just try that.

Alex3917 9y ago
> Depression to take a few weeks to reverse if you just get enough stimulation? On average it will reverse regardless since the half-life of depression is only a few weeks, unless you take antidepressants in which case it's perhaps less severe but is also less likely to go away.
- TillE 9y ago
  > but is also less likely to go away. Why are you posting absolute nonsense here?
  - Smaug123 9y ago
    Charitably, the parent has misphrased the following sentiment: "taking antidepressants correlates with having worse depression (in the same way as taking antibiotics correlates with having worse infections)".
- pragone 9y ago
  > the half-life of depression is only a few weeks Are you referring to a single major depressive episode? And presumably not referring to the various other depressive disorders that last months to years? FWIW, this one of many things that makes treating "depression" challenging - there are many different forms of depression, and not infrequently the underlying pathology is quite different.
  - Alex3917 9y ago
    > Are you referring to a single major depressive episode? Yeah if you read Anatomy of an Epidemic, Robert Whitaker has a good research review of all the large scale NIMH/NIH studies.

vanderZwan 9y ago

What you're saying is not in any way in conflict with the predictive processing model, as far as I can see. You might want to read the article he posted earlier where he reviews Surfing Uncertainty[0]. It discusses this model in more detail. [0] http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/09/05/book-review-surfing-uncertainty/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/09/05/book-review-surfing-unc...

whiddershins 9y ago

For context check out the book he's referencing, or at least his review of it: https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/09/05/book-review-surfing-uncertainty/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/09/05/book-review-surfing-un...