5 ms·

The thing I find hilarious is that microdosing is literally taking a dose so small that you don't actively feel or notice the effects, and this study decided to

The thing I find hilarious is that microdosing is literally taking a dose so small that you don't actively feel or notice the effects, and this study decided to research to what degree the subjects feel the effects of a dose intended to be unnoticeable. The conclusions this "study" reached could also be arrived at by just reading what microdosing is.

asidiali 6y ago
So then why microdose if there is no measurable effect?
- wyqydsyq 6y ago
  Because the only things it does tangibly effect are your mood and mental perspective, things that are entirely subjective and do not have concrete metrics that can be used for measurement, especially when comparing that between different subjects. The only really noticeable effect of microdosing is at the end of the day you might notice you feel it was a really good day and you're happy. The thing is though this isn't distinguishable from someone simply having a good day and feeling happy. The data collected in this study would have essentially been irrelevant noise, based more on the aggregate of day-to-day experiences of the subjects rather than whether or not they received a placebo. Microdosing inherently is indistinguishable from a placebo effect as far as empirical measurements go. If the participants who received a microdose were able to somehow measure their experience with a different result to those in the control group, then they weren't microdosing, they were actually tripping.
  - ranguna 6y ago
    With that logic, we can disregard any statistical study that we don't like as "noise"
  - asidiali 6y ago
    Couldn’t you measure change in avg number of happy vs neutral or unhappy days over a set time period? I guess that’d only be useful for yourself and not an objective measurement...
- admiral33 6y ago
  No measurable effect is not the same as volunteer's perception of it's effect. A comprehensive psychiatric evaluation uses a series of smaller evaluations that includes a self assessment as well as other assessments for memory, speech etc [0][1]. [0]: https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/treatment-tests-and-therapies/comprehensive-psychiatric-evaluation https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/treatment-tests-and-t... [1]: http://www.brooklynlearningcenter.com/services/what-it-consists-of.php http://www.brooklynlearningcenter.com/services/what-it-consi...
  - asidiali 6y ago
    Wouldn’t a comprehensive psychiatric evaluation be looking for some sort of markers, or metrics, to determine a known vs unknown state or evaluation result? Per your link, psych eval is to determine known disorders or other mental states. By definition, there has to be criteria. You said, no measurable effect is not the same as volunteers perception of the effect. But wouldn’t that still be a measurable effect, by the volunteers perception?
porb121 6y ago
> The conclusions this "study" reached could also be arrived at by just reading what microdosing is. there's tons of anecdotal reports of people experiencing tangible benefits from subperceptual microdosing; this study is valuable in that it tests those hypotheses in a semi-controlled setting.
- wyqydsyq 6y ago
  The thing is, those tangible benefits are all subjective and immeasurable. There is no way to measurably differentiate between someone feeling good because they're microdosing, or feeling good because they had a nice day, which is why data collected in this study would largely be just noise. I think that since a strong placebo (e.g. a tripper feeling good as a result of thinking they're going to have some LSD) alone can produce far more profound effects on mood than actually microdosing, all this study really did is reaffirm the placebo effect's efficacy. Any changes that would have been a result of microdosing would be lost in the noise of the placebo effect on top of whatever else was going on in each participant's life at the time.
  - porb121 6y ago
    > There is no way to measurably differentiate between someone feeling good because they're microdosing, or feeling good because they had a nice day, which is why data collected in this study would largely be just noise. i can only read this statement one of two ways: a) you don't think that such a difference can be measured at all, which is antithetical to the entire premise of RCTs and statistical power. b) you don't think such a difference can be measured among microdosers because microdosing is such a small effect. but this is exactly why we need the study - how else could you know that such an effect could not be measured? the initial hypothesis that microdosing could have an effect on mood (or some other cognitive) was not some crazy unsupported idea. it had plenty of anecdotal support, i think? some mechanistic evidence, and there are plenty of other supplements which can have non-placebo cognitive effects without noticeable bodily effects. for example, caffeine has thoroughly-demonstrated improvements on alertness and attention, even at doses where many people will not feel an increased heart rate or other physical effects.
eurasiantiger 6y ago
You are reading into microdosing as if it was homeopathy. This is not the case. Microdoses often have noticeable effects, just not a full-blown visual trip.

asidiali 6y ago

So then why microdose if there is no measurable effect?

wyqydsyq 6y ago
Because the only things it does tangibly effect are your mood and mental perspective, things that are entirely subjective and do not have concrete metrics that can be used for measurement, especially when comparing that between different subjects. The only really noticeable effect of microdosing is at the end of the day you might notice you feel it was a really good day and you're happy. The thing is though this isn't distinguishable from someone simply having a good day and feeling happy. The data collected in this study would have essentially been irrelevant noise, based more on the aggregate of day-to-day experiences of the subjects rather than whether or not they received a placebo. Microdosing inherently is indistinguishable from a placebo effect as far as empirical measurements go. If the participants who received a microdose were able to somehow measure their experience with a different result to those in the control group, then they weren't microdosing, they were actually tripping.
- ranguna 6y ago
  With that logic, we can disregard any statistical study that we don't like as "noise"
- asidiali 6y ago
  Couldn’t you measure change in avg number of happy vs neutral or unhappy days over a set time period? I guess that’d only be useful for yourself and not an objective measurement...
admiral33 6y ago
No measurable effect is not the same as volunteer's perception of it's effect. A comprehensive psychiatric evaluation uses a series of smaller evaluations that includes a self assessment as well as other assessments for memory, speech etc [0][1]. [0]: https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/treatment-tests-and-therapies/comprehensive-psychiatric-evaluation https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/treatment-tests-and-t... [1]: http://www.brooklynlearningcenter.com/services/what-it-consists-of.php http://www.brooklynlearningcenter.com/services/what-it-consi...
- asidiali 6y ago
  Wouldn’t a comprehensive psychiatric evaluation be looking for some sort of markers, or metrics, to determine a known vs unknown state or evaluation result? Per your link, psych eval is to determine known disorders or other mental states. By definition, there has to be criteria. You said, no measurable effect is not the same as volunteers perception of the effect. But wouldn’t that still be a measurable effect, by the volunteers perception?

porb121 6y ago

> The conclusions this "study" reached could also be arrived at by just reading what microdosing is. there's tons of anecdotal reports of people experiencing tangible benefits from subperceptual microdosing; this study is valuable in that it tests those hypotheses in a semi-controlled setting.

wyqydsyq 6y ago
The thing is, those tangible benefits are all subjective and immeasurable. There is no way to measurably differentiate between someone feeling good because they're microdosing, or feeling good because they had a nice day, which is why data collected in this study would largely be just noise. I think that since a strong placebo (e.g. a tripper feeling good as a result of thinking they're going to have some LSD) alone can produce far more profound effects on mood than actually microdosing, all this study really did is reaffirm the placebo effect's efficacy. Any changes that would have been a result of microdosing would be lost in the noise of the placebo effect on top of whatever else was going on in each participant's life at the time.
- porb121 6y ago
  > There is no way to measurably differentiate between someone feeling good because they're microdosing, or feeling good because they had a nice day, which is why data collected in this study would largely be just noise. i can only read this statement one of two ways: a) you don't think that such a difference can be measured at all, which is antithetical to the entire premise of RCTs and statistical power. b) you don't think such a difference can be measured among microdosers because microdosing is such a small effect. but this is exactly why we need the study - how else could you know that such an effect could not be measured? the initial hypothesis that microdosing could have an effect on mood (or some other cognitive) was not some crazy unsupported idea. it had plenty of anecdotal support, i think? some mechanistic evidence, and there are plenty of other supplements which can have non-placebo cognitive effects without noticeable bodily effects. for example, caffeine has thoroughly-demonstrated improvements on alertness and attention, even at doses where many people will not feel an increased heart rate or other physical effects.

eurasiantiger 6y ago

You are reading into microdosing as if it was homeopathy. This is not the case. Microdoses often have noticeable effects, just not a full-blown visual trip.