6 ms·

Nasally-Injected Brain Drug Can Help Treat Depression in 20 Minutes

37 points by rustoo 5y ago

ralusek 5y ago
It's the 1980s all over again. The Inevitable Return of the Great White Dope.
osullip 5y ago
In mice
- rasz 5y ago
  Mice, salarymen, whats the difference? Huxleys Soma and Lems maskony/hapunktory are just too tempting making them inevitable.
- postsantum 5y ago
  This should be a bright red sticker next to the headline
dustymcp 5y ago
I know a nasal drug that will make you very not depressed for around 20 mins
- the_real_me 5y ago
  Cocaine turns bad feelings into good feelings, until the only feeling you have is that you want more cocaine.
  - dustymcp 5y ago
    Feelings gone problem solved?
- tata71 5y ago
  Is it vaporized cannabis?
  - sleepysysadmin 5y ago
    Wait you can vape into your nose?
pdenton 5y ago
In other news, a nasally-injected brain drug can help you write code much quicker all night without getting tired. Just don't do it, kids. Amphetamines can mess with you, I've lost a friend who couldn't stop using it
- jdavis703 5y ago
  Well first you’re not supposed to be inhaling amphetamines if you’re using them for non-recreational purposes. I’m sorry for your friend, but it sounds like their use went far beyond therapeutic use cases.
entropyneur 5y ago
Not sure why are all the comments here discussing stimulants. The drug in this study is a derivative of something called GLP-2 which seems to have some completely novel mechanism of action (if it indeed works).
poulpy123 5y ago
Interesting enough, spravato which is also used against depression is also an nasal spray
- VistaBrokeMyPC 5y ago
  Spravato is a stupid attempt to make money off of depressed people. They isolated one isomer of ketamine so they could patent it. Tested against placebo but not against generic ketamine... It's almost ten times the price of ketamine too.
pdimitar 5y ago
I was excited for this until I read it's from Japan. Before you downvote me or call me names, let me explain. Japan is known for having an enormously toxic work culture -- I think we've all heard about the people having to sit 16 hours in the office just so they seem like they are working hard, or how they nap in the toilet, and many other such horrors. So Japan inventing a very quickly working anti-depressant seem more like paving the way to a nightmare cyberpunk dystopia to me... imagine an operator going through the cameras and an AI warns them: "Employee T-4214 looks to be emotionally distressed or apathetic. Administer countermeasures immediately". And then the person gets a serotonin / dopamine boost and starts working their meaningless awful job with a creepily wide smile on their face. But hey, if the rest of us who are not slaves and genuinely need some help sometimes can benefit, I am still all for it. I just question the motives of this particular team. Hopefully I am wrong! In the end it's all circling back to the guns argument: guns can be used for doing evil, and guns can be used for doing good. It's all on us the humans, not on the implement itself.
- tdeck 5y ago
  > And then the person gets a serotonin / dopamine boost and starts working their meaningless awful job with a creepily wide smile on their face. A gram is better than a damn.
- Kaze404 5y ago
  > the rest of us who are not slaves I think you're massively underestimating the lengths of work-related cruelty that happens here (everywhere except Japan). Obviously there are varying types of cruelty, but an Amazon warehouse worker who is not allowed to go to the restroom past their time limit or an office worker who puts in ridiculous overtime to fulfill the expectations their boss "subtly" gaslighted into them are subject to the exact same situation you're describing. I don't think this has anything to do with Japan, their work culture just shows what capitalism does to everyone more explicitly. They say the quiet part out loud.
  - pdimitar 5y ago
    I agree completely. Sorry that I didn't include other prominent examples. It's true what you say: we're witnessing the endgame of capitalism. What was a cyberpunk dystopia before and was meet with laughter -- "crazy fantasy, man" -- is now the reality of tens or hundreds of millions of people. --- My post was mostly just expressing skepticism about the seemingly benevolent nature of this research. People who are as strongly set in their ways as the elderly Japanese wealth-holders are, will IMO first launch a nuclear strike before they give their employees better working conditions. So putting my tinfoil hat on, I'd theorize this research has been funded by Japanese big business owners.
quaintdev 5y ago
1. When we figured out fossil fuels can be used to drive vehicles we did not realize until recently the cost of using it on our environment 2. When we figured out plastic has versatile uses we did not realize until recently that plastic will end up in ocean as micro plastic which will then become part of food chain. I can come up with more examples like this. I am not questioning the efficacy of the drug. I am only wondering what if this has adverse effects on other parts of brain which we might discover too late.
- nix23 5y ago
  When we figured out that some Diseases come from little living creatures we wash our hands before operating patients and are able to create vaccines, and medicine. I can come up with more examples like this too, but yes looking into the future is not easy, but much easier when not depressive ;)
  - quaintdev 5y ago
    With vaccines, we do extensive testing to ensure it does not have side effects and that it does not pose a threat to health of next generation. But I am not so sure if that same analogy can be used with everything else which is not directly impacting human health. Companies invent things, they get greedy and lose the foresight of consequences of their actions. They lobby politicians to defend their own shady practices. The general public ends up paying the price.
    - nix23 5y ago
      >They lobby politicians to defend their own shady practices. That's a political problem not a technical one.
playcache 5y ago
I find this quite concerning. A substantial amount of folks suffering with depression have situational depression, e.g. depression from living (for them) and unfulfilled life, relationship problems, stress, substance abuse etc. I can see a 20 minute fix with no effort to address the root cause, just creating more issues.
- jhanschoo 5y ago
  It's not like traditional psychiatric drugs address the root cause in such depression either.
- danielscrubs 5y ago
  One of the worst things with depression is that might be in a negative spiral until a person becomes totally apathetic. Breaking that negative spiral and instead putting a person in a positive spiral (going to the gym becomes more fun, socialising becomes more fun, removing the need for a big amount of willpower) is essential to living a fulfilled life. An empathic doctor will know when it is time to wean the person away from it. I've seen my brother waste his life completely, becoming a shut in, he has never hurt a fly but he has zero confidence and absolutely zero optimism even though he was in the top 2% in our version of SAT, which made him be able to pick any university he wanted, but having no optimism, he didn't go to school. He is nearly 50 now and the family (including me) has basically given up on him having a job or a girlfriend, or a bunch of friends for that matter (he is very kind but a pessimist, you are not going to hear him cracking a joke). For most people, they can't even phantom being able to get that high score and not choosing to study/work, because they haven't been apathetic. Medicine (subscribed by specialists) are the cheat code of life, done sparingly and well. Just look at the amount of people who changed their life with ADHD medication saying they couldn't even have energy for mowing the lawn before taking it. From what I've seen, I just can barely see anything riskier than a life of depression.
  - 567745774 5y ago
    The way you've used your own brother as a rhetorical bludgeon here is quite telling. Do you think your choice to disrespect his privacy might play a role in your relationship?
tdrdt 5y ago
I wonder if they mean 'suppress' instead of 'treat'.
yehosef 5y ago
There are other options that work even faster: https://www.forbes.com/sites/javierhasse/2020/07/02/cannabis-for-depression/?sh=89c92b16ccd8 https://www.forbes.com/sites/javierhasse/2020/07/02/cannabis...
icegreentea2 5y ago
Interesting stuff. Most (basically all??) of our existing psychiatric drugs are small molecules. I presume this is related to how much of a pain getting proteins into the brain is - which is exactly what this research helps enable. They show that by grafting on specific structures into a protein (GLP-2) they can drastically increase its speed and effectiveness at delivering into the brain. I don't put much hope into GLP-2 being anywhere close to useful for actually treating anything in humans - I think it's just a nice model to demonstrate the technique. It's interesting, and I think the article does a great disservice because: a) This technique doesn't seem extendible to our existing drugs, which means this technique can't help mitigate some of the challenges of our existing drugs (one of them off the top of my head is that it just takes a long time for them to fully saturate your system, meaning its a total pain to figure out dosing). I feel like this should have been commented on. b) This technique potentially opens up an entire category of candidates that were previously ruled out. I feel like this should also been commented on directly.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
ebanana 5y ago
For those wondering, the nmda receptor which is in charge of motor function seems to have anti-depressant potential. This is what ketamine and other nmda medications activate. And it seems like this novel peptide interacts with that as well in some way. Not a scientist but have experimented with a ton of compounds trying to relieve feelings of dread brought on by being raised in the lower class of society due to a father who was disabled. And later on rejection from jobs because of lack of education and being forced to work for extremely low wages. Messes up your self respect after awhile. Anyways, Drugs won’t solve anything for longer than a few weeks or months, but what nmda drugs I have tried seemed to have the biggest breakthrough from serious depression. So ymmv
perl4ever 5y ago
Have you programmers ever tried to fix a problem with your program by trying random things? Did it work? I am so tired of hearing about some random thing that supposedly helps with mental illness as if trial and error without understanding was a reasonable method. What mental illness is, is an ordinary illness that occupies a social niche where it's exempt from normal scientific or medical study. It evades our social immune system the way retroviruses evade our physical immune system. The sane, rational, reasonable approach would be to put everything into developing tools and measurement techniques to establish what mental illnesses are. Depression, mania, and psychosis need, above all else, tools like blood sugar tests and A1C provide for diabetes. 99% of solving any problem is describing it. Administering random treatments to suffering people and lab animals is not progress, it is a tragic waste, cargo cultism, part of the disease that transcends the actual victims. The only thing I know of that's really seemed like progress in ages is opto-genetics. Just...develop tools because without them there is no evaluating treatments. Stop using surveys. I would like to think that researching mental illness would lead to ways of enhancing normal cognition that would help everyone. I would expect that people would think of this possibility, and therefore there would be plenty of funding available. But it doesn't seem to work that way.

37 points by rustoo 5y ago

ralusek 5y ago

It's the 1980s all over again. The Inevitable Return of the Great White Dope.

osullip 5y ago

In mice

rasz 5y ago
Mice, salarymen, whats the difference? Huxleys Soma and Lems maskony/hapunktory are just too tempting making them inevitable.
postsantum 5y ago
This should be a bright red sticker next to the headline

dustymcp 5y ago

I know a nasal drug that will make you very not depressed for around 20 mins

the_real_me 5y ago
Cocaine turns bad feelings into good feelings, until the only feeling you have is that you want more cocaine.
- dustymcp 5y ago
  Feelings gone problem solved?
tata71 5y ago
Is it vaporized cannabis?
- sleepysysadmin 5y ago
  Wait you can vape into your nose?

pdenton 5y ago

In other news, a nasally-injected brain drug can help you write code much quicker all night without getting tired. Just don't do it, kids. Amphetamines can mess with you, I've lost a friend who couldn't stop using it

jdavis703 5y ago
Well first you’re not supposed to be inhaling amphetamines if you’re using them for non-recreational purposes. I’m sorry for your friend, but it sounds like their use went far beyond therapeutic use cases.

entropyneur 5y ago

Not sure why are all the comments here discussing stimulants. The drug in this study is a derivative of something called GLP-2 which seems to have some completely novel mechanism of action (if it indeed works).

poulpy123 5y ago

Interesting enough, spravato which is also used against depression is also an nasal spray

VistaBrokeMyPC 5y ago
Spravato is a stupid attempt to make money off of depressed people. They isolated one isomer of ketamine so they could patent it. Tested against placebo but not against generic ketamine... It's almost ten times the price of ketamine too.

pdimitar 5y ago

I was excited for this until I read it's from Japan. Before you downvote me or call me names, let me explain. Japan is known for having an enormously toxic work culture -- I think we've all heard about the people having to sit 16 hours in the office just so they seem like they are working hard, or how they nap in the toilet, and many other such horrors. So Japan inventing a very quickly working anti-depressant seem more like paving the way to a nightmare cyberpunk dystopia to me... imagine an operator going through the cameras and an AI warns them: "Employee T-4214 looks to be emotionally distressed or apathetic. Administer countermeasures immediately". And then the person gets a serotonin / dopamine boost and starts working their meaningless awful job with a creepily wide smile on their face. But hey, if the rest of us who are not slaves and genuinely need some help sometimes can benefit, I am still all for it. I just question the motives of this particular team. Hopefully I am wrong! In the end it's all circling back to the guns argument: guns can be used for doing evil, and guns can be used for doing good. It's all on us the humans, not on the implement itself.

tdeck 5y ago
> And then the person gets a serotonin / dopamine boost and starts working their meaningless awful job with a creepily wide smile on their face. A gram is better than a damn.
Kaze404 5y ago
> the rest of us who are not slaves I think you're massively underestimating the lengths of work-related cruelty that happens here (everywhere except Japan). Obviously there are varying types of cruelty, but an Amazon warehouse worker who is not allowed to go to the restroom past their time limit or an office worker who puts in ridiculous overtime to fulfill the expectations their boss "subtly" gaslighted into them are subject to the exact same situation you're describing. I don't think this has anything to do with Japan, their work culture just shows what capitalism does to everyone more explicitly. They say the quiet part out loud.
- pdimitar 5y ago
  I agree completely. Sorry that I didn't include other prominent examples. It's true what you say: we're witnessing the endgame of capitalism. What was a cyberpunk dystopia before and was meet with laughter -- "crazy fantasy, man" -- is now the reality of tens or hundreds of millions of people. --- My post was mostly just expressing skepticism about the seemingly benevolent nature of this research. People who are as strongly set in their ways as the elderly Japanese wealth-holders are, will IMO first launch a nuclear strike before they give their employees better working conditions. So putting my tinfoil hat on, I'd theorize this research has been funded by Japanese big business owners.

quaintdev 5y ago

1. When we figured out fossil fuels can be used to drive vehicles we did not realize until recently the cost of using it on our environment 2. When we figured out plastic has versatile uses we did not realize until recently that plastic will end up in ocean as micro plastic which will then become part of food chain. I can come up with more examples like this. I am not questioning the efficacy of the drug. I am only wondering what if this has adverse effects on other parts of brain which we might discover too late.

nix23 5y ago
When we figured out that some Diseases come from little living creatures we wash our hands before operating patients and are able to create vaccines, and medicine. I can come up with more examples like this too, but yes looking into the future is not easy, but much easier when not depressive ;)
- quaintdev 5y ago
  With vaccines, we do extensive testing to ensure it does not have side effects and that it does not pose a threat to health of next generation. But I am not so sure if that same analogy can be used with everything else which is not directly impacting human health. Companies invent things, they get greedy and lose the foresight of consequences of their actions. They lobby politicians to defend their own shady practices. The general public ends up paying the price.
  - nix23 5y ago
    >They lobby politicians to defend their own shady practices. That's a political problem not a technical one.

playcache 5y ago

I find this quite concerning. A substantial amount of folks suffering with depression have situational depression, e.g. depression from living (for them) and unfulfilled life, relationship problems, stress, substance abuse etc. I can see a 20 minute fix with no effort to address the root cause, just creating more issues.

jhanschoo 5y ago
It's not like traditional psychiatric drugs address the root cause in such depression either.
danielscrubs 5y ago
One of the worst things with depression is that might be in a negative spiral until a person becomes totally apathetic. Breaking that negative spiral and instead putting a person in a positive spiral (going to the gym becomes more fun, socialising becomes more fun, removing the need for a big amount of willpower) is essential to living a fulfilled life. An empathic doctor will know when it is time to wean the person away from it. I've seen my brother waste his life completely, becoming a shut in, he has never hurt a fly but he has zero confidence and absolutely zero optimism even though he was in the top 2% in our version of SAT, which made him be able to pick any university he wanted, but having no optimism, he didn't go to school. He is nearly 50 now and the family (including me) has basically given up on him having a job or a girlfriend, or a bunch of friends for that matter (he is very kind but a pessimist, you are not going to hear him cracking a joke). For most people, they can't even phantom being able to get that high score and not choosing to study/work, because they haven't been apathetic. Medicine (subscribed by specialists) are the cheat code of life, done sparingly and well. Just look at the amount of people who changed their life with ADHD medication saying they couldn't even have energy for mowing the lawn before taking it. From what I've seen, I just can barely see anything riskier than a life of depression.
- 567745774 5y ago
  The way you've used your own brother as a rhetorical bludgeon here is quite telling. Do you think your choice to disrespect his privacy might play a role in your relationship?

tdrdt 5y ago

I wonder if they mean 'suppress' instead of 'treat'.

yehosef 5y ago

There are other options that work even faster: https://www.forbes.com/sites/javierhasse/2020/07/02/cannabis-for-depression/?sh=89c92b16ccd8 https://www.forbes.com/sites/javierhasse/2020/07/02/cannabis...

icegreentea2 5y ago

Interesting stuff. Most (basically all??) of our existing psychiatric drugs are small molecules. I presume this is related to how much of a pain getting proteins into the brain is - which is exactly what this research helps enable. They show that by grafting on specific structures into a protein (GLP-2) they can drastically increase its speed and effectiveness at delivering into the brain. I don't put much hope into GLP-2 being anywhere close to useful for actually treating anything in humans - I think it's just a nice model to demonstrate the technique. It's interesting, and I think the article does a great disservice because: a) This technique doesn't seem extendible to our existing drugs, which means this technique can't help mitigate some of the challenges of our existing drugs (one of them off the top of my head is that it just takes a long time for them to fully saturate your system, meaning its a total pain to figure out dosing). I feel like this should have been commented on. b) This technique potentially opens up an entire category of candidates that were previously ruled out. I feel like this should also been commented on directly.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

ebanana 5y ago

For those wondering, the nmda receptor which is in charge of motor function seems to have anti-depressant potential. This is what ketamine and other nmda medications activate. And it seems like this novel peptide interacts with that as well in some way. Not a scientist but have experimented with a ton of compounds trying to relieve feelings of dread brought on by being raised in the lower class of society due to a father who was disabled. And later on rejection from jobs because of lack of education and being forced to work for extremely low wages. Messes up your self respect after awhile. Anyways, Drugs won’t solve anything for longer than a few weeks or months, but what nmda drugs I have tried seemed to have the biggest breakthrough from serious depression. So ymmv

perl4ever 5y ago

Have you programmers ever tried to fix a problem with your program by trying random things? Did it work? I am so tired of hearing about some random thing that supposedly helps with mental illness as if trial and error without understanding was a reasonable method. What mental illness is, is an ordinary illness that occupies a social niche where it's exempt from normal scientific or medical study. It evades our social immune system the way retroviruses evade our physical immune system. The sane, rational, reasonable approach would be to put everything into developing tools and measurement techniques to establish what mental illnesses are. Depression, mania, and psychosis need, above all else, tools like blood sugar tests and A1C provide for diabetes. 99% of solving any problem is describing it. Administering random treatments to suffering people and lab animals is not progress, it is a tragic waste, cargo cultism, part of the disease that transcends the actual victims. The only thing I know of that's really seemed like progress in ages is opto-genetics. Just...develop tools because without them there is no evaluating treatments. Stop using surveys. I would like to think that researching mental illness would lead to ways of enhancing normal cognition that would help everyone. I would expect that people would think of this possibility, and therefore there would be plenty of funding available. But it doesn't seem to work that way.