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Glutamate buildup may be key factor in mental exhaustion
- cung 4y agoSo what are the ways to lower glumate buildup?
- synaesthesisx 4y agoGlutamate is the primary excitatory neurotransmitter, and GABA is the primary inhibitory neurotransmitter. They’re supposed to keep each other in balance (to an extent), so increasing GABA should theoretically lower glutamate. Perhaps that drink after work isn’t such a bad idea after all…
- paraiuspau 4y agoI’ve had great success with N-Acetyl Cysteine (NAC) which brings glutamate back into balance with GABA [1]. The upshot of this is, it’s reduced my binge-like behaviours massively, although I’m slightly more anhedonic than before.. or maybe just balanced now. Also clears the chest very rapidly. YMMV. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6182588/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6182588/
- samloveshummus 4y agoGood for you, but NAC has a host of effects so you couldn't say it was due to glutamate for sure. For example, NAC mainly increases glutathione, the primary antioxidant your body uses, so it may reduce the level of oxidative stress and lower your body's stress response. It also increases the level of SAM-e in your body (as you can transform sulfur containing amino acids methionine and cysteine into each other). SAM-e is a crucial cofactor for many processes including creation of neurotransmitters such as dopamine and serotonin. And an increase in sulfur amino acids (including NAC) also modulates your gut microbiome.
- paraiuspau 4y agoGreat additional info - I will look into these things in more depth, thank you.
- markdown 4y agoDrink kava. https://kavaforums.com/forum/threads/kavain-and-glutamate.18689/ https://kavaforums.com/forum/threads/kavain-and-glutamate.18...
- macrolime 4y agoSleep. In the daytime, maybe a powernap or 15 minutes of mediation could work.
- refurb 4y agoN = 24 and the subheader is "Toxicity of excess glutamate may contribute to cognitive fatigue, but some experts are skeptical" Color me skeptical.
- Maxion 4y agoA low sample size does not mean that the result of a study are not valid. No researcher would get funding for a large study right off the bat when looking for something novel. You always start with a prospective study of a small sample size, and then move on. Furthermore scientific consensus on topics does not come from individual studies, but from the collective collection of studies on a topic.
- refurb 4y agoA low sample size impacts the reliability of the results.
- carlmr 4y agoWhile Maxion is right, I'm with you that we shouldn't even be discussing anything here in a big forum before the 24 person study gets a 240 people study financed, and the 240 people study gets a 2400 people study financed. While it's clear that the researchers can't immediately test everything at scale. The likelihood of this result being significant are low.
- refurb 4y agoNot only that, but any theory that simplifying it down to "high levels of this neurotransmitter cause X" should be suspect. I mean, there was a massive thread not even 3 weeks ago about "low serotonin causes depression" being completely rejected at this point. It's an interesting data point, but "glutamate build-up" is just the university's PR office trying to get eyeballs.
- leobg 4y agoWell, it once was also said that serotonin levels were the key factor in depression. I think it was B.F. Skinner who wrote that it’s a fool’s errand to try to pin behavior down in some physical or chemical matter in the brain. But I can’t seem to remember the quote... must be the glutamate.
- dwaltrip 4y agoIt may be an enormous challenge but I’m glad people are trying.
- lvncelot 4y agoI always thought it was like trying to find a bug by measuring the CPU voltage.
- qikInNdOutReply 4y agoObviously there is no bug when its doing while(true) dropCoreImage(); print(stacktrace)
- leobg 4y agoThat is an excellent metaphor. Skinner would have loved it.
- adrianN 4y agoCould a Neuroscientist Understand a Microprocessor? https://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article?id=10.1371/journal.pcbi.1005268 https://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article?id=10.1371/jo...
- alexvoda 4y agoI would say this is a great counter to your link. Of course, in this case there was preexisting knowledge. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32428032 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32428032
- scld 4y ago
- ashwal 4y agoTheir measurements (Figure 4) directly contradict this so they add another variable to their model ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Task performance & subjective rating don't change between the two groups. The measurements are crude. There's a lot of degrees of freedom in this study. Useful for others in the field, but a popular writeup deserves to go in the bin
- beanjuice 4y agoJust tagging on to add a link to the actual article (?) [1] [1] https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(22)01111-3 https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(22)...
- Normille 4y agoHold the front page! --Researchers discover that, when you're tired, you find it harder to think straight.
- zmmmmm 4y ago> demanding computational tasks such as face recognition that require megawatts of energy for computers to perform I'm not sure what computer this is but I'm pretty sure it's not using megawatts just to do some facial recognition (maybe she was fatigued by the time she got to the end of writing the article?).
- samcheng 4y agoWatts are a measure of power, not energy, anyway.
- oofbey 4y agoPlenty wrong with this statement but the units are fine. If you ask somebody “how much energy does that lightbulb use?” the most normal and correct answer would be something like “40 watts”. An answer like “you mean ‘how much power’ not energy because the first law of thermodynamics dictates that energy is never created nor destroyed so it can’t really be ‘used’ now can it?” would be obnoxiously pedantic and totally useless.
- cstrahan 4y ago> An answer like “you mean ‘how much power’ not energy because the first law of thermodynamics dictates that energy is never created nor destroyed so it can’t really be ‘used’ now can it?” would be obnoxiously pedantic and totally useless. Whew — good thing no one is saying anything remotely like that! The point is that power is completely uninteresting (in the original context) without some notion of how long that power is sustained. It’s not really interesting if identifying a face is a done at a bazillion giga-watts if the maths works out (as a function of time) such that the total energy used was a bazillionth of a 1 percent of a calorie. The criticism is (apparently) conflating power with energy — nothing to do with upholding the laws of thermodynamics, or “using” (or not) energy, etc.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- oofbey 4y agoAnybody know if consuming MSG is related to glutamate levels in the brain? I know MSG is a subject of long and mostly pointless debate but curious what the actual science is here.
- qalmakka 4y agoMSG naturally occurs in basically everything savory or meaty, so any side effects caused by artificial MSG would probably arise from consumption of natural foodstuffs too. In general we produce lots of glutamate ourselves too (it's one crucial aminoacid), so I honestly find it unlikely that dietary sources can have an influence on how much of it ends up in the brain, but given that there's no definitive science to back this it's all up for debate.
- marcescence 4y agoMSG does not cross the blood brain barrier in significant amounts.
- carom 4y agoI get sinus headaches from all things glutamate. MSG in chips, parmesan, tomatos, etc. Doubt it has anything to do with the brain but I can attest that there are dietary reactions to it. Happy to submit to any study (because I would also like to know what is wrong with me).
- qalmakka 4y agoAFAIK there are few rare occurrences where MSG can cause reactions akin to an allergy. It's not an allergy per se given that there's no immune reaction involved though. This phenomenon is rare but well documented, albeit not very understood. Sucks though.
- oofbey 4y agoSorry to hear that. Food research is super hard. Lots of people definitely have sensitivities to foods (like gluten) that have real effects whose mechanisms are not well understood. e.g. epilepsy is often really well controlled by a keto diet - wtf? Understanding your own body and managing your diet accordingly is a great thing to do. Sad that it sometimes gets attacked as unscientific. Just because scientists looked for a broad food mechanism and didn’t find it doesn’t mean these effects aren’t real.
- hoppyhoppy2 4y agoAlso being discussed at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32430395 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32430395
- hnbad 4y agoCan't wait for people to run with this headline and write articles about how avoiding MSG makes you smarter or something. Snark aside, I think while it's important to understand the chemical foundation for how certain brain processes or phenomena manifest, simplifying research results to news pieces like "chemical X is why you feel bad" is very evocative of the pre-modern "humors" approach to human health. Blood pressure too high? Just drain some blood.
- thriftwy 4y agoI wonder if that would also make your brain extra tasty for zombies.
- dsr_ 4y agoN=39. Half as a semi-control group. 8%, 10% differences. Replicate this with N=1000, it might be worth talking about.