i've read it alright, but you haven't read my posts obviously.
you cite studies looking on sert density again and again. i've already explained that sert density has absolutely nothing to do with neurotoxicity. taking an ssri can reduce sert density by a whopping 90%! the 20%-50% decreases you cite are nothing in comparison. if you have a chemical that binds to sert or releases lots of serotonin through sert it's only logical that the sert density drops and takes a while to return to normal levels.
the only other one you bring up is den hollander et al. . if you ask me, these brain imaging studies are all a bit fishy.
first of all, during the image processing there are so many variables you have to put in, that can totally change the outcome (i have a friend who's a researcher in that field and who regularily gives me legthy lessions about that (not that i asked for it); in their group they do alter some of the parameters if they don't get the desired result...; the fact that the brain areas are mapped in your study manually and that they aren't that consistent in structure generally doesn't make it better).
the second issue i have is that every single brain imaging study gets completely different results than the previous. yours find a recution in the hippocampus and no change in white matter, this one finds a reduction in the cerebellum, the cortex and the brain stem but no changes in other areas or in white matter, this one only finds slight decrease in connectivity in white matter, while this one only find a slight increase in functional anisotropy and no changes in grey matter. who are we to believe? the most methodically sound one is the last one i cited with scans prior to and after mdma use. the prospective design ameliorates selection bias.
lastly, there might be differences in brain structure, that increase your chances for taking drugs or going to raves, where you'd be exposed to ecstasy. at least those research groups that do brain imaging publish correlations of that sort all the time.
even more lastly, cannabis use also leads to changes in the volume of a few brain areas
i thought, i must come over as arrogant in this thread (sorry for that), but you can definitely top me by asserting that what i had could not have been from weed (also: chronic mdma use, don't be silly! i have taken mdma maybe 15-20 times in my life, always in sensible doses and with months to years in between, but how could you know that? apparently you think you know everything about me.).
i'm not "just blaming" the drug. this is perfectly reproducible, i tried it multiple times, first (with homegrown; yes, i grew a plant before i ever smoked some) because i was the "cool guy to smoke with who had grown his own" and i was young and stupid (at first i believed the people on the internet who said that it could not be cannabis — btw, there are more people like me. if you look at the cannabis discussion forum there's a post with exactly the same symptoms coming up every year or two), later because i'm a curious person (trying out if it's the same with different strains or hash — and it is; in fact indica strains are worse than sativa.)
pcp! don't be silly! you couldn't find that stuff over here, even if searched for it for years because your life depended on it).
btw, i had not taken any other drugs except caffeine (and little doses of alcohol; i had never been drunk) before.
i never said cannabis was neurotoxic. don't put up a strawman here. having inherent risks is not equal to neurotoxicity. also that risk doesn't have to apply to every person. people who react to cannabis like i do are far and far in between, but that does neither mean that we don't exist nor that there is no risk. you never know how you're going to react before you take the drug.
the same applies to panic attacks and psychedelics. you never know beforehand. i know a 60 year old hippie dude, who still has had regular panic attacks since he did lsd once in his youth. he was a perfectly normal guy with no health issues before he took lsd. would he still have gotten issues if he didn't try acid? maybe, we don't know.
every drug has its risks and negating the risks of some drugs just because you like them is pretty closed-minded. in addition to that it's not helping in getting anything legalised. it's just perpetuating the "my drug is good and all other drugs are bad" mindset that got us into the drug war in the first place.
(just in case you want to apply the comment about being closed-minded back to me, i haven't taken mdma in years, actually prefer dmt to mdma and i didn't defend mdma from neurtoxicity claims before the few papers showed up that rendered nearly all previous research obsolete — or only relevant for extreme overdoses.)
you cite studies looking on sert density again and again. i've already explained that sert density has absolutely nothing to do with neurotoxicity. taking an ssri can reduce sert density by a whopping 90%! the 20%-50% decreases you cite are nothing in comparison. if you have a chemical that binds to sert or releases lots of serotonin through sert it's only logical that the sert density drops and takes a while to return to normal levels.
the only other one you bring up is den hollander et al. . if you ask me, these brain imaging studies are all a bit fishy.
first of all, during the image processing there are so many variables you have to put in, that can totally change the outcome (i have a friend who's a researcher in that field and who regularily gives me legthy lessions about that (not that i asked for it); in their group they do alter some of the parameters if they don't get the desired result...; the fact that the brain areas are mapped in your study manually and that they aren't that consistent in structure generally doesn't make it better).
the second issue i have is that every single brain imaging study gets completely different results than the previous. yours find a recution in the hippocampus and no change in white matter, this one finds a reduction in the cerebellum, the cortex and the brain stem but no changes in other areas or in white matter, this one only finds slight decrease in connectivity in white matter, while this one only find a slight increase in functional anisotropy and no changes in grey matter. who are we to believe? the most methodically sound one is the last one i cited with scans prior to and after mdma use. the prospective design ameliorates selection bias.
lastly, there might be differences in brain structure, that increase your chances for taking drugs or going to raves, where you'd be exposed to ecstasy. at least those research groups that do brain imaging publish correlations of that sort all the time.
even more lastly, cannabis use also leads to changes in the volume of a few brain areas
20mg/kg?!? come on, we've been over allometric dosage scaling before.
i thought, i must come over as arrogant in this thread (sorry for that), but you can definitely top me by asserting that what i had could not have been from weed (also: chronic mdma use, don't be silly! i have taken mdma maybe 15-20 times in my life, always in sensible doses and with months to years in between, but how could you know that? apparently you think you know everything about me.).
i'm not "just blaming" the drug. this is perfectly reproducible, i tried it multiple times, first (with homegrown; yes, i grew a plant before i ever smoked some) because i was the "cool guy to smoke with who had grown his own" and i was young and stupid (at first i believed the people on the internet who said that it could not be cannabis — btw, there are more people like me. if you look at the cannabis discussion forum there's a post with exactly the same symptoms coming up every year or two), later because i'm a curious person (trying out if it's the same with different strains or hash — and it is; in fact indica strains are worse than sativa.)
pcp! don't be silly! you couldn't find that stuff over here, even if searched for it for years because your life depended on it).
btw, i had not taken any other drugs except caffeine (and little doses of alcohol; i had never been drunk) before.
i never said cannabis was neurotoxic. don't put up a strawman here. having inherent risks is not equal to neurotoxicity. also that risk doesn't have to apply to every person. people who react to cannabis like i do are far and far in between, but that does neither mean that we don't exist nor that there is no risk. you never know how you're going to react before you take the drug.
the same applies to panic attacks and psychedelics. you never know beforehand. i know a 60 year old hippie dude, who still has had regular panic attacks since he did lsd once in his youth. he was a perfectly normal guy with no health issues before he took lsd. would he still have gotten issues if he didn't try acid? maybe, we don't know.
every drug has its risks and negating the risks of some drugs just because you like them is pretty closed-minded. in addition to that it's not helping in getting anything legalised. it's just perpetuating the "my drug is good and all other drugs are bad" mindset that got us into the drug war in the first place.
(just in case you want to apply the comment about being closed-minded back to me, i haven't taken mdma in years, actually prefer dmt to mdma and i didn't defend mdma from neurtoxicity claims before the few papers showed up that rendered nearly all previous research obsolete — or only relevant for extreme overdoses.)
