N&PD Moderators: Skorpio
Benzo's are nerotoxic!!!?
i'm pretty sure all drugs are neurotoxic to some degree. you can't just keep putting chemicals in your brain over and over and have it not have any lasting affects.
my question is to those who have been on benzos long term, have you noticed any signs or symptoms of brain damage? if so, what?
ebola?
Bluelight Crew
Benzos neurotoxic. I have access to academic journals, so I'll dig up the references when I'm more sober. This is new and is very different from what i learned in biopsychology.
ebola
Ham-milton
Bluelighter
burn out said:
I think the question is if any changes will be permanent upon cessation.
narutokun
Bluelighter
I have noticed a general cognitive decrease since I started taking them, when I stopped for about 5 months once I did felt that like I had "lost" somewhat of my "brains". Specially with hypnotic benzodiazepines I've noticed that the amnesia produced is not only anterograde but sometimes also posterior to use you will forget things done recently, that you'll have to do or even events that happened in the past; thus I really do think from experience that there certainly are long term abuse post use neurolophysiological changes in your system.
burn out said:
tathra
Bluelighter
following the example of basically every other drug, its likely that longterm use of benzodiazapines will kill GABA receptors via over-stimulation. however thats just speculative. honestly i've never heard anything about benzos being neurotoxic, except that they arent, or at the very least many, many times less toxic than barbiturates.
and you damn children need to leave your personal crap out of this thread. take it to pm and stfu.
entropy90
Bluelighter
narutokun said:
Not at all I was just trying to get across that I was actually sorry. sorry if it sounded like I was being a bit of a dick. And really I am sorry about getting in the middle of that tiff between you and Ham-milton.
narutokun
Bluelighter
^No if you meant it that way there's nothing to be sorry about. I'm the one's who sorry. I probably misinterpreted that you were backing him up by thinking that you were talking about the school thing and not the age thing, while you actually were talking about the other part of the post; sorry.
ebola?
Bluelight Crew
>>following the example of basically every other drug, its likely that longterm use of benzodiazapines will kill GABA receptors via over-stimulation.>>
This is not the example of every drug. This is following the example of amphetamines and their derivatives, basically.
Opioids and cannabinoids, for example, have not been shown to kill cells with endorphin and anandamide receptors, respectively.
ebola
tathra
Bluelighter
ebola said:
Glutamate receptors can die from overstimulation, as can dopamine receptors, and possibly serotonin receptors. and its possible that more than just those can be killed by overstimulation. there isnt nearly enough data, but its still possible
wArEhOuSePuNk
Ex-Bluelighter
Does that even seem logical.?
Middleway said:
Sounds like anti-drug rhetoric to me 
phatass
Bluelighter
like w/ a lot of drugs... only time will tell, clever science brainiacs can speculate and use fancy words, but as far as i'm concerned, some benzos have been around for a while now... the more "dangerous" ones which are more likely to cause amnesia and rebound w/D effects months or even years in some cases after havin taken them are slowly being taken off the general market and only used in extreme cases (Halcion, rohypnol, nimetrazepam....)
(i don't understand any of that psycho-babble on wiki so fukit... i dunno... i can't back up what i said scientifically, so it's jus an opinion really)
Receptors can definitely be downregulated with overstimulation, but this does not necessarily lead to the death of the neuron on which they are found. As long as the cells remain healthy, they can homeostatically upregulate receptors upon cessation of drug use. Long-lasting brain plasticity has been found in response to chronic treatment with most psychoactive drugs, and any effects that persist after drug use stops are probably due either to neurotoxicity or, if no cells die, changes in gene regulation in the affected brain areas. In the latter case, there should be ways of either reversing or compensating for this plasticity.
A lot of things..
could be said about the nitro group in its pharmacokinetics/dynamics. First, the nitro moiety is a rare beast in the pharmacopea. You just don't find many nitro groups on synhetic pharmaceuticals or on natural products. The electron withdrawing groups of choice (electron withdrawing by induction[-I] or by resonance[-R]) seem to be electron withdrawal by induction (halogens,ie., fluorine, chlorine, bromine, or in a few cases the most unstable, iodine). The nitro group has both properties, it is electron withdrawing (on aryl rings) by both -I and -R effects. The reason why Clonazepam exists as a widely prescribed drug is because the nitro group substitution just happens to impart both more of an antiseizure effect and lowered toxicity. Most benzos have halogens attached to the aryl rings to make them more potent, more toxic, and more metabolically stable (longer half-lives). The nitro group gets metabolized in stages where free radical production occurs, but that's why Ubiquinone (CoEnzyme -Q) exists in every cell ( along with other antioxidants), is to catch the little free radical buggers. WE are essentially "burning up"by oxidative transformations. Life processes produce a lot of free radicals simply because single electron transfer is what nature chose as a mechanism for a lot of the bond making and breaking in our bodies. What worries me more about the nitro group is it getting fully reduced (by reductase enzymes) in the areas of high MAOI (monoamine oxidase inhibition), to an aniline, which could possibly be a carcinogen.
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Reminisant B
Greenlighter
There are a few mentions of neurotoxicity
^Looks like the term though is not 100% defined & given that copious amounts of MSG & aspartame are used in food & drink as well as other environmental pollutants, food additives & alcohol - the idea of neurotoxicity becomes a relative issue rather than absolute.
Personally SWIM agrees with most views in this thread that addiction, withdrawal, tolerance and side effects are far more clinically relevant (&potentially serious) when using benzodiazepines.
Ham-milton
Bluelighter
Ubiquninone. I like that one.
I think it can be agreed (no?) that whatever neurotoxicity-risk benzos represent, it's gotta be rather minimal. These aren't exactly new drugs, and considering the general idea among doc's that once benzo dependent, always benzo dependent, there has to be thousands of benzo-dependents out there who've been taking them since they hit the market.
er...
unubiquinone? iniquinubone? inquinunone? UBIQUINONE? got it
You should see my freudian e-slips .
Benzos, just like barbiturates and alcohol, and all the other downs in the world, they are all DUM-DUM concoctions and take away the edge of reality by making one oblivious to it. Why intelligent people want to make themselves less intelligent is beyond me, but we all do it, don't we?
BTW- Ham-milton.. Blessed are the dyslexic because they never know whether they are ahead or behind of you
![:\](https://bluelight.org/xf/BL_Images/Orig_Emoji/wrygrin.gif "wry grin :\")
