I'm not sure I agree with this statement.
LOL! Seconded.
https://books.google.com/books?id=Z...AEwCQ#v=onepage&q=ketamine addict mri&f=false
This was rather helpful. Interesting stuff. Scroll up a little for more info. I may end up buying this book, seems pretty interesting. There are more studies that are relevant to this discussion referenced in this text. According to the authors interpretation of the available data, it suggests that their may be a long lasting impairment of episodic memory and attentional functioning.
There are studies referenced in this book saying that repeated ketamine doses causes neuronal apoptosis, including in the prefrontal cortex, cerebellum, and brain stem.
http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2202/7/49
Here's a study that's pretty unrelated but mentions that high levels of glutamate is thought to contribute to Alzheimers. Just something to be aware of. Disso's cause increased levels of glutamate in the brain, especially with large, repeated doses.
The first link mentions that chronic NMDA blockage exerts a change on synaptic plasticity. This leads me to believe that it could reasonably lead to degenerative diseases such as Alzheimers. Bummer. Maybe I'm just misinterpreting the data though?
I don't think I'm going to completely stop my disso use at this time, but I'm scaling back for sure and will probably stop before too long. In the meantime I'm going to start growing Lion's Mane mushrooms and consuming as much as possible. Lion's Mane increases levels of nerve growth factor in the brain, which increases synaptic plasticity. Lion's Mane extracts are also available commercially for those who have no interest in mycology.
Again, I'm assuming these ketamine studies will apply to other disso's as well, because it seems that the mechanism of degeneration is through NMDA blockage and glutamate toxicity, which is common to all disso's. Anyone with a better understanding of pharmacology care to let me know if this assumption makes sense?
This has been an interesting line of inquiry for me. I learned that heroin causes changes and loss in the grey matter of the brain, similar to ketamine. I always heard that opiates didn't cause any major changes in the brain and the damage was purely physical through malnutrition, etc.
Of course one has to wonder how truthful these studies are, but it's the only data we have to go on as far as I know.
Wish I could just copy and paste. Check out page 162 of that first link. Says chronic ketamine use is associated with significant changes in the microstructure of white matter in the brain. According to the author, these changes are also present in chronic users of other drugs, including cannabis, alcohol, and amphetamines.
I'm more confused now than ever, lol. Just thought I would share this info in case it's useful to someone, or maybe someone with more knowledge than myself can explain things a bit.