IUBio

WARNING: Dendritic Spreading

Kevin Spencer kspencer at s.psych.uiuc.edu
Tue May 21 02:43:49 EST 1996


Support Coalition - David Oaks <dendron at efn.org> writes:

[stuff snipped]

>In the medical literature there are a few examples of psychiatrists taking
>the pill to see what's like. The very first said she felt like she was
>"dying." Wrote Dr. C. Quarti on Nov. 9, 1951, about what it was like just
>one hour after her trying chlorpromazine: "I began to have the impression
>that I was becoming weaker... that I was dying. It was very painful and
>agonizing." [CITATION: JP Swazey, "Chlorpromazine in Psychiatry,"
>(Cambridge, MA; MIT Press, pp. 117-120, 201-207.)]

[other such examples snipped]

>The true experts on neuroleptics are those who have had it. They
>understand what mainstream literature shows, if you dig deep enough:  It's
>not really a tranquilizer. The internal experience tends to be one of
>antsiness; it's just that thinking while on the drug is very hard, and if
>one tries it becomes even harder. One becomes more easily manageable. 

The problem with this argument is that you're describing the internal
experiences of people who *don't need* the medication.  These drugs will
have different effects on "normal" nervous systems than on nervous systems
that are not "normal"; that is, patients with the types of disorders that
would be treated with the drugs.  It doesn't follow that the drugs will
affect these patients the same way they affect healthy individuals.

[more stuff snipped]

>I am referring to an ABSENCE of neuroscientists, as in a VACUUM of
>neuroscientists, as in HARDLY ANY NEUROSCIENTISTS are ever speaking out. 
>So that would be just about all of them. For instance, Jill Taylor at
>McLean's KNOWS about random dendritic spreading, but won't cough and let
>the public know it's there. 

Another poster asked you to desribe what this "dendritic spreading" is.
Would you please describe it?

Kevin
-----------------------------------------------------------
Kevin Spencer
Cognitive Psychophysiology Laboratory and Beckman Institute
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
kspence1 at uiuc.edu
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