Oh no. Not another post about anger.

No. It’s not about anger. I just needed a rhyming word for the post’s title.

So the post isn’t about anger, right?

Well, sort of right. It isn’t about anger. But I am a bit mad about S.A.D.

I thought I had it licked.

I was wrong.

I realized this year — Spring of 2011 — that all my Seasonal Affective Disorder (aka S.A.D., aka SAD) “cures” don’t work. When I started taking Wellbutrin seven years ago (shit! seven years since that fateful day when I was officially diagnosed!!) the first change was the deep depression that would set in during the winter: it was gone. That was an improvement. Now that I’ve been on Vyvanse for about two years (thank you, Gina, for telling me about Vyvanse), my brain has been firing on all 12 cylinders. My expectations have changed because I’m aware of so many things in my life that are in need of fixing.

When I started on Wellbutrin, my point of comparison was between ADHD Without Wellbutrin (AWOW) and ADHD With Wellbutrin (AWW). I noticed a radical change in my life because of the Wellbutrin. My winter blues were gone (at least I didn’t go into a deep depression) and I was able to modify some of my more destructive ADHD behaviors. But adding Vyvanse (AWWWV?) has given me a new point of comparison. With all cylinders firing, I’ve been able to see and understand so much more and make some substantial changes in my life. So it was last year that I noticed that I was a still a little sad from SAD and I was determined to do something about it. I acquired a HappyLight.

The HappyLight worked…for a while. But this has been an unusually brutal winter here in the Northeast and multiple snow storms, weeks of gloomy weather and weeks of being stuck inside the house had negated any positive effects from the full-spectrum light. It helped to perk me up a bit and, for about two weeks it worked fine. But as winter wore on, its effectiveness tapered off. This became obvious now that the days are again getting longer. There is a level of alertness that only comes from these longer, sunnier days and which cannot be achieved through Wellbutrin, Vyvanse, a HappyLight and tantric sex with a hot looking woman in my backyard hot tub (Okay…I haven’t tried this last cure but I’m willing if you’re willing. If you are female, between the ages of 25-45 (±5 years), enjoy discussions of politics, cooking, home repair and vegetable gardening while listening to a wide variety of music (classical; zydeco; metal; oldies; punk; glam, etc.), email your picture to jeff at jeffsaddmind dot com. Blonds are given priority. Tattoos are a plus. Please allow four to six weeks for a reply because, if by some miracle I *do*get an email from a willing participant, I’ll have to buy a hot tub and install it). So while the depression has been licked, it seems impossible to get rid of the brain fog. All 12 cylinders of my brain may be firing but obviously a number of them misfire during the winter.

Next year I’m going to have to try something different.

I could schedule a trip to Mercury (a day lasts about 58 earth days) but the temperature can be a bit on the high side (about 180 degrees F.). That may not be a good idea. I’m also not sure if any of the airlines fly to Mercury though it’s likely that Virgin Airlines is taking reservations…for the future.

I could put myself into a cryogenic freeze in October and get defrosted and revived in April. Then I would never experience S.A.D. because, well, I’d be dead during that critical period of time. Since I feel that I have only lived half a year each and every year of my life because of S.A.D. (during the S.A.D. period I feel I am in suspended animation) I should now be, chronologically, only 26 years old. Since no one has told that to my body (it just keeps aging regardless of my alertness or lack thereof), the cryogenic freeze may slow down the aging since I’ll be dead for half the year. I need to find out the cost of cryogenic freezing and whether anyone has been successfully brought back to life after being defrosted.

I could schedule a mid-winter trip to Florida. It would give me an opportunity to spend some time with my mother, it would avoid the nasty sunburn I would get on Mercury, and it would be much less expensive than yearly cryogenic freezing, defrosting and reviving.

And while in Florida…I could also visit Mickey Mouse.

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Transcription

Dear Jeff,

I like this theory of quantum consciousness but I get worried when it kind of seems too perfect, to fit too well. I did manage to get the library – not an easy trip from where I am staying. Anyway, once I see Deepak Chopra’s name even tangentially associated with something (he interviewed Hameroff), my bullshit meter goes right off the scale and I run in the other direction.

But, though I like the theory I still have questions. First, do we really know how quantum events translate to macro level events? Have we bridged that gap yet? I’m not sure. Second, Hameroff talks about microtubules within the neuron that, voila, are just the thing needed to have quantum states exist in an unreduced state. This gets a 2.7 on the Chopra B.S. scale. But let’s go with it. What does it really mean? To my mind (no pun intended) it means nothing. Well, no. Not really. It just points in an interesting direction for research. It’s when they – researchers – reach too far with the metaphors that I have a problem, when science slips into salesmanship. I think Hameroff should drop the word consciousness and instead use the term self-awareness or self-referential. That will get away from the religious Chopra bullshit.

Dom

P.S. Carmen says “Hi” and sends her love.

Note to the Reader

Here are the links to the previous two letters in this series.

1. What Is The Physiological Basis Of Consciousness?
2. The Physiological Basis for Consciousness: A Reply to Dom’s Letter

Related articles by Zemanta

• Deepak impact (blogs.discovermagazine.com)
• China has a quantum teleporter and we don’t [Beam Me Up] (io9.com)

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Transcription

Dear Dominic,

Thanks for your letter. Despite the crappy stationary I was still able to read it. Now I know what to get you for Christmas though I’m sure you would prefer another one of those beers of the month things.

Your ideas about consciousness definitely got me thinking and, of course, googling. I found a fascinating website that you’ll need to check out when you are state side. The author – Hameroff – co-authored some pieces with Roger Penrose, the guy who wrote “The Emporer’s New Mind.” And I apologize for the pun but the concepts are mindblowing. It basically goes into greater depth on the concept you touched on, namely the role of quantum mechanics as it applies to consciousness.

Consciousness kind of bubbles up from quantum states and once they reach a point a reduction, that is, they are no longer existing as set of probabilities, as a set of coexisting opposites (like the cat that was dead and alive at the same time) a sufficient amount of reductions bubble up from the quantum world to the “classical” world we are familiar with, namely neurons firing and chemicals doing their thing. But by the time we see the neurons fire, a gazillion quantum states have gone from superpositon – existing as contradictory states – to a reduced state.

I’m kind of botching the concept especially since physics is not my field but think back to that document I found, where Ledbetter is in search of a vocabulary to describe these phenomena. Though he spoke in terms of saturation points, it’s kind of analogous. Various forces reach a kind of tipping point which results in something on the macro level that is, for us, say, a thought. But by that time all these unseen events have taken place. But there’s an important implication here. With all this stuff – this preconscious stuff – existing under the dictates of quantum mechanics – it can’t be reproduced by some computer. By the time it reaches the point of consciousness where maybe, just maybe, these processes could be reproduced by a computer, there are all of these other processes that are not reproduced so what the computer is reproducing is a hollow[ed] out simulacrum of a conscious state but it’s missing the secret “quantum” sauce.

We’ll talk more about it when you get back from your trip. And please give Carmen a kiss for me.

Jeff

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Note to the reader: While cleaning out my attic I stumbled across some items from my college days when I spent a lot of time in the stacks of the Bobst Library. Always fascinated by old books (and, I must admit, the aromatic allure of old paper) I would search out the dark corners of the stacks where some of the oldest items were stored. A few times I found typed documents folded between the pages of a book or bound volume of periodicals. Silently invoking the law of “finders keepers,” I took these documents as souvenirs, put them away in a box and forgot about them. But now, having rediscovered them, I felt that they would be of interest to this blog’s readers. Therefore, on a periodic basis, I will post the scanned pages. (You can see another scanned document here and here.)

Transcription

Dr. Ledbetter  …………………………………………………………………………………………. Page 1

Mapping Clinical Manifestations of Psychiatric Disorders to the Underlying Neurophysiological Lattice: Towards a Vocabulary of the Ecology of Mind by Dr. Phineas Ledbetter.

My esteemed colleagues who have studied with the great Dr. Freud and his disciples, have resisted any discussion of the underlying physiological layer that must, by definition, exist and be an integral part of any explanation of psychological phenomena. After all, it has already been established that the brain is the seat of all thought and emotion. Therefore, as a physical entity it must be the explanation of the psychiatric disorders that we see on a daily basis. What is missing, and what I am proposing in this paper, is the beginning of a vocabulary that can be used to discuss the transcription of the physiological to the psychological. After all, we have learned to talk about ordinary objects around us – that table, that chair – NOT in terms of molecular lattice but in terms of its aesthetics – it is light or dark wood, hard or soft, shiny or dull – and to speak about it meaningfully even though we know that there is an entire universe ‘within’ that table which we cannot see with the naked eye.

We currently have the vocabulary to speak about, say, manic depression, as it is experienced by the patient. We recently started to create a vocabulary for speaking about the underlying physiology so that, in the case of depression, we speak about neurotransmitters and various ‘receptor’ sites.¹  What we now need to do is create the conceptual schema that goes between the ‘clinical’ and the ‘physiological.’ That is, how does neurotransmitter activity (or lack thereof) become depression.

1 – Advances in the Understanding of the Physiology of Depression. Paper presented at the 1943 Vienna Conference of Psychiatry. Written by Dr. Wilhelm Heidelberg.

Dr. Ledbetter …………………………………………………………………………………………. Page 2

Part I: Basic Physiology of Depression

We currently believe that the hippocampus is somehow involved in depression, with the major activity going on at the level of the various neurons found there. A number of experiments performed at the Pilgrim Psychiatric Hospital in Long Island, New York, which employed the use of electrodes inserted into the brain of the patients and then stimulated through an advanced electrometer, showed that such stimulation seemed to have lessened the patient’s depression.² We do believe that there are other factors involved which we do not yet understand, however, we know that something is occurring on the physiological level and that this region of the brain plays a role in depression.

2 – The Beneficial Effects of Electrostimulation on the Hippocampus of Several Depressed Patients. Am. Jrnl of Psych., 24:3(1946) 116-123. Written by Drs. Pickering and Schwarzschild.

Dr. Ledbetter …………………………………………………………………………………………. Page 8

therefore, based on the understanding of the hippocampus as an electrical region, analogous to the static electricity experiments performed by Nikola Tesla, an electrical field (remember, this is only an analogy and not necessarily a description of how it truly works) reaches a saturation point, at that time we can say that the brain (the mind, really) has gone from a state of depression to a state of relative happiness. Further, the opposite is true, namely that the absence of such electrical saturation results in depression.

A graph of this phenomenon can be seen below. We see that a saturation point is reached where, once reached, the mind flips from depression to happiness.

We do not know, at this time, if this saturation point is universal or subject to differences in race. We suspect the latter since that would explain why some races of people are ‘naturally’ happier than others. Based on this understanding of the phenomenon, the saturation point would have to be different for the ‘happy’ people as opposed to everyone else. This requires further study.

Dr. Ledbetter …………………………………………………………………………………………. Page 9

Part V: Approaching a Vocabulary

We must alter our conceptual apparatus and think, not in terms of physiology but in terms of eco-logos, the study of living relations, hence, ecology. Thus we can describe, on a physiological level, that an elation saturation point is reached and, at that time, one goes from a depressive state to a general state of happiness.

Dr. Ledbetter …………………………………………………………………………………………. Page 14

elation saturation: the point at which the electrical potential within the hippocampus has reached the tipping point, so that the patient feels happy as opposed to depressed.

attentional web: as one’s attention focuses on a sea of objects and then selects a particular one to focus on, we see, physiologically, what looks like a growing web of electrical potential that begins in the frontal lobe and then fans out across the hemispheres. It is as if the mind was creating an actual web in the same way the attention creates a web and ensnares an object.

moral lines of force: morality acts as magnetic lines of force. When we perform the standard high school experiment of placing a magnet[ic] under a piece of paper, sprinkling iron filings on top and watching those filings align alone the magnetic lines of force, we find something similar happens physiologically when a person is making a moral decision. It is as if ‘good’ and ‘bad’ were represented by the poles of a magnet and the stronger pole prevails. We believe that this pattern of electrical activity may be susceptible to manipulation through the user of a strong magnetic field.

Dr. Ledbetter …………………………………………………………………………………………. Page ??

the demonstrations showed an interesting effect that I think may help to build this vocabulary, this eco-logos of the mind. It involved the use of high voltage and photographic plates. When applied to an object, the photographic plates displayed an aura, a corona, that emanated from the object. Professor Kirlian showed how this even works with human beings. The voltage used need not be very high, that is, it is at non-fatal levels, when used on a human being.

What I am proposing is that something analogous to this effect is taking place within the brain. What I’ve described as ‘saturation points’ are, essentially, those electrical potentials wherein such a corona may exist. That corona is, from the perspective of the human being, the particular feeling, such as elation, depression, etc. Physiological……has

An Interpretation of the Manuscript

Modern science has supplanted many “beliefs” with its own explanations for the same phenomena. For example, illnesses are not seen as the result of an imbalance of the humors in the body but are, instead, a result of various germs or interactions of substances (e.g., toxic chemicals; radioactive material, etc.) with the human body. The table analogy, noted in the manuscript, is relevant here. The table (i.e., the household object) is really composed of various molecules held together in such an arrangement that we have the characteristics of hardness, color, etc. We know that if we examined the table using increased magnification that we would find a lattice of molecules that bears no resemblance to the ordinary object known as “the table.” Further magnification, to the subatomic level, brings the laws of quantum mechanics into play. However, we can certainly describe, with great accuracy, the characteristics of the table without ever having to discuss the molecular structure of the table.

Dr. Ledbetter is trying to define the conceptual framework needed to understand the “mind” (analogous to understanding “the table” in terms of hardness, color, etc.) and the underlying mechanism, namely, the “brain” (analogous to understanding the table’s molecular and quantum mechanical dimensions) without reducing the former to the latter. (See Filling in the Gap which touches on the conceptual intersection between mind and brain.) Too often we confuse our metaphor for reality (See I, Human: Part I. See this and this where I discuss the issues/dangers of metaphor). Metaphor can illuminate but it can also obscure. It can be a “signpost” on the road to understanding but it is not “understanding” itself. We need to be aware of the mesmerizing effect a metaphor can have so that we are not tempted to take the metaphor as being a literal description of the reality.

Current Research

Related articles by Zemanta on current research

• Critical brain chemical shown to play role in severe depression (newswire.ca)
• Solving the Riddle of Melancholia (oup.com)

Other Information

The following comes from Dr. Parker via Twitter: Brain Series, co-hosted by Eric Kandel, and now posted in full online: http://bit.ly/1Wb29p

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Image source: http://noticefurtheruntil.wordpress.com/2008/12/01/out-of-the-summer-of-hibernation-im-back/

Each spring I’m reminded of the effects of Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)¹. Once daylight hours begin to increase and the quality of the light shifts from dull to bright, I awaken as if from hibernation. During the winter months I used to go into a depressive, sleep-like state, a sort of human hibernation. Wellbutrin has worked wonders to solve this problem, at least the depression, and having “natural” light in the form of full spectrum lighting has had a bit of a beneficial effect. Still, there’s nothing that compares with the longer days and the bright sunshine of spring and summer. Think you might suffer from SAD? The Mayo Clinic has some information.

1. FYI: I’m located in New York. I suffer from the Fall/Winter version of SAD (appropriate acronym, no?) but note that there is also a Spring/Summer version. Surprisingly, I could not find anyone who thought that SAD was some sort of gift.

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1 Resolve – what is on your mind and how can you put it aside until tomorrow?
2 Relax – what helps you to stop, sit down and take time out of your day?
3 Release – what helps your mind switch off and drift to think about nothing in particular?

Source: Tips for beating semisomnia

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Before I explain how my father died, it is important that we first do our "amens" and "hallelujahs."

This is the greatest country in the world. Now you say "Amen."
Americans are the smartest people on Earth. Again, you say "Amen."
We have the best health care system in the world. Let me hear you say "Hallelujah!" 

Now…let the story begin.

On January 4, 2008, my father was admitted to a nursing home in Florida. Some time during the previous month he had a small stroke¹ that made it impossible for him to walk ("shuffle" is a more apt description). The nursing home stay was meant to be rehabilitative so that he could learn how to walk again. The first week he was making enormous progress and then things starting to go wrong. One day he had a large gash on his nose. Another day it seemed that he was given his day medications at night which kept him awake all night long. Another time his new sneakers suddenly disappeared.

By the second week at the nursing home something was terribly wrong and he was rushed to the hospital. The doctors gave him 48 hours to live. His kidneys had stopped functioning. He had a fever and a urinary tract infection. They determined he was completely dehydrated. The hospital administered an IV drip and antibiotics. I was in constant phone contact with my brother down in Florida (I live in New York) who told me that all the funeral arrangements had been made and now they are just waiting for him to die. I made arrangements to fly down as soon as possible. By the time I got down to Florida (about 72 hours after he was admitted into the hospital) his kidneys were functioning and he was like a chatterbox, talk with everyone in the room and making jokes. 

As I later found out, the nursing home had failed to keep him hydrated. Since most stroke victims have trouble swallowing² a thickening agent is added to liquids because the stroke victim has a better chance controlling the flow of the thickened liquid so that it flows into the esophagus. At the nursing home they did not care how much thickening agent they added to the liquid. It turns out, they added so much thickening agent that my father could not drink at all. (Oh…did I forget to mention? A lot of stroke victims drink using a straw.) The gash on his nose was a result of him falling out of his wheelchair. (Ooops…someone forgot to strap him in.) Though he was diabetic, they gave him lots of orange juice (a no-no for diabetics because of its high sugar content).

After several days in Florida I flew back to New York thinking that a crisis had been averted. My father was sent to a different nursing home for rehabilitation. About a week later he was back at the hospital. His body was riddled with infections and his kidneys shut down again. The hospital put him on antibiotics and, even though he was fully hydrated, his kidneys were not functioning. It was determined that his body could not handle the stress of a dialysis machine. A DNR was signed, he was placed on a morphine drip and, after eight days, he died in his sleep around 10:40pm on the evening of February 12, 2008.

  {{{ *** }}}

As news of my father's death started to become common knowledge among the doctors that had known him, they were startled to hear of his death. He had a very strong heart and his kidneys had always worked fine. In fact, prior to being admitted to the nursing the first time around, he had just completed a blood test which showed that he was slightly anemic and nothing more.

My mother has been gathering up copies of all his medical records from the nursing homes and the hospital. She's contemplating a lawsuit against the first nursing home. I will leave it up to her as to whether she should or should not pursue it. I'm not sure what I would do. On the one hand you have to go on with your life, on the other you want to see some justice in an unjust world. 

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To complete the circle we must end this post the way it started. Let's say our our "amens" and "hallelujahs."

This is the greatest country in the world. Now you say "Amen."
Americans are the smartest people on Earth. Again, you say "Amen."
We have the best health care system in the world. Let me hear you say "Hallelujah!"

1. He's had a series of strokes over the past five years.
2. The  epiglottis does not function normally, thereby potentially allowing food or liquid to enter the lungs which can become a source of bacterial growth and lead to aspiration pneumonia. See: Dysphagia. See also this abstract about a study of swallowing abnormalities after a stroke.

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See: Experiencing ADDvantages: A Maverick Approach to Diet and Health

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Dr. Sydney Spiesel discusses a potential link between smaller elementary school class sizes and better health, a safer way to give painkillers, and treatments for ADHD.

Smaller class size and health. – By Sydney Spiesel – Slate Magazine

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