Evolution is Depressing.

 

New Antidepressants Can Lift Depression and Suicidal Thoughts Fast, but Don’t Expect Magic Cures

Ketamine is an NMDA antagonist. I've long had concerns about using it for depression treatment because the NMDA receptors play a cardinal role in activating the CREB pathway which in turns is important for synaptic consolidation. So the long term use of ketamine, which will be required because the effect only lasts a few days, raises troubling questions about synaptic density. 

The interesting aspect is once again we see the excitation\inhibition balance as being fundamental. This also occurs in schizophrenia, autism, and probably bipolar as well because all these have a genetic linkage. While the exact mechanistic processes involved in the efficacy of antipsychotics remains in doubt I think it is because antipsychotics act on striatal GABA receptors either at the VTA or the VTA efferents to the Nacc and prefrontal cortex thereby reducing dopamine and increasing GABA currents. This is a just a hunch.

Antipsychotics induce brain shrinkage probably because of the sedating effect. Ketamine was originally an anesthetic, as were antipsychotics. You have been warned. 

Interestingly cannabidiol has an antipsychotic effect and it boosts GABA currents but paradoxically it is neuroprotective. The difference is this: activating the endocannabinoid network is anti-inflammatory. However I think long term CBD administration also presents a risk. The same is probably true for THC because it is a retrograde inhibitory neurotransmitter that inhibits L|Q calcium channels and calcium influx is an important component of second messenger signaling that is relevant to synaptic consolidation. For aging brains though the judicious use  of both may have benefits because THC is known to inhibit protein aggregation and CBD is a potent anti-inflammatory; both have also demonstrated remarkable antioxidant capacity.

I think the use of ketamine is a terrible idea borne out of desperation. There is something completely wrong about the current treatment of depression. Perhaps it is just a co-incidence that this is happening during an era when religion in the West is very much in decline and so there is no comforting story to alleviate the terrifying reality of mortality. In relation to younger cohorts there is no over arching purpose to their life except to buy the next smartphone or take the next holidays, empty rituals to keep us constantly preoccupied so as not to ponder on this meaningless universe that will either expand into nothing but virtual particles or compress into a so called singularity therein is the rationalisation because the physics breaks down at the singularity so we should be silent but no we can't do that we need something to explain creation even when that something is absurd.  

Human beings share a common genius of rationalisation because if they didn't constantly engage in rationalisation they would be jumping off bridges like lemmings. That is even mentioned in an old movie, The Big Chill, where the character played by Geoff Goldblum states, "You can go for a week without sex but can you go for a week without rationalisation?" It's much worse than that: we live in a constant state of rationalisation. That is our cognitive modus operandi. 

So it is not surprising that gurus are so common in the secular West. Jordan Peterson is the latest guru to garner worldwide fame and adoration. The reason is simple: the very title of his book gives away his rationalisation. Maps of Meaning. So many desperately hoping someone out there can provide them with a map to avoid the truth and so be happy. 

You don't have to be an evolutionary theorist to recognise that our brains are not for truth seeking. Our brains are for procreation and dreaming up stories so we never have to confront the utter meaninglessness of existence. That is why so much philosophy and religion is nothing more than rationalisations dressed up as erudition. The most galling of rationalisations are those atheists who claim to be "spiritual". An utterly ridiculous oxymoron, a cowardly leap into unbounded stupidity.  

It is not surprising that the more intelligent a person is the less likely they are to have children and many geniuses had few children or none at all. It  is now obvious that the Flynn Effect has reversed, humans are doing less well on IQ tests than 30 years ago. There is no explanation for that trend. It may simply reflect that the welfare state allows the less intellectually endowed to breed like fucking rabbits because like you know they dunna wanna read or fink so they fuck. I can't recall the exact details but there are studies indicating that the decline in IQ is not universal, it has specific demographic effects. That is, IQ is preserved in some families, possibly the upper quintile or decile, but is declining in the lower ranges. Idiocracy here we come. 

It has been established the more intelligent a person is the more likely depression and anxiety will be present. Mathematical giftedness in particular is associated with psychosis, visual and musical creativity with a proclivity for drug abuse, and literary creativity and alcoholism are very strongly linked. Intelligence and creativity are almost accidents of evolution. Beyond a certain level those qualities increase the likelihood of psychopathology and defeat the primary purpose of evolutionary dynamics: procreation. 

Why are so many depressed in modern societies when compared to previous centuries so many billions can live like royalty? Has evolution led us down a path leading to depression and despair? Ignorance is bliss? The philosopher John Gray is correct, 

"Drug use is a tacit admission of a forbidden truth. For most people happiness is beyond reach. Fulfilment is found not in daily life but in escaping from it. Since happiness is unavailable, the mass of mankind seeks pleasure." 

Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals. 

 In an interview the physicist Steven Weinberg stated that the universe presents itself as cold and meaningless. That is the inevitable conclusion of a scientific worldview if only because a scientific worldview eschews teleology and spirituality. Evolution has not prepared us to confront that worldview. What if it is wrong, what if our lives are not just the result of evolution and our founded on some realm that we cannot perceive through science? Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. There is an old Sufi saying, "Thirst is proof of the existence of water." The need to believe in some other realm which determines the meaning of life is deeply embedded in human beings. The greater majority are better off with that belief and god help those who abandon it.