Questions tagged [psychopharmacology]

For questions about the scientific study of the effects of pharmaceutical and general drugs on perception, behavior, mood and cognition.

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Does caffeine improve performance for habituated consumers?

I've seen a fair few studies over the while that suggest caffeine increases arousal in the short term and that for some tasks, this will also increase performance (there's a few citations here). ...
Jeromy Anglim's user avatar
9 votes
2 answers
2k views

How do SSRIs work?

I've found a reasonable explanation on Wikipedia... SSRIs are believed to increase the extracellular level of the neurotransmitter serotonin by inhibiting its reuptake into the presynaptic cell, ...
ktm5124's user avatar
  • 191
8 votes
1 answer
172 views

What is the Mechanism of 5-HT2A-mediated psychedelia?

Drugs that activate the serotonergic 5-HT2A receptor (e.g. LSD, psilocybin, mescaline) are notorious for causing psychedelic experiences and I would like to know the neurochemical mechanism behind ...
Josh Pinto's user avatar
6 votes
3 answers
6k views

Do stimulants increase the IQ tests score for everyone?

There is some meta-analytic evidence that stimulants increase the IQ test scores of ADHD children by 2 to 7 points (Jepsen et al., 2009). Although giving stimulants to non-ADHD children may be ...
the gods from engineering's user avatar
5 votes
1 answer
631 views

How much sleep is needed for peak cognitive performance?

How much sleep is needed for peak cognitive performance? If some were to, for example, wake up one morning at 12:30PM, would a sleeping pill help obtain better sleep required for that performance the ...
Bozo Vulicevic's user avatar
4 votes
1 answer
444 views

Is tianeptine addictive?

A recent (2014) study in cell cultures has found that tianeptine is a mu-opioid receptor (MOR) agonist (and [mentioning for completeness] delta opioid receptor agonist as well, albeit weaker). It's ...
the gods from engineering's user avatar
13 votes
2 answers
3k views

Can SSRI make things worse in the long term or cause delayed depression?

I found two articles that mention that taking SSRI for depression can actually make the depression worse. "Now Antidepressant-Induced Chronic Depression Has a Name: Tardive Dysphoria" on Psychology ...
user6935's user avatar
  • 131
12 votes
3 answers
1k views

Neurotransmitter based imaging techniques

All the brain imaging techniques I know fall into two categories: Tracking blood Either by looking at the magnetic (fMRI), or near-infared absorption (diffuse optical imaging, NIRS) properties of ...
Artem Kaznatcheev's user avatar
12 votes
4 answers
14k views

How to temporarily induce low latent inhibition?

As the Wikipedia article says, High levels of the neurotransmitter dopamine (or its agonists) in the ventral tegmental area of the brain have been shown to decrease latent inhibition. Certain ...
Vitaly's user avatar
  • 231
10 votes
1 answer
525 views

Cognitive explanation of why beta blockers are effective for anxiety

Beta blockers essentially reduce physical effects of anxiety and panic disorder, but there is no proof that there is a direct effect on anxiety. Some scientists believe there is an indirect effect. ...
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8 votes
1 answer
193 views

Psilocybin for treatment of anxiety disorder

Has psilocybin been used for treatment of anxiety disorder? I've mostly found it used in the treatment of depression in patients diagnosed with cancer (Nichols et al. 2017) and patients not diagnosed ...
Seanny123's user avatar
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7 votes
2 answers
539 views

Can the effectiveness of antidepressants be explained by a placebo effect?

A friend of mine showed me a paper (Kirsch, 2014) where the author claims that antidepressants work mostly through a placebo effect (backed up with relevant citations). Antidepressants are generally ...
Janus Boffin's user avatar
2 votes
0 answers
80 views

Caffeine any-dose tolerance study

Lifehacker says: A 1995 study suggests that humans become tolerant to their daily dose of caffeine—whether a single soda or a serious espresso habit—somewhere between a week and 12 days. They don'...
the gods from engineering's user avatar
1 vote
1 answer
91 views

What is meant by "serotonergic" in "serotonergic psychedelics"

"Serotonergic psychedelics" is apparently a sub-class of psychedelics. Now, I believed that the pharmacological definition of psychedelics is that they all agonise 5HT receptors, especially ...
A. Kvåle's user avatar
  • 271
1 vote
1 answer
104 views

Are there ways to accelerate the recovery from depression via novel pharmacological antidepressants?

Are there any scientists making substantial progress in the development of far more effective antidepressants? Are there any groups of people interested in developing antidepressants based on genetic ...
Daniel Mera's user avatar
0 votes
1 answer
42 views

Is the oscillatory power inversely proportional to the frequency?

I'm trying to understand neuronal synchronization/desynchronization and oscillation, as well as the psychedelic state. The following sentence confused me a bit. Psilocybin reduced spontaneous ...
A. Kvåle's user avatar
  • 271
-3 votes
1 answer
779 views

Do smart drugs (nootropics) make you smarter? [closed]

Do nootropic drugs like modafinil make you smarter? Are they like coffee? Do they improve working memory? Is there a potential for a pill like NZT-48 from the movie Limitless? From the Wikipedia plot ...
goog's user avatar
  • 375