New Pills to Reduce Sleeping Hours

I'm not against anti-depressants. And that wasn't included in either of the things that I listed. Fortunately! Or else, what kind of a ZU psychologist would I be, eh? I can say more, but that will confuse the debate.

Originally Posted by Mrs Ganondorf

I'm not against anti-depressants. And that wasn't included in either of the things that I listed. Fortunately! Or else, what kind of a ZU psychologist would I be, eh? I can say more, but that will confuse the debate.

But anti-depressants do block negative emotions. Prozac works by enhancing the effect of serotonin, which is an inhibitory neurotransmitter. Basically, it blocks the signals that make us unhappy. Most anti-depressants work like this, although some enhance norepinephrine instead, which is basically the same.

Geez, now we know why scientists can't find a cure for the common cold. They're too busy making new, crappy pills that try to make you as unhealty as possible.

But really, I don't like the sound of that new pill. One of the most important things our body needs is sleep. Developing a pill that makes your body sleep for only two measly hours sounds stupid.

I completely agree with Mad Hatter about being skeptical on this one. One thing that bothers me a ton about this is that, with no sleep, does that mean no quiet time? People would always be just as busy as any other time of the day, and life would be extremely hectic.

No thanks.

Originally Posted by Alonely

I completely agree with Mad Hatter about being skeptical on this one. One thing that bothers me a ton about this is that, with no sleep, does that mean no quiet time? People would always be just as busy as any other time of the day, and life would be extremely hectic.

No thanks.

Lol. Everywhere in the USA will start to be like Manhattan, New York. The states, towns and cities will never sleep. You know if Science keeps progressing like this, than they'd probably create a pill to prolong life. Now that would be the maddafakka-shyte.

Originally Posted by Kirby Air Ride

Geez, now we know why scientists can't find a cure for the common cold. They're too busy making new, crappy pills that try to make you as unhealty as possible.

*chuckles* It's good to see that someone has their feet on the ground.

Originally Posted by Mad Hatter

But anti-depressants do block negative emotions. Prozac works by enhancing the effect of serotonin, which is an inhibitory neurotransmitter. Basically, it blocks the signals that make us unhappy. Most anti-depressants work like this, although some enhance norepinephrine instead, which is basically the same.

Serotonin is not an inhibitory neurotransmitter. You say that it is. And then enhancing the effect of it is positive? That doesn't make any sense.Serotonin is a substance which controls the mood, isn't it? It's a sorry song that I don't know more about this. But your post is anyhow a little confusing.

I have nothing against anti-depressants. They are helpful. Although, some psychologists and researchers are beginning to believe more and more in cognitive therapy(conversation, practical therapy). Many psychiatrists prescribe anti-depressants/anti-psychotics to a patient after one single session. Now, some begin to realise that that's not such a good solution and that many problems, negative emotions, can be disentangled and healed with the good 'ol talk-method.

I oppose to those who believe we can remove guilt. How could society work without conscience? This is a very serious case.

*journeys on to find something on this*

I'm back with this: "Feelings of guilt and regret travel neural pathways in a manner that mimics the tracings of ingrained fear, so a prophylactic against one could guard against the other. Several current lines of research, some federally funded, show strong promise for this." How relevant this article is today, as it is 2 years old, I'm not sure. But it's food for thought anyhow!

The Guilt-Free Soldier

Plus article Guilt and Shame which contains a chapter on why guilt is necessary.

I suppose you can find something on Nature.com too, but you have to be a member to view any articles.

OK, validity of the report aside and concentrating mainly on the concept of having the choice of only sleeping 2 hours available ..
I would seriously consider it for some of the more stressful times of my existance >.< (about once a week/fortnight)
I work on so many projects and so many people are constantly expecting me to increase my production rate that I sometimes seriously wish I could survive without sleeping. I've tried to cut down my sleep hours but my body is firmly sticking to it's minimum of 6 hours a day with talons, teeth, claws and assorted nails :/

Wait wait wait! I don't mean to say I hate sleeping it's great >.> but at times .. it would be good to manage to override this nature.

OK, fine. Sleep is really important, forget my whining about wanting extra time *ducks out of stage*

Geez, now we know why scientists can't find a cure for the common cold. They're too busy making new, crappy pills that try to make you as unhealty as possible.

Haha, well, that and the fact that it's just as hard to find a cure for the common cold as it is to cure AIDS...

Originally Posted by Mrs Ganondorf

Serotonin is not an inhibitory neurotransmitter. You say that it is. And then enhancing the effect of it is positive? That doesn't make any sense.Serotonin is a substance which controls the mood, isn't it? It's a sorry song that I don't know more about this. But your post is anyhow a little confusing.

Yes, it's inhibitory. I can try to explain it, but it might be hard to understand...I don't know how much you know about the nervous system. Anyway, there are two types of synaptic transmissions - excitatory and inhibitory. A neurotransmitter is what carries the signal from one neuron to another. They are activated by the depolarization of the cell that moves toward the end (this is the signal). This causes the Ca++ gates to open, which cause Ca++ to come in and help synaptic vesicles (little bubbles containing neurotransmitters) bind to the cell membrane. Because of this, the neurotransmitters are released into the synaptic cleft (the space between two neurons). Now the signals in neurons are dependent on two factors: the Na+ content and the K+ content. These are usually controlled by sodium-potassium pumps, and channels through which Na+ and K+ can diffuse (each one has a different channel). The job of the neurotransmitter is to open these pumps on the other neuron cell so that it has a charge too. Excitatory neurotransmitters will bind to both Na+ and K+ channels, causing the depolarization to continue. Inhibitatory neurotransmitters only open K+ channels, resulting in hyperpolarization, which reduces the strength of the signal.

So basically, neurotransmitters work in 2 ways - strengthening the signal or weakening it. The drugs that make us happy are generally inhibitory. Drugs like speed are excitatory. Inhibitory neurotransmitters generally make us happier, since they kill pain.

I can try to find you diagrams and drawings, since I would have never understood any of this without them.

As for seretonin controlling the mood, that's partially correct. Seretonin works with dopamine (excitatory) to control sleep, mood, attention, and sometimes learning. These are all controlled by the balance between seretonin and dopamine.

I have nothing against anti-depressants. They are helpful. Although, some psychologists and researchers are beginning to believe more and more in cognitive therapy(conversation, practical therapy). Many psychiatrists prescribe anti-depressants/anti-psychotics to a patient after one single session. Now, some begin to realise that that's not such a good solution and that many problems, negative emotions, can be disentangled and healed with the good 'ol talk-method.

Yeah, I agree with you there. Anti-depressants are helpful, but I only seem them as a band-aid solution, at least in most cases. I remember seeing something about placebos once. Apparently they gave placebo pills to some people in clinical depression, and they quickly got better. Then after they were happy again, they were told that they had just been taking sugar pills. For some reason, many of them went back into depression because of that... Not that that's relevant, I just find it interesting.

I oppose to those who believe we can remove guilt. How could society work without conscience? This is a very serious case.

*journeys on to find something on this*

I'm back with this: "Feelings of guilt and regret travel neural pathways in a manner that mimics the tracings of ingrained fear, so a prophylactic against one could guard against the other. Several current lines of research, some federally funded, show strong promise for this." How relevant this article is today, as it is 2 years old, I'm not sure. But it's food for thought anyhow!

The Guilt-Free Soldier

Plus article Guilt and Shame which contains a chapter on why guilt is necessary.

I suppose you can find something on Nature.com too, but you have to be a member to view any articles.

I haven't been able to find anything about this on either NewScientist or PubMed (PubMed is an archive of medical papers), so I'm about as skeptical about this as I am with the sleeping pills. I wish I had a subscription to Nature, but unfortunately I don't.
Are there any articles on this that are less opinionated?

Anyway, I oppose desensitizing people through pills. But I'm not opposed to using pills for someone to recover from war trauma, since is can be a terrible disorder. But yeah, I don't think any ethics committee would approve of pills that make people more willing to kill other people.

I'm back with this: "Feelings of guilt and regret travel neural pathways in a manner that mimics the tracings of ingrained fear, so a prophylactic against one could guard against the other. Several current lines of research, some federally funded, show strong promise for this." How relevant this article is today, as it is 2 years old, I'm not sure. But it's food for thought anyhow!

Hmm, that's interesting. Unfortunately, they don't give enough details (or even mention which studies showed strong promise for this) to really make judgements.

You're right. There lacks a great of deal of scientific back-up to those articles. I can't find anything about the research behind these drugs. But I know of someone I can ask, a 16 year old cheerleader who thinks she knows more than everybody else and is a great proponent of removing guilt from the human civilization. She might know something!

By the way, humanity without the ability to feel guilt will be is like a world full of psychopaths. The only normal people who lack any sense of guilt completely are psychopaths. I should like to know the scientists' opinion on that. Wonder who's willing to defend Ted Bundy for instance. But I don't believe that will happen. Or I pray God take my soul before the world turns in that direction.

As cool as it would be to only have to sleep for a couple hours a night, I just don't think it would feel good. Imagine what it would be like if all of your lack of sleep caught up to you. You would crash, it would be terrible.

I love the feeling of sleep, and I hate the feeling of being super tired. Meh, they should just make days longer

Sleeping pills that makes you feel like you'r sleeping in 8 hours but actually half the time. Now that's someting actually useful. Only if you're a busy person anyways.

Most busy people use them because they think they work