High doses of ketamine can temporarily switch off the brain, say researchers

https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/high-doses-of-ketamine-can-temporarily-switch-off-the-brain-say-researchers

by hhs • 6 years ago

131 145 6 years ago

cam.ac.uk

emteycz• 6 years ago

Is the person still the same person?

vmception• 6 years ago

loaded question: do you want to be the same person?

ravenstine• 6 years ago

There's no such thing. We are different people second by second.

65102• 6 years ago

That must be annoying.

danharaj• 6 years ago

Panta rhei

oceanghost3• 6 years ago

The spiritual experiences on ketamine and other arylcyclohexylamine are intense. Far more intense for me than any other drug I've tried. I've had unexplainable experiences as well, where information retrieved in the drug state turned out was accurate.

read_if_gay_• 6 years ago

where information retrieved in the drug state turned out was accurate.

Can you give an example?

softwarejosh2• 6 years ago

he thought his friend was going to come through the door with a glass of water and he did for some reason

jeffbee• 6 years ago

That’s the wonderful thing about drugs: they trigger the areas of the brain that normally signal an insight or epiphany, but without the hassle of having an actual epiphany. In reality you’re lying motionless on the floor for hours thinking nothing.

kranner• 6 years ago

You're definitely thinking something, even if it is something banal made salient by the drugs.

pinopinopino20• 6 years ago

That is correct, but it is only half of the story. I think, I have to say it for the lack of a better word for it, but 'spiritual experiences' are worthwhile. They are not void of value.

You shouldn't do it to often. But that is with all drugs.

tasty_freeze2• 6 years ago

Ages ago my next older brother told me that when he smoked pot he liked to sit and think because he had deep insights, and the right answer to what he was considering was clearer than in a sober state.

He didn't smoke around me and I hadn't (and still haven't) smoked pot. One Saturday night he came home and it was obvious he was pretty baked. That is when he dropped one of his insight bombshells on me: Stevie Wonder is the Frank Sinatra of our generation.

I had the same though you just made: maybe it wasn't that he had clearer insights, just the perception of it because other thoughts that might contradict the conclusion didn't cross his mind.

neuralzen• 6 years ago

"Universal love" said the cactus person...

https://slatestarcodex.com/2015/04/21/universal-love-said-th...

Valmar• 6 years ago

Why not post the actual source, rather than some second-hand clickbait?

"Characteristic patterns of EEG oscillations in sheep (Ovis aries) induced by ketamine may explain the psychotropic effects seen in humans"

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-66023-8?error=coo...

kf• 6 years ago

...seems like the official press release of the paper so quite okay.

spurdoman77• 6 years ago

My personal empirical research agrees with the headline.

sneak• 6 years ago

Six of the sheep were given a single higher dose of ketamine, 24mg/kg. This is at the high end of the anaesthetic range. Initially, the same response was seen as with a lower dose. But within two minutes of administering the drug, the brain activity of five of these six sheep stopped completely, one of them for several minutes - a phenomenon that has never been seen before.

You have taken 24mg/kg of ketamine before? I find that nearly impossible to believe.

Approximately 15% of that dosage causes mammals to lose consciousness.

codetrotter• 6 years ago

What would happen to a human taking such a big dose? Brain damage? Death? Permanent coma? And would the outcome be the same even if monitored by healthcare professionals? Or would they be able to stop the person from taking damage from it?

unfunco• 6 years ago

In one go definitely, but for a 70kg person that's 1.6g, 1g of Ketamine is ~£10 in the United Kingdom, it's really not that out of the ordinary that someone would take 1-3g during the course of an evening.

hprotagonist• 6 years ago

depression: have you tried turning it off and then back on again?

tongue in cheek, but i think the more we learn about mechanism of action the more it’s not the worst 1st order approximation.

tsco77• 6 years ago

Ketamine, psilocybin and electro conclusive therapy are all similar in that regards.

Ect is the definitive treatment of resistant depression, but if you can get the same effect without requiring a psychiatrist, anesthesiologist, cna, respiratory, and nursing, why wouldn't you?

pinopinopino20• 6 years ago

Well, I honestly can say, that a hole dose of ketamine might change you in ways you can't comprehend before you go into it. It made me view consciousness as something special, not entirely captured by physical laws.

It is hard to explain, but beware before you enter. It changes you.

pinopinopino20• 6 years ago

It is not bad though, I feel happier now, more complete as person.

eternalny1• 6 years ago

I was shocked when I dislocated my shoulder and they gave me IV Ketamine. I got that same experience, right there in the emergency room, sanctioned by the medical professionals.

AYBABTME2• 6 years ago

I also received a dose when I broke and dislocated my ankle. The experience was incredible, quite enlightening, despite the fact that most of what I could see was my pain as a sore spot on a multicoloured "wall". To sum up the experience, I felt like "I" was a disassembled geometric form, and my external point of view looked at the form and coldly contemplated, mostly, the pain visible on the wall.

It left a profound effect on me. Gave me a perspective about myself that I can't forget.

If it was legal and there was a safe way to do this again, I'd like to see how it's like when you're not in atrocious pain.

lordlic4• 6 years ago

If you IV a single 24mg/kg dose like the sheep in the study, I suspect you won't be experiencing anything at all before you lose consciousness.

bookofjoe6• 6 years ago

Concur. Standard IV dose in humans for general anesthesia is 0.5-1.0 mg/kg. (I'm a retired neurosurgical anesthesiologist who used ketamine for GA in around 500 patients over 38 years, and smaller IV/IM doses in perhaps 1,000 more individuals)

pinopinopino20• 6 years ago

Let me try to explain. Ketamine does something with your morals it seems. It does a remoralization in a way. E.g. it won't turn you into something you aren't. It is a relative process. It gives you a space to watch yourself from an neutral judgement free observer point of view.

It is really weird.

pinopinopino20• 6 years ago

You somehow find out what is really important to you and what is not and see that really clearly.

That is what happened to me after a couple of experiences. And I acted on it and I am not sad about it. Now, I don't do it that often. But if you choose to do ketamine, you are in for a ride.

mc322• 6 years ago

Would it have any therapeutic effect for people convicted of violent crimes? Even white collar crimes like embezzlement?

Obviously they’d have to volunteer for something like that but it’d be interesting to see if it changes them for he better or worse...

pinopinopino20• 6 years ago

I think you need to be really careful with that.

cyphar• 6 years ago

It would probably be a bad idea to apply the criminal justice theory from A Clockwork Orange to the real world.

rozab• 6 years ago

I think more conventional entheogens and empathogens like LSD, psilocybin, 2CB and MDMA are far more promising. Bear in mind that violent criminals are highly likely to be mentally ill.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concord_Prison_Experiment

crocodiletears• 6 years ago

I'd be worried about the state endorsing or experimenting with this, even as a voluntary measure. Coming withing even an AU of normalizing pharmacologically 'correcting' asocial behavior could put us on a very dark path.

Out_of_Characte• 6 years ago

Yes, lets experiment on prisoners. That seems morally justified as long as you ask nicely. For real, scientific experimentation has to be done with unbiased groups AND a control group. After getting that out of the way then you can include targeted groups. Which prisoners should never belong to, this is how the criminal psychopath stereotype began. also, every country classifies crime and punishment differently making any observation useless. Their status as criminal might be the same but their pathology is as diverse as you can expect. prisoners might be the most violent group you can find but you're still better off targeting violent people in a population.

Unless you are researching criminals

lostmyoldone• 6 years ago

There's more than a few clues that at least some depressions, or rather - depression like states - on short timescales are closely related to our brains dynamic "electrochemical" state than of anything else, as disrupting the dynamics in different ways appear to - sometimes - profoundly affect depressed states.

On longer timescales it seems even more complex. Similarly to ECT, some people revert to a depressive state somewhat quickly after being affected by various drugs, while others do not.

I sometimes think that when we start understanding depression, we'll have to reevaluate our perspectives on both ourselves, society, and humanity as such much more than most are comfortable with.

Not in any mysterious sense, but more in the sense that depression on an individual level might very well be a symptom of society level issues, as well as it is an extremely debilitating psychiatric condition.

While there are markers for depression in individuals, I can't escape the feeling that to some extent, it's nothing but a convoluted way to encode tolerance levels to what is in reality a "toxic" surrounding. Exactly what the toxicity could be is not at all clear, but I don't expect it'll have a high compatibility with eg economic interests in any way, shape, or form.

pas• 6 years ago

This seems very interesting, could you point at some sources for this? Thanks!

mrfusion2• 6 years ago

I get super depression on the day after I exercise way too much. Especially jogging or sprinting and pushing myself. Too much weight lifting too.

I’ve always found it to be the strangest thing and it was quite a shock when I realized the cause.

It clears up completely the third day.

boomboomsubban2• 6 years ago

From the article

“It’s likely that the brain oscillations caused by the drug may prevent information from the outside world being processed normally.

It sounds like the parts of your brain that understand physical laws was not correctly communicating with the part that controls consciousness.

empath75• 6 years ago

I’ve done doses of ketamine like that before and just sort of entered a dreamlike state where I was floating though crystals or something like that. I didn’t have any sort of profound revelation from it at all.

On the other hand the night I did LSD and ketamine at the same time— woah boy. I came out of it saying to someone that we were eternal pure beings trapped in monkey bodies by a cruel and malicious god. I don’t remember saying that, but they told me about it afterwards. It was especially awkward because i was A) making out with her at the time and B) I had just met her at a rave. How I managed to make out with a complete stranger while on a cosmic journey of discovery in another dimension, I have no idea, given that I usually couldn’t accomplish it when I was fully on planet earth. We’re still friends, funnily enough.

softwarejosh2• 6 years ago

isnt ketamine a horse tranquillizer lol, doesnt seem like a stretch for it to be an anesthetic

fredley• 6 years ago

It is an anaesthetic, used particularly for children (at least in the UK).

bookofjoe6• 6 years ago

It is indeed a horse tranquilizer; it works across species, in cats, dogs, humans, and probably myriad others.

omginternets• 6 years ago

Enough of anything can permanently switch off the brain.

I really wish scientific reporters would at least attempt to use meaningful language in their headlines.

kylebyproxy• 6 years ago

But within two minutes of administering the drug, the brain activity of five of these six sheep stopped completely, one of them for several minutes - a phenomenon that has never been seen before.

...

“A few minutes later their brains were functioning normally again - it was as though they had just been switched off and on.”

Headline seems spot-on to me. What exactly is your gripe?

fortran77• 6 years ago

I think he's had too much ketamine.

loceng7• 6 years ago

We also currently have a poor to non-existent understanding of the mechanisms for how consciousness attaches itself to the body-mind.

65102• 6 years ago

I think I had this reading HN one time.

loceng7• 6 years ago

Hopefully people will have an open mind reading my comment, however within spiritual circles it is somewhat known that many people can't tolerate doing any type of entheogen too many times; what that amount of times is and dosing where you lose complete connection will be subjective. I'm also not trying to suggest all changes that occur after going through such an experience is the act of "losing your soul or connection to your soul" - however that arguably is possibility at one end of the spectrum of possibilities. Some people seem fine doing Ayahuasca their whole lives, like shamans - whether they are now dependant on it and have regular access to it is another question, however other people through ego mind addiction (entheogens are powerful for breaking physical addictions, however are addictive for the mind) and force themselves into ceremonies or experience that they know they will regularly if not 100% of the time experience pure terror, not listening to their body's fear response for what it doesn't want to experience and is trying to guide them away from experiencing - instead their ego mind maintaining control and tricks them to continue; the body is inherently intelligent and part of the equation that needs to not be ignored to find balance and allowing your body's systems to guide you to optimal health, equilibrium.

craftinator• 6 years ago

however within spiritual circles it is somewhat known

Writing things like this is really losses credibility for you.

downerending4• 6 years ago

I took that as those people, having had a chance to observe the behavior of these drugs on many occasions, are theorizing a phenomenon. In other words, science, or something like it.

loceng7• 6 years ago

Oh yeah? How else would you define the context of people who gather regularly in community in relation to spirituality or gatherings for ceremony? Curious what preconceptions and prejudices you have of who you classify that are automatically discredited in your mind because they use the term "spiritual circle" - or am I misunderstanding what in that sentence discredits me?

Ever been to an Ayahuasca ceremony or talking circle? Just trying to get an idea of your own experiences.

dang• 6 years ago

That dips one toe into religious flamewar and another into personal attack. We don't allow those things on HN, so please don't post like this here.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

tezza• 6 years ago

And people dancing on large doses of Ketamine clearly have little brain intervention.

The K Hole must be the plug hole of one’s mind

dkersten2• 6 years ago

Dancing on ketamine is such a foreign concept to me. At low doses, its more like sit quietly because my muscles are so relaxed and at high doses (still low doses compared to the article) its lie on the floor while falling through the void. I couldn’t imagine physical activity in either case.

thatcat• 6 years ago

There are multiple forms: esketamine, arketamine, and a racemic mixture of both of those. Es type is much more effective as anesthetic than other types so user could experience the hallucinogen effects while remaining sort of mobile.

GordonS5• 6 years ago

When combined with a small amount of alcohol, small amounts of ketamine seem to potentiate the alcohol, but in a less "dirty" way than more alcohol would have.

It feels stimulating and energising, almost like amphetamine without any jitters, and also seems to increase sociability. And because you haven't had much alcohol, you feel great the next day!

Note we are talking small ketamine doses here, typically bumps of 25-50mg max.

loceng7• 6 years ago

I have a hypothesis I am developing around this - in that our actual sensory coming from our physical body is how our consciousness actually stays grounded to the here and now; there's more parts and layers to it than that, however my own experiences suggest this is a mostly correct statement. Another part of my understanding logically suggests that you could disconnect from the energy from a historical part of you, thereby returning only to what is strongly imprinted via your brain's biology - but shedding or losing the more subtle energies and vibrations that would other provide more pressure or a higher concentration in the equations-algorithm of your brain/mind. This might not make much sense without more context which will take a book to structure.

perfmode• 6 years ago

according to Ramana Maharshi, disconnecting from the sensory inputs actually causes of the sense of I to disappear entirely.

he offers the challenge to investigate in one’s own lived experience whether it’s possible to even maintain the sense of I except in relation to external sense objects.

fascinating stuff

dbqpdb• 6 years ago

So I'm no scientician, but 24mg/kg is like 1.5g for an average human. I'm pretty sure that this would not only turn of a humans brain, it may cause it to burst into flames as well.

ipnon2• 6 years ago

The median lethal dose for people appears to be between 6g and 32g depending on method of administration.

[0] https://erowid.org/chemicals/ketamine/ketamine_faq.shtml

edit: After investigating, the source for this claim is the Merck Index from 1989, which is not readily available online. Anyone who would use the above information to determine the appropriate ketamine dose for themselves or someone else is a dangerous fool.

nubb• 6 years ago

s/temporarily/permanently

I partied a lot as a kid and this is a lethal dosage for humans.

ipnon2• 6 years ago

The median lethal dose for humans appears to be between 6g and 32g depending on the method of administration.[0] Drugs have different median lethal mg/kg dose ratios across species.[1]

[0] https://erowid.org/chemicals/ketamine/ketamine_faq.shtml [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_lethal_dose#Examples

smabie• 6 years ago

I did too, and let me assure you that it is not.

plerpin• 6 years ago

Not surprised, vets already have been using ketamine to anesthetize reptiles.

monadic2• 6 years ago

It's used to sedate humans, too: https://www.denverpost.com/2019/10/14/ketamine-sedative-law-...

boomboomsubban2• 6 years ago

Ketamine's use as a safe anesthetic for animals was why it was chosen for this experiment.

sibeliuss2• 6 years ago

My experience with Ketamine was that it was simply too much fun, too weird, and felt too good -- I had to distance myself from it, regarding it like some kind of psychedelic heroin. I can understand why it's addictive.

However, it does have its purpose. I've heard of a lot of people cleaning up their lives through its application.

And reading about it is always fascinating -- Stanislav Grof: https://realitysandwich.com/321100/my-ketamine-journeys-or-k...

natch2• 6 years ago

I was lucky / unlucky enough to have one ketamine experience due to a shoulder dislocation. I cannot stress highly enough that I would not recommend it unless you are highly tolerant of some disturbing stuff. It was a very short (under 15 seconds), very intense, forced experience of being in essentially an insect mind that was shunted along a path of thought and movement in a 2D maze with no options whatsoever. It led to a very dark place with a surprise ending that felt hopeless beyond anything I could have imagined. The punchline was I learned in real time that not only was I dying (in the trip, not in real life) but also that the entire universe did not actually exist and never had; it had all been an illusion and a lie. And as I was learning this everything shrank down to a point and blinked out, no time for questioning, all gone.

Fortunately at the same time a small part of me was watching the process from the side (in horror) and somehow at some level I had a distant inkling and ray of hope that it was all a trip. And then it was over and... extremely slow fade back to consciousness over 15 minutes or so. Very not recommended but very interesting.

sandworm101• 6 years ago

> extremely slow fade back to consciousness over 15 minutes or so. Very not recommended but very interesting.

Every been to a vet and heard the dogs waking up from surgery? Ketamine is the go-to drug for animals. They aren't howling because they are in pain.

Mo32• 6 years ago

.. and the part of you that watched all of this and was concious of it happening is the real you

warent• 6 years ago

That's my understanding of it as well. All this about the universe ending, never existing, being an illusion and a lie, that's just the collapse of a ego. The lie it tells us so that we fight for its continued existence is that the other side of it is some kind of horrific oblivion. Actually, the other side is a serene wholeness. It is the source of beauty.

The individual ego is a useful way for the universe to experience itself in a subject/object relationship and we should respect it for what it is, but a side-effect of confusing the real self with this flimsy thing is pain and suffering due to the delusion of separation.

I invite anyone who has had this experience, rather than compartmentalizing it as a bad thing, to try and integrate it into life in productive ways. It can lead to some really wonderful things.

UI_at_80x24• 6 years ago

I have undergone several ketamine treatments for depression. I have had 1 positive session out of 9 total.

Some trips were 'fun' others were not. My first experience with it was quite rough.

The positive experience went as follows: pure nothingness. (I refer to it internally as `#cat brain >/dev/null`)

It was incredible. Hope that I can silence all the noise in my brain. It was peace. It may have been zen. I've wanted to kill myself just so I can return to that level of peace. I haven't because I shouldn't. But it gives me hope that I won't feel this way forever.

I have tried a variety of audio therapy and cognitive direction while undergoing treatment to assist the process.

Examples include: (a) concentrated positive thoughts {thinking of a happy place/directed peaceful imagery} (b) "not thinking" just let the trip take me wherever it goes. {this may be the best course of treatment} (c) soothing sounds {nature sounds, music used while meditating, etc} (d) guided meditation

The most recurrent theme I experienced (the trips would include visual and auditory hallucinations) would be repeating geometric patterns and a techo/dub-step style of music. These were pleasant experiences that I didn't mind, although I felt that they didn't quite do the trick.

Marciplan• 6 years ago

Hey there. I hope you’re well on your way to feeling better/happy. Best of luck :)

GordonS5• 6 years ago

It feels like most drugs change your mood or appear to change your environment. The thing about k-hole level doses of ketamine is that it feels like it transports you to another place entirely - lot's of people speak of feeling the presence of multiple universes and timelines, and of feeling like they are moving between them.

I have a friend who, after his first k-hole experience, was completely in awe of life and the universe for some time afterwards. He would become emotional and choked up talking about the beauty of it.

He was also half way convinced that ketamine would allow him to travel through space and time to anywhere while in the hole. He couldn't wait to throw himself back into a hole so he could travel the torrent of the universe stream and explore further.

Nobody here has mentioned Erowid yet - I highly recommend it if you want to read more about people's experiences while on ketamine, or indeed any other drug.

GordonS5• 6 years ago

I wonder if this could be used in the treatment of brain injuries. Let's say someone comes into the ER with a brain bleed / stroke - could they induce a brain shutdown to help prevent further damage, while they worked on the injury?

sriacha• 6 years ago

That's an interesting thought. I wonder if there are any parallels with how hypothermia can be induced to preserve brain function (following a period of hypoxia)?

GordonS5• 6 years ago

That's exactly the thing that spurred my thinking :)

ben_stevenson• 6 years ago

I've been working for a Ketamine Clinic the past few months, and it's fascinating to learn about (bunch of good resources here: https://www.fargoketamineclinic.com ). While it can be incredibly addicting, it's also opening new research into solving depression. Because it works differently than traditional antidepressants by targeting the NMDA receptors and binding to them to increase glutamate, it could vastly help people with treatment resistant depression. The problem is that with high doses like this article suggests, it can be dangerous. So it's a complicated area.

High doses of ketamine can temporarily switch off the brain, say researchers

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