This is the bi-weekly visible open thread there are also hidden open threads twice a week you can reach through the Open Thread tab on the top of the page. Post about anything you want, but please try to avoid hot-button political and social topics. Comments of the week: scchm presents an apparently original theory that buspirone works on D4 receptors but see the whole thread, including my comments.
And Murphy gives some pointers for determining when to believe claims of large effects from single genes. It might be the case that keeping everything as it was is just not compatible with improvement. Or postselection is taking place: we live in what in 19th century would seem like unthinkably progressive society β then it is natural to see 19th-century-progressivism e. Or, dunno, I could be too deep in my liberal bubble to think of a single example apart from stopping even worse conservatives from taking over control.
Question to you Scott regarding a possible start up and what you think of its chances for success. My theory is that we can fine tune the benefits of global escalators of serotonin whilst mitigating their side effects with GSK3-Beta modulators.
This could be a breakthrough in neuro pharmacology and could be a hugely lucrative opening in the treatment of mental health. The particular reason why big pharma hasnt got its claws into it is because big pharma proceeds upon the assumption that the DSM accurately represents the spectrum of illnesses experienced by sufferers. Part of the opening is in maneuvering around the limitations of the DSM which bind big pharma.
To be more specific, the dsm vastly undercuts the role of anhedonia in a wide spectrum of mental disorders and fails to treat it as an independent neuro physiological phenomenon.
