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'YOU ALL ARE MERELY THE SUM OF YOUR CHEMICALS!!''
The idea that our behaviour and moods can be shaped by imbibing substances is hardly new. Knowledge of the powerful effects of alcohol and opiates is old as the human race. In the modern era, writers such as Coleridge, De Quincey, Aldous Huxley have been fascinated by the creative transformations produced by mind-expanding substances such as laudanum and mescaline.
A more precise notion of the link between chemistry and the mind body relationship is relatively recent. Just a hundred years ago, the ageing French Physician, Charles Brown Sequard, conducted unique and thrilling experiments. But all were false starts!
Some over 36 years ago, it was thought that there were just two basic types of brain chemical substances which acted as inhibitors and excitants on nerve cells. Pharmacologists then went to identify more than 2000 substances confirming that brain is a prodigiously complex chemical factory, and that even small deficits and excesses can lead to major illnesses such as Alzheimer or Parkinson's disease.
The key strategy of the drug giants whose income from brain related therapies now exceeds 26billion annually, is the quest to design ''rationalized'' pharmacological therapies. Pharmaceutical companies are currently developing therapies to combat brain damage following injury, stroke, or postnatal oxygen deprivation, multiple sclerosis; intransigent pain; schizophrenia; panic, anxiety and obsessions; insomnia and depressive illness.
''The brain drugs of the future will no longer be a matter of chance discovery, nor will they carry unwanted side-effects. The neuroscience revolution means that we can rationally design drugs from the outset; we target our research and develop strategy based on accurate knowledge of the molecular structures in the brain, rather than on guesswork,'' said Dr Leslie Iversen.
Prozac was developed in the mid-Eighties by the American Pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly, to treat Clinical Depression, one of the most common complaints in the Western world, but a serious illness leading to chronic incapacity and sometimes suicide. Prozac was one of the first designer new designer therapies.
Millions and millions of people have swallowed Prozac. New Yorkers wear T-shirts proclaiming their love for it. It is debated in TV specials and cover stories. And through-out the United States people say they depend on it -for dinner parties and sales conferences, for job interviews and successful relationships.
This green and beige capsule designed to alleviate serious depression has the dramatic bonus of making many patients feel -better than well. In the future and even in the days just ahead, the World will come to understand that Medication could rob us of anxiety, guilt, shame, grief, and self-consciousness.
So, the important question that must get raised and answered is whether mankind should foster a social environment that welcomes such diversities, -however distressing for the sufferers, or whether we should encourage a society which seeks to iron out these difficulties with procurable drugs.
Sadly, in life nothing gets answered. Perfections are just never sought. Science moves and the world moves on and leave the darkness to darkness.
Pleases share this very important post the world over so that we can touch and protest the sadness, of frail human construction.
Good Night & God Bless!
The idea that our behaviour and moods can be shaped by imbibing substances is hardly new. Knowledge of the powerful effects of alcohol and opiates is old as the human race. In the modern era, writers such as Coleridge, De Quincey, Aldous Huxley have been fascinated by the creative transformations produced by mind-expanding substances such as laudanum and mescaline.
A more precise notion of the link between chemistry and the mind body relationship is relatively recent. Just a hundred years ago, the ageing French Physician, Charles Brown Sequard, conducted unique and thrilling experiments. But all were false starts!
Some over 36 years ago, it was thought that there were just two basic types of brain chemical substances which acted as inhibitors and excitants on nerve cells. Pharmacologists then went to identify more than 2000 substances confirming that brain is a prodigiously complex chemical factory, and that even small deficits and excesses can lead to major illnesses such as Alzheimer or Parkinson's disease.
The key strategy of the drug giants whose income from brain related therapies now exceeds 26billion annually, is the quest to design ''rationalized'' pharmacological therapies. Pharmaceutical companies are currently developing therapies to combat brain damage following injury, stroke, or postnatal oxygen deprivation, multiple sclerosis; intransigent pain; schizophrenia; panic, anxiety and obsessions; insomnia and depressive illness.
''The brain drugs of the future will no longer be a matter of chance discovery, nor will they carry unwanted side-effects. The neuroscience revolution means that we can rationally design drugs from the outset; we target our research and develop strategy based on accurate knowledge of the molecular structures in the brain, rather than on guesswork,'' said Dr Leslie Iversen.
Prozac was developed in the mid-Eighties by the American Pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly, to treat Clinical Depression, one of the most common complaints in the Western world, but a serious illness leading to chronic incapacity and sometimes suicide. Prozac was one of the first designer new designer therapies.
Millions and millions of people have swallowed Prozac. New Yorkers wear T-shirts proclaiming their love for it. It is debated in TV specials and cover stories. And through-out the United States people say they depend on it -for dinner parties and sales conferences, for job interviews and successful relationships.
This green and beige capsule designed to alleviate serious depression has the dramatic bonus of making many patients feel -better than well. In the future and even in the days just ahead, the World will come to understand that Medication could rob us of anxiety, guilt, shame, grief, and self-consciousness.
So, the important question that must get raised and answered is whether mankind should foster a social environment that welcomes such diversities, -however distressing for the sufferers, or whether we should encourage a society which seeks to iron out these difficulties with procurable drugs.
Sadly, in life nothing gets answered. Perfections are just never sought. Science moves and the world moves on and leave the darkness to darkness.
Pleases share this very important post the world over so that we can touch and protest the sadness, of frail human construction.
Good Night & God Bless!
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