Drug info - Xenon and Sulfur hexafluoride

[El Calico Loco]

While looking for information on another anaesthetic (monochloroethane), I happened across some writings suggesting that both Xe and SF6 are inert, non-toxic, and have anaesthetic properties. Wikipedia seems to agree.

Does anyone know more about this than Wikipedia? Do Xe and SF6 have any psychoactive properties, or do they just knock you out?

I imagine Xenon would be too expensive for non-millionaires to use in their research. SF6 looks inexpensive; the problem there might be getting something research-grade, since its primary use seems to be in industrial applications that can tolerate far more impurities than test subjects.


ECL
(And SF6 has such a lovely Platonic structure.)

[Nagognog2]

Asphyxiation. Simple as that. Cutting of O2 to the brain like CO2. So don't bother. Especially with the SF6. If that were to allow any unreacted F2 loose in any soluble form - we're talking serious poisoning. Like having all your bones twisted into a Dada-period sculpture for keeps. Xenon is simply a ridiculously expensive inert gas - the cocaine of the Noble Gases.

[El Calico Loco]

Yeah, the risk of contamination is enough to dissuade my test subjects (Wikipedia made mention of SF4 as another possible toxic byproduct). On the other hand, physics professors sometimes inhale this stuff to demonstrate the speed of sound in various mediums in physics classes (as with helium), so there must be some source of medical-grade gas (or some really nutty professors).

Not that it matters much if it's not psychoactive. I found the info in an ebook written by a professional anaesthetist, but he only mentioned them in passing and admitted that he didn't know much about them.

Damn. I was hoping I'd found another nitrous-like molecule for my test subjects. Oh well.


ECL
(SWIM will give Xenon a try when he wins the lottery.)

[zera]

Swim remembers when he was 11 and at a party. His relatives were showing him how if you inhale helium (another inert gas) that it would make your voice sound really high pitched. Swim was having fun doing this, when on one balloon he seemed to breathe in a little too much helium. The room started spinning hard, he got dysphoria and he had the very strong sense that reality didn't exist.

He tucked it away in his mind, until he started using nitrous, when he got dissociation feelings that seemed pretty similar to this helium experience. Though it was different in that nitrous is very fun and funny and the helium was neither of these things. It was probably just accidental oxygen deprivation, but Swim's a Scuba diver and has been in situations where he's been quite oxygen deprived and it's never been like that feeling of having too much helium.

[El Calico Loco]

From Wikipedia:

Although the vocal effect of inhaling helium may be amusing, it can be dangerous if done to excess since helium is a simple asphyxiant, thus it displaces oxygen needed for normal respiration. Death by asphyxiation will result within minutes if pure helium is breathed continuously. In Mammals (with the notable exception of seals) the breathing reflex is triggered by excess of carbon dioxide rather than lack of oxygen, so asphyxiation by helium progresses without the victim experiencing air hunger.

So, normal oxygen deprivation feels worse than inhaling helium or nitrous because your body knows it's suffocating. Taking too much He or N2O just feels weird; I think the subject is actually able to hold his breath until he passes out, at which point the autonomic functions take over and make him breath normally.

The dissociative/anaesthetic effects of N2O will prevent unpleasantness as this happens; Helium has no such effects to my knowledge.

Personally, I'm convinced that the weird "fusion of dualities" that subjects experience under nitrous is nothing more than their dissociated minds being able to remain conscious and watch as their bodies pass out from lack of air. Peripheral vision is the first to go; the following tunnel vision slowly shrinks to an infinitesimal point as all feeling leaves one's body.

I told Swim this. He didn't like it. It made nitrous much less fun.


ECL