Treatment for Meth OD may harm brain

[Lunar Loops]

This from Psychcentral.com:

Treatment for Meth OD may harm brain

By: Psych Central News Editor
on Wednesday, May, 30, 2007

Reviewed by: John M. Grohol, Psy.D.
on Wednesday, May, 30, 2007


According to experimental scientists a common antipsychotic drug used in emergency rooms to treat methamphetamine overdose can damage nerve cells in an area of the brain known to regulate movement.
Investigators from the Boston University School of Medicine used a rat model to determine that only the combination of the medication, haloperidol, and methamphetamine causes the destructive effects, not either one alone.
Senior author Bryan Yamamoto, PhD, and his team suspect the damage results from the exaggerated stimulation of cells by the amino acid glutamate, which proves toxic to cells producing the neurotransmitter gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA).
Their results are published in the May 30 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience.
“This work in laboratory animals raises immediate concerns that a standard treatment for methamphetamine overdose in humans might worsen drug abuse-related brain injuries,” says William Carlezon, PhD, at Harvard’s McLean Hospital, who was not affiliated with the study.
“A crucial next step is to determine how atypical antipsychotic medications would affect methamphetamine toxicity in the same model.”
The rats in the experiment were injected with either methamphetamine or a saline solution over a period of eight hours. When the rats were given haloperidol before and nearly halfway through the eight-hour period, Yamamoto and his colleagues noted more than a fivefold rise in base levels of glutamate in the substantia nigra, a part of the brain known to play a role in movement disorders such as Huntington’s disease.
After examining the long-term effects of the combination, they found that glutamate concentrations in the substantia nigra were twice as high in methamphetamine-treated rats as in saline-treated ones two days after injections.
Yamamoto and his colleagues were able to link this rise in glutamate to the death of GABA-containing cells in one part of the substantia nigra. This may predispose some people who have been treated for a methamphetamine overdose to seizures and the development of movement disorders, they say, although the study did not measure movement specifically.
In addition to future studies of other antipsychotic medications, says Yamamoto, “we hope to examine if the loss of cells results in abnormal involuntary movements resembling Tourette’s syndrome and Huntington’s disease.”

[stoneinfocus]

Oh, great, that´s why swim never felt his ingenius flow in his pro sports anymore since he was in the psychiatric Concetration camp, for false offenses by his family... (before he could just meditate on his movements for 3-6 hours a day, working the shit out of everything and his elite sports-fellas in competition) he since never had a good nights sleep also.... to mention this one too.... wow, atypicla psychotics, great stuff! -everybody, except the patients, love it.(tehy don´t count they´re crazy and can´t figure when they´re doing good or bad, because they didn´t study it)

What happende to good old, joyful lobothomies?

In fact, swim would have prefered no drugs and electroshock "therapy", or at least a true fascist KZ, with the martyr image stuck to him.

[tayo]

wouldnt seroquel work. it knocks blocks all the receptors of dopamine and serotonin. and is very safe if needed in one large amount to block effects. swim thinks it would be a better alternative than haloperidol. .... and anyway meth damages the brain in the first place, it said "neither one alone" referring to meth and haloperidol... isnt that just incorrect?

[snapper]

Halperidol is a butyrophenone antipsychotic. What about other classes of antipsychotics like phenothiazines (which used to be the drugs of choice to treat this problem) or the atypical antipsychotics. It's odd that halperidol has become the standard of care when the phenothiazines seem to work well in combo with some other drugs (except DOxs)...

[stoneinfocus]

would blocking serotonine and Dopamine prevent bleeding in the brain, seizures and hypertension?

[snapper]

Indirectly by reducing the amount of stimulation yes, but hypotensive drugs, antiarrythmics, benzos and barbituates treat these. Bleeding in the brain is usually secondary to hyertension.