1
" if there is no proof that a depressed person has a chemical imbalance, and you choose nevertheless to put that person on a medication that will alter neurotransmitter levels in his or her brain, then in effect you are causing a chemical imbalance rather than curing one. According to Steven Hyman, a neuroscientist and former director of the National Institute of Mental Health, all psychotropic drugs cause “perturbations in neurotransmitter functions.” And this is Whitaker’s main point. We are subjecting millions of brains to drugs that change natural neurotransmission, sometimes radically, disturbing and upsetting the complex interplay inside our heads, clogging neural pathways with excess chemicals, and sometimes causing the entire brain, which is intricately interlinked, to malfunction in ways we do not yet understand. An unmedicated depressed patient does not have a known chemical imbalance in his brain, but once he ingests Prozac, he will. The drug crosses the blood-brain barrier and gets to work, jamming serotonin into the synaptic cleft. Whitaker explains the result this way: “Several weeks later the serotonergic pathway is operating in a decidedly abnormal manner. "
― Lauren Slater , Blue Dreams: The Science and the Story of the Drugs that Changed Our Minds
3
" In the early twentieth century, for instance, opiates were widely used for all sorts of ills, even sold in syrup to calm colicky babies. Lithium baths prospered—vats of cool bubbling water said to soothe the troubled soul. Extract of conium, either on its own or coupled with iron, quinine, or Fowler’s solution, was used to treat depression, as was the plant extract nux vomica. Hyoscyamus, from the passionflower, was used to diminish sleeplessness or extreme excitement. There were tinctures of veratrine and belladonna and stimulants such as ammonia, lytta, and all kinds of aromatics in small amber jars you held just below the nostrils, sniffing in comforting drafts of lavender, rosemary, or cinnamon. So prevalent were and are attempts at biological cures, and so available for such a great span of time, that nonphysical therapies, such as psychoanalysis and other “talking cures,” are in fact the real oddity, a brief blip in what has otherwise been a mostly somatic approach to the treatment of human suffering in all its manifestations. "
― Lauren Slater , Blue Dreams: The Science and the Story of the Drugs that Changed Our Minds
5
" I am calling because I’d like to…to…donate my brain,” I said, the last three words spilling together in a rush. The person on the other end did not respond and again I stood there listening to the crackle on the line, looking out my large window at the apple tree, where clusters of reddening fruit studded its beautiful branches. “Donate. My. Brain,” I repeated, articulating each word, suddenly, strangely, emboldened. “Okay,” the disembodied voice said. “You can make the donation online.” And then the voice gave me the Web address and, poof, was gone. "
― Lauren Slater , Blue Dreams: The Science and the Story of the Drugs that Changed Our Minds
9
" Mithoefer completed an FDA- and DEA-approved trial of MDMA for the treatment of severe PTSD, with stunning results. In 2011, with the support of MAPS, he and his team created a double-blind design in which twelve severely traumatized patients were given MDMA and psychotherapy, and eight patients were given an active placebo and psychotherapy. The researchers used the Clinician Administered PTSD Scale (CAPS) as a means of measuring symptom reduction after intervention. In the placebo group, only two out of the eight subjects had a significantly lowered CAPS score post-intervention, whereas in the MDMA group, ten out of the twelve subjects had significantly lowered CAPS scores and were able to maintain those scores at a two-month follow-up. Furthermore, in the MDMA group, ten of the twelve patients were so improved that they no longer met the DSM criteria for PTSD. The second phase of the study allowed seven subjects who had previously taken the placebo (six of whom had failed to respond to the placebo and one of whom had relapsed after the placebo) to now try MDMA. They found a clinical response rate of 100 percent, and the three people who had previously said they weren’t able to perform their jobs on account of their PTSD were now able to work once again. "
― Lauren Slater , Blue Dreams: The Science and the Story of the Drugs that Changed Our Minds
11
" Researchers, for instance, have measured the amount of naturally occurring lithium in tap water in twenty-seven counties in Texas and found a negative association between lithium levels in the water and suicide rates, meaning the higher the level of lithium in the water, the lower the suicide rate. Similar studies have been carried out elsewhere, such as in Japan, where researchers studied the tap water of eighteen municipalities of the Ōita Prefecture and noted that even very low levels of lithium in the water supply may be protective against suicide, and, by extension, against depression as well. Until 1948, the popular soft drink 7Up contained lithium citrate, a little boost contained in a can. "
― Lauren Slater , Blue Dreams: The Science and the Story of the Drugs that Changed Our Minds
13
" Whatever its pros and cons, the invention and dissemination of Thorazine is ultimately as significant for what it did not do as for what it did. Yes, the drug reversed states of psychosis so severe they had trapped patients for years. Yes, by doing so, the drug helped to birth the deinstitutionalization movement and the corresponding rise of the community mental health center. And the drug finally put a dent in the deeply held American affinity for psychoanalysis, as even the clinicians most dedicated to “the talking cure” had to concede that this capsule could clear the mind more effectively and efficiently than could any leather couch and conversation. But the drug did not, at least initially, spur anyone to ask how or why it was working. No one had the slightest idea. It was simply enough for everyone that it was working. Clearly the capsule suggested that mental illness, at least in some respects, was a brain-based phenomenon, but beyond that, few had a clue. "
― Lauren Slater , Blue Dreams: The Science and the Story of the Drugs that Changed Our Minds
16
" Phelps and Hirst surveyed several hundred people about their September 11 recollections over a period of ten years, observing the subjects’ memories deteriorate even as the subjects exhibited no clue that their deeply felt stories were morphing. All the participants whom Phelps and Hirst surveyed had formed a flashbulb memory of the 9/11 attacks. It turned out that most of the forgetting, which was manifested in errors of either omission or commission, occurred in the first year after the event. The deviations ranged from simple tweaks to wholesale revisions, and even in the case of extreme changes, the subjects were unaware that they were deconstructing and reconstructing what seemed, to them, a very stable story. Researchers believe that the act of repeating a narrative somehow contaminates it, meaning that nowhere in our brains do any permanent, unmarred memories reside, no matter how much it may feel that way. "
― Lauren Slater , Blue Dreams: The Science and the Story of the Drugs that Changed Our Minds
19
" reveals the extent to which psychiatry is tightly tied to capitalistic corporate interests, how closely allied the field is with the major pharmaceutical houses, where millions, even billions, of dollars are made in mere months. This is why, although lithium had worked so well for so many people, drug developers set about discovering new mood stabilizers that had patent and profit possibilities, whipping up in their high-tech cauldrons scores of new pharmaceuticals to treat bipolar disorder or, better yet, converting already existing medications—drugs, say, for epilepsy—into treatments. "
― Lauren Slater , Blue Dreams: The Science and the Story of the Drugs that Changed Our Minds
