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Saturday, February 10, 2024

For a change, let us talk about neuroscience

 This is a nice lecture on neuroscience, showing the effect of alcohol and marijuana on metabolism in the brain, also exercise and diet are discussed:


https://youtu.be/g_lCZ09uVXQ?si=ul879aubmdHxgVrM

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

Here's a more popularized account -- the mitochondria are the "Department of Energy" for the cell:

https://youtu.be/_3dhmMcj17w?si=vbw6dFnqnpLvVvip

This is a more technical account of how it all works:

https://youtu.be/Hmwvj9X4GNY?si=2ncGl55mrW5irJlZ

https://youtu.be/i1dAnpSFbyI?si=6-PiHD3X8LX7tfwG

https://youtu.be/juM2ROSLWfw?si=vzRSwXbGRpv3o04S

https://youtu.be/mfgCcFXUZRk?si=QLxIgRc4tzcbW2pJ

Anonymous said...


How about using pot and exercising regularly and eating right. I bet that would lead to a much more calmer and productive workforce.

If the Director had done that instead of drinking she could have avoided some issues.

Anonymous said...


We have have our differences, some of us want peace, some want war, some want fascisim, others want freedom, some want to remain in power others want equality, some want to use ups resources, others want to preserve them, some care about others, some care about profits. Some are what we call good people and some are bad people.

But we can all agree that football brings us together today and right now that is all that matters.

Anonymous said...

If the Director had been using pot she might have avoided some issues, but she would have failed a drug test - it's still illegal at the Federal level.

Does football bring us together? It puts a lot of bodies on the couch on Sundays. If it truly brought us together why do they need the tight security at the stadiums? One good thing, during the Superbowl, the crowds at Costco were pretty light.

Anonymous said...

12:25 -- I think you were missing the point of the talk, pot causes chronic mental impairment, by affecting the metabolism of the brain. The talk mentioned that alcohol use was self-reinforcing, on the other hand, because the metabolism shifted from glucose to acetate (formed from alcohol).

Certainly heavy alcohol use (like drinking a six-pack every night) would also damage the brain over time, for example through Korsakoff syndrome, i.e.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korsakoff_syndrome

https://www.alz.org/alzheimers-dementia/what-is-dementia/types-of-dementia/korsakoff-syndrome

Anonymous said...



"If the Director had been using pot she might have avoided some issues, but she would have failed a drug test - it's still illegal at the Federal level."

The point is pot should not be illegal. For thousands of years, many groups of people used pot and other herbs and lived peaceful, fulfilled lives, such as the native Americans and Pacific Islanders. Alcohol, which is predominantly a European invention, causes violence and much worse health problems. I think if we had millions more pot and millions less alcohol, we would have much less violent, calmer, and even more equitable systems. I suspect that the Feds to keep alcohol illegal because they know that it creates more poverty and crime, and they want to suppress certain groups. As for pot causing mental impairment, I suspect it means it makes us less aggressive and less capitalistic, which is not an impairment but an improvement. 

In fact, I think neuroscience is corrupted by capitalism, which makes someone mentally impaired if they do not go along with hyper-competitiveness, winner take all, and unkind ways of life, when in fact it is the opposite. For example, what do you bet that most Trump supporters do not use pot? See the problem? 

Anonymous said...

6:48 -- pot isn't native to the Americas or the Pacific Islands, it is from Asia which has a long and documented history of violent conflict. It was present in the Middle East and Europe in fact,

https://www.livescience.com/48337-marijuana-history-how-cannabis-travelled-world.html

India might be an example of where it made people less aggressive, and less capitalistic, although it is also a poor country which historically had an oppressive caste system. I would agree there are aspects of Indian culture that we should emulate or admire of course, but marijuana does have detrimental effects:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannabis_in_India

Anonymous said...

6:48 -- Beer and wine also date back to the dawn of civilization, over 10000 years, and were present in ancient China, Mesopotamia, and Indus valley civilizations.

Stronger drinks were made possible by distillation methods which were developed in the Arab world, in the 9th century, the world alcohol is derived from Arabic in fact, as are many terms in chemistry.

Anonymous said...

6:48 by the way particularly in Mesoamerica, there was a history of violent sacrifice as well as cannibalism, the Aztecs were well known for this, and it was halted by the Europeans:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_sacrifice_in_Aztec_culture

The Incas gave young children psychedelic drugs and alcohol before sacrificing them,

https://www.sciencealert.com/inca-children-destined-for-sacrifice-might-have-been-soothed-with-hallucinogenic-drugs

https://bigthink.com/the-past/inca-ayahuasca-human-sacrifice/

Anonymous said...

6:48 -- by the way our system is not hyper-competitive in an ordinary capitalist sense, it features large corporations that exact economic rents, by monopolizing markets, also zoning regulations drive up housing prices; education, health care are highly regulated in such a way as to drive up prices and prevent free markets from functioning. Our complicated tax laws and social safety net and social security programs, financial regulations, and so on, mean that we have a highly managed economy.

https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/031815/united-states-considered-market-economy-or-mixed-economy.asp

Anonymous said...

6:48 -- by the way our system is not hyper-competitive in an ordinary capitalist sense,

A capitalistic system always ends this way with the rich controlling the rules to make themselves even richer. The myth of a fair system of competition is what keeps the charade going.

Anonymous said...

1:20 -- You're missing the point that the system here isn't entirely capitalist, or entirely free in an economic sense, but overall has a high degree of economic freedom and opportunity:

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/economic-freedom-map-2023/

https://www.heritage.org/index/heatmap

In Europe for example, this highlights Scandanavia, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic, Ireland, and the Baltic States as healthy economies with economic freedom. Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Taiwan, South Korea, the UAE in Asia-Pacific. US, Canada, Uruguay, and Chile in the Americas. Some close runners up are UK, Japan, Malaysia, and Poland.

The BRICs countries of course, do not do well at all on this economic freedom metric, nor does most of the "global south" countries, in Africa, Asia, South America: Europe, the US, and Australia are the successful areas for developing economic and human capital.

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