GABA and 5-HTP - Expect changes in Sleep Architecture?

M.D.Hosehead wrote:Thanks, mstevens, for taking the trouble to post those explanations. Do stick around.

I apologize, mstevens if I have come across as overly aggressive or like I'm cross examining or cynical. I really am looking for answers and greatly appreciate your feedback and perspective. The only way I know how to really understand a subject is challenge authority by attempting to look at things from a different perspective than the accepted ones using logic and reason. Thanks, M.D.Hosehead, if your post was meant to suggest that I may be coming across as overly strong. This was not my intention.

I wasn't being critical of you, DD, I just think people like to be told they are appreciated.

And just to suggest a supplement that has been shown in at least one study to increase SWS, glycine (the other main inhibitory neurotransmitter along with GABA). Link should be easily findable.

DreamDiver wrote:I guess it depends on your notion of 'better'... I'm not sure 'more' equals 'better'.

Indeed.

DreamDiver wrote:gabapentin, a synthetic analog of GABA that tends to make me, as my sleep doc put it, 'emotionally labile'.

Although it was initially intended to be an analog of GABA and has a name that suggests a GABA-ergic mechanism, it does not work at GABA receptors so doesn't really apply here.

DreamDiver wrote:Could you clarify where you're going with this?

Neurotransmitters don't "do" the things that people often want to ascribe to them. All a neurotransmitter actually does is bind to a receptor on a neuron. It's cells that do things.

People love to poke fun at drug ads that list a range of possible side effects that are the opposite of the intended effect. This seeming paradox is the result of the fact that many of the drugs involved, like neurotransmitters, don't necessarily "do" anything. They just bind to or block receptors or increase something by blocking its uptake or metabolism.

The electricity analogy was an attempt to draw a parallel between neurotransmitters and some more everyday thing with which people are more familiar. Electricy is analagous to neurotransmitter, appliance is analagous to neuron, and power cord is analagous to receptor.

DreamDiver wrote:]I think we're going to have to agree to disagree here. Even with the vagus system snipped, aren't the majority of neurotransmitters created in the gut?

It doesn't matter. Neurotransmitters in which we're interested don't cross the blood-brain barrier. In fact, they typically travel only the most infinitesimal of distances, from presynaptic membrane to postsynaptic receptor.

DreamDiver wrote:Has there been a thorough study of people with gross enterectomy ruling out its effect on sleep by an actual somnologist? I'm guessing not.

Me, too. One reason is that studies are expensive and usually not done until some initial observations suggest there might be something interesting going on. Without any such observations, it's going to be hard to get someone excited about looking.

Saying that we can't actually prove there are no wild tigers in Nebraska because nobody has done detailed wildlife surveys to demonstrate there are none there is true. That doesn't mean there are actually any wild tigers there or that anyone is ever going to do such a survey.

There are vastly more important questions in sleep medicine than some putative connections between innards and sleep. For example, I'd love to know why we sleep in the first place.

DreamDiver wrote:Maybe it's hard to wire an eeg to entera with its smooth muscle action that the brain doesn't have.

It's not hard - it's impossible by definition. "EEG" stands for electroencephalogram. No encephalos (brain), no EEG. This would be like taking a "chest X-ray" of a foot.

Without being pedantic, though (which is admittedly a stretch for me), it's easy to connect various meters that measure potentials (which is what EEG does) to the myenteric plexus. Physiologists have been doing this for many decades. Nobody has ever found sleep spindles or delta waves, and they have looked. In the early days of electrophysiology it was reasonable to wonder if the gut went to sleep, so people have looked to see if it does. It doesn't.

DreamDiver wrote:I suspect there has been insufficient study for you to be able to fully endorse your statement: "I don't think they're missing a thing."

Nope. I do not require any further study for me to endorse the statement that I don't think they're missing a thing. That doesn't, of course, mean I'm right. it just means that statements that begin by saying that someone does or doesn't think something are reflections of opinion.

Of course, years from now we'll all probably be chuckling at what experts these days believe about sleep. Maybe the notion that it's a brain function will seem as outdated as the belief that duodenal ulcers were caused purely by stomach acid.

DreamDiver wrote:I apologize, mstevens if I have come across as overly aggressive or like I'm cross examining or cynical.

The central tenet of science is that it's falsifiable. Anything that doesn't stand up to a good argument isn't science.

I doubt there's anyone here, myself included, who hasn't been handed a complete line of hooey concerning sleep by a physician. It's quite appropriate to question any stranger who makes pronouncements over the internet.

Besides, I likes me a good debate.

DreamDiver wrote: I've noticed the diarrhea thing with 5-HTP, so I can see why you suggest that is a bit of a crap shoot.

When March is over that is surely going to be "The Pun of the Month"!

Good one DD!

I can't follow a damn thing in this thread. At the end of all this, all I got was: (1) gabapentin makes DreamDiver cry (which goes to show why it's used for more things besides mood stabilization, I guess), (2) there is some discussion about the brain and the gut and neurotransmitters, but I'm not sure what the discussion is about (I thought neurotransmitters happen in the brain, not the gut?), (3) considering I haven't followed the thread at all, if I volunteered that Gabitril has been shown to enhance slow wave sleep, would that even be relevant to the discussion at hand?, and (4) Is it possible that the 800mg of gabapentin that I ingest nightly is causing me to be unable to process this thread?!

SleepingUgly wrote:if I volunteered that Gabitril has been shown to enhance slow wave sleep, would that even be relevant to the discussion at hand?

It would be pretty relevant. Tiagabine is another one of those drugs that tickles the GABA receptor.