Astral Codex Ten

AMPA receptors

4 min read

AMPA receptors

Article

AMPA receptors is a recurring concept in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 2 times across 2 issues between February 13, 2021 and July 19, 2021. The archive places it in contexts such as “Sensory evidence seems to be something something AMPA receptors”; “Ketamine … probably works by activating AMPA receptors”. It most often appears alongside 5-HT2A receptors, Adderall, alcohol.

Metadata

  • Category: Concepts
  • Mention count: 2
  • Issue count: 2
  • First seen: February 13, 2021
  • Last seen: July 19, 2021

Appears In

Source Context

Recovered passages from the original issue text. When the raw archive preserved outbound links inside the source passage, they are listed directly under the quote.

The Precision Of Sensory Evidence
February 13, 2021 · Original source
Fourth, what do we know about all of this pharmacologically? Priors seem to be encoded in NMDA receptors and their relative strength modulated by 5-HT2A receptors, so if you wanted to downweight priors (and so relatively upweight sensory evidence), you would want NDMA antagonists or 5-HT2A agonists. That would mean ketamine and psychedelics, which is a good match for ketamine-assisted and psychedelic-assisted therapies where you take the relevant drug, then explore a trauma or memory that you're "stuck" on, then find that your explorations have "unstuck" you much more than they would have without the drug. Sensory evidence seems to be something something AMPA receptors, so maybe ampakines would also be helpful here, but I don't know of any sufficiently good ones, except maybe ketamine again.
Inline links: encoded in NMDA receptors, 5-HT2A receptors
Peer Review Request: Ketamine
July 19, 2021 · Original source
The short version: Ketamine is a new and exciting depression treatment, which probably works by activating AMPA receptors and strengthening synaptic connections. It takes effect within hours and works about 2-3x as well as traditional antidepressants. Most people get it through heavily-regulated and expensive esketamine prescriptions, or through even-more-expensive IV ketamine clinics, but evidence suggests that getting it prescribed cheaply and conveniently from a compounding pharmacy is equally effective. A single dose of ketamine lasts between a few days and a few weeks, after which some people will find their depression comes back; long-term repeated dosing with ketamine anecdotally seems to work great, but hasn’t been formally tested for safety. Some people also use ketamine-assisted psychotherapy, which is a very different form of treatment and can have impressive long-term results, but which is less explored and more idiosyncratic for each person.
The standard use of ketamine is purely biochemical – ketamine does something to NMDA receptors (or AMPA receptors, or whatever) and that makes you temporarily less depressed while it’s doing that.