
Largest brain imaging study identifies drivers of brain aging - prostoalex
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/08/180821112010.htm
======
mistersquid
A number of articles report scientific skepticism regarding Daniel Amen and
SPECT imaging, including articles published by the Washington Post and WIRED
magazine. [0] [1] [2]

[0] [https://www.wired.com/2008/05/mf-
neurohacks/?currentPage=all](https://www.wired.com/2008/05/mf-
neurohacks/?currentPage=all)

[1] [https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/daniel-
ame...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/daniel-amen-is-the-
most-popular-psychiatrist-in-america-to-most-researchers-and-scientists-thats-
a-very-bad-
thing/2012/08/07/467ed52c-c540-11e1-8c16-5080b717c13e_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.6512b2f7d58e)

[2] [https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/dr-amens-love-affair-
with-s...](https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/dr-amens-love-affair-with-spect-
scans/)

------
aaaaaaaaaab
Uh-oh, cannabis makes your brain age faster than alcohol? Stoner apologists
won’t be happy about this... I predict a wave of anecdotal evidence and
broscience along the lines of:

\- “but it cured my depression”

\- “nobody dies of cannabis overdose, but many people die from alcohol
poisoning, checkmate!”

\- “but it makes me sleep well, and sleeping is healthy”

\- “it can cure cancer, but big pharma doesn’t want you to know”

~~~
coldtea
> _I predict a wave of anecdotal evidence and broscience along the lines of: -
> “but it cured my depression”_

How's that laughable?

If cannabis can indeed help with depression that might mean more for the
quality of life for a person despite "making their brain age faster".

Besides this "faster brain aging" could still be at an insignificant amount.

As in anything, there are tradeoffs.

Besides, as with any study, including the "largest" ones, this should be taken
with a grain of salt, until results are solidified and go from mere research
to active recommendations and common medical practices.

~~~
andai
Anecdotal: It didn't cure my depression but certainly helped me manage it. It
was the only thing that made the depression subside for long enough to
concentrate and get real work done.

 _Major_ Caveat: My brain chemistry has changed over time, and the last 10
times I've smoked have _all_ been horrible, indescribable paranoia and anxiety
I wouldn't wish upon anyone. (Fun fact: pure THC injected into a healthy adult
predictably causes psychosis.)

Used to recommend highly, now highly dis-recommend until the genetic testing
becomes available and widespread. For some people it's the only thing that
helps. For others it might just be the worst thing a person could do to
themselves.

Re: Correlation != Causation

Yes, certainly. However, observing myself and others, I see a definite
_worsening_ of anxiety and paranoia after smoking. Yes, it depends on the
person, what you're smoking, etc. (THC vs CBD (apparently a potent _anti_
-psychotic) is very fascinating and I look forward to more research in this
area)

The take-home point is that there are people who should not be smoking at all,
and this is something I really don't hear mentioned enough.

~~~
thisacctforreal
I'm looking forward to the research that will come out of Canada after the
upcoming legalisation :)

------
erokar
People with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and ADHD usually take drugs that
might influence "brain aging" — i.e. the disease itself might not be the
culprit.

~~~
zeristor
It would be interesting if they could tie damage down to each medicine used.

Although Schizophrenia, and ADHD seem to be tied to the brain being over
active, at least that’s my interpretation of it.

------
forthispurpose
What did they mean by "abuse" in this case?

------
threatofrain
Surprising that they didn't find depression to be predictive, given that it
should be correlated to so many other negative things.

------
evo_9
What about this?

[https://www.nature.com/articles/npjamd201612#abstract](https://www.nature.com/articles/npjamd201612#abstract)

------
kebert
If I'm understanding their findings correctly- [https://sci-
hub.tw/https://content.iospress.com/articles/jou...](https://sci-
hub.tw/https://content.iospress.com/articles/journal-of-alzheimers-
disease/jad180598)

It would seem that having dementia, depression, and traumatic brain injury
would result in you having a younger brain?

Doesn't seem right

------
patfla
Amen Clinics and SPECT? Right. Google for it.

And yet Daniel Amen seems to have acquired many reasonable sounding co-authors
for the paper.

------
asdf1234tx
Article is light on details on what constitutes brain aging, but judging by 85
year old Willie Nelson's articulateness in his 2018 interviews, I hope to be
aging my brain some day, as I get closer to retirement. Deep, gravelly, I
don't give a fuck, voice. Zero hesitation, when he feels like expressing
himself.

~~~
bena
You may be arguing from exception here. Yes, Willie Nelson is seemingly doing
fine. But we don't know for sure how much he actually smokes. We have his
claims.

But even giving him his self-reported claims, he is still a sample size of
one.

Your mileage will vary.

Basically what you have done here is taken a piece of information, realized
you don't like the results, and have found a way to rationalize continuing
doing what you were doing anyway.

If you have ever complained about someone not believing in facts, not doing
research, not trusting data, not trusting science, you have just put lie to
your reasons for doing so. Because you are behaving just like them. Discarding
information that makes you uncomfortable. And we can't do that.

~~~
coldtea
> _Your mileage will vary._

Which makes an one-size-fits-all research less relevant as an absolute rule.

> _If you have ever complained about someone not believing in facts, not doing
> research, not trusting data, not trusting science_

Then you've done fine, as:

1) science is not some holy gospel given from god but a man-made endeavor (and
prone to corruption, politics, error, careerism, and so on),

2) data can be manipulated or misread,

3) research can be bought, manipulated for grants, follow the wrong
methodology, be unreproducible, and so on

4) facts themselves have no value unless you've seen them with your own eyes
(and even then, you could be delusional or mistaken). With the term "fact" we
denote something collected and reported by somebody that might be mistaken,
told BS (e.g. how people self-report lies in studies and polls), distorted the
actual bare facts for political reasons or private interests, and so on.

Not even peer review is some kind of holy process for the truth. All kinds of
crap (even auto-generated) have passed peer review, academics prop each other
up in little cliques all the time, tons of peer reviewed studies were found
wrong and unreproducible, few "reviewers" take the time to reproduce or verify
a study (to the point that studies quote the same old study for decades, and
base their recommendations on it, and then it's found to be unsubstantiated
BS), and meta-studies are more often than not very shallow.

If you trust science, you're not scientific and empirical enough.

Verify the crap out of everything you here, even if it's sold as "science".

~~~
bena
Science is the process, not the results.

And every "point" you've brought up is the same canard flat Earthers, young
Earth creationists, and other sort of pseudo-science hack pushes.

asdf has discarded out of hand the study for the first reason he could find
because he does not like the result. There are better reasons elsewhere in
this very thread for being skeptical. But he didn't look those up. He didn't
do one bit of leg work. He decided "Willie Nelson, Checkmate." What he's done
is no better than what so many anti-intellectual hacks have done when arguing
against things like evolution and the Earth not being flat.

So yes, I trust science, because I trust the process.

And it wasn't presented as a "one-size-fits-all" research. And regardless, if
it was found that it was an average of 4 years, you're just saying "Yeah,
well, I'm going to be one of the lucky ones".

~~~
coldtea
> _Science is the process, not the results._

The scientific process is an abstract idea. Unless you believe in the reality
of platonic ideas, the real world offers a much messier application of the
scientific process.

Besides, I've already covered that.

> _And every "point" you've brought up is the same canard flat Earthers, young
> Earth creationists, and other sort of pseudo-science hack pushes._

Which is neither a scientific argument, nor a relevant one. The fact that
people who have wrong opinions on another matter (e.g. whether the earth if
flat) also put forward this argument regarding science, does not mean it is
false. You simply committed a logical fallacy.

In fact, I'm not even sure those people put forward this argument in any case.
Young Earth creationists, for example, put forward other kinds of arguments
(e.g. that the Bible knows better, which is not the same as "real science is a
messy human process, never trust what its practitioners say just because it's
labelled as science").

> _He decided "Willie Nelson, Checkmate."_

Well, it's a good counter-example. At the very least, it proves (given what we
know about Nelson is true) that the findings in the research are not an
absolute truth but it can vary for each person. Heck, those researches should
also study Nelson and other lucid older heavy users, and learn what they can
from them as well.

Besides, asdf never professed to put up a scientific argument. He just made a
casual comment in an online forum. Notice how everything he said is totally
rational and empirically verifiable:

"Article is light on details on what constitutes brain aging, but judging by
85 year old Willie Nelson's articulateness in his 2018 interviews, I hope to
be aging my brain some day, as I get closer to retirement. Deep, gravelly, I
don't give a fuck, voice. Zero hesitation, when he feels like expressing
himself."

He doesn't even say that the article is wrong "because Willie": just that
Willie Nelson is very articulate despite being a heavy user, and that he hopes
to be as "brain aged" as he is, when he gets close to retirement.

> _So yes, I trust science, because I trust the process._

Too bad. There's no pure process in the world. There are just people who are
supposed to follow a process, and you need to not just trust the process, but
also to trust the people that they will follow it properly.

(In fact even the concept of such a "process" is mumbo jumbo: there's no
single well specified "scientific process", with a predetermined set of rules
that every practitioner follows or is supposed to follow. It's an umbrella
term referring to all kinds of practices, described in several different
abstract ways by philosophers of science based on a set of high level steps).
Even "peer review" is a relatively recent phenomenon, as is "publish or
perish").

~~~
bena
The point "Sometime science is incomplete" doesn't say anything to any
particular study. It doesn't address anything about the study itself. Saying
"the data is wrong here" or "your statistical model is wrong in these ways" or
"your sample size is too small" are tangible things and things worth bringing
up. Saying "yeah, but science is wrong... sometimes" says nothing.

No one said the findings were absolute truth. It's a pointless thing to argue
against. They said they found on average about 4 years of accelerated aging.
You get averages from highs and lows. So a counter-example of one is
irrelevant. Ok, put him in with the averages. Now the average is... about 4
years. His data point doesn't move the needle.

Sure the article is light on details, because it's a summary of a study. Not
the study itself. But the point remains, he latched on to the first thing he
could think of to dismiss the results. That's just bad process.

And I never said it has to be a "pure" process. If the only way you have of
"making a point" is to stretch others' words to the point of absurdity, then
you don't have a point. You are immediately assuming the worst possible
interpretation of words rather than even a neutral one. The process is overall
simple: perform, observe, record, interpret. If your findings are valid, if
your methods are sound, and your tests repeatable, others will be able to
duplicate your results. And I'm sure you're going to interpret that in the
worst possible way. Because you have already an answer you want, you just need
to fit the data to it.

Being skeptical, being open, also means being wrong sometimes. The idea is to
consider new information and not just toss it aside because it conflicts with
your personal preferences.

------
tw1010
At what age is brain aging considered having gone from a good thing to a bad
thing?

------
sigi45
Who said weed is save? Cannabis is a drug/substance which has an effect on us
and if the only effect is brain aging of a few years -> okay.

Was not able to find the paper, anyone has the link?

Not sure yet if i should care. I will drink my gin tonic, smoke something
later on and still live with adhs while contemplating my life.

