Newsgroups: comp.ai
From: David@longley.demon.co.uk (David Longley)
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!das-news2.harvard.edu!news2.near.net!howland.reston.ans.net!pipex!bt!btnet!peernews.demon.co.uk!longley.demon.co.uk!David
Subject: 10% of what?
Organization: Myorganisation
Reply-To: David@longley.demon.co.uk
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Date: Fri, 21 Apr 1995 01:22:40 +0000
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THE 10% STATISTIC: OUT OUT DAMNED MONOAMINE!

Clearly, the 10% means whatever one wants it to mean. Much of the brain is
white matter of course, much is non cortex.  However  there is one serious
intrepretation which might be worth thinking about:

We have to make do with our allotted quota of neurones for  life. Work  on
the monoamines (noradrenaline, dopamine, serotonin (5-HT)  was  largely  a 
matter of chemical lesion using 6-OHDA or 5-7 DHT to destroy the fibres at
some point rostral to their cell bodies. There's a general consensus  that 
one had to get the cortical/hippocampal levels down by over 90% to get ANY
behavioural effects. This was taken to mean that  the systems  are  highly
*redundant*.

Over recent years, with people  making designer  drugs which  have  either
been synthesised badly, (or just not tested!), there have been reports  of
users coming down with early senile disorders such Parkinson's disease. If
there is any risk of byproducts 'taking out' CNS monoamine systems  at  an
early age (there have been *scare reports* of the  neurotoxic  effects  of
MDMA ('E')), there may be a long term price to pay for usage of what  seem
at to the time to be just recreational drugs.

Anyway, I thought I'd throw this one into the arena  just to  put  another
interpretation  of the '10% statistic' up for silly/interesting appraisal.
 
-- 
David Longley
