Wednesday, April 10, 2013

branscannr on drugs

Which is better: the generic or the name brand? Now drug companies have a tool to test out the moods induced by the name of their latest drug.

brainscannr

free brain scans for everyone! Over thirty million served! 1

Let's start with some benzodiazepines!


brainscannr results

This is your true brain, the emotions that run your life!


Uh oh, not so great for lorazepam. How about for the name brand, Ativan?



There. Don't you feel more relaxed now?

Moving right along to some atypical antipsychotics. Let's start with olanzapine.



Hmm, no psychiatrist wants to see a strip of skulls down their patient's postcentral gyrus. Not to mention a frontal lobe that sleeps 16 hours a day.

But how about the name brand Zyprexa?



That's more like it... What a happy frontal lobe! And nothing but love for the motor strip. Who cares if the parietal-occipital region is sad, when there's such a big anterior party going on!

Let's go for another atypical, aripiprazole. Who can even pronounce that??



I'm so confused!! Am I happy? Sad? Afraid?

Abilify must be better, right?



Hi! Hi there, hello, hi... I'm a little shy, but I feel much better!


I'd like to end with midazolam, an amnestic benzodiazapine sometimes used before or during surgical procedures.


It is truly the perfect drug. C'mon Roche, you can't do any better than that. Why even try?



Oh, I see. You're not only happy on Dormicum, your entire brain is in love. But will you remember such bliss after you wake up in the orthopedic recovery ward?


Footnote

1 Not to be confused with brainSCANr, developed by Voytek & Voyek (2012):

The goal of neuroscience is to discover the relationships between brain, behavior, and disease. Using the Brain Systems, Connections, Associations, and Network Relationships (brainSCANr) engine, you can explore the relationships between neuroscience terms in peer reviewed publications.


Reference

Voytek JB, Voytek B. (2012). Automated cognome construction and semi-automated hypothesis generation. J Neurosci Methods 208(1):92-100.


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