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Comment by eigenvalue | Hacker News Reader

It's fascinating to me that a pure element would have such immediate and significant effects on the human mind. I would think that this would generally require a more complex molecular shape that can fit with various receptors in the body and trigger the release of dopamine and other neurotransmitters.

Apparently, Xenon does this by acting as an antagonist of the N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor, a subtype of glutamate receptor, and also by enhancing the effect of ("potentiation of") gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA). Other drugs that act along the NMDA pathway are Ketamine and Memantine (an Alzheimer's drug). And other drugs that act along the GABA pathway are Benzodiazepines (e.g., Diazepam, Lorazepam-- i.e,. Valium). And apparently Nitrous Oxide (N2O) uses both mechanisms as well.

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Even more relevantly, Nitrogen is an anaesthetic. Even, apparently, at the partial pressure found in air [0].

[0]: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/1130736/

Nitrogen is narcotic at higher partial pressures. This is something they teach during SCUBA diving training: If your dive buddy starts acting loopy when you get around 100ft deep, it's time to go up.

> It is caused by the anesthetic effect of certain gases at high partial pressure... Narcosis produces a state similar to drunkenness (alcohol intoxication), or nitrous oxide inhalation.

> Except for helium and probably neon, all gases that can be breathed have a narcotic effect, although widely varying in degree. The effect is consistently greater for gases with a higher lipid solubility, and although the mechanism of this phenomenon is still not fully clear, there is good evidence that the two properties are mechanistically related.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitrogen_narcosis

Let's not forget the big OTC elephant in the room for NMDA, dextromethorphan

My understanding of mechanisms from a chemistry perspective is that the anesthetics mess with the phospholipid bilayer making up the cell membrane in a way that closes off receptors. So it makes intuitive sense that dissolving giant xenon molecules in a layer could mess with it from a pure physical perspective. What's weird, to my mind, is that other noble gases don't have any effect - you'd expect a gradient.

Xenon Hexafluoride is a thing. So it's only mostly non-reactive, and the effects don't necessarily have to be strictly from physical bulk.

Apparently Krypton and Radon are slightly reactive as well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noble_gas_compound

Getting something to react with fluorine mostly just proves that it exists.

Other noble gases can also produce anesthesia, they just aren't as effective and so require pressures above atmospheric pressure for it to work. See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inhalational_anesthetic#Hype...

> Other drugs that act along the NMDA pathway

and apparently Gou Teng, used in traditional chinese medicine and for blood pressure control ("and" because TCM wasn't developed with blood pressure cuffs at hand).

The HIF factor they mention is what your body makes when it’s going through hypoxia. It’s the same thing pranayama yoga (or more popularly Wim Hof breathing) does because you induce mild hypoxia conditions.

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