Talk:Nitrogen narcosis

message: " neon at a fixed pressure has a narcotic effect equivalent to nitrogen at 0.23 times the pressure, so in principle it should be usable at four times the depth."
This sounds to me like neon is more narcotic than nitrogen, if the intention correct it must be reformulated to make it usefull...—Preceding unsigned comment added by Togo (talk • contribs) 5 May 2006
:No, the phrasing is correct.  If something is 0.23 times as powerful as something, it is more than four times as weak, or a fourth as strong, which are equivalent statements. - BanyanTree 05:46, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Perhaps " neon at a given pressure has a narcotic effect equivalent to nitrogen at 0.23 times that pressure ..." would be acceptable to remove the possibility of misinterpretation? RexxS (talk) 17:12, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Buggy

message: I tried to add 2 references in an attempt to improve the section on Effects, but although I think I followed the guide at Wikipedia:Footnotes, some of the references now seem to have gone awry. Can anyone help me to regularise the footnotes? RexxS (talk) 02:46, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I think your problem is that the first references really aren't footnotes, so the "reference list" tag doesn't pull them up. A simple solution (which I put up, as a suggestion) is to create a separate section for the sited (footnoted) references. See what you think. SBHarris 03:47, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I highly recommend using DAN as a source for this article, there are some things in it that aren't exactly correct, such as the part about being narced as a toxic syndrome.  DarthGriz98 05:36, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  DAN wouldn't disagree about nitrogen at high pressure being toxic. Not only will it kill you, but it's killed many a diver going for the "air" depth limit below 400 ft. So many that the Guiness Book no longer carries that as a record, because everybody who's tried to beat the current record just below 400 fsw, has died. You might want to see Exley's Caverns Measureless to Man for a personal view of how they looked doing it: sitting on the bottom, totally anesthetized, until they ran out of air. With no way to help them because Ex's vision tunnelled in anytime he tried to get to them. And he was unusually resistant to nitrogen's effects. Being generally anesthetized at 300 or 400 ft is fatal, if you have nobody to help you. And often even if you do. SBHarris 06:00, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: References were not matched with PubMed ID's so I corrected those as well as changed the citations from web to journal. I will try to return to this but want to finish references on a couple of other articles first. This one will take a while.Gene Hobbs (talk) 03:17, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Changing a web cite to a journal is an improvement, I believe, as long as there is still a url available for quick checking, rather than having to find a copy of the journal. So the second reference you updated (Hamilton, Laliberte & Fowler) makes sense. However, the first reference (originally Rogers & Moller, 1989), which was in the context of coping vs adaptation, was provided to highlight its conclusion: "These results are taken as evidence that there is little or no behavioral adaptation to nitrogen narcosis in response to brief, repetitive exposures to narcosis-inducing hyperbaric air." To replace that reference with older research (Fowler, Ackles & Porlier, 1985), which is unable to form any conclusion about physiological tolerance, seems to miss the point of the original reference. I will therefore reinstate the Rogers & Moller reference. --RexxS (talk) 17:16, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed, I missed adding that one back in but the reference you placed there and the abstract it links to do not match! That was my point in the first correction. I will fix that be the paper you link to the abstract of in PubMed.Gene Hobbs (talk) 21:05, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

text: Reference is correct to be exactly what you wanted. I do have to point out my disagreement with the validity of "older research" being less valid. Key documents for this field are key because of the quality of the work. There have been several references in other articles to poor and sometimes bad research. I have tried hard NOT to replace those out of respect for this medium but at some point, this needs to be considered and addressed by the WikiProject SCUBA team. Just my 2c.Gene Hobbs (talk) 21:20, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: First of all, thanks to you, Gene for your skills in improving the references here. I'm not sure how I managed to dissociate the reference and the abstract that I thought it referred to, but I'm grateful for your diligence in fixing it. I fully accept that research being older does not automatically imply it is less valid, but there is a general point that later researchers are likely to be aware of the limitations of earlier research (in their own field). In this case, the earlier research tried to address four issues, but was unable to distinguish between learning and physiological tolerance; while the later (presumably aware of this) focussed on adaptation and concluded that no physical tolerance occurred over the space of 12 daily exposures. Of course, this doesn't rule out the possibility that future research might find some evidence over a longer time-period, but it's the clearest reported research that I'm aware of that has a direct bearing on the "myth" that divers can physically adapt to narcosis by repeated exposure to it. --RexxS (talk) 00:29, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  References 

message: Better references on hyperbaric exposure and marijuana in animals are available. BEHAVIORAL EFFECTS OF THE INTERACTION OF MARIJUANA AND INCREASING PARTIAL PRESSURES OF N2 AND O2. Walsh and Burch. UHMS Abstract 1978. RRR 4320 and Reduction of the Behavioral Effects of Δ9-Tetrahydrocannabinol by Hyperbaric Pressure. Walsh and Burch. Pharmacology Biochemistry and Behavior, v7 p111-116 1977. RRR 4226 Gene Hobbs (talk) 03:28, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: The reference you provide would be useful in the context of the article statement "Nitrogen narcosis is known to be additive..." but not as a replacement for the NIDA reference used to verify the article statement "...which is more likely than alcohol to have effects which last into a day of abstinence from use". The NIDA reference specifically contains the statement "Moreover, research has shown that marijuana’s adverse impact on memory and learning can last for days or weeks after the acute effects of the drug wear off" with three references to verify it. --RexxS (talk) 17:34, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I was not comfortable enough making stronger comment than those provided, hence my placement of these articles here and not in the main article. Due to pressure reversal of anesthetic actions, I question the direct assumptions made in the article. It will be impossible to know for sure what happens and no answer will ever truly be known.Gene Hobbs (talk) 21:27, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: If you mean the assumption behind Nitrogen narcosis is known to be additive to even minimal alcohol intoxication, and also to the effects of other drugs such as marijuana... then we both know it's true for alcohol (e.g. effects of hyperbaric air in combination with ethyl alcohol and dextroamphetamine on serial choice-reaction time) and false for marijuana (as your reference clearly shows). However, given the "political" sensitivity of suggesting that diving reduces the effects of marijuana, I would prefer to see some discussion here before amending the latter part of that sentence. I know about WP:BOLD - what do others think? --RexxS (talk) 01:00, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I think it calls for more research... But seriously, I'm not convinced of the science behind the proposition. --Legis (talk - contribs) 01:34, 15 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Marijuana 

message: I just removed an EL as the article it linked to contained nothing new. I checked WP:ELNO to be sure I could justify the removal (WP:ELNO #1) and looked at WP:ELNO #13:
Sites that are only indirectly related to the article's subject: the link should be directly related to the subject of the article. A general site that has information about a variety of subjects should usually not be linked to from an article on a more specific subject. Similarly, a website on a specific subject should usually not be linked from an article about a general subject. If a section of a general website is devoted to the subject of the article, and meets the other criteria for linking, then that part of the site could be deep-linked.
On that basis, I would question all of the ELs in this article. I know those are useful resources but as they don't seem to meet the criteria for EL in Nitrogen narcosis, can we justify keeping them here? --RexxS (talk) 01:12, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  External Links 

message: I've done an overhaul of Nitrogen narcosis at User talk:RexxS/Narcosis (diving) by taking the content of the article and re-arranging it to conform with WP:MOSMED as we did with Oxygen toxicity. I'm now adding references (slowly) and think it's capable of becoming a good article. I'd like to know if anyone has any comments, suggestions or objections before I consider replacing the current article. Thanks --RexxS (talk) 23:28, 3 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Re-write to conform with [[WP:MOSMED]]? 

message: At present the articles states that some agencies will certify you to 130 feet on air, but some Tec diving agencies will certify you much deeper.  TDI's extended range certification is good for up to 180 feet on air, and I think the PADI/DSAT course is very close to that.  Do we need to amplify? --Legis (talk - contribs) 18:12, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, of course - and if you don't mind, I'll copy any info you insert into User:RexxS/Narcosis (diving) in the hope that we'll get agreement to replace the article here. It's worth noting as well that the UK agencies (SAA and BSAC) both certify recreational divers to  at CMAS** level. Having been there (and beyond!) in the days before we could get helium, I'm sure there's a lot more we could add about what is recommended as best practice nowadays. --RexxS (talk) 18:43, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Nitrogen_narcosis#Avoidance_and_cure|Avoidance and cure]] 

message: This reference: http://www.techdiver.ws/exotic_gases.shtml#4.2 gives a narcotic value of 7.14 for krypton as compared with nitrogen (obviously calculated from partion in oil/water), which is about what would be expected, as an intermediate between Ar at 2.3 and Xe at 25.6. I think the table is probably wrong and should be checked. Incidentally this makes a difference, since it means that breathing Kr at 80% would be about like breathing air at 200 ft depth in seawater. That's significantly narcotic, and would mean krypton has additional dangers beyond a simple asphyxiant. Even 40% krypton might make a person feel more dizzy than just getting 60% of normal oxygen would by itself (what you'd get with 40% argon, say). SBHarris 03:48, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for bringing that up. The table was derived from  which is generally considered as reliable a source for diving physiology as exists. The summary table at Techdiver is claimed to be derived from the 4th Edition (1993), which I don't have. However, Bennett does cite multiple sources for his figures and points out that "By far the most satisfactory correlation is afforded by lipid solubility" - which of course is not the same as saying there is a direct relationship. (As an aside, it's worth noting that relative oil-water solubility ratio differs from relative lipid solubility - for example, argon has almost the same oil-water solubility ratio as nitrogen, but twice its lipid solubility.) I do agree though that krypton's relative narcotic potency as quoted by Bennett is anomalous. It is possible that the figure of 2.5 is a mistake; or that krypton as a breathing gas has been so little studied that its measured narcotic potency is inaccurate; or that it actually is anomalous in its correlation with lipid solubility. At the moment, I don't know the answer and still prefer a direct quote from Bennett & Elliott to an indirect one from a website, but I'll see if Gene Hobbs can comment - or if he can ask Peter Bennett what the answer is! --RexxS (talk) 13:21, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

text: Gene tells me that the fourth edition quotes the relative narcotic potency of Kr as 0.14 - i.e. as N2/Kr which is 7.14 if calculated as Kr/N2, so there is a difference between editions, but Peter Bennett is out of town this week. Hopefully we can get some clarification soon. Good catch, Steven! --RexxS (talk) 21:33, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
replies: text:  Thanks. Nice to know the universe makes sense. I'll mess with the "precautions" section of the krypton article when we get it sorted out and a decent reference. There are questions on that element's talk page which are related. SBHarris 23:14, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Having checked all the sources I can, I'm convinced the value in the table in Bennett & Elliott 5th Edition is erroneous. I've uploaded a new table derived from the values given in the 4th and 5th editions using the value for Krypton given in the 4th edition. Hope you can sort out the Krypton precautions section now. With the revised value, it certainly implies some anesthetic properties even at normobaric pressures. --RexxS (talk) 19:27, 22 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wrong value for Kr in table? 

message: There is a video on YouTube, illustrating several points in the article, that I thought might make a useful external link. Unfortunately, it looks like it may be copyright and may be being used without permission, so it would be unusable as an external link. Does anybody recognise it? If so, it's possible that we could then determine whether it is on YouTube with permission and make the link. --RexxS (talk) 15:35, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  YouTube video 

message: Since the paragraph in "Prevention" about the "Thumbs test" has remained uncited since March, and I can find no WP:RS for it, I've cut it and pasted it here, in the hope that someone can find a ref for it.
--RexxS (talk) 22:50, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Thumbs test 

message: You may not know that Google page ranks by exact article name (or whatever links they've set as equal to the name), and does not see any hits based on internal wiki-redirects, if those aren't obvious. Thus, flu shot redirects to influenza vaccination on Wikipedia, but not on Google, because Google hasn't performed it's own redirect. Thus, a google search on "Flu shot" will NOT get you the wikipedia article, or any redirected article, for many pages (and this article hardly gets any pageviews, showing that most Wikipedia hits still come from Google). In effect, the Wikipedia article doesn't exist for Google, and this cannot be helped at the Wikipedia end except by naming it "Flu shot."  However, in another case, where Google itself has done the redirect, typing "Flu" into Google will get indeed get you the Wikipedia Influenza article, as your second hit. But that's because Google has redirected the search.  My point is that if you're not careful, you'll end up naming your Wiki technically "correctly" but if Google doesn't follow you in the redirect, nobody will ever see the Wiki article on the Google search, no matter how you re-direct things on Wikipedia. It's well to remember that. If you want this stuff to be read, keep the titles as something Google users will search on.  BTW, feel free to test what I say. Look at the number of page hits for this article using http://stats.grok.se/ then do the same after you've renamed it and redirected to it. You'll find to your shock that it doesn't work. It's not the same. You have to write a letter to Google to "fix" it. SBHarris 23:18, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Good point, Steve. It was raised at Talk:Myocardial infarction#Name of the article when there was discussion about "heart attack" vs. "myocardial infarction", so I guess that the medics are aware, but prefer the guidance at MOSMED as it stands. I see that google has fixed that particular problem since a gsearch for "heart attack" now shows wikipedia's article Myocardial infarction at number 1. In this case, a gsearch for "narcosis" has our dab page at number 1, with "nitrogen narcosis" showing in the first line of its description. That would still be true, whatever we called this article. As you rightly point out though, the gsearch for "nitrogen narcosis" could be affected - to what extent I can't speculate, but I suspect it would be just as fixable as the heart attack case. --RexxS (talk) 00:23, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
replies: text:  Actually that may NOT be true if you name an article to something rarely searched for. However, if it's already made the top under a common name, I suppose the redirect will keep it there, as people will still link to it under its old name. Be interesting to see. But for a new article you have name the article commonly and then wait till it hits the top of searches, before renaming to something uncommon. Again, even though flu shot redirects to influenza vaccination, Google is unaware of the redirect and will not give you the second when you search for the first. So Google does not necessarily track WP's redirects. SBHarris 03:14, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
replies: text:  Thanks again, Steve. That's excellent advice and I'll do my best to remember it when creating new articles in the future. --RexxS (talk) 19:01, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  One more reason to use "common" Wiki article names 

message: To do list
#Find source for:
#*"An early effect may be loss of near-visual accommodation, causing increased difficulty in close-accommodation reading of small numbers in middle-aged or older divers who already have any degree of presbyopia" removed until source found --RexxS (talk) 18:31, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Preparation for GA Review

message: Reading the sources given (Bennett & Elliott), it can be seen that no narcotic effect has ever been observed in either helium or neon, although there has not been much research done into neon because its higher density makes it less useful than helium. There is a quote from Peter Bennett two sections above #Helium narcosis that makes this point clear. It seems that I ought to quote the exact text from page 305 of the source:
* Helium: "Helium is not narcotic ..."
* Neon: "The first performance tests on man were made by Hamilton et al (1966) at 183 msw (600 fsw) using a standard pursuit rotor which demonstrated no deterioration. ... Lambertsen studied the effects of breathing neon at 366 msw (1200 fsw) and found no narcosis."
I don't think it can be any clearer than that. I've restored the previous text. --RexxS (talk) 15:06, 24 January 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Helium narcosis part 2 

message: 94.14.134.76 posted this comment on 12 December 2012 (view all feedback).
more easy-to-understand writing for young people
I fear this may be a cry in the darkness. Link to an article on Simple English? (I have just started one for the purpose)
Any thoughts?
• • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 15:46, 19 July 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reader feedback: more easy-to-understand writ... 

message: The graph needs clarification. Superficial reading suggests that N2 with a potency of around 50 or 60 is the strongest anaesthetic of the compounds measured. The meaning of the term gas partition coefficient is not explained in the text, which makes the data in the graph inaccessible to anyone without this knowledge.
I will try to look it up, but if anyone has a good reference please go ahead and explain. • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 10:06, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks, Peter.  Good job. --Legis (talk - contribs) 13:16, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Explanation of graph 

message: . This is a gross oversimplification, as there are several anaesthetic gases which are effective at normal atmospheric pressure when mixed with sufficient oxygen to sustain life. Nitrous oxide and Xenon are just two of them. I am not sure whether this was intended to refer to gases which are not  generally considered narcotic at atmospheric pressure, or to the proportionality of narcotic effect to partial pressure of the gas. Either way it should be clarified. I would do so myself except not sure what was intended. • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 09:18, 26 December 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Classification 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Not mentioned in article yet. · · · Peter (Southwood) (talk): 10:23, 5 December 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Date of identification of cause 

message: Should the article mention the use of the term "Deep water blackout" to refer to loss of consciousness at depth on air as mentioned by David Elliott in ? This article is linked from the disambiguation page for Deep water blackout  for this meaning along with Freediving blackout for the alternative meaning, which is explained there in reasonable detail. · · · Peter Southwood (talk): 08:10, 25 July 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Deep water blackout 

message: There's been a spike in page views, likely due to people reading the US news and looking for information about using this as a method of killing someone.  I'm glad we have a good article for them to read.  Thanks to all who brought it to this point and have maintained it over the years. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:54, 29 January 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Spike in page views