If you see Fluffy, the Undead baby penguin, and you're not in Antarctica, you're hallucinating.
Posted on 10/14/2019 10:45:03 AM PDT by BenLurkin
In the 1950s, researchers stumbled upon a new class of drugs that provided relief for those suffering from schizophrenia. These drugs were known as antipsychotics and, as the name suggests, they reduced symptoms like hallucinations and delusions — primarily by reducing the levels of dopamine in the brain. This led clinicians and scientists to argue that dopamine was linked to the experiences of psychotic symptoms, and a concerted research effort ensued, seeking to solve the puzzle of why excess dopamine might produce hallucinations.
Although it was later shown that increasing dopamine could produce hallucinations, establishing a consistent link between them, it has not been clear why.
They achieved this by taking advantage of a simple fact: Your brain is lazy. It makes shortcuts to understand the deluge of information that bombards it daily. If you’re presented with consistent information, consistently, your brain adjust its expectations of reality in turn. This is the basis of Bayesian theories of how we perceive the world – that is, the brain makes inferences about the world around us based on statistics and probabilities on what is likely to occur.
[I]ncreasing dopamine made it more difficult for participants to adjust their perception — an effect comparable to how the hallucinators had struggled. Moreover, the extent to which participants struggled was strongly associated with the severity of hallucinations — but not with any diagnosis of schizophrenia. In other words, the difficulty appeared to be associated with a symptom, not a diagnosis.
Using brain imaging, the researchers also showed that an increased capacity for dopamine release, from a part of the brain known as the striatum (an area involved in schizophrenia), was associated with the severity of hallucinations. Together, these experiments showed that excess dopamine was associated with difficulty in accurately predicting reality.
(Excerpt) Read more at inverse.com ...
Sorry to hear about your deer collision. The mom of one of my Cub Scouts ran into a bear earlier this fall.
Wow! What a pretty kitteh! And it’s lying on a rug that, believe it or not, I have the needlepoint/cross stitch patterns for. Six books, and the rug is beautiful. I wanted very much to make it, but it was at a time when I had absolutely no money. Probably around 1996, when I had to quit work.
I would love to make it, but I don’t think I’ll live long enough to do it, even if I were able to get the materials. Let me know if you’re interested in the books. ;o]
I will never have time to needlepoint a rug! I haven’t even had time for refrigerator magnets for months!
Good morning! It rained over night, and now it’s hot again. So much for our brief glimpse of fall. Tom the Son thought the auto shop was open today, so we could retrieve the car, but he’s wrong. We’ll have to sort it out tomorrow. Maybe DP will want his car back badly enough to help out.
Kathleen had a very good time at a Hallowe’en party last night. She helped carve a pumpkin.
I had a bad night with back pain and an obnoxious earworm of a Billy Joel song, but Jake insisted I get up at 5:15.
I checked my weather forecast. The bad new is more days in the 80s, in freepin late October. The good news is we’ll get more rain. Epic Fail has been longing to mow the lawn, but even the crabgrass hasn’t been growing!
If you see Fluffy, the Undead baby penguin, and you're not in Antarctica, you're hallucinating.
Next choice then would be a cross stitch something, from the same pattern, so maybe my daughter would like the books. Of course, she thinks she going to get everything, anyway...
the wind is blowing out of the NW @ 21 mph and the temp is 49° so it feels like 42°. However, my peeps in CO are expecting a snowstorm, so the wind we’ve been getting is part of it. OK and TX are getting snow as we speak.
I’m sorry you have the back pain. I empathize. I’d like to wish it on someone else so you could feel an easing of it.
It’s good that Kathleen has fun, last night. I hope she had enough to sleep well, quickly!
It gets better when I’m up and moving around. There is no sign of human activity in the house, other than myself. However, the birds have declared Morning outside. A Carolina Wren is calling, “You cheat! You cheater!”
I used to hallucinate every month with cramps. I figure it was the brain helping me “escape” from the pain. The worst pain EVER.
LOL!
The birds were very happy to be alive a little while ago, and were singing for all they were worth. Now, it seems to be their nap time. Beaker seems so much happier with her beak trimmed on a regular basis.
So are DP and That Person coming back today? Not too early I hope!
Writing to my daughter is a slow process, this morning...
Maybe Lysie will share her pie from the other thread. We can add that to your chocolate goodies.
Yes, they should be home by noon, because DP is playing the guitar at Mass at 1:00. It’s a 3-hour drive. He’ll probably have to load her inert form into the truck, because she doesn’t do the getting up thing.
I know I sound awful, but I’m still mad about the last thing, whatever it was.
Since I have a sweet tooth, I normally make chocolate chip cookies for the moves, but this time, I wanted some yummy gooey brownies. I also serve hot chocolate (the real stuff) and folks can add what they want from the bar in the mezzanine. Or not.
I always welcome new recipes! :o])
NicknamedBob hasn’t seemed to have caught up with us, this time, and since he’s the pilot and chief of the Flying Castle, we need his expertise.
Happy Birthday.
Hmmm. An egg Benedict, substitute the hollandaise with chocolate?
Very interesting article.
Right now I’m in the middle of an hallucination that my phone is bricked. Utterly bricked.
Howya, wintertime! Welcome to the new Undead Thread. Pull up a chair, have a Guinness.
I had not considered combining eggs with chocolate, but is there any reason one shouldn’t?
Sorry about your phone, null and void.
The kid resurrected it.
Oh, that’s nice. Did he take the battery out and put it back in? That’s what DP does when mine goes dead.
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