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 ...
I’m very sorry to hear about your power outage, NC. Can you and the Mrs. leave out some cat food and go somewhere warm, with showers?
A guy sent by AAA showed up and broke us into the van. Then we went to Walmart. Now I’m having a cup of tea and listening to Spanish Christian pop music.
But the yeti fistfights were beautiful.
Plan A having failed, and Plans B and C looking iffy, I'd be working my way down the alphabet by now.
First stop, the fireplace. No fireplace? I have a fireplace and a wood stove. Heck, I have a spare wood stove up in the attic.
Still nothing, hunh? How about a kerosene burner? Even the decorative lamps give off a bit of heat, but you'll want to be careful with them.
Any vehicles around there burn diesel?
Hmm.
.
Got an inverter that will support about three hundred watts? I think that's what your furnace probably draws. Hook up the inverter to your vehicle's battery, run a long extension cord down to the furnace, and become the modern Prometheus. (Don't run the battery down too far, but remember, gas is cheap in this f'rinstance.)
Folks in California who have more money than sense like to invest in Tesla Power-Walls, so they can cruise for a week with no grid power.
They're not wrong, but it's an investment. In fact it's the kind of investment that makes a cheap generator make sense, instead of a honking big box in your back yard that runs on natural gas.
When your power-wall runs low, you can fire up the generator for a couple hours to recharge the batteries, and then let it rest again before you refuel it. Drive your electric vehicle down to the gas station to get gas for your generator.
I’m thinking about getting a generator for my birthday. They are a few hundred dollars, one hears, and will keep the freezer and fridge running.
Wise choice! I had to replace an entire freezer full of food because my then-husband shut off all the breakers. What a stinky mess when we got back off 10 days’ leave. GAH!!
Look! Wednesday on Odinsday!
Good morning. I slept in and ruined all my plans, but I have an excuse, really.
Now I need to go shower and see if I can get going on my day.
DP unplugged the garage freezer to plug something else in the outlet once, then forgot about it. Fortunately, there was nothing in it at the time but a few loaves of bread.
*sheesh*
What goes on in the minds of men? Or women. I don’t understand any of them.
Maybe I’ll have a somewhat “normal” day, today.
I hope. Monday and Tuesday were really strange. I missed an appointment because someone, whose job it was to call and remind me, didn’t do it. However, the notes in the office said the person “called and talked” to me. My phone never rang on Monday.
Life is like that. Yesterday was highly entropic. Maybe today will go better.
In NYC the postal works walk their routes. Mrs. ArGee was home during the day and before we lived in a doorman building I would come home to USPS notices that they had tried to deliver a package and we could pick it up at the P.O. the next day. She knew they had not tried. They just don’t want to walk with a boatload of packages when most apartments are empty all day.
We tried complaining to the postmaster, but they said we were wrong, their carriers always take all the packages and push the buzzer. Whattya gonna do?
Since Michael Bloomberg is officially running for Presidente I’ll channel my inner Little Mayor and say:
Buenos Morningos, Amigos!
(For you non-Nueva Yorqis he was known to murder Spanish when making public pronouncements.)
Yeah, ‘Good Morning’ en Español should be ‘Buenos Mañana’...
We didn’t see his ad when watching Jeopardy! last night. It was getting boring ... not that all the ads for new cars and Medicare supplements aren’t boring.
Thank you.
Buenos dias y muchissimas calcetines grandes para ti y su familia! Llaves rancheros y garcias.
Something something banan.
Got it.
It’s getting so that you wouldn’t know what diseases you might have or how to take care of them but for TV.
How did people survive in the old days?
I got, “huevos rancheros.” The rest went over my head.
Now I’m hungry.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.