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 ...
Pretty Floofy shadow!
Good morning.
The shower and the letter to Charlie are done, so I need to get the letter mailed so he can have it on Monday. He gets upset when he doesn’t get them when he expects them, poor ol’ guy.
Welp, the stain didn’t come out of the vest. So there is the option of Wite-Out, and it only needs to last an hour. I won’t toss the vest, because its far too pretty. I could use bleach but the thing is cotton and ramie and the bleach would probably eat the fabric. So we’ll just try the “boo-boo juice.”
When I was in Catholic grade school, we had to use fountain pens (I still have a fountain pen) and we also had to have the nuns’ version of Wite-Out — Purex and water.
What about a strategically-draped scarf?
Nobody else is up here. All the tamales I put in the refrigerator have disappeared. I suspect Tom. Don’t know if Sally got any, or if they’re all eaten, or what. Might be upstairs in Tom’s refrigerator, because the Tupperware they were in has disappeared, too, and there’s No Way On Earth that Tom washed it and put it away.
Also, it’s pouring rain, and we have to be at the county agricultural center at 9:15. At least I don’t have to cook: we’re bringing sodas to the Envirothon potluck.
From October...
Meet Larry, Chief Mouser of the UK and perhaps the most powerful feline in the world
Awww, he’s super cute! And good morning. It’s pouring rain here, and I have an unpleasant suspicion that some of what I hear is sleet.
Speaking of cats, my daughter in Okinawa sent me a picture of a yellow tabby chewing on her sleeve. Midnight my time, which was 1:00 p.m. Friday afternoon in Oki. It’s now 8:30 p.m. there.
I got a new phone yesterday, and I don’t know how to work it. Maybe I’ll have time this afternoon to look at it. *Of course* it didn’t come with directions.
My old one was at least 6 years old. One thing I need to do with the new one is delete old pictures of choir schedules and lyric sheets. It’s very convenient to be able to text a picture of the sheet to my choir members, but I don’t need to save them forever!
I hate that the new phones don’t come with directions. I’m still trying to figure out mine, and I think I’ve had it three months, now. I need to get the photos off it, and I think they’re on the sim card, but I don’t know how to make the swap.
Sleet? Crikey! Sounds like here. You’re sure its not snain instead?
Nothing comes with directions anymore. I think you’re either supposed to get a little kid, absorb it by way of osmosis, or download them from somewhere you can’t find because there ARE NO FREAKING DIRECTIONS.
Aaaaargh.
We’ve had weird frozen precipitation lately. Big bouncy sleet and snow pellets the size of kitty kibbles.
Where’s my Global Warming, Algore?!
Sally got the same model a few weeks ago. She says it has a user manual in the “Help” function. How are you supposed to find the manual if you don’t even know how to use the danged thing to start with?
On the plus side, I found the tamales I brought home from church last night, neatly stashed in the refrigerator in Tom’s room. He thought they were all for him. This is a sort of his life’s paradigm.
(Sally is 19. Tom is 23. They are GAAAAAAH!-inducing persons.)
I’m sure there are things on my phone that I haven’t found, but I hate that I can’t just attach the USB and upload all my photos, either the ones I take or the ones that are sent to me. I won’t buy this brand of phone again. Period.
Yes, I have one GAAAAAAH!-inducing person, and I’m glad I only had one. She is still trying to “outsmart” me because her dad told her for so many years that I was “stupid.” Yeah. Right. He’s been gone for 17 years, and she still sees him as a demi-god. But don’t get me started!
This is the Christmas season!
The Night Stalkers at Walmart couldn’t get into the safe room (the one with all the money) so I couldn’t get stamps. I stopped at Lin’s and got them there, and gloriosky, they’re FROG stamps!!! Now I don’t want to use them!
But stopping there was good, because its right next to the post orifice and I was able to drop Charlie’s letter in the outside box on my way home, since I forgot to do it on my way to Wally’s...
Happy Friday, everyone!
I am in a more peaceful place. No shootouts across the river. No freshmen getting stabbed in the park.
I can’t understand why Mrs. ArGee keeps telling me she misses the City.
If you need directions, you got the wrong phone. Return it and ask for one that's intuitive to use.
Then laugh hysterically and say, "Nevermind."
Maybe she needs to go back for an overnight. You know...just as a refresher?
I like my new Google Pixel 3a.
It comes with a feature of a lifetime supply of space on Google Photos which automatically syncs with the phone. All those cat pictures (or whatever) go to the cloud and will be archived from the Phone So you can delete old pictures from a computer instead of scrolling, scrolling, scrolling, scrolling, aha, delete with the phone.
And it has some other nifty features as well. I can squeeze it to silence the phone ringer and some other stuff.
And it’s a lot better price point that Google’s other phones.
Is Algore even still alive?
I think AOC is in charge of warming the planet, now. She certainly produces sufficient hot air.
Don't you have a port for the SIM card in your 'puter so you can just pull the card out of the phone and do all your transfers? Most of the Micro-SD cards come with an adapter to put them in the original SD card ports if that's all you have.
Thank you.
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