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 had a post ready to send and I got a message that said I was offline. *sheesh*
It’s 41°, and breezy, but dry.
I have a couple of gifts to wrap. There would have been three but my daughter isn’t coming, so. I was going to give her and my DiL little clay lamps, because I have one as a reminder. I’ll get one for my daughter and send it to her in May because I don’t think she’ll be coming then, any more than she’s coming in a few weeks. But the significance of the lamp may be lost on her.
The cable guy is supposed to be here this morning, and I hope he’s early because I need to go to the library. I haven’t watched all the DVDs but I want to renew a couple and not have to pay a fine.
You certainly are busy! James and Tom have not been seen. Vlad and Frank are playing “Magic.” Pat is doing the WSJ crossword.
I’m going to have to go out in the rain and put gas in the van and go by the bread outlet and other stuff. At least it’s not very cold.
w00t!
Thanks! I just needed to comment after the laptop told me I was online, and there it was...
I keep thinking, if I keep busy enough, I won’t even notice that I’m not cooking Christmas cinnamon rolls for breakfast or a turkey for Christmas dinner. Some years are worse than others, and still others, I’m OK.
You can get nice cinnamon rolls in the biscuit area in Walmart. Tom gets them sometimes.
Yep, maybe I’ll go in the morning. They looked good the last time I saw them. Or maybe I’ll get some Rhodes rolls. :o])
The cable guy is on his way. And now, it’s raining. Snain is foreguessed for Christmas.
I’ll stop at Lin’s for the cocoa on my way to the library.
We have rain, rain, and more rain. We’re going to take dinner to some friends who had a baby last week, so Vlad is making brownies while I make chili. We’ll have to stop by Walmart for ice cream and salad on the way to deliver it.
That’s so kind of you. We have people like you in our Ward, and sometimes, I feel bad that I don’t have a lot of food around, or the money to go buy something when someone is in need, but I know for sure that if I did, I would be helping someone because I’ve done it. It feels good enough to do it again!
OK, One more meeting in my long succession of meetings (I called it World War M in a text to one of the other attendees) and then it’s off to get my daughter at BWI.
It will take me longer to get to BWI than it will take her, but them’s the breaks when you don’t live close to a major airport.
Plus, she has to get to her airport and through security, so there’s some justice.
Good luck, ArGee! I’m headed off in the rain with some array of Offspring.
Good luck from me, as well, ArGee, and I hope with your daughter’s arrival, your holidays will be joyous, indeed!
The rain is teasing folks around here. The skies are extremely gloomy, and I’m very glad I don’t have to go out in it again. Maybe tomorrow will be better. I hope.
*tagline*
Afternoons.
Food has been delivered to the K. family, with their 7th son. Maybe he’ll be a wizard! Cute little thing, of course. His oldest brother was very proud.
Baby K.’s mom had a cleaning lady this afternoon, “third time in 22 years of marriage!” I was proud of her for biting the bullet instead of trying to get the previous six boys to clean house. Just like the L brothers, they would work at it diligently, but it would never be anything like what a mother considers “clean.”
THAT was powerful. Thanks!
I really wanted to “sleep in” but I had to get up, and since it was 0100, I didn’t see the sense in going back to bed.
I thought the battery was dead in my alarm fob, but when I got the replacement battery, it wasn’t a replacement battery because there was nothing to replace! Somehow, the battery that I thought was in there, wasn’t. So now, I’ll set the alarm when I park the truck.
Rocky is coming by today to get her packages (three more) and I will ask her then if I can park in her spot so the chances are better that I will hear the alarm, if someone sets it off.
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