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 ...
Tagline typo. un*s*peakable.
Thanks! Done!
I can’t even tell where you did the repair.
Given that you have birds, I guess you could have unbeakable things done to you.
That was a tiny clever, ArGee.
The unbeakable things are usually filled with tiny little downy feathers.
So now that Beaker is home, I’ll let Gonzo try to coax her into feeling better.
G’night!
I spent Christmas Eve and Christmas day at work.
I don’t get holidays off.
But yeah, it sucked a bit with recent events.
What happens if you try to unpluck feathers?
You get glue all over.
I’m sorry you had to work at Christmas this year.
I also work new year’s.
Will you get a lot of crazies, or just the usual, “My GPS says this is Home Depot,” population.
I think of you every time I see someone turn into what used to be the access to a subdivision near ours. There’s now a 6-lane highway between the former access and the subdivision. People turn left, drive 50 yards, and sit there, looking at the highway.
I may have a quiet night, or it’ll be an apocalypse of stupid, inebriated, or inattentive.
If I get inundated with a stupid wave, it will most likely be the usual “buh muh GPS sez” followed by the typical overly long argument that the GPS is correct, I’m hallicinating where I work, and the signs are fake.
I wonder whether you have a lower opinion of human intelligence than the average Walmart worker, or the reverse.
I said not too long ago that the planet should be grateful that the timing of the apocalypse is not up to me.
That was after an entire night of multiple idiots reading the clearly marked truck exit only sign and right after the other pulling in anyway and getting p.o.’d that the signs meant it.
I admit that I have a very dim view on humanity in general due to this job.
And yes, imagine WalMart but on the roads instead.
People in vehicles are worse than people on foot, so you probably win the contest.
There’s just something about having a vehicle around them that makes a portion of the population just seemingly lose their capacity to reason, read, or comprehend the world around them.
And then if they have a phone in their hands ...
George Carlin said, “Think about how dumb the average guy is, and then consider that for that to be the average, half the people have to be dumber than that!”
If human beings had to survive independently like Robinson Crusoe, we would be out-competed and most likely outsmarted as well, by jellyfish.
That amplifies the stupid quotient to unheard of levels.
Mugged by Chipmunks.
How many jellyfish are there?
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