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 ...
You got 2020!
Perhaps you should nail a parrot to the perch (from Monty Python)
I took the liberty of examining the parrot and I discovered the only reason it was standing on the perch is because it had been nailed there.
I had to nail him there, didn’t I? If I hadn’t nailed him to the perch he would have sidled over to the bars, muscled them open, and VOOMPED away!
VOOMPED AWAY??? VOOMPED AWAY??? THIS BIRD COULDN”T VOOMP IF YOU PUT 40,000 VOLTS TO IT. IT’S DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD!
(From memory - please don’t pounce on any mis-remembered lines.
Ah! You got the year.
G’orning! I decided to go back to bed, because I could. Now the sun is shining, and I’m going to take the byos to the library.
:D
:)
Back to bed—my favorite option.
The library had a sale, a bag of children’s books for a dollar. I got a brand new copy of “Bats at the Beach”!
I was going to vacuum the living room, but Shannon is sitting on the back of the sofa watching Tom the Mocker pick through the offerings on the feeder.
I just read the reviews of "Bats at the Beach" and borrowed a copy. Thanks for the recommendation.
There’s a whole series.
Bats at the beach.
Gloves at the beach.
Cleats at the beach.
Batting Helmets at the beach.
Like that?
Okay, that acronym trick made my eyes cross, LOL
Bats at the Beach
Bats in the Band
Bats at the Ballgame
Bats at the Library
and Murcielagos en la Biblioteca
Happy New Year’s Eve, all.
The rain has stopped here, although it is cloudy.
So, with 2020 right around the corner we can shout:
“Once more unto the breach!”
Brand new tiny floof and Momcat make my day better.
Good morning.
I’m present and accounted for. For whatever that’s worth.
Good morning. The sun is shining here, and the Beams are about to reach the cats. And it’s Trash Day.
It’s trash day here because tomorrow is trash day, but its a holiday, and unlike Vegas, where the trucks are on the roads and streets 24/7, these folks only work when they want to.
No sunbeans yet, and no cats to catch them. :o[
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