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 ...
Hey, y’all.
Sounded OK to me.
Yeah, no vampires or anything. Just treasurer reports, room reservations, instructions to email this person or phone that one.
Thanks! My brain is in several places today, and at the moment, none of them are good.
What a pretty coat that Morning Floof has on it!
Good morning.
I slept in again, probably because I woke up around 2200 and couldn’t get back to sleep right away. But if all goes well, I’ll lie down and take a nap around 0600. I suspect its the only way I’ll make it through the day, because if my truck is fixed, I’ll have to drive back from Bloomington. Which is 20+ miles from here.
I noticed the bookmark that was in the sympathy card from the vet’s office came in two parts. There is a little paw print about 2” in diameter that turns out to be a plant seed of some kind. I just looked at the back of the bookmark and there were instructions of how to plant it.
Who knew? It doesn’t say what kind of plant it is, but it says to plant it outside in early spring or late fall so maybe its a tree. I’d have to have a big pot so I could move it with me. Otherwise, I’ll have to donate it to the city for them to plant a Beaker Tree.
You could try a pot and see what comes up. Then, if it thrives, you could make a long-term plan for it.
Good morning. I’ve already had a cat-spew today, so I’m excited about the prospects once the sun comes up.
I’ll give it to Sharon to pot. She makes things grow. I make things dead. The card is from “MyBirdBath.” No dogs or cats on the front, but lots of various rodents, a couple of parrots and a lizard.
The halogen bulbs came yesterday, so I just replaced the bulb in the halogen lamp, but I think I need to clean to glass shield because it looks odd. So the lamp is back in business again! YAY!
Now, I have a couple of things to get done if I want to have a clean place for company. Like empty the vacuum and take out the trash. The Tracker’s parking spot looks very empty!
When the van goes to the shop, I feel like I’ve lost a limb!
Made sense to me.
When our daughters were dancing they would occasionally fall asleep in a conversation and it would take us a few minutes to realize they were talking nonsense (because we weren’t dancers) and wake them back up so they could go to bed.
Sometimes we would get really good answers to our questions while they were sleeping.
Treasurers aren’t vamipres?
Good morning. Happy Friday Eve!
Late night. Early morning. Lots of work to be done. Project changes are rarely good.
I don’t have anyone I can rely on on a daily basis. Sharon and Jerry are always going places, so they aren’t always available when I need them.
Being without the BB SUV is, indeed, like losing a limb.
Yesterday at my prayer group, one of the ladies told a hilarious story about her teenaged son’s reaction to the anesthesia when he had his wisdom teeth out. Her husband filmed it. Later, the young man said, “I’d be like this all the time, Mom, if I didn’t have so much self-control!” Now she’s concerned that she’s created a monster (as I sometimes am regarding Tom the Son).
I used to sleepwalk at work when Anoreth was a baby.
Thank you.
Nah, my treasurers are decent guys. Chris on the Cub Scouts committee is a bit of a flake, but he’s honest, and Jim from Stewardship will reimburse you out of his own pocket if the budget is exhausted.
You’re welcome. I’m looking forward to the end of this litter of Norwegian Forest Cats from Sweden. They’re nice and all, but too similar.
Hey, y’all.
I thought one of the red kittens looked a lot like one of the other ones. They’re cute, anyway.
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