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 ...
Qwxlgrys?
Blgthrths are related to grumbling rugs.
They more resemble angry buzzing towels that wriggle through the air.
Qwxlgrys... Sounds like a trickster bathmat, the kind that skitters out from under your feet when you step out of the shower because it doesn’t want to be wet.
Thank you—the correct diagnosis is half the zrgtps.
Thank you. This one is strangely relaxing....
I love me some marmalade Floofs!! Thanks!
Good morning.
I just got off the phone from Tech Support in East Tennessee, and the consensus is that the Lenovo is fried. It gave me two years, almost, and it was used, refurbished and re-used, so I guess it had a good life. At some point I will go in and remove everything from the hard drive that is possible to remove, and then I’ll just donate it someone who rebuilds them and sells them.
So we’re back to the Little Purple Thing, that is far too small for me to read comfortably. I see no way to permanently enlarge the text except by the mouse.
He seems to be sitting on a cat-tree inside a greenhouse window. Makes one feel a little warmer ...
The Envirothon team is going to a greenhouse - the nation’s largest single-site greenhouse - to look at their automated systems. Automation in agriculture is a Current Environmental Issue.
OK. I’ve done something useful in 2020. I should quit while I’m ahead.
Dey was having nginx (pronounced Engine-X) problems according to the error messages I was seeing. I had to just bag yestiddey and work all day.
Well, having missed all of yesterday due to Engine-X problems at FR, I will wish everyone a Happy belated Tuesday and Happy Wednesday in one post.
And off to work. It will be another busy one.
Seeya! Best wishes on the day!
How else will we be able to survive on Mars?
Example situation: What do you do with the parts of the tomato plant that people don't want to eat? -- That's why we need goats and chickens.
And their wastes are fertilizer, which we will need after we have processed the necessary amount of Martian soil to make it usable.
More immediate benefits of automation and networking in agriculture include water conservation, reductions in pesticide, herbicide, and fertilizer use, control of plant diseases and pests ... and lower long-term costs.
I don’t know whut dey wuz having but I thought today was a repeat. Nope, nothing so simple. I killed another laptop. *sigh* It seems to be gift of some kind. :o|
Happy Wednesday.
*tagline*
Many acquaintances in the town we live in majored in agronomics, agriculture, chemistry, and related fields. Funny that townies think we’re all backwoods hillbillies.
Hey, y’all.
It’s very scientific.
Being a FReeper is very educational in a lot of unexpected ways. Especially being an Undead FReeper!
;o])
Isn’t Xagthrath the one with the vowels? Am I misspelling it?
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