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 ...
Concur.
:O])
Oddly enough, the guy who is supremely interested in getting humans to Mars, and presumably feeding them there, Elon Musk, has a brother who has worked on developing container-shipment sized facilities for growing food under controlled conditions.
I would presume that they will find a way to work together on Mars-colony food-growing procedures. But the goats and chickens are my contribution.
Likely T-c will want to send kudzu. (Woops, there goes another planet lost!)
The greenhouse was super interesting. They offer many full-time jobs, we all observed, giving our teenagers the stink-eye.
Awwwww.
This is why we can’t have nice things ...
stage moms...
To clarify: the job description involved giving your teenagers the stink eye?
No, the mention of $12/hr, full-time jobs resulted in several parents giving a dozen or so teenagers the stink-eye.
It’s quite a long way from here, though. A hypothetical brother who took a job at the greenhouse would be advised to find a place to live on the west side of Charlotte.
That’s the small kitteh backup system.
Apparently, someone found a means to control kudzu because it has disappeared from many areas here. You have reminded me to look that up. (Lots of weird stuff pops up when you enter “weed” into the search engine. You have to enter “weed science” to get what you want.)
Are any of the hypothetical brothers old enough to move out?
Patrick is 18, so he’s hypothetically old enough. However, he won’t graduate from high school until May. We’re looking a few years ahead, especially for a line of work that could provide a career for James, who is reasonably clever, good with his hands, congenial, and outdoorsy.
Yes, Xagthrath the Grumbling Rug is a specific grumbling rug.
It is spelled correctly, yes.
Got it. It’s been too long since we played Scrabble!
Oh, collecting options for the future—good plan.
That baby is so intent on whatever he sees that the mom-cat behind him is going to scare his little self!
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