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 ...
After I dropped off the DVDs, I took a shortcut to McDonald’s and got a cheeseburger, evidently on the Dollar Menu, and a hot apple pie. It was really a big fat juicy cheeseburger I wanted, but the lunch menu wasn’t up, so I guessed, and got exactly what I asked for. If I had waited 20 minutes, I could have gone to Wendy’s, DQ or Arby’s, but I was hungry. I took my pills before I left, and my stomach said not to wait any longer. And, OH! That WIND!!! GAH!!
So you chopped the laundry and sorted the vegetables? I hope everything went as planned in any case!
“Noble Blood” had Catherine the Great. “Three Martini Lunch” was yammering about Iowa. The delivery is supposed to be here in the next half hour.
And I have one more onion to chop.
Is that "THE" delivery? :doe eyes:
Hello ArGee,
Hope all okay.
Brexit was worth the wait just to hear the sour grapes in Strasbourg when Mr Farage gave his party’s departure speech. It is on utube.
There was strange feeling of waiting for something to happen at the weekend, but we’re all still here. Some of the shops in town have signs declaring that they are closed due to Brexit....lights on, doors wide open. :D
Even if everything does go south, Boris and Nigel will go down in History.
There where loads of fireworks here on Friday, almost as good as Nov 5th.
I never mastered the are of onion chopping. I still cry over the task...
The earth’s magnetic field flips every 100K years or so anyway. Not a problem. Unless you train Homing Pigeons ...
Anyone here know how to recalibrate the compass on a Homing Pigeon?
Yorkshire will need to know this real soon. :D
Dunno. It’s the treadmill.
If you mean the Little Brown Bat, it should come straight to you.
Excellent! I love that! Woo-hoo!
The delivery man schlepped it in, and some other people are coming tomorrow to set it up.
Tom has to work all the time he’s not at school, so he can pay rent and buy food.
My goodness. Tom. Actually working for a living. Does he say how he likes the new dynamics?
I’m off to bed, now, so I’ll see you in the early AM. Some things got done today, but others didn’t. Have a good night!
Have a good night, folks!
Tom seemed quite happy. He’s swimming almost every day at the university, eating right (because he can’t afford anything else), and otherwise taking responsibility for himself.
Well, congratulations.
Pretty soon, only Israel will be able to claim to be a functioning democracy. But I don’t think our two nations should be racing against each other to put the “fun” in dysfunctional.
Pretty Morning Cali! Thanks for the delightfully perfect little face!
Good morning.
I slept in, so now, I need to go shower so I can get warm. It’s 19° out in the wind. No thanks. But I need to go to Walmart and see if they have any face masks. I don’t like running out of them.
How long does winter actually last? A year ago, it didn’t seem long because I was only here from December on. This year, I swear its six months long. :o|
BRB.
You posted that photo just as I looked at my clock, waking up because I was cold. :theme from “Twilight Zone”:
Good morning. Two cat spews so far already. It will be light soon in this time zone.
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