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 youre 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 ...
Good morning from Florida. Already 70 degrees before 6:00 a.m. Drama Queen is catching up on sleep!
Five Floofs!! And its only Wednesday!!
Good morning.
What I wouldn’t give for 70°!!! :officially jealous:
Kara, one my nieces in ID called yesterday and we talked for 45 minutes. Wow. I sent pics of doilies that were almost done and asked her to have Kaylee (the one who recently had brain surgery) pick the one she wanted for a wedding present and Marie could have the other one, because Kaylee is the oldest, even though Marie was married first. (It made sense to me at the time!)
Yesterday, I got those skeins of yarn wrapped into balls and the impact of childhood memories almost knocked me out of my chair. I was NOT ready! We were in Alaska Territory, and though I was walking I wasn’t much good for anything except to hold the yarn skeins for my mother while she wrapped it into balls.
Since I was so small, I would sit on the floor with my legs crossed and propped my elbows on my knees so my little hands were in the air, holding the yarn. I loved that. (Back in the day, all yarn came in skeins and had to be wound into balls in order to be used. Today its only expensive yarns that are sold that way.)
So. What’s on the docket for today for the Wild Bunch?
Missed the morning.
Oh, well. Happy Wednesday, everyone.
Morning was a direct hit.
Space started flooding in, had to bail out the space.
Back from walking in the swamp. No gators, but it was wet.
Happy Wednesday, a day closer to Friday!
Morning was a waste.
I ran screaming and drooling from the CT scan. As soon as I saw the machine, the panic rose up and I began to babble.
I have to reschedule it, but it won’t happen without sedation.
The rest of the morning was shot as a consequence.
The performance was shameful. I’m sorry, ganag.
Everyone falls apart sometimes.
It was 30° when I left for the imaging center. I’m really glad I didn’t drive into St George for it. Crikey.
I tried to ease the panic by watching DVDs, but I was too tense to watch what I thought I wanted. I started with “The Order of the Phoenix,” but that wasn’t what I wanted, so I watched an episode of Little Rascals. *sigh* That wasn’t what I wanted, either.
Tomorrow, I’ll go to the library and trade what I have for whatever is in for me. Horrible day.
The claustrophobia gets worse as I age. Who knew?
My experience is that if gators can hear you you won’t see gators.
I began to babble this morning, too. But I was in a meeting.
Thank you. Just read about your FL trip. Be safe.
Hey, y’all.
As much as I do it, I’m rather fluent in Babble.
Too bad there aren’t any interpreters around when I need them.
Good morning from Florida! It’s dark here. Mom’s cat spewed.
Sweet little Morning Floofs!!
Good morning.
I’ve written a letter. No enclosures.
Good morning. Happy Friday Eve!
Some email had to go out by EOD yesterday.
11:30 pm is before EOD, right?
I may be a little sleepy todazzzzzzzzzzzz
It’s 35° in still-dark southern UT.
I’m so tired of the cold! Maybe next year, I’ll be in St George. It gets cold there, but not like here.
If Mom’s cat spewed, you should feel right at home.
I don’t realize how really cold it is until I try to do something like make bread. It took almost 24 hours for the dough to rise, and I didn’t want to take any chances so I tossed it. I’ll wait a month and try it again. *sigh*
The place needed straightening up a little, so I did that. Now I’ll take my next dose of pills and then go make the bed, and maybe write another letter to my niece in Canada. It’s another day, anyway.
While I was checking for an address for the managers of where Charlie lives, I learned that the applications for everything are closed to everyone but veterans. Quite a change from it being closed to everyone but illegals. So when I write to Charlie, I’ll let him know because he is so nervous about his rent going up due to the places being reclassified as “affordable housing.” At least now, the last years of his life can be spent without that worry! And his blood pressure should go down as well.
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