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 ...
Good morning. Be very, very careful out there with the Zombies!
I will be very careful. With luck, the rain will have eased enough that the roads will be dry. Now if I can just get the mapping program to agree with where I want to go...
Today was going to be a busy one with four stops, but I will only make two, then go in on another day for the other two.
Sounds like a good plan.
Stray kitten with tiny cat mark on its face goes viral in cute display
Squee!!!
Awww, super adorable!
And good morning. Wash your hands!
So very cute!! Worth the look through all the ads to sign up for the Daily Star (UK)! Squeeful, indeed! :o]
I had a tepid shower, certain sons’ having used most of the hot water, and then I went to Walmart.
I had my shower, almost too hot, and put the bandage on my left heel, while feeling the pain in my right knee increase. Not good for driving a truck with a manual trans.
Then made the bed and here I am.
Still raining...
My left knee was bothering me last night, but it’s okay today.
This is the right knee. I stepped into a “gutter channel” (about 3” across and 1.5” deep that runs along some of the older gutters) in Las Vegas in 1999, and chipped my ankle bone. By the time I had walked six more blocks to my apartment, the bruising had started to go up my foot. It actually went all the way to the knee by the time it was done.
Since then, when I don’t brace the ankle and/or the knee for extended periods, my knee gets tossed into an angle that causes a lot of pain.
Now I will need to get another ankle brace, because this one is losing its elasticity.
In other news, I forgot to put a frog sticker on a very important piece of mail as it left the house yesterday! How will it ever find it’s way to the destination???
We’ll think of the frog anyway.
Or i could put two on the next one.... ;o])
Thank you.
You’re welcome. I took the kids to the park for tree identification. It’s hard when the trees don’t have leaves.
Coronavirus diagnosed in my immediate area.
This will be fun.
Oh, dear. Wash your hands. The whole family should wash their hands!
Pop quiz: Wut kinda tree iz huggyin’ me?
Such pretty markings on today’s floof!
Good morning.
The rain has stopped but more is due tomorrow. All day again. UNNGH.
The Muppet Birds are getting along quite well, now. But whether they will ever bond is something else. I’d need a more comprehensive book than the one I have in order to answer all the questions I have about parakeets.
The game Left4Dead has a note on the wall “washing hands does nothing”.
And “it’s not a flu!”
It’s airborne in droplets, washing hands doesn’t stop particulates in the air from landing in your face or being breathed in.
Let’s see how panicked my area gets.
Washing hands cleans droplets from your hands as well as washing off anything you might have picked up from surfaces. And don’t forget there are still other pathogens out there.
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