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There's a good chance you hallucinated this week without ever knowing it
Inverse ^ | October 11, 2019 | By Jack Barton on

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 ...


TOPICS: Health/Medicine
KEYWORDS: dontreadthetag; dopamine; hallucinations; hearingvoices; jayaubreyjones; koalaoil; laurel; molassesmaiasma; monkeyfacerules; pangolin; penguinhumor; psychosis; schizophrenia; undeadthread; undeadthreadhere; unghandmoose; yanni; yannilaurel; yourbrainondrugs
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To: Tax-chick; fanfan; ColdOne; Cyber Liberty; null and void; Anoreth; Monkey Face; ...

3,961 posted on 03/18/2020 1:58:48 AM PDT by Tax-chick ("The mark of a decent society is that it resists the temptation to spurn the defenseless.")
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To: Darksheare

Yep, “That is your starter for 10” “Asia”.


3,962 posted on 03/18/2020 2:10:22 AM PDT by moose07 (DMCS (Dit Me Cong San ) Life really does begin at forty. Until then, you are just doing research.)
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To: Tax-chick

Good Morning, O’Keeper of Kittens.


3,963 posted on 03/18/2020 2:14:11 AM PDT by moose07 (DMCS (Dit Me Cong San ) Life really does begin at forty. Until then, you are just doing research.)
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To: Tax-chick; moose07; Darksheare; Silentgypsy

Surprised Kitteh sees more rain and is astonished it lasts so long.

Good morning.

It’s shower time, and maybe I can warm up a little.

The rain. It never stops. Isolation got nuthin’ on me! I’ve pretty much been quarantined since first getting CFIDS. The only thing I’m not prepared for is bare shelves when I shop.


3,964 posted on 03/18/2020 2:19:32 AM PDT by Monkey Face (If you boil a funny bone you get a laughing stock, and that's humerus. ~~ FB ~~)
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To: moose07; Monkey Face

Good morning. I had a hefty cat on my chest at 4:45 a.m. He must have worried that I would decide to have a lie-in until 5:00.


3,965 posted on 03/18/2020 2:20:46 AM PDT by Tax-chick ("The mark of a decent society is that it resists the temptation to spurn the defenseless.")
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To: Tax-chick

Yes, not quite an elephant on your chest, but when you’re sleeping it may as well be.


3,966 posted on 03/18/2020 3:09:26 AM PDT by Monkey Face (If you boil a funny bone you get a laughing stock, and that's humerus. ~~ FB ~~)
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To: Tax-chick; Darksheare; Monkey Face

You’ve probably run out of bread when that happens.


3,967 posted on 03/18/2020 3:12:46 AM PDT by Silentgypsy (Call an addiction hotline and say you're hooked on phonics.)
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To: Silentgypsy; Monkey Face; Darksheare

Good morning. The boys are nagging me about not having the particular type of bread each one prefers. Turkeys.

I don’t even know whether the clearance bread outlet is open.


3,968 posted on 03/18/2020 3:14:07 AM PDT by Tax-chick ("The mark of a decent society is that it resists the temptation to spurn the defenseless.")
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To: Tax-chick; Monkey Face; Darksheare; moose07

G’mawnin’. Do they have that crunchy, nutty, healthy bread at the clearance bread outlet? It’s called some-number-of-multigrain bread or something. Very tasty. Ezekiel bread tastes like cardboard—old, tough cardboard at that.


3,969 posted on 03/18/2020 3:22:00 AM PDT by Silentgypsy (Call an addiction hotline and say you're hooked on phonics.)
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To: Silentgypsy; Tax-chick; Darksheare

Walmart carries a brand called “Grandma Sycamore’s Home-maid Bread,” and the type I like is the sunflower seed and honey. Really tasty. I don’t buy bread often, but if I did, a few loaves of this would find their ways into my freezer. :o]


3,970 posted on 03/18/2020 3:39:29 AM PDT by Monkey Face (If you boil a funny bone you get a laughing stock, and that's humerus. ~~ FB ~~)
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To: Silentgypsy; Monkey Face

They have some kind of organic bread that costs over $2.00/loaf. We buy the stuff that’s $.79.


3,971 posted on 03/18/2020 3:59:38 AM PDT by Tax-chick ("The mark of a decent society is that it resists the temptation to spurn the defenseless.")
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To: Tax-chick; Monkey Face; NicknamedBob; null and void; no-to-illegals; Silentgypsy; ColdOne; ...

Good morning and Happy Wednesday from aboard Amtrak’s Maple Leaf service. I decided to avoid further contact with the denizens of New York City until someone asks for an in-person meeting.

It’s not so much the Coronavirus. Something that caused them to elect this clown of a mayor might rub off as the crowd of tourists thins.


3,972 posted on 03/18/2020 4:16:25 AM PDT by ArGee (Excellence or diversity? Ask for diversity, you get diversity. Ask for excellence, you get both.)
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To: ArGee

Good morning. It’s Wednesday here, too!


3,973 posted on 03/18/2020 4:25:03 AM PDT by Tax-chick ("The mark of a decent society is that it resists the temptation to spurn the defenseless.")
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To: Tax-chick

I don’t know if this is organic, but I think it has no preservatives, but my choices were limited, and this looked the most appealing. I hope by the time pay day comes again that the supply chain is working well again and that people have adjusted to the fact that there is no reason for their panic. All the bread that was left was $3 and up.


3,974 posted on 03/18/2020 5:10:21 AM PDT by Monkey Face (If you boil a funny bone you get a laughing stock, and that's humerus. ~~ FB ~~)
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To: Monkey Face

I prefer inorganic food products to organic ;-).


3,975 posted on 03/18/2020 5:12:14 AM PDT by Tax-chick ("The mark of a decent society is that it resists the temptation to spurn the defenseless.")
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To: ArGee; Tax-chick

Yep, Wednesday here, too, but a very wet one. I have to take a letter over to the mail drop and I don’t want to go out in the rain again. *sigh*

Life is.

I have no idea who our mayor is, here in Boring, Utah. Whoever it is, s/he keeps a low profile.


3,976 posted on 03/18/2020 5:12:52 AM PDT by Monkey Face (If you boil a funny bone you get a laughing stock, and that's humerus. ~~ FB ~~)
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To: Monkey Face

Our mayor here in Boring, NC, is Mike Alvarez. Nice guy, he’s been an effective, low-controversy mayor.


3,977 posted on 03/18/2020 6:14:15 AM PDT by Tax-chick ("The mark of a decent society is that it resists the temptation to spurn the defenseless.")
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To: Monkey Face; Tax-chick

There’s a simple test to know if it’s really organic. If it doesn’t taste good enough to have cost that much, it’s organic.


3,978 posted on 03/18/2020 6:19:15 AM PDT by ArGee (Excellence or diversity? Ask for diversity, you get diversity. Ask for excellence, you get both.)
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To: Tax-chick; Monkey Face

Selena Zito (I think I got her name right) had a piece on Townhall.com yesterday about how Pittsburgh is handling the crisis. She described a mayor who is every bit the kind NYC needs.

I realize NYC may be a bit more complicated than Pittsburgh, but that doesn’t mean it needs a mayor who would rather run for President than get to work on the city’s needs.


3,979 posted on 03/18/2020 6:21:21 AM PDT by ArGee (Excellence or diversity? Ask for diversity, you get diversity. Ask for excellence, you get both.)
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To: ArGee

It’s just that DeBlasio has a different concept of “the city’s needs,” just as, say, Joe Biden has a different concept of “the country’s needs” from, say, Donald Trump.


3,980 posted on 03/18/2020 6:26:01 AM PDT by Tax-chick ("The mark of a decent society is that it resists the temptation to spurn the defenseless.")
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