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 ...
I did now! LOL!
The bruise, however, shows no signs of going away. ;o]
I’m glad the presentation was a success. It always makes the day brighter when we feel we’ve enlarged a few minds. Good job, and happy Friday!
Unless we're spreading encephalitis.
Hi, y’all.
Who would have guessed that mosquitoes have learned about fracking?
“The voices in my head are telling me that you will commit suicide for asking me about Epstein.”
:-D
Problem with that is it’s hard to keep one person’s food separate from others’.
I’ve shared an apartment. You label the shelves in the fridge and the pantry. You let the apartment sharers duke it out if they think the others are pilfering.
I do think it would be too much work for you.
It’s the “duke it out” part that would be tedious. Nobody ever admits to eating whatever it was, so it would be a constant free-for-all.
Yes, NC, that would be me in a shotgun shell. One of my email accounts is “buckshot.”
Kitteh looks slightly toasty!
Good morning.
I got a bat card in yesterday’s mail, so I’m going to take the bat out and frame it. :o]
The welts on my wrist and forearm aren’t quite so welty this morning, and the itching is down to a civil level.
And finally (I think) today is Charlie’s birthday, so I really need to remember to call him.
Kitteh will go inside and get ash all over the furniture. Because they do.
Good morning. It’s cold here. Shannon is annoyed because I made her get off my bathrobe.
But it was your turn for the bathrobe!
I was making the bed and somehow, my hand slipped off the blankets and the back of my right hand hit the corner of the nightstand. Just call me “Clumsy,” ‘cause I are.
I just wrapped a gift for the niece that is leaving for
Canada the 11th of December. She’s lived all her life in St George! I hope she is able to stay warm. Tomorrow is her Farewell, but I don’t know if I can make it. Maybe, with luck, I can get to her place today, while I still feel relatively decent.
I hope you get a chance to see the niece off, one way or another. Not the time of year I would choose for going to Canada.
Shannon keeps telling me to open the back door. Then she feels the cold wind and tells me Cats Don’t Like This. I’m surprised she’s not in bed with Tom: maybe his door is closed.
*tagline*
Good one! I died in 1995 from artificial sweeteners.
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