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 ...
We had a bit of sunshine. Jake and I are thinking about a nap, now.
I don’t think you’d have a recipe for corn chowder, would you?...Just curious. I’m trying to find one without potatoes as the main ingredient. (Good luck to me...)
Nope. I would use Google.
I’ve been searching off and on for the last three months and every single recipe I can find has potatoes. I have a recipe for potato soup. I made it up. It looks like I’ll have to make up my own corn chowder recipe, as well.
But I need to go buy some creamed corn. And I can’t do that until Saturday because the BB SUV is getting the front end aligned and I can’t get it back until tomorrow, when Sharon can take me. NOT going to Walmart when the Walmartians are out in force.
I also want to make a pineapple upside-down cake, so I also need to get some pineapple slices. And a white or yellow cake mix because I don’t think pineapple would taste all that well with chocolate cake...
Of course, by the time I get all the ingredients I want for the dishes I want to make I will have lost the desire to make them. *sigh* :o|
I’m not seeing pineapple and chocolate.
I’m generally not fond of Godsmack, but that’s not bad.
Surprised me as well.
Worst part, I have a scene in my head to it.
But I can’t get it to flow when typed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIzDsGyxsQM
An oldie from Tom the Son’s early rock period. It’s held up pretty well, in a “random sentences” way.
“No one ever tells you that forever feels like home, sitting all alone inside your head.”
Maybe it will sort itself out in a dream. I got a whole essay about Adam Smith in a dream, once, and my professor gave me an A with the comment, “I don’t know why I like this paper.”
Surprised me as well.
Worst part, I have a scene in my head to it.
But I can’t get it to flow when typed.
I have no idea how or why it double posted.
Ugh
Technology: it does that.
Sadly, yes.
And also the “helping” with typing that sometimes completely glitches everything you’ve typed.
I imagined that song as from the viewpoint of an AI watching humanity.
AIs appreciate music and humanity equally well.
Yep. Pineapple and chocolate just don’t cut it.
I got a phone call yesterday right after I had gone to bed, and it sounded like the caller said, “Is this Tire Pros?” I’m thinking, what a doofus! But no, it was John from Tire Pros telling me my truck was ready to be picked up.
The Tracker Guy had taken it there and was leaving town today (or yesterday) so I couldn’t pick it up where I left it off. If the weather wasn’t so unappealing, I could walk up and get it, but I asked Sharon to take me instead.
I’m interested to see how the gas mileage changes. In retrospect, the accident was a blessing in disguise, because I never would have known about it being in 4-WD all this time, otherwise. :o|
Very interesting point of view.
Thank you.
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