Monday, June 20, 2005

Something interesting, at least to me.

Schizophrenia has been documented for well over a hundred years, though still misunderstood by the general public and not much better understood by psychiatrists, we are getting there.

I was reading in a text yesterday and saw something about brainwaves and schizophrenia. Let me start by saying that when we recieve a stimuli, let's say a sound, our brain fires neurons which go to parts of brain to recieve and interpret that sound. That neural stimulation can be measured on an EEG as quote brainwaves. In schizophrenia, as it turns out, there are at least two of these that are effected. First, the P50 is a brain wave that occurs in response at 50 miliseconds after the stimulation. There is a test such that you are given two stimuli one after the other to stimulate these particular waves. In a normal person the response to the second stimuli should be much less than the first, such as a background noise we would "tune out." Schizophrenics do not have a reduced response which may show damage in the frontal lobes of the brain. The second is the P300 which is a response at 300 miliseconds to a stimuli. This brain wave is reduced in shizophrenics, also showing frontal lobe damage. The point of all of this is the zeroing in on the cause and eventually treatment/cure for schizophrenia.


A parting thought; there is a question that a very high percentage of schizophrenics answer the same way. Before I tell you the question, keep in mind that answering it the same way as a schizophrenic would in no way mean that you have schizophrenia.

What does a married couple and a table have in common?
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They both have four legs.

2 comments:

Trent McBride said...

Worst. Joke. Ever.

I don't think Dundas ever had one even close to that bad... and that's saying something.

my_merlin77 said...

I don't know that I would go that far. it's not a joke though. When they asked diagnosed schizophrenics that question a much larger percentage of them responded to the question that way than the average person. This came from Greenlee so take it for what it's worth.