Rebel Rebel David Bowie

Posted on October 31, 2015 by recoverynetwork:Toronto

rebel rebelDoo doo doo-doo doo doo doo doo
Doo doo doo-doo doo doo doo doo
Doo doo doo-doo doo doo doo doo

Rebel Rebel

Doo doo doo-doo doo doo doo doo
Doo doo doo-doo doo doo doo doo
Doo doo doo-doo doo doo doo doo

You’ve got your mother in a whirl
She’s not sure if you’re a boy or a girl
Hey babe, your hair’s alright
Hey babe, let’s go out tonight
You like me, and I like it all
We like dancing and we look divine
You love bands when they’re playing hard
You want more and you want it fast
They put you down, they say I’m wrong
You tacky thing, you put them on

[CHORUS]
Rebel Rebel, you’ve torn your dress
Rebel Rebel, your face is a mess
Rebel Rebel, how could they know?
Hot tramp, I love you so!

Don’t ya?

[CHORUS]

You’ve torn your dress, your face is a mess
You can’t get enough, but enough ain’t the test
You’ve got your transmission and your live wire
You got your cue line and a handful of ludes
You wanna be there when they count up the dudes
And I love your dress
You’re a juvenile success
Because your face is a mess
So how could they know?
I said, how could they know?

So what you wanna know Calamity’s child,
Where’d you wanna go?
What can I do for you? Looks like you’ve been there too
‘Cause you’ve torn your dress
And your face is a mess
Ooo, your face is a mess
Ooo, ooo, so how could they know?
Eh, eh, how could they know?

 

Writer(s): David Bowie
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Myths, Shamans and Seers – Phil Borges

Posted on October 30, 2015 by recoverynetwork:Toronto

 

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Psychosis is in the eye of the beholder

Posted on October 28, 2015 by recoverynetwork:Toronto

psychosis is in the eye of the beholder

What is “psychosis” ? we pretend it’s a fixed thing with clear boundaries, yet it is not.
We pretend it’s a thing that some of us have and some of us don’t have and never never will.
We do a lot of pretending.

“Psychosis” is identified by one person ticking off from a list of observable behaviours and experiences they can observe in another.

Each of these, though, is also commonly experienced or displayed by any of us in varying degree, and if there were profit to be made from it would also  be included in a list of symptoms by which we could diagnose that, by now, most-rare category of humans: “normal.”

And, what gets called “psychosis” is largely judgement, and also different in different cultures – my confusion, frustration, or anger is – when you observe it in me –  “psychosis”;  my spiritual practice may well be your “psychosis”; my powerful, overwhelming emotions might also be your “symptoms” of “psychosis”. My inappropriateness is determined not so much by science as by unwritten social mores, taboos, traditions and, fear.

People who have been socially dislocated from one place or culture into another often find understanding and aligning with the new social mores difficult and confusing – little wonder then that immigrants,  the world over have higher rates of being given a diagnosis of “psychosis”. If you have dark skill living amongst white skinned neighbours, you are many times more likely to be given a diagnosis that includes “psychosis”.

Psychosis sometimes means “not like us”.

Maybe “psychosis” is a state that results from being different- more  different than the surrounding population is ready to bear.

Maybe, just as stress, a concept borrowed from engineering by Hans Selye,  is the internal response to external stimuli,  psychosis is simply the response – the pressure building up – within one person when the pressure to conform to the demands of others’ expectations is just too much for one person to bear.

Every one of that list of “symptoms” of “psychosis” is something you will likely experience, at least fleetingly, at some point. Today.

Research shows that one in three of us is indeed experiencing at least one from that list, right now. When you do, you might experience it as fearful, scary, terrifying. You might also experience it as curious, wonderful, comforting, enlightening, as a sign to pay attention to something going on in your environment.

How you do experience it has much to do with the culture in which you are lucky enough or unlucky enough to be living and at least as much to do with the explanatory stories and beliefs adopted by those around you as it does with anything else.

For example, if you are surrounded by stories of horror, and a belief system that supposes that if you hear voices then you are “the devil”, or that you are irredeemably sick, or that you need to be controlled by drugs, or that you are a latent mass-murderer or all of those; then if [more like when] you do hear a voice that no one else hears you are less likely to experience it as a good thing.

You are more likely to be scared or startled this new experience and you will likely find it hard to find someone to talk with about your new experience without them getting their freak on.

This is the world we create for ourselves and each other – and it sucks more than a sucky thing.

Yet, for example,  research shows that about 4% to 15% of all of human beings hear voices – the low end of that equates to about 300,000,000 people who hear voices on a regular basis. That’s not rare, that’s not even very unusual.
That’s pretty bloody common and ordinary. It’s about the same number of people who live in the USA.

“Psychosis” is an ordinary response to an overwhelming world – it can even be regarded as a creative response – a genius response, that can help us find our way out of an otherwise intractably complex problem in our lives. It can feel chaotic and we are powerfully conditioned to fear, control and eradicate chaos – but chaos is a necessary state for any change to emerge. Entropy is the natural state of the universe.
Even if we pretend it isn’t, and we do like to pretend.

Other research shows that after only 24hours of sleep deprivation,  healthy humans can display “symptoms” sufficient to be diagnosed with psychosis.

Without being tortured:

  • three in four people [that’s all people] will hear voices at some point in their lives
  • one-in-three of us will regularly experience a wider range of what a clinician would interpret as “symptoms” of “psychosis”-  each of which is also a symptom of being both alive and human.

Again, without being tortured your chances of experiencing “symptoms of psychosis” will be greatly increased by twenty-four hours or less of sleep deprivation or isolation.

If you are or have been tortured, your chances of experiencing these things are significantly greater. 

Psychosis is state of being.

What we call psychosis is a state of being and like any other, it passes- sometimes quickly sometimes it takes a while – and sometimes people get stuck.  Sometimes the “treatment” that a person receives ensures they stay stuck and that they are never allowed to learn and to move on to live their life.

Psychosis is not a thing, it’s an interpretation of, a name or a label for a fuzzy constellation of otherwise ordinary human experiences that can bring extreme confusion; difficulty using and understanding language; heightened senses; overwhelming, powerful emotions like fear and terror and a corresponding drive to survive.

Psychosis, fundamentally, is a state in which we feel unsafe, powerless and scared.

We don’t disconnect from reality – what does that nonsense even mean? We are very much connected and in very powerful ways – we retreat to our vestigial, mammalian state, that raw animal state that is all about survival.

Clinicians say of us that we “disconnect from reality” as if they know what “reality” is, presuming that their preferred reality is the only one, the one they decide we all “should” be in so that they can be ok and be right.
It’s not even as if so many clinicians are such true beacons of wellness that their own reality is even a good one, let alone gives them the power to decide which the rest of us “should” be in.

Do we disconnect from “Reality” or is it that your reality, the one you claim the power to say is “The One True Reality” sucks so much and is too painful for many of us to live in?  Is it that your cold, supra-rational reality brings us too much pain, and we need a time-out?

Maybe we just need a break from your reality so we can heal and find a way of living with less pain,  or to heal just enough to try again later to live in your world of ultra-neo-bullshitism.

Do we disconnect from Reality or do we simply disconnect from relating with [some] humans – because they have disconnected from relating with us?

Do we disconnect from your reality when you resort to violence and control and repeatedly reminding us of your ever-growing laundry-list of what’s wrong with us?  

Do we disconnect – or do we retreat because the pain of staying with your reality is just too great, too much to bear right now?

Do we disconnect- or do you disconnect us- cut us out, cut us off?

Do we disconnect from Reality – or do you?

Human minds do not work in isolation from the world and do not work in isolation from other minds.  “Psychosis” exists not as some faulty operation of one brain but in the spaces, in the relations between one mind and the world,  between one mind and other minds in the world. 

If one person’s mind is in “psychosis” then what does that say about the world that surrounds that mind and that person?

What does that say of the state of the other minds that create such a  world?

If you see “psychosis” in another then what does that say about you, and how you see your relationship with them?

Just like beauty, psychosis is not something fixed, concrete, material. It is an interpretation, it only exists, and can only exist, in the eye of the beholder.

 

Posted in Crazy World, Ideas, psychosis, Trauma, what's going on? | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

Talk therapy shown to be effective for those experiencing first episode psychosis

Posted on October 27, 2015 by recoverynetwork:Toronto

Since Freud, psychiatry and medicine has held with the assumtion that talk therapies can not work for “the psychoses”. Of course, that notion was never founded upon anything other than some beardy bloke’s prejudices, and reinforced by the beardy, patrician prejudices of the massed beardy-blokes who had put each other in charge of things at the time.
Psychiatry went down the route of a whole bunch of “therapies” that now seem horrific, damaging and ineffective-  eventually ending up with promoting the “better living through  chemicals” philosophy – as in they have a better life funded by all of us taking their chemicals.

Meanwhile, the likes  of Melanie Klein had been showing this assumption to be utter beardy-bloke-bunkum for some time, but since she had the temerity to be not only a woman but a divorcee too, she could not possibly be taken too seriously by the beard-growers. Nonetheless, Kleinian therapy has been a solid school of psychoanalysis since, and practitioners have been merrily working away with people and their psychoses all the while the beard-growers said it couldn’t possibly work.

Institutions are always slow moving and the institutions of medicine – of which psychiatry is a branch-  were just not smart enough to figure out how to change and just not smart enough how to acknowledge that just because they didn’t know how to do it then that did not mean someone else might. 

Well, now they’re getting a bit smarter, or at least some are, and getting curious enough to find support to fund studies to show how that which the beard-growing institutions held to be impossible is, er, very possible.

In the UK the likes of Tony Morrison and Paul Chadwick, Richard Bentall have been conducting research in this area for a decade or more – around psychosis and CBT [ a concentrated form of “talk therapy”], even showing that for some patients talk therapy can be at least as effective as drugs.


US NIMH’s RAiSE Early Treatment Program 

Now,  here’s news from a recent NYT article this week reporting on a latest study – and a large one- looking at broader approches- medicines and therapies  combined – and telling the institutions of psychiatry what most humans already know.

As one of the doctors quoted in the article says, it takes a long time for new ideas to find their way into clinical practice – he says the average is seventeen years- this one’s taken about a hundred years and counting, so progress is very welcome.

This large scale government funded study showed that patients who received lower doses of medication and greater emphasis on one on one talk therapy and family support did better.

The NIMH funded study showed how treatment focused on helping a person make sense of their life and learning new skills that they can use in their lives – including for some patients, rudimentary ways to live with the voices- and enabling them to play a bigger role in their own lives is more effective than using all those resources to remove choice and to coerce people to take more pills.
D’oh!

Under reported,  is how talk therapy takes time – clinicians have to spend more time interacting with patients – more than ten minutes a month talking about meds- so they get to see their patients as human beings rather than unwitting objects of their expertise, clinicians get to understand the complexities of their patients lives, the clinicians get to be more human and the patient gets to be both listened to and have a greater say.

New York Time article:

Talk Therapy Found to Ease Schizophrenia

Project RAiSE NIMH

“As for medications, I have had every side effect out there, from chills and shakes to lockjaw and lactation,” said a participant in the trial, Maggie, 20, who asked that her last name be omitted. She did well in the trial and is now attending nursing school.

Doctors praised the study results.

“I’m very favorably impressed they were able to pull this study off so successfully, and it clearly shows the importance of early intervention,” said Dr. William T. Carpenter, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Maryland, who was not involved in the study.

Dr. Mary E. Olson, an assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, who has worked to promote approaches to psychosis that are less reliant on drugs, said the combined treatment had a lot in common with Open Dialogue, a Finnish program developed in the 1980s. “These are zeitgeist ideas, and I think it’s thrilling that this trial got such good results,” Dr. Olson said.

In the new study, doctors used the medications as part of a package of treatments and worked to keep the doses as low as possible — in some cases 50 percent lower — minimizing their bad effects. The sprawling research team, led by Dr. John M. Kane, chairman of the psychiatry department at Hofstra North Shore-LIJ School of Medicine, randomly assigned 34 community care clinics in 21 states to provide either treatment as usual, or the combined package.

The team trained staff members at the selected clinics to deliver that package, and it included three elements in addition to the medication. First, help with work or school such as assistance in deciding which classes or opportunities are most appropriate, given a person’s symptoms. Second, education for family members to increase their understanding of the disorder. And finally, one-on-one talk therapy in which the person with the diagnosis learns tools to build social relationships, reduce substance use and help manage the symptoms, which include mood problems as well as hallucinations and delusions.

For example, some patients can learn to defuse the voices in their head — depending on the severity of the episode — by ignoring them or talking back. The team recruited 404 people with first-episode psychosis, mostly diagnosed in their late teens or 20s. About half got the combined approach and half received treatment as usual. Clinicians monitored both groups using standardized checklists that rate symptom severity and quality of life, like whether a person is working, and how well he or she is getting along with family members.

The group that started on the combined treatment scored, on average, more poorly on both measures at the beginning of the trial. Over two years, both groups showed steady improvement. But by the end, those who had been in the combined program had more symptom relief, and were functioning better as well. They had also been on drug doses that were 20 percent to 50 percent lower, Dr. Kane said.

“One way to think about it is, if you look at the people who did the best — those we caught earliest after their first episode — their improvement by the end was easily noticeable by friends and family,” Dr. Kane said. The gains for those in typical treatment were apparent to doctors, but much less obvious.

Dr. Kenneth Duckworth, medical director for the National Alliance on Mental Illness, an advocacy group, called the findings “a game-changer for the field” in the way it combines multiple, individualized therapies, suited to the stage of the psychosis.

The study, begun in 2009, almost collapsed under the weight of its ambition. The original proposal called for two parallel trials, each including hundreds of first-episode patients. But recruiting was so slow for one of the trials that it was abandoned, said Dr. Heinssen.

“It’s been a long haul,” Dr. Heinssen added, “but it’s worth noting that it usually takes about 17 years for a new discovery to make it into clinical practice; or that’s the number people throw around. But this process only took seven years.”

Original, NYT:  http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/20/health/talk-therapy-found-to-ease-schizophrenia.html?_r=0

__________________________________________________
Abstract of Study Report

The original study report is published in The Journal of American Psychiatry- extract below, including link to original.

Comprehensive Versus Usual Community Care for First-Episode Psychosis: 2-Year Outcomes From the NIMH RAISE Early Treatment Program

John M. Kane, M.D., Delbert G. Robinson, M.D., Nina R. Schooler, Ph.D., Kim T. Mueser, Ph.D., David L. Penn, Ph.D., Robert A. Rosenheck, M.D., Jean Addington, Ph.D., Mary F. Brunette, M.D., Christoph U. Correll, M.D., Sue E. Estroff, Ph.D., Patricia Marcy, B.S.N., James Robinson, M.Ed., Piper S. Meyer-Kalos,Ph.D., L.P., Jennifer D. Gottlieb, Ph.D., Shirley M. Glynn, Ph.D., David W. Lynde, M.S.W., Ronny Pipes,M.A., L.P.C.-S., Benji T. Kurian, M.D., M.P.H., Alexander L. Miller, M.D., Susan T. Azrin, Ph.D., Amy B. Goldstein, Ph.D., Joanne B. Severe, M.S., Haiqun Lin, M.D., Ph.D., Kyaw J. Sint, M.P.H., Majnu John,Ph.D., Robert K. Heinssen, Ph.D., A.B.P.P.
Received: May 15, 2015
Accepted: September 04, 2015
http://dx.doi.org/10.1176/appi.ajp.2015.15050632

Objective:

The primary aim of this study was to compare the impact of NAVIGATE, a comprehensive, multidisciplinary, team-based treatment approach for first-episode psychosis designed for implementation in the U.S. health care system, with community care on quality of life.

 Thirty-four clinics in 21 states were randomly assigned to NAVIGATE or community care. Diagnosis, duration of untreated psychosis, and clinical outcomes were assessed via live, two-way video by remote, centralized raters masked to study design and treatment. Participants (mean age, 23) with schizophrenia and related disorders and ≤6 months of antipsychotic treatment (N=404) were enrolled and followed for ≥2 years. The primary outcome was the total score of the Heinrichs-Carpenter Quality of Life Scale, a measure that includes sense of purpose, motivation, emotional and social interactions, role functioning, and engagement in regular activities.

Method:

The 223 recipients of NAVIGATE remained in treatment longer, experienced greater improvement in quality of life and psychopathology, and experienced greater involvement in work and school compared with 181 participants in community care. The median duration of untreated psychosis was 74 weeks. NAVIGATE participants with duration of untreated psychosis of <74 weeks had greater improvement in quality of life and psychopathology compared with those with longer duration of untreated psychosis and those in community care. Rates of hospitalization were relatively low compared with other first-episode psychosis clinical trials and did not differ between groups.

Results:

Conclusions:

Comprehensive care for first-episode psychosis can be implemented in U.S. community clinics and improves functional and clinical outcomes. Effects are more pronounced for those with shorter duration of untreated psychosis.

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We are deep down inside you. Mr Robot

Posted on October 26, 2015 by recoverynetwork:Toronto

mr robot1

From S1E10 of Mr Robot.

Elliot is a nervy Tech for a computer security firm by day and vigilante hacker by night. He has trouble talking with people but he gets to know people by hacking into their online life – if you do wrong by his friends, he’ll find and share all your secrets – and he’ll maybe need a little something from you – like your dog.

He becomes entwined in complex web of crooks, corporate crooks, drug dealers, a prison break, and with a small bunch of outsiders changes the world by bringing down the perfectly named and worlds biggest ever and most appropriately-named conglomerate “Evilcorp” and  also wipes clean of debt the entire world financial system.

Meanwhile, as Elliot quits his habit of using morphine to sooth his pain the boundaries between inner life,  outer life and online life get curiouser and curiouser, unfolding and enfolding as he slowly realises  who he is – and just what part Christian Slater plays in that.

If you liked Chuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club, and Bird Man and V For Vendetta then you might like Mr Robot.

Heck, it’s the first TV show/Movie we seen that managed to make watching people typing code at a keyboard look. like, not completely boring.

 

 

 

Posted in Crazy World, Healing, hearing voices, hell is other people, Ideas, mental illness? or..., Weird | Tagged | Comments Off on We are deep down inside you. Mr Robot

War – Edwin Starr

Posted on October 25, 2015 by recoverynetwork:Toronto

edwin starr warWar, huh, yeah
What is it good for
Absolutely nothing
Uh-huh
War, huh, yeah
What is it good for
Absolutely nothing
Say it again, y’all

War can’t give life
It can only take it away

EDWIN STARR
“War”

War, huh, yeah
What is it good for
Absolutely nothing
Uh-huh
War, huh, yeah
What is it good for
Absolutely nothing
Say it again, y’all

War, huh, good God
What is it good for
Absolutely nothing
Listen to me

Ohhh, war, I despise
Because it means destruction
Of innocent lives

War means tears
To thousands of mothers eyes
When their sons go to fight
And lose their lives

I said, war, huh
Good God, y’all
What is it good for
Absolutely nothing
Say it again

War, whoa, Lord
What is it good for
Absolutely nothing
Listen to me

War, it ain’t nothing
But a heartbreaker
War, friend only to the undertaker
Ooooh, war
It’s an enemy to all mankind
The point of war blows my mind
War has caused unrest
Within the younger generation
Induction then destruction
Who wants to die
Aaaaah, war-huh
Good God y’all
What is it good for
Absolutely nothing
Say it, say it, say it
War, huh
What is it good for
Absolutely nothing
Listen to me

War, huh, yeah
What is it good for
Absolutely nothing
Uh-huh
War, huh, yeah
What is it good for
Absolutely nothing
Say it again y’all
War, huh, good God
What is it good for
Absolutely nothing
Listen to me

War, it ain’t nothing but a heartbreaker
War, it’s got one friend
That’s the undertaker
Ooooh, war, has shattered
Many a young mans dreams
Made him disabled, bitter and mean
Life is much to short and precious
To spend fighting wars these days
War can’t give life
It can only take it away

Ooooh, war, huh
Good God y’all
What is it good for
Absolutely nothing
Say it again

War, whoa, Lord
What is it good for
Absolutely nothing
Listen to me

War, it ain’t nothing but a heartbreaker
War, friend only to the undertaker
Peace, love and understanding
Tell me, is there no place for them today
They say we must fight to keep our freedom
But Lord knows there’s got to be a better way

Ooooooh, war, huh
Good God y’all
What is it good for
You tell me
Say it, say it, say it, say it

War, huh
Good God y’all
What is it good for
Stand up and shout it
Nothing

Posted in Crazy World, Emancipate yourself..., Healing, hearing voices, music, sh!t is f#cked, Trauma | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Block rockin’ beats – Chemical Brothers

Posted on October 24, 2015 by recoverynetwork:Toronto

Back with another one of those block rockin’ beats
Back with another one of those block rockin’ beats
Back with another one of those block rockin’ beats
Back with another one of those block rockin’ beats
Back with another one of those block rockin’ beats

Back with another one of those block rockin’ beats

We are about to rock steady
We are about to rock steady

Back with another one of those block rockin’ beats
Back with another one of those block rockin’ beats

Songwriters
ROWLANDS, THOMAS OWEN MOSTYN / SIMONS, EDMUND JOHN / WEAVER JR., JESSE BONDS

Posted in Crazy World, manamana, music | Tagged , | 3 Comments

We envision and enact a society that understands…

Posted on October 23, 2015 by recoverynetwork:Toronto

 

we envisin a society that understands
We envision and enact a society that understands voice hearing, supports the needs of individuals who hear voices and regards them as full Citizens.
This type of society is not only possible, it is already on its way.
Eleanor Longden, TED 2013

Related

Posted in Emancipate yourself..., hearing voices, Trauma | Tagged , | 4 Comments

Sleep deprivation induces psychosis in healthy humans

Posted on October 22, 2015 by recoverynetwork:Toronto

More research telling us what we already know – lack of sleep can lead to your world starting to look and feel very strange, and people treating you as less than human-  it is after all the the basis if torture.

Psychologists at the University of Bonn are amazed by the severe deficits caused by a sleepless night

Still, we’re grateful that scientists other than those in the employ of despots have put together a study to put some data to what we already know.

The international team of researchers found significant differences in nerdy factors measured by researchers after only 24hrs of sleep deprivation.

As the site at one of the universities involved Uof Bonn says..

Twenty-four hours of sleep deprivation can lead to conditions in healthy persons similar to the symptoms of schizophrenia. This discovery was made by an international team of researchers under the guidance of the University of Bonn and King’s College London. The scientists point out that this effect should be investigated more closely in persons who have to work at night. In addition, sleep deprivation may serve as a model system for the development of drugs to treat psychosis. The results have now been published in “The Journal of Neuroscience”.

It doesn’t take a mad scientist to conjure notions that after a few weeks, months even years of sleep depriavation then things could get very strange indeed. You might even begin to see ducks.

Whatever prepulse inhibition is its been shown by this study to be inhibited by an inhibition of sleep. Actually it has  to do with startle response- and having an exaggerated startle response is one of many signifying factors of having been traumatised.

Perhaps simpler to understand is that the study shows how only 24hrs sleep deprivation leads to healthy people with no history of psychiatric diagnosis experiencing symptoms that might see them given one of the many diagnoses of psychosis.

More evidence supporting what commonsense tells us and giving the lie to the concoction that some of us are susceptible and some not.

“We conclude that SD -sleep deprivation-  in combination with the PPI -prepulse inhibition -biomarker, might be a promising translational surrogate model for model for psychosis as this method represents a possibility to partially and reversibly mimic the pathogenesis of psychotic states.”

-no kidding.

Curious that in looking for and reporting with some shock their findings – that only “24hrs of sleep deprivation induces schitzophrenia like symptoms in healthy people”
the researchers interpret that they have a model they can use to mimics the generation of psychosis in the lab – without being able to see the big fat duck quacking and laying eggs on the tip of their nose…
Maybe they’d found not a mimic but the real thing and that their research construct  “schitzophrenia” is just that: nothing more than  research construct…

But then in biomedical research…
trust me I'm a doctorIf it looks like a duck
sounds like a duck,
walks like a duck….
farts like a duck:
It must be “schitzophrenia”

…and they say we lack insight.

Published in Journal of Neuroscience, here  http://www.jneurosci.org/content/34/27/9134.

The page from University of Bonn is below.
The Full Report pdf is here http://www.jneurosci.org/content/34/27/9134.full.pdf

And kudos and gratitude  for the open publishing!

Press release from Dept. PSychology, University of Bonn

Sleep deprivation leads to symptoms of schizophrenia

Psychologists at the University of Bonn are amazed by the severe deficits caused by a sleepless night

Twenty-four hours of sleep deprivation can lead to conditions in healthy persons similar to the symptoms of schizophrenia. This discovery was made by an international team of researchers under the guidance of the University of Bonn and King’s College London. The scientists point out that this effect should be investigated more closely in persons who have to work at night. In addition, sleep deprivation may serve as a model system for the development of drugs to treat psychosis. The results have now been published in “The Journal of Neuroscience”.

In psychosis, there is a loss of contact with reality and this is associated with hallucinations and delusions. The chronic form is referred to as schizophrenia, which likewise involves thought disorders and misperceptions. Affected persons report that they hear voices, for example. Psychoses rank among the most severe mental illnesses. An international team of researchers under the guidance of the University of Bonn has now found out that after 24 hours of sleep deprivation in healthy patients, numerous symptoms were noted which are otherwise typically attributed to psychosis or schizophrenia. “It was clear to us that a sleepless night leads to impairment in the ability to concentrate,” says Prof. Dr. Ulrich Ettinger of the Cognitive Psychology Unit in the Department of Psychology at the University of Bonn. “But we were surprised at how pronounced and how wide the spectrum of schizophrenia-like symptoms was.”

The scientists from the University of Bonn, King’s College London (England) as well as the Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy of the University of Bonn Hospital examined a total of 24 healthy subjects of both genders aged 18 to 40 in the sleep laboratory of the Department of Psychology. In an initial run, the test subjects were to sleep normally in the laboratory. About one week later, they were kept awake all night with movies, conversation, games and brief walks. On the following morning, subjects were each asked about their thoughts and feelings. In addition, subjects underwent a measurement known as prepulse inhibition.

Unselected information leads to chaos in the brain

“Prepulse inhibition is a standard test to measure the filtering function of the brain,” explains lead author Dr. Nadine Petrovsky from Prof. Ettinger’s team. In the experiment, a loud noise is heard via headphones. As a result, the test subjects experience a startle response, which is recorded with electrodes through the contraction of facial muscles. If a weaker stimulus is emitted beforehand as a “prepulse”, the startle response is lower. “The prepulse inhibition demonstrates an important function of the brain: Filters separate what is important from what is not important and prevent sensory overload,” says Dr. Petrovsky.

In our subjects, this filtering function of the brain was significantly reduced following a sleepless night. “There were pronounced attention deficits, such as what typically occurs in the case of schizophrenia,” reports Prof. Ettinger. “The unselected flood of information led to chaos in the brain.” Following sleep deprivation, the subjects also indicated in questionnaires that they were somewhat more sensitive to light, color or brightness. Accordingly, their sense of time and sense of smell were altered and mental leaps were reported. Many of those who spent the night even had the impression of being able to read thoughts or notice altered body perception. “We did not expect that the symptoms could be so pronounced after one night spent awake,” says the psychologist from the University of Bonn.

Sleep deprivation as a model system for mental illnesses

The scientists see an important potential application for their results in research for drugs to treat psychoses. “In drug development, mental disorders like these have been simulated to date in experiments using certain active substances. However, these convey the symptoms of psychoses in only a very limited manner,” says Prof. Ettinger. Sleep deprivation may be a much better model system because the subjective symptoms and the objectively measured filter disorder are far more akin to mental illnesses. Of course, the sleep deprivation model is not harmful: After a good night’s recovery sleep, the symptoms disappear. There is also a need for research with regard to persons who regularly have to work at night. “Whether the symptoms of sleep deprivation gradually become weaker due to acclimatization has yet to be investigated,” says the psychologist from the University of Bonn.

Abstract

Sleep Deprivation Disrupts Prepulse Inhibition and Induces Psychosis-Like Symptoms in Healthy Humans

Nadine Petrovsky1,*,

Ulrich Ettinger, Antje Hill, Leonie Frenzel, Inga Meyhöfer, Michael Wagner, Jutta Backhaus, and Veena Kumari.

Abstract

Translational biomarkers, such as prepulse inhibition (PPI) of the acoustic startle response, are playing an increasingly important role in the development of antipsychotic drugs for schizophrenia and related conditions. However, attempts to reliably induce a PPI deficit by psychotomimetic drugs have not been successful, leaving an unmet need for a cross-species psychosis model sensitive to this widely studied surrogate treatment target. Sleep deprivation (SD) might be such a model as it has previously been shown to induce PPI deficits in rats, which could be selectively prevented with antipsychotic but not anxiolytic or antidepressant compounds. Here, in a first proof-of-concept study we tested whether SD induces a deficit in PPI and an increase in psychosis-like symptoms in healthy humans. In two counterbalanced sessions, acoustic PPI and self-reported psychosis-like symptoms (Psychotomimetic States Inventory) were measured in 24 healthy human volunteers after a normal night’s sleep and after a night of total SD. SD decreased PPI (p = 0.001) without affecting the magnitude or habituation of the startle response (all p > 0.13). SD also induced perceptual distortions, cognitive disorganization, and anhedonia (all p < 0.02). Thus, extending previous rodent work, we conclude that SD, in combination with the PPI biomarker, might be a promising translational surrogate model for psychosis as this method represents a possibility to partially and reversibly mimic the pathogenesis of psychotic states.

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The man who lives in an aural world…

Posted on October 21, 2015 by recoverynetwork:Toronto

the man who lives in an aural world
What does McLuhan mean in an aural or acoustic world ? he is not refering merely to the sense with which we detect but the structure of how we experience information –

visual space mimics the eye – and how it moves from one thing to the next [at great speed] and information comes to us sequentially, much like the symbols you are reading right now.
audio space is one in which, like sound – information comes from all directions and sources simultaneously. 

Four hundred and more years of print created a new, visual world. McLuhan saw the beginning of an age in which technology transforms our experience again – this time returning us to primal, he called it “tribal” world with an audio structure in which we are all bombarded simultaneously with messages accessed through multiple senses…

Our role, amidst the noise of that, is to learn ways we can make sense of what we experience. 

The following is from the Canadian Library and Archive:

McLuhan

Visual and Acoustic Space

While Innis developed his analysis of media according to time- and space-bias, McLuhan developed a slightly different categorization of media. Depending on which senses are engaged by a given medium, the resulting environment will either produce a visual or acoustic space. These concepts have less to do with specific media than with the kinds of effects they produce. So, for instance, McLuhan considers television audile-tactile precisely because it engages several senses at the same time: it creates an acoustic space. Since each sense interacts with others, when one sense is extended, the ratio of the other senses is also affected. McLuhan’s term “sensorium,” borrowed from Thomas Aquinas, refers to the senses in interaction with one another. 15

Visual space is characterized by an emphasis on the eye, or geometric vision. Media that stress this type of vision, like the phonetic alphabet or print, alter our way of perceiving the world by stressing linearity. Technologies that emphasize the eye over the other senses produce the impression that things in a visual plane are connected in the same way that, when you read, words build on each other by following rules of grammar and logic. These rules are the product of a way of thinking that links things that otherwise do not necessarily have any connection. This tendency, to link things together, presupposes that things are made up of parts. To understand the whole, and the connections therein, you must dissect the parts; hence, objectivity becomes a value. This is the predominant form of most industrialist technologies, such as steam power, reading and writing.

The key characteristic of acoustic space is that it engages multiple senses at the same time. It does not demand that objects be dissected to be understood; rather, the multiple parts co-exist simultaneously. To understand acoustic space, you must perceive all of it, not focus on one part. In other words, acoustic space demands that you apprehend figure and ground simultaneously, that the senses work together. McLuhan believed that oral cultures existed in acoustic space since their primary mode of communicating was speech.

Some scholars have observed that McLuhan’s use of the terms visual and acoustic space are idiosyncratic. 16 Most agree that geometric vision involves more interplay than McLuhan seems to recognize, making his use of the term appear somewhat arbitrary. Furthermore, visual space is not always associated with physical vision. Although print is typically associated with linearity and visual space, McLuhan considers some literature to be tactile, like the poetry of Eliot. Art that relies on perspective is associated with visual space, but cubism and the work of artists like Cézanne is considered to be acoustic since it requires an appreciation of both figure and ground.

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