Friday, June 23, 2006
Brains
When test animals treated with the newly discovered brain chemical, Neuropeptide S (NPS), were given psychosis-inducing drugs, they did not show the expected symptoms that untreated animals do. This suggests that NPS may have a significant role in the pathochemistry of schizophrenia, and hold promise for better future treatments for that disease, which affects about 1 per cent of the population.
You know how much fun it is to figure something out? Well, it seems that that feeling may be your brain getting an 'opium' kick. It seems that the final event of grokking something results in stimulation of mu-opioid receptors in the brain, which give a pleasurable sensation. If this process was to have evolved in early (proto-)humans, it might explain why we evolved to be so good at learning things. I wonder if the same hold in other animals?
You know how much fun it is to figure something out? Well, it seems that that feeling may be your brain getting an 'opium' kick. It seems that the final event of grokking something results in stimulation of mu-opioid receptors in the brain, which give a pleasurable sensation. If this process was to have evolved in early (proto-)humans, it might explain why we evolved to be so good at learning things. I wonder if the same hold in other animals?
