25/03/13 01:35 [Monday]
I’ve just woken from a dream about dopamine, and specifically the different behaviours associated with different levels of dopamine in the brain, from high down to low. The basic idea is that higher levels of dopamine create more of a distinction (when translated into behaviour) between objects or concepts the nervous system differentiates. The subject feels more certain that things which appear different from each other - perhaps only slightly different - genuinely are from different categories. On the other hand things between which differences are not noticed are more readily believed to be identical, or from identical categories. Things are seen more in an all-or-nothing manner. At lower (more normal) levels of dopamine the subject feels less certain that things are either different or (on the other hand) the same. At lower levels (I suppose) there is greater acceptance that things in the real world might be being perceived mistakenly: the response to things and events is more ‘gradualist’ with less investment in the initially formed way of regarding the thing or event and an easier quicker ability to change tack. (Also with lower levels of dopamine other people’s, or ‘Society’s’, ways of interpreting objects and events play a larger role in determining the individual’s response.)
Something I have been thinking about when awake recently is that some behaviours can be associated (the same) with both high and low levels of dopamine. For one thing this makes it difficult for doctors to be sure whether symptoms of schizophrenia are being seen, or on the other hand the effects of too powerful a dosage of dopamine-blocking drugs. For example, if the subject’s mind is empty of thoughts (from low levels of dopamine) he will be silent and appear withdrawn; but also if his mind is full of thoughts he may well appear the same since he cannot put the many and probably mutually contradictory (or ‘counteracting’) ideas into words until he has processed them, and he may never have time to process them to make them definite especially if he is being bombarded with new experiences either questions and an insistence on engagement from the doctor or (worse) the fearful experience of being hospitalised especially the first time and especially if it is by compulsion.
I adhere to the view I have come to, that schizophrenia (and related conditions: for nowadays I get the impression schizophrenia is less readily given as a diagnosis but conditions like Asperger’s or Autism more readily and earlier) results from dopamine responsivity which is too high. Given only slight stimulation very high-amplitude and possibly fluctuating waves of excitement of dopaminergic systems result. The degree and duration of the continuing fluctuation will depend on the precision of the neural networks available to do the processing ‘downstream’, that is on their resolution. The effect of such unpleasant results from any stimulation is that the subject evades stimulation, that is he becomes ‘avoidant’ or withdrawn. In turn that results in an absence of fluctuations in dopaminergic systems and this also is experienced as unpleasure, in the form of loneliness and perhaps boredom. There are ways available to a person having an over-responsive dopaminergic system of obtaining stimulation which is (if things go well) not at an overwheliming level, some more traditional (like reading, or listening to the radio or watching TV) and some new-fangled (like communicating with others - and best it is with others similar - via the internet). I will mention that Emily Brontë obtained pleasurable stimulation from her sister Charlotte when the latter described to her her ventures ‘into society’: there is something more directly appealing in real-life stimulation even at one remove (more nearly real-time, I suppose) than is available from fictive stimulation as from reading a novel.
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