Twitter diary for April 2013

This may be found at www.colinbrough.co.uk/April_2013.html

Twitter diary for March 2013

My Twitter diary for March may be found at www.colinbrough.co.uk/March_2013.html

Absolutely correct

03/04/13 03:13 [Wednesday]
I woke up about 2.30 AM and I can’t say this is the reason I was awake and couldn’t get back to sleep (that had more to do with the headache I had and discomfort in my tummy) but running constantly through my mind was the phrase ‘in-depth profile’. This phrase was used in a TV ad for a series of magazines when I was a teenager, and is troublesome in that a profile is an outline so how can it have depth? I was trying to think whether any meaning could be ascribed to ‘in-depth profile’ as I was waking up this morning.
Since I have got up I have been thinking about a sequence in The Big Bang Theory where Sheldon says one cannot be ‘more wrong’ because wrong is absolute: on a particular question one is either wrong or not wrong. And I have been thinking of other similar phrases used nowadays less strictly than really they ought to be: ‘more essential’ and ‘very key’.
The person replying to Sheldon on that matter in The Big Bang Theory (the comic store owner, I think) said it was a little wrong to say that a tomato is a vegetable but a lot wrong to say something else which I can’t recall but which was unarguably wrong or I should say more commonly declared wrong. Without getting too much into the question of the nature of truth and the nature of error, it is ‘unarguably wrong’ that a tomato is a vegetable but it is quite commonly thought to be right not wrong.
So for some qualities which are actually binary - either the case or not the case - there are associated measures of degree which seem natural. To say ‘more pregnant’ means in fact ‘further along in the pregnancy’. And for the case of wrongness there are as it were votes which could be taken showing what proportion of people realise (or ‘believe’) that the thing is wrong and what proportion believe it to be right.
If something is essential to something it is a necessary condition for it. Guessing what ‘more essential’ might mean (without having to hand a specific example) I suppose it means ‘more likely to fail if this condition is absent’, in which case the condition is not in truth essential but is simply important. Or possibly we can resort to voting again: perhaps we do not know whether this condition is essential but a certain large proportion of people believe the thing would fail without the condition.
I’m not quite sure what ‘key’ means not having thought through the etymology, but in ‘very key’ it means ‘important’ or ‘significant’. ‘Very key’ sounds wrong to me but it is quite a common phrase.
People like Sheldon Cooper (and Mrs Thatcher as she used to be) in coming to conclusions or decisions are very sure of them. Personally I think this is related to the way dopamine fires up in their central nervous systems, that is when dopaminergic neurons are excited they are very excited very suddenly and when they cease to be excited they cease suddenly (and this of course is related to schizophrenia). Commonly nowadays though individuals are not trusted: managers do not take decisions based on what they know to be the case but rather a questionnaire is sent out to determine what people on average believe to be the case. Hence I can understand the more frequent use nowadays of phrases like ‘more wrong’ which depend on the notion of what people on average believe instead of what is in truth the case.
Addendum
According to dictionary.reference.com (the online OED via the Dudley Council website being unavailable) key (as an adjective) means chief; major; important; essential; fundamental; pivotal. (I recommend also www.merriam-webster.com which I have discovered through the unavailability of the OED.) I should think the prior meaning of key is essential as a key is a sine qua non for getting through a door (or something else locked), and hence my doubts about ‘very key’ which is like saying ‘very essential’.
Nowadays the idea that anything is absolute is eroded, and even in physics the belief has become prevalent that there is not any absolute truth but only theories which come and go and for a while explain things quite well.

Dopamine-blocking drugs

01-02 April 2013 [Bank Holiday Monday - Tuesday]
When my thoughts and feelings were less restrained by dopamine-blocking medication - that is in the years preceding 2011 - I was very concerned that I might be made to have dopamine-blocking medication as I had been over decades up to my parents’ deaths and that it would affect me very badly as it had then. This fear (to say genuinely what it was) was combined with anger that I had been made to have such medication in those decades and that it had resulted in a terrible and empty experience for me of life then.
I am now being given the minimum dosage of Risperdal Consta injection, which is 25mg every two weeks, and I can see that it is improving life for me. This contrasts with the conclusion I had reached, that any dosage of a dopamine-blocker would do the opposite of help me.
My concern now is that - especially as I am moving home soon - a new psychiatrist may increase the dosage and thereby again consign me to hurt. Up to about a year ago I was on a higher dosage of Risperdal Consta - in fact it was 37.5mg every two weeks - and it made for an unpleasant experience of life for me, doing me hurt not good. I wish to set down the effects of the higher dosage in a version I can make available to any doctor who might think to put me on a higher dosage than 25mg. (This is especially so when at the time I am on the higher dosage I cannot formulate words and sentences adequately to convey what I mean.) It strikes me such a description might be of help to others if published on the internet - not that everybody responds the same to the same dosage but still it would be a warning of the possible adverse effects of too high a dosage for the individual - and a description of the helpful effects of a successful dosage (25mg for me) might be an encouragement too, for example to patients who have encountered nothing but hurt from the dosages (too high I mean) prescribed by psychiatrists who may be insufficiently caring and attentive. For now though I defer a description of the helpful effects.
The main results in me of the higher dosage of Risperdal were those I read reported as side-effects of reserpine, that is depression and anxiety (but anxiety not accompanied by the usual physiological symptoms such as increased heart rate and increased breathing rate). Also I was markedly underactive - going to bed early in the evening because I could find nothing of interest to do and not pursuing my usual interests such as those connected with computing - and indecisive. I found it difficult to engage in conversation because thoughts did not come to mind: my mind in fact was a blank. If I was in a context of requiring to talk to people - as I was because matters arose relating to the bungalow I owned and occupied, in 2011 specifically - I lost track of what I had to say and could not draw together the facts of the case in my mind as the conversation (what passed for a conversation) progressed.
It seems plain to me that the way the brain works one thought leads to another - or ideas presented from other people through language or other symbols set off chains of thought - through a mechanism where neural structures are physically linked by dopaminergic connections. Blocking some dopaminergic synapses weakens the connections so that the excitement of neural structures downstream from some stimulation is reduced, and blocking too many synapses results in thoughts petering out before they really get going. This effect was very apparent to me through introspection in the years when I was given very high dosages of dopamine-blocking drugs.
As regards anxiety, my experience of it since being on dopamine-blocking medication (but not at the current low dosage) is that it arose because the little degree of mental ‘processing’ I did resulted in no decisions being come to - I did not (and could not) think things through enough to reach conclusions - so I was in a constant state of uncertainty. On top of that because of underactivity I did not do things I should have done in preparation for any known up-coming need, so that I was unprepared for things which might arise even when I knew beforehand that they were going to arise. Examples of that would include getting together (that is I did not get them together, because I was underactive) ready for some application I was going to make (say a form I had to fill in, or to be more specific phoning a workman for help with my central heating).
Regarding depression: I am sure nature (or rather evolution) has made it a pleasure to mentally ‘process’ (up to a certain degree). What I think happens in the absence of dopamine-blocking is that as one becomes aware of problems or decisions to be taken the dopamine turnover in the brain increases. This corresponds to ‘processing’ to try to resolve what is perceived as needing resolution (an example which could be tested being the presentation of and the attempt to solve some mathematical puzzle). When the problem is perceived as solved - when some final decision is come to - the level of dopamine drops, sometimes quite suddenly. This gives a surge of serotonin, which is experienced as pleasure. But it is the ebb and flow of dopamine which gives rise to surges of serotonin, and a constant low level of dopamine does nothing for serotonin (and for completeness I remark that a constant high level of dopamine - corresponding to having puzzling problems which never get resolved - equally means there are no surges of serotonin).
Returning to the phenomenon of anxiety, I remark that the more usual origin of anxiety is, not insufficient ‘processing’ to come to any conclusion or decision, but rather, constant ‘processing’ on and on without ever coming to a conclusion or decision because there are too many factors in the ‘processing’, that is too much going on in the mind, in a mutually contradictory and self-defeating range.
In summary, too high a dosage of dopamine-blocking medication causes my mind to be empty. I do not do things I need to do and I do not reach any conclusions, this manifesting as anxiety; I cannot find anything to contribute to a conversation; and life is nothing but depression - death-in-life with very high dosages - because it is so unstimulating.

Levels of dopamine, high or low

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.