He has a point, Melinda! As for complexities and uncertainties of diagnosis, definition of schizophrenia, etc., I attended a symposium at NY Academy of Science last week which included two presentations which describe approaches and recent findings which I think are especially useful in understanding the diagnosis/definition problem, and which point the way for some real break-throughs in both diagnosis and treatment. I'll try to send you some details, or at very least some links to follow-up with, but for example one showed really trivial correlations between different "indices" traditionally used to define groups and assess treatment effects, e.g. between pre-pulse inhibition and predictive visual tracking; more importantly, each was associated with different genes (NOS-related for PPI and COMT for predictive tracking), offering the prospect of developing individually-tailored treatments rather than the "one-size (and one- cut) fits all" medications we're currently limited to. In other words, a way to make sense of heterogeneity within "schizophrenia" and to design ways to treat what needs to be treated and avoid side-effects from "treating" what does not need to be treated in individual cases. Another showed a wide range of data suggesting elementary processing problems in various sensory modalities, implicating glutamate rather than the usual targets of anti-psychotic medications (chiefly dopamine). Much of schizophrenic phenomena can be potentially understood in terms of indirect consequences to development of more complex functions (e.g. social/emotional perception and judgment) and of a lot of work trying to actively compensate for rather elementary processing problems. In the discussion period, I pointed out the similarity to Paula Tallal's approach to language development problems & dyslexia, based on identification of lower- order processing problems (specificaly temporal resolution of rapidly changing sensory inputs)--including a common focus on the magnocellular sensory systems as critical in this. The presenter is interested in getting together with Paula on this, and I told him I'd put a bug in her ear... For now, you can see at least the names and perhaps follow-up via PubMed by going to http://www.NYAS.org and clicking on Events or Calendar. Date was Jan. 24, i believe. --Frank ===================================================== --- In NewPacifica@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, Melinda Smith <melsbasketcase@xxxx> wrote: > > ---------- Forwarded message ---------- > From: Northrup, Robert <Robert.Northrup@xxxx> > Date: Jan 30, 2006 4:58 PM > Subject: RE: i am getting cheerleader thoughts > To: Melinda Smith <melsbasketcase@xxxx> > > > Asshole, everyone gets psychotic after missing enough sleep. Don't try > to diagnose yourself in the middle of skipping your meds and stressing > yourself with sleep deprivation. NO ONE WANTS TO HEAR ABOUT IT when the > cause of your immediate problem is so obvious. > > > > -----Original Message----- > From: Melinda Smith [mailto:melsbasketcase@xxxx] > Sent: Monday, January 30, 2006 4:57 PM > To: catpft group; Northrup, Robert; new pacifica > Subject: i am getting cheerleader thoughts > > > I was reading some page and a thought popped up of someone saying, > "God you are introverted!" So I was not sure of the meaning of that > word. I glanced at material talking about intuitive introverts. I > think if anything I am an extroverted narcissist. > > Then Otie shot in my head saying, "What drives you?" This is where I > get big ideas like I am supposed to get a job. And they will all help > me to get a dream job. > > I have not slept in 24 hours. Maybe I have been misdiagnosed this > entire time and what I have now is mania. Mania that goes into > psychosis. Because the initial diagnosis was schizoaffective disorder. > > As far as I have read bipolar people have less severe psychosis than > people in the schizo family. Or I could be mistaken. This might > explain things. > > On one of my mental health groups a guy wrote in accusing us of not > really being schizophrenic. Instead we have metaphysical thoughts. He > said we do schizophrenics a disservice by calling ourselves that. > > Isn't that fucking cheesy that I thought, "What drives you?" > > It must be myself. Me, me, me. Talk about myself all day. > > This might explain things. I just read that sentence again and got the > feeling I did not write it. Someone put it there. What is really > happening is I should have said, "That might explain things." > > My feet stink real bad. It is too late to take a bath. I am afraid I > will fall asleep in the tub. My feet usually don't stink. My hands > stink because I rubbed my feet. > > -- > Melinda Smith =^..^= > http://angelfire.com/zine/melsbasketcase ========================================================= New Pacifica Working Group http://www.egroups.com/group/NewPacifica 'Save Our Stations!' Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NewPacifica/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: NewPacifica-unsubscribe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/