Peels

I think there are many holes in the above referred article.

For example, the article wrote: "One of the possible side effects of a continued lack of sleep is death. Usually this is the result of the fact that the immune system is weakened without sleep."

To my knowledge, the above statement is solely based on animal studies, especially on rats. If taking a close look of how these studies were performed, one can easily find out that, at least, two more factors (fatigue and stress) played a significant role for the death of these rats. Just single out sleep deprivation as a root cause could not be justified by such kind of experiments. The fact is that no recorded human death has been concluded as a result of lack of sleep yet; and in one of human sleep deprivation records, a man experienced no long term negative effects after 11 days without sleep.

Another example, the article wrote: "Just like a person cannot jog for three continuous days a person's brain cannot operate without rest breaks. Since different regions of the brain rest during different stages of the sleep cycle, sleep cannot be cut short. In fact, if the brain does not receive a break it will soon begin to shut down for periods of microsleep."

There is no scientific result indicates that a human brain needs rest. We know that many human organs never take a break: heart, lung etc. In my view, some parts of brain can not even afford to take a break. Anyway, to assume the function of sleep is for resting the brain is problematic.

In my view, gene is a contributor (can be a sufficient factor in some cases), but not a necessary factor to schizophrenia.

Everyone can have schizophrenia if under an extreme enviourment condition.

The hallucination in schizophrenia is, in fact, nothing but waking dreams.

The rooster.

At least, this doesn't make any less sense than choosing either the egg or the chicken.

What came first the chicken or the egg? There is no right answer for it, no matter what you choose!

It doesn't make sense to define the one came out of the egg as a chicken, but the one laid the egg as non-chicken.

I agree with Swansont: "there's no sharp distinction that would let you make that assessment." and also agree with AzurePhoenix: "that's the biggest waste of brain power ever."

Scicop, I fully understand and agree with your reply.

The first thing that I realized when I read articles from psychiatry journals was that psychiatry field is totally different with the engineering filed. When doing study in engineering field, yes, one should start from more reputable journals, because that is where the most valuable papers are published. But when doing study in psychiatry related field, one has to be open-minded, because many researchers and scientists in this field are controlled by the drug company ("whores of the industry" as you termed), and so these high citation indexes journals. As a result, many articles published on these journals are not that valuable, and even sometimes misleading. I have no doubt that the papers I referred above will never be accepted by these journals because of their views. However, in my opinion, to better understand psychiatry, one really needs to study views from both anti-psychiatry and pro-psychiatry.

As beauty is in the eyes of the beholder, which means facial attraction must be related with personal experiences (memory), therefore, it should be saved somewhere in the cortex.

...The cititation you provided was interesting though I have issues with papers published in a journal called "medical hypothesis". Even my most crappist PhD and postdoctoral papers and reviews were published journals with very high citation indexes..I wouldn't publish in "medical hypothesis" if it were the last journal to publish in...

The only comment to your post is: not all papers that published in a high citation index journal are jewels, and not all papers "published in a journal called 'medical hypothesis'" are crappy one. As a scientist, you should judge a paper by its scientific value not the name of the journal, especially, when its view against the main stream's.

First, I would like to say that this is a science debate forums, therefore, any articles that I referred are only for the purpose of food for thoughts. I am neither anti-psychiatry nor pro-psychiatry.

Unfortunately' date=' there seems little alternative. There are obvious exceptions, but many schizophrenics lack the resources and abilityto lead functional lives without extensive care. There are obvious problems with the drugs, but are side effects much worse than being institutionalized indefinetly?[/quote']

 

 

It is obvious that side effects can never be much worse than "being institutionalized indefinitely". But the question is: do all schizophrenics have to be "institutionalized indefinitely" if without antipsychotic drugs? Are these antipsychotic drugs the only choice for schizophrenics? What happened for so many schizophrenics (John Nash, for instance) who recovered without antipsychotic drugs?

 

 

I would urge you to read the published report. There has been a relatively large backlash and criticism of the study since publication' date=' pointing out methodological flaws. One that comes to mind: There was only one typical antipsychoitc used for the comparison.[/quote']

 

To your comment, I'll just quote some part of recent interviews from SRF with Dr. Robin Murray, a leader in European schizophrenia research:

 

SRF: "…What are the biggest differences in how prescribing physicians approach schizophrenia in Europe and the U.S. at the clinical level?"

 

RM: "…In terms of daily practice, the biggest difference is the extent to which the drug companies dominate the thoughts of the practitioners. My own view is that the academic establishment in North America has been unduly influenced by the pharmaceutical industry."

 

SRF: "Leading to overprescription?"

 

RM: "Not necessarily overprescription but, for example, leading to a mindless acceptance that atypical antipsychotics are hugely better than typical antipsychotics. To my knowledge, around 90 percent of the antipsychotics prescribed in the United States are now atypicals, as compared to 50 percent in Britain. American psychiatrists have been convinced for a long time that the atypicals were superior. Many European psychiatrists agree that clozapine is superior, but are less convinced that the novel atypicals are superior. In fact, a big American study called the CATIE study just demonstrated that there isn't much difference in efficacy. I look forward to many American academics eating their words."

 

http://www.schizophreniaforum.org/for/int//Murray/murray.asp

"The case against antipsychotic drugs: a 50-year record of doing more harm than good"

http://psychrights.org/Research/Digest/Chronicity/50yearecord.pdf

Is newer atypical antipsychotic drugs more effective than the old typical antipsychotic?

Please read this article: "Schizophrenia Drugs About The Same"

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/09/19/health/main858922.shtml

or this article: "NIMH Study to Guide Treatment Choices for Schizophrenia"

http://www.nih.gov/news/pr/sep2005/nimh-19.htm

When the CPU of my old computer stopped functioning, I decided to try to fix it myself although I don't know too much about computer. Even though I knew I would be ended in a failure, I still did it. What a big deal, as I wanted to buy a new one anyway.

This is a different story to fix a human brain. We can not just simply do it by trial and error. How much do we understand about these neurotransmitters when we decide to change them by these neuroleptic drugs? We should keep this in mind that all neuroleptics are neurotoxin!

Please read this article: "Should the use of neuroleptics be severely limited?"

by Peter R. Breggin, M.D.

http://www.breggin.com/neuroleptics.html

Diabetes is only a part of the prices that they are paying. Antipsychotic drugs may produce much more serious side effects, such as parkinsonism, akathisia, dystonia, and tardive dyskinesia, tachycardia, hypotension, impotence, lethargy, seizures and hyperprolactinaemia.

I think it is caused by the sensory memory.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensory_memory

Schizophrenia = X% of genetic + (100-X)% of environmental

X from 0 to 100.

Hallucination is not a result of the brain having "too much incoming signals". It is the opposite. Without external stimulations, all human brain will start to hallucinate.

The brain filter theory of hallucination doesn't fit the facts. Just take a look about how we induce the dreaming state; also do a search about John Lilly's isolation tank.

Hi Tony (Bgoatgruff),

I tried to connect to your live webcam, but failed.

How are you doing for your sleep deprivation world record attempt? Can you describe some details about your experiment?

It seems to me that you have recently contacted with Robert McDonald. Do you have more details about that experiment?

Thanks.

Do you have any other examples?

No, I don't have any other examples. I did read several other cases similar to the Vietnam man one; however, these reports can not prove anything.

The human sleep deprivation record that I accepted is, so far, 264 hrs by Randy Gardner, as it is detained in Dr. Dement's book: The Promise of Sleep. As to Robert McDonald's 453 hrs 40 min world record, I'm still trying to look for the details about how the test was performed.

Nonetheless' date=' extended sleep deprivation is fatal:

 

http://www.thedoctorslounge.net/medlounge/articles/sleep/

 

http://www.answers.com/topic/sleep-deprivation[/quote']

 

From my knowledge, the conclusion "extended sleep deprivation is fatal" is mainly based on animal test from rat by the disk-over-water method. The problem for this method is that you can not create a fair control for the stress and fatigue incurred by being forced to stay awake from this method. The conclusion of "extended sleep deprivation is fatal", in my opinion, could not been justified by this test.

 

A. Rechtschaffen, B.M. Bergmann, Sleep deprivation in the rat by the disk-over-water method, Behav. Brain Res. 69 (1995) 55-63.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=7546318&dopt=Abstract

 

 

In some rare cases, however, people have gone for months - or even years - without sleep, with limited or no adverse side effects. One of recent case is given below. Is this a hoax? I don't know.

 

Vietnam man handles three decades without sleep

http://www.thanhniennews.com/features/?catid=10&newsid=12673

I've never heard of someone 'literally' dying because of a lack of sleep. There was actually a documented case of one woman who didn't sleep for I think it was about 2 years. I'm going to find that link.

I have never heard of anyone died from sleep deprivation either.

People who cannot sleep die. There is a very rare genetic disorder called as fatal familial insomnia (FFI) that produces a general brainstem deterioration during middle age. The first symptom of this untreatable disorder is the inability to sleep' date=' for months. Eventually the adult man or woman dies, and as with rats who die at 17 days, and young dogs in 6 days, adult dogs in 13 days, these individuals die from the consequences of thermoregulation failure. Thermoregulation is a common theme in sleep. Keeping the body temperature stable is a very critical function (#2 on our list) and sleep (slow wave sleep) in integral to this process.

[/quote']

How to interpret these results is really debatable. In the case of FFI, the death is mainly caused by brainstem damage/deterioration. In these animal tests, high stress and fatigue might be the main factors for the death.

 

In human sleep deprivation records, Randy Gardner after 264 hrs (11 days), and Robert McDonald after 444 hrs without sleep did not lead to death. They have, in fact, even no long term ill-effect, neither physical nor mental.

Take a look of this theory:

Memory Process and the Function of Sleep

http://www.journaloftheoretics.com/Articles/6-6/Zhang.pdf

If one defines consciousness as self awareness, this implies imagination. In other words, if one had no imagination, one would respond in a mechanical way to sensory stimulus. With imagination, consciousness can linger in the imagination, thereby disrupting a purely mechanical sensory feedback loop. The distinction between these two states of mind is the basis for self awareness.

In my opinion, a new born human baby has consciousness, but not self-awareness. Self-awareness is developed through conscious learning. It is a product of consciousness. Language and imagination are all the same cases. One could not perform imagination without a saved memory bank. However, a human can still be conscious even lost all his memory.

All these answers are very interesting, but none seem to answer the basic question... I mentioned muscles just as an example because we lack any 'mechanical' way of controlling thoughts - so how am I able to control the flow of electrons in my brain? How is this possible without 'mechanical, intervention? It would seem that conciousness is able to affect the flow of electrons without ANY 'mechanical' intervention. Surely this is just not possible?

I know what you mean. It is, in fact, a very interesting question.

In my opinion, the brain stem is the powerhouse for brain and whole neuron system. Therefore, the answer to your question has to wait until a better understanding about the mechanism of brain stem.

However, I do think the idea of "mechanical intervention" is plausible for this "neuron heart", although electrical and chemical based driving force is surely involved.

Based on your post, I don't see any sign of neurological problem, but disorganization.

If you pay more attention to things that needs to be memorized and create a good habit, you will be fine.

Hallucination happens when the sensory input level is lower than a given threshold.

Therefore, there are two ways to trigger the hallucination mechanism: decreasing the sensory input and/or increasing the threshold. Some examples are sensory isolation, sensory deprivation, jamming the sensory circuits, hallucinogenic drugs, alcohol etc.

In my view, to create human memory is to create a memory association-network. If with enough cues, one still could not recall many events that s/he experienced before, I would assume it is very likely a neurological problem.

What is the primary function of sleep?

My understanding is for memory processing.