PET scan of two brains. The left brain belongs to someone with schizophrenia, the right one belongs to a "typical" person (if there is such a thing). Despite the rainbow colors, the picture isn't pretty (yuk, yuk). There are clearly functional/biological differences between schizophrenic and typical brains.
Schizophrenia is one of the most interesting and unsettling of studied mental illnesses. Many people (incorrectly) assume that schizophrenics are violent, dangerous people and avoid them whenever possible. But really, how are you supposed to react to someone who does not live in your reality? Schizophrenia also makes me uncomfortable because it forces me to question the reliability of my own senses; if schizophrenics believe they are seeing and hearing things that are just not there, how can I be sure of what I see and hear?
These questions have motivated me to learn more about schizophrenia, and I've stumbled across three interesting theories that I think are worth mentioning.
1) The auditory hallucinations present in schizophrenia are caused by confusing inner thoughts with external voices:
Auditory hallucinations occur in over 60% of schizophrenic patients (Slade & Bentall, 1988), and the World Health Organisation (1973) found that they were the most common symptom observed in schizophrenia. "Some authors have attempted to explain auditory hallucinations by supposing that they are internal cognitive events that are misattributed to an external source (Bentall, 1990; David, 1994; Frith, 1992; Hoffman, 1986; Morrison et al., 1995). Some support for this comes from findings that auditory hallucinations are accompanied by subvocalisation or covert movements of the speech musculature (Gould, 1950), which also accompanies normal thinking or inner speech (McGuigan, 1978). If auditory hallucinations are a type of inner speech which is misattributed to an external source, this would explain the finding that verbal tasks that block subvocalisation also inhibit the occurrence of auditory hallucinations (Margo, Hemsley, & Slade, 1981; Gallagher, Dinan, & Baker, 1994).
http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayFulltext?type=1&fid=48628&jid=BCP&volumeId=26&issueId=04&aid=48627&bodyId=&membershipNumber=&societyETOCSession=
2) Like the first theory, the auditory hallucinations present in schizophrenia are actually normal phenomena that become misattributed to external sources. Schizophrenics continuously hear these voices because they become scared and engaged in safety seeking behaviors, including hypervigilance, which makes them fixate on the "voices": "It is suggested that auditory hallucinations are normal phenomena, and that it is the misinterpretation of such phenomena that cause the distress and disability that are commonly seen in patients experiencing hallucinations with a diagnosis of schizophrenia. It is also proposed that these interpretations of auditory hallucinations are maintained by safety seeking behaviours (including hypervigilance)."
http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayFulltext?type=1&fid=48628&jid=BCP&volumeId=26&issueId=04&aid=48627&bodyId=&membershipNumber=&societyETOCSession=
3) Unrelated to the first two theories, the third theory states that autism and schizophrenia are on opposite ends of a "theory of mind" continuum:
Wikipedia's entry on Theory of Mind states, "Theory of mind is the ability to attribute mental states—beliefs, intents, desires, pretending, knowledge, etc.—to oneself and others and to understand that others have beliefs, desires and intentions that are different from one's own." People with autism have no theories of mind for other people (and thus have trouble relating to and socially interacting with people), while people with schizophrenia have theories of mind for things that aren't even alive (they can think their chairs hate them, their cat is plotting to kill them, that clouds are catholic, etc.). I am definitely interested in looking further into this.
Here's a disorienting video that is meant to demonstrate schizophrenia: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ob5vubKWIac
And here's a music video that makes me feel schizophrenic, courtesy of my friend Noah Litvin: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8BWBn26bX0
No comments:
Post a Comment