Interesting Data on Schizophrenia
Schizophrenia, as I talked about earlier, is clasically a disease of delusions and hallucinations, often auditory (hearing voices). Some interesting data was brought up yesterday in class, and it goes something like this (I don’t have the reference, sorry):
When you or I want to say something, there’s an excitatory signal sent to the nerves that control our mouths and tongues so we can say the words properly. But there’s also an inhibitory signal that goes to the temporal lobes, when auditory information is processed. However, if you only listen to yourself say the words (from a tape recorder, for example), you don’t get that inhibitory signal in your temporal lobes. Researchers believe this is a way the brain tells the difference between sounds originating from the inside and the outside.
And, as you might expect (or else I wouldn’t be posting this), schizophrenics seem to lack that inhibitory signal when they themselves speak. The theory then goes that perhaps schizophrenics can’t tell the difference between thoughts or signals from inside their heads and outside, causing them to hear voices “from outside” that are saying things.
I can see why no one would want to post to this one. It’s pretty speculative to say the least. I just know this. I was being admitted into the hospital and the nurse was taking my medical history. OK, well you’d probably consider me a Zebra at least, but my son tells me I’m a flock of Zebra’s as opposed to a herd of Zebra’s. I don’t fully appreciate what that means. I know that it means that I have multiple complicating diagnosises. Somewhere in the middle of the cardiac section, (after we’d gone through the cancer section) she looked at me and said “Do you see things also.” I’m not the type to take offense easily, but her obvious lack of belief in what I was telling her and disrespect pissed me off. I told her in no uncertain terms that I’d been diagnosed with breast cancer and a heart condition. That didn’t pre-dispose me to schitzophrenia. She pretended to be offended that I’d be offended. She acted like it was me attacking her. I told her that I felt that her question was intended to offend me and that I felt she did it out of disrespect for my honest revelations of my health history. When an ekg and a physical exam showed that I was being honest with them she apologised. Too little to late for me. I won’t go back to that hospital. Who needs that kind of treatment. Why would I make shit up? I have by far too much real stuff to explain.
hello:)
thats pretty interesting, but… isnt this theory goes for the spoken voice, and activated by the heard voices? like through the pathway of the VIII. as u said we can know the difference between the voice we hear and the voice we say… but the schizophrenics hear voice even when they dont speak! that is why its hallucination… not like the illusion when there is something to sence, but people sence it different… hmm…
or let me ask a question as well… is this inhibition activated even when we speak inside? lol, hope u get what i wanna say… :)