On 25 Jul 2002 at 10:55, rhinoceros wrote:
>
> I was just wondering whether this was the right place to post this.
>
This is PRECISELY the place to post this! Thanks!
>
>
> E-SKEPTIC FOR JULY 25, 2002
> Copyright 2002 Michael Shermer, Skeptics Society, Skeptic magazine, e-Skeptic
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> ---------------------------------
> Per my description of humans as pattern-seeking, storytelling animals. Only
> some are more pattern-seeking than others, even when there is no pattern to
> be found, and now it looks like we have an additional causal variable in
> explaining why that is.
>
> Paranormal beliefs linked to brain chemistry
>
> New Scientist 24 July 02
>
> Whether or not you believe in the paranormal may depend entirely on your
> brain chemistry. People with high levels of dopamine are more likely to find
> significance in coincidences, and pick out meaning and patterns where there
> are none.
>
> Peter Brugger, a neurologist from the University Hospital in Zurich,
> Switzerland, has suggested before that people who believe in the paranormal
> often seem to be more willing to see patterns or relationships between events
> where sceptics perceive nothing.
>
> To find out what could be triggering these thoughts, Brugger persuaded 20
> self-confessed believers and 20 sceptics to take part in an experiment.
>
> Brugger and his colleagues asked the two groups to distinguish real faces
> from scrambled faces as the images were flashed up briefly on a screen. The
> volunteers then did a similar task, this time identifying real words from
> made-up ones.
>
> Seeing and believing
>
> Believers were much more likely than sceptics to see a word or face when
> there was not one, Brugger revealed last week at a meeting of the Federation
> of European Neuroscience Societies in Paris. However, sceptics were more
> likely to miss real faces and words when they appeared on the screen.
>
> The researchers then gave the volunteers a drug called L-dopa, which is
> usually used to relieve the symptoms of Parkinson's disease by increasing
> levels of dopamine in the brain.
>
> Both groups made more mistakes under the influence of the drug, but the
> sceptics became more likely to interpret scrambled words or faces as the real
> thing.
>
> That suggests that paranormal thoughts are associated with high levels of
> dopamine in the brain, and the L-dopa makes sceptics less sceptical.
> "Dopamine seems to help people see patterns," says Brugger.
>
> Plateau effect
>
> However, the single dose of the drug did not seem to increase the tendency of
> believers to see coincidences or relationships between the words and images.
>
> That could mean that there is a plateau effect for them, with more dopamine
> having relatively little effect above a certain threshold, says Peter
> Krummenacher, one of Brugger's colleagues.
>
> Dopamine is an important chemical involved in the brain's reward and
> motivation system, and in addiction. Its role in the reward system may be to
> help us decide whether information is relevant or irrelevant, says Franse
> Schenk from the University of Lausanne in Switzerland.
>
>
>
> ----
> This message was posted by rhinoceros to the Virus 2002 board on Church of Virus BBS.
> <http://virus.lucifer.com/bbs/index.php?board=51;action=display;threadid=25786>
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