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Cannabis and Schizophrenia (Was: Economic Benefits of Prohibit (Was: Cannabi

szasz at my-dejanews.com szasz at my-dejanews.com
Mon Jan 18 18:45:26 EST 1999


In article <916667182.694010 at mnementh.southern.co.nz>,
  Brian Sandle <bsandle at southern.co.nz> wrote:
> In talk.politics.drugs tarla at xtra.co.nz wrote:
> : On Sun, 17 Jan 1999 06:17:59 GMT, Brian Sandle
> : <bsandle at southern.co.nz> wrote:
>
> :>In talk.politics.drugs szasz at my-dejanews.com wrote:
> :>: In article <916454774.7767 at mnementh.southern.co.nz>,
> :>:   Brian Sandle <bsandle at southern.co.nz> wrote:
> :>:> It is said that cannabis has casued a lot of problems among the
> :>:> Maori population.
> :>
> :>:   It is said that there are angels with wings.....
> :>
> :>:> It is said to be linked to high suicide rate of Maori
> :>:> youth.
> :>
> :>:   Must be their genetic inferiority, hmmm?
> :>
> :>I am hoping that when one drug does not have to be dealt with then the
> :>human organism can further evolve. If that drug is then offered there may
> :>be a lot of the development lost.
>
> : And then again, what if the development is enhanced? What if...smoking
> : dope is the single thing that moves people from being plain ole H.
> : Sapiens sapiens to H. Sapiens exaulta? Ever consider that?  What if it
> : was GOOD for you?
>
> So what is known about that?

  About as much is known concerning your wild guesses.

>
> I include this post from bionet.neuroscience. Please try to forget
> politics if you leave bionet.neuroscience on the followup-to list.

  Politics are too tightly wrapped up in this discussion, Brian. Sorry.

  <snip irrelevant article>

> [Followup to this article] [Reply via e-mail]
> >
> > Relative to our previous discussion regarding how music effects behavior,
> > consciousness being related to 40 hertz, and their effect on attention,
> > a recent communication from Wolfgang Skrandies adds new information
> > relevant to these topics.
> >
> > Music is related to 8 hertz, 8 hertz is related to retrieval of long term
> > information,
> > 8 hertz is a harmonic of 40 hertz.  40 hertz is related to consciousness.
> > 40 hertz is the natural frequency that would occur from electrons in water
> > in a microtubule from quantum entanglement.
> >
> > Wolfgang Skrandies's full paper is in press in "Neuroscience Letters"
> > entitled Electroencephalographic Cortical Oscillations and Saccadic Eye
> > Movements
> > in Humans by W.  Skrandies and E. Anagnostou, School of Medicine
> > Justus-Liebig University,  35392  Giessen,  Germany
> >
> > Skrandies and Anagnostou have observed "cortical oscillations in humans
> > preceding eye movements. It turns out that oscillations in the alpha and beta
> > bands
> > PRECEDING a saccade by 256 ms determine whether a given subject will
> > make a regular or an express saccade."
> >
> > Attention is related to expressed saccade.
> >
> > ABSTRACT:
> >
> > >A model predicting different types of saccades has suggested that the
> > >presence of rhythmic brain activity determines whether a subject will
> > >produce regular or express saccades. We studied cortical oscillations
> > >preceding saccadic eye movements.
> > >Brain electrical activity was recorded in 9 healthy adults continuously
> > >from 30 electrodes while subjects performed saccades. In a so-called gap
> > >
> > >condition multimodal latency distributions resulted. Express saccades
> > >were preceded by dif-ferent oscillatory activity than regular saccades.
> > >This was a highly significant finding restricted to the alpha and beta
> > >bands of the EEG. Step-wise discriminant analysis showed that cortical
> > >oscillations measured from only few electrode sites allowed to predict
> > >reliably which type of saccade a subject will make.
> > >These findings support the notion that stimulus-induced oscillations of
> > >the human EEG may modulate thresholds for triggering saccades.
>
> This is a schizophrenia thread.

  Okey dokey.

>
> There is some evidence that in schizophrenia the saccades - the catch up
> jumps of the eyes following a moving object - are too common at certain
> rates of movement of the object being followed.  Damage to frontal brain
> mechanism is indicated, it was said.

  I am aware of this line of research. Impress me.

>
> So it would be interesting to do the saccades experiment on cannabis
> smokers.

  I don't see why, especially as you've stated it.

> Is cannabis helping evolution or just eliminating types who
> already have some sensitively ordered frontal brain mechansim and feel
> life is no longer worth living once that is put out of order?

  Studying eye-movements hardly gets you any nearer to learning this, Brian.
Sorry.

>
> Maori evolved for many years in New Zealand where there was no cannabis.
> There was no alcohol either.They were able to hold out against the
> British conquering forces. So were the southern Chilenas. I would like to
> know the drug usage of the southern Chileans compared to the ones who
> were conquered. To suddenly introduce a drug under the biochemsitry of
> which a culture has not grown, seems to be like putting sea water
> dolphins into fresh water and saying that it is an evolutionary test.
> Well what happens to human skin when it is in the fresh water bath for
> even an hour?

  You know, Brian, you seem to think the Maori's were conquered by either
'introduction to drugs' or 'The British'. Ever consider it was the diseases
your Limeys ancestors were carrying which 'conquered' the Maoris?

>
> Dodo Dolphin
>
>

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