IUBio

deja vu

Mark D. Morin mdmpsyd at PETERHOOD69.earthlink.net
Mon Dec 4 18:22:25 EST 2000


Ron Blue wrote:

> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Mark D. Morin" <mdmpsyd at PETERHOOD69.earthlink.net>
> To: <neur-sci at hgmp.mrc.ac.uk>
> Sent: Monday, December 04, 2000 5:52 AM
> Subject: Re: deja vu
> >>>>>cut>>>>>>>>
> > It really doesn't change the fact that frequent déjà-vu is a red flag for
> > seizure activity.
>
> As a topic deja vu comes up in my college psychology classes all the time.
> About 98% of the students report deja vu.  Non-students report deja vu
> around 68% of the time.  Does this suggest that college student have more
> seizures?  At least 1 out of 10 college students have frequent deja vu
> experiences, and have low frequency rates of seizure activity.

almost everyone has déjà-vu at some time in their life. Very, Very, Very few
people have it on a weekly basis.

Take someone who does and have them undergo telemetry and I'd be willing to bet
that you find evidence of seizure activiry.


> Agreed that seizure activity and deja vu are correlated, but correlation
> does no mean causality.

Who said anything about causality?  Both seizures and déjà-vu represent aytpical
neurochemical/electrical activity; if the déjà-vu is seizure related odds are
there is a common cause for both phenomenon.



> By suggesting seizures as the red flag for predicting
> deja vu, reduces the common experience.

Believe it or not, it's not common to experience déjà-vu on a weekly basis.


> Interesting as we age our frequency rate of deja vu declines, can this be
> said for seizures?

actually, it can.  But then you have to be able to detect seizure activity that
is something other than gross motor activity with loss of consciousness.  In
terms of numbers, the most common form of seizure is the absence seizure and the
incidence of these decreases as we age.


> Modulating a strong magnetic field over the temporal lobe at 30 hertz causes
> deja vu experiences.  Does this mean these people are having a seizure?

you are inducing electrical activity.  Induced electrical activity, by
definition, is not seizure activity (more specificly, not epilepsy).  Have the
same electrical activity without the electromagnetic induction and you have a
seizure.

--
===============================================================
"I'll remind you that men never do evil so completely and
cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.  Put
another way, in general, bad people do evil things; good
people do good things.  But, it takes religion to make a good
person do something really bad."
                    --Jill Tarter, member of SETI

http://members.mint.net/mdmpsyd


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