- cross-posted to:
- til@lemmy.world
- mildlyinteresting@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- til@lemmy.world
- mildlyinteresting@lemmy.world
You must log in or # to comment.
Everyone is so cynical in this thread. It might not be conlcusisve evidence of a direct connection between the two but it does look like an interesting observation.
The most rigorous evidence comes from a 2018 whole-population study tracking nearly half a million children born in Western Australia between 1980 and 2001. Of those, 1,870 developed schizophrenia, but not one of the 66 children with cortical blindness did.
1,870 / 500,000 = 0.374% of people in the general population
0.374% * 66 = 0.25
Not particularly rigorous.
This is because, as a simple calculation demonstrates, a case of congenital blindness and schizophrenia would be extremely rare even if there was no protective effect of blindness: if schizophrenia occurs at a rate of 0.72% in the population (McGrath et al., 2008) and congenital blindness occurs at an estimated rate of 0.03% in people born in the 1970s and 1980s (based on Robinson et al., 1987), then the joint probability of a person having both conditions, if the two are independent, would be 0.0002% or 2 out of every 1 million people. Although this is a low prevalence rate, it is equal to or higher than the rates for several other well-known conditions (e.g., Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, hereditary spastic paraplegia, Hermansky-Pudlak Syndrome). Based on this estimated prevalence rate, in the United States alone (with a population of 311, 591, 917, as of July 2011, according the US census), there should be approximately 620 congenitally blind people with schizophrenia. When cases of blindness with an onset in the first year of life (i.e., early blindness) are taken into account, the percentage would be larger. Therefore, it is remarkable that in over 60 years, and with several investigations [including several before DSM-III (1980) when criteria for schizophrenia were broader than at present], not a single case of a C/E blind schizophrenia patient has been reported.
https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00157/full
The study that is mostly discussed in tge article.
correlation is not causation
No one claimed it is
No but to me it implies the occipital lobe, specifically the visual cortex, is somehow related to the development of schizophrenia.
I read in an eeg-textbook, years ago, that the reference-voltage for normal EEG’s was 50-microvolts, but in a schizophrenic’s psychotic-fugue/episode, it can be required to be 250-microvolts.
It may simply be that with much of the brain understimulated, the threshold-for-paralyzed-in-dysfunction isn’t ever crossed.
Sorta like those drag-racing cars, whose engines explode if run for 1-single-second more than the race they’re built-for…
Stay below the energization-threshold ( blind-since-birth ) & then no problem.
Energize everything, & then the over-energized-to-being-broken threshold gets crossed.
It may have nothing to do with the visual-cortex itself, iow… only with overall-brain-energization, that’s creating this difference…
Also, a researcher named Thompson ( whose papers have been disappeared from the internet, now ) did a periodic-brain-scans-of-children study, where he showed that child-onset-schiphrenia involves the loss of 20% of the upper-forebrain, in a particular region, & the scans mapped where brain was being lost, in different areas…
The 10%-total-brain-reduction that has been known-about since the 1920’s isn’t even loss it is specific-areas which get corroded-down.
Having an already-full-cup, then reducing-the-size-of-the-cup, may be why it’s a problem, & having a not-full-cup, with brain-capacity that’s being underused, may allow adapting to it without dysfunction.
_ /\ _
Maybe they do but they just don’t know the voices they hear are in their head
What about those who are blinded later? Are blindfolds a cure for schizophrenia?
The answer’s in the article…
