Wednesday, December 10, 2014

Correlation Games

Middle-ear disease and schizophrenia: case–control study
Conclusions:  There is an association between middle-ear disease and schizophrenia which may have aetiological significance. 

Smoking, schizophrenia linked by alterations in brain nicotine signals
The authors found that the level of nicotine receptors in the brain was lower in schizophrenia patients than in a matched healthy group. Further, smoking, which is known to increase the levels of receptors for nicotine in the brain, had this effect in both groups, although was blunted in schizophrenia.

Nicotinic filtering of sensory processing in auditory cortex.
We show that nicotine produces complex, layer-dependent effects on spectral and temporal processing that, broadly speaking, enhance responses to characteristic frequency (optimal) stimuli while simultaneously suppressing responses to spectrally distant stimuli. That is, nicotine appears to narrow receptive fields and enhances processing within the narrowed receptive field.