Smoking Rates Still High Among Mentally Ill

That is the title of this article I am writing about. "Despite a major decline in cigarette smoking in the general adult population, smoking rates in people with mental illness have remained the same for a decade, according to new research published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.
In fact, one-third of current adult smokers suffer from some type of mental illness, and so far, anti-smoking efforts have not seemed to affect this particular population.  'Individuals with mental illness represent approximately one-third of the adult smokers in the U.S., and we need to develop alternative tobacco control strategies, including targeted treatments for this vulnerable population,' said Marc L. Steinberg, Ph.D., associate professor of psychiatry at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and lead author of the study." I know from reading a lot of them have a hard time quitting.  I quit seventeen years ago.  I did so my granddaughter could come and visit in a smoke free house. My ex was supposed to quit but I am the one that ended up quitting it took me  a month with welbutrin there were so many side effects I quit in a month.
The article goes on to say: "'Tobacco control has been relatively successful in helping some groups quit smoking, but the remaining smokers may be the ones who are the hardest to treat. We need to address the health disparities of the remaining smokers, such as those with lower socioeconomic status and mental health problems.'  For the study, researchers analyzed data of New Jersey residents who had been surveyed by the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System. In this system, data was collected from telephone surveys independently conducted in all 50 states that compiled chronic health information from adults aged 18 and older and then pooled by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).  The findings show that during the 10-year period examined by researchers at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, smoking prevalence was greater in people suffering with behavioral health conditions, compared to persons with better mental health.'" I hear talk that the new quitting is using e-cigarettes.  To me that is not quitting.  I remember when I had to give up coffee because it made my symptoms come through.  The  first thing my counselor asked it is what did you replace it with and my answer was water. I can now drink coffee now that I am on a different medication.
The article ends with: "'Our research found that while smoking rates have been going down in New Jersey adults without mental health problems, they have remained steady for those with mental health problems,' said Steinberg.  'This suggests that tobacco control strategies are not reaching those with poor mental health, or, if they are, their messages are not translating into successful cessation.'
Steinberg and his colleagues also examined quit attempts by current smokers. They found that those with poor mental health tried to quit just as often as those who were mentally healthy, but tended to relapse and start smoking again.  “Evidence shows that there has been a significant decrease in smoking in adults, and our data indicates that people with mental illness attempt to quit smoking at the same rate as those without mental illness, yet they are not as successful,” said Steinberg."I had to quit the side effects were to much I quit in a month because I did not want to take anymore of that welbutrin. I had a friend who gave me a list of the side effects and I had everyone on that list. I did not even think about smoking I was wondering what would happen next.  Although I am glad that I quit the first time I tried to quit.

The Unintended Consequences of Focusing on Recovery in Schizophrenia

That is the title of this article I am writing about. "Much has been said in this blog by my colleague Dr David Laing Dawson and myself on the concept of recovery. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if full recovery was possible but it isn’t. However, I really should clarify that somewhat. Schizophrenia should probably be referred to as a spectrum disorder like autism. When Bleuler first coined the term in 1908, he referred to it as the schizophrenias and said that it was a physical disease process characterized by exacerbations and remissions. No one was ever completely “cured” of schizophrenia — there was always some sort of lasting cognitive weakness or defect that was manifest in behavior. Unfortunately, over the years, it began to be considered to be one disease only.  In a recent article in Psychology Today, University of Toronto medical historian, Edward Shorter, had this to say. In adolescent-onset schizophrenia, some don’t recover at all; others make only a 'social recovery,' and some maybe go on to have a normal life or 'Maybe not'. Shorter then adds that 'The field has made virtually no progress in unpacking chronic severe illness and differentiating out several distinct entities. In no other field of medicine would this be conceivable!' and 'Some involve loss of brain tissue, others don’t. Some have to stay on meds, others don’t. Some get well, others don’t. These are not all the same illness!'" I do pretty well with my medication, others not so well.  A lot of them do not want to hear that I am doing well.  They suffer. It was like that also with A.A. when I went this one guy said I did not believe that you were and alcoholic until you told your story.  They made sure I had me mental illness I was sick in jail for at least six months which made me never want to get sick again.
The article goes on to say: "In fact, it has long been recognized that there are three outcomes to schizophrenia. Roughly a third are treatment resistant and remain very ill, a third can be helped with meds and other treatment modalities to improve sufficiently to lead a reasonable but disabled life, and a third will have one psychotic episode, receive treatment and never have another or any long term deficits.  According to the Treatment Advocacy Center, 10 years after diagnosis, 'one-fourth of those with schizophrenia have recovered completely, one-fourth have improved considerably, and one-fourth have improved modestly. Fifteen percent have not improved, and 10 percent are dead.'
How do you think the families of the majority of those with non recoverable schizophrenia or the individuals themselves will feel when we hold up to them what is achievable by only 25%? And, we tell them that it is achievable. Why can’t I (or my son or daughter) achieve that. Have I done something wrong? Cancer is an interesting analogy. There is not one cancer but many. And each cancer has its own unique characteristics and prognosis." That is the truth when someone is doing better they all want to do the same and why not? I do not know where I fit on their scale because I did have a relapse when my medication was lowered to much that was an old drug called Moban. I am glad I am off it but it took it be discontinued for me to change that is because I never want this disease to come back and lose control again.
The article ends with: "Non melanoma skin cancer (basal cell and squamous cell) have 5 year survivals of 95% and 90%. In contrast, the 5 year survival for pancreatic cancer ranges from 1% for stage IV to 14% from stage 1A. Imagine if we told those with stage IV pancreatic cancer not to worry because 5 year survival is 95%. Ridiculous isn’t it but that is what we tell people with schizophrenia. Don’t worry, you should be able to recover because 25% do.  Now, I’m not saying to abandon hope but rather to be realistic and pushing recovery is not realistic if it is not qualified.  The second problem was mentioned to me by my friend Kathy Mochnacki of Home on the Hill in Richmond Hill Ontario. She pointed out that if you claim that recovery is possible, then why continue doing research. People can recover so no need for it. Of course, scientists know better but they are dependent on funding from governments and other agencies.
So, let’s all inject some scientific reality into a very troubling and serious disease."  There are people that do not have any symptom relief even with medication. It is troubling. I do not know the answer except we do need more research and better medicaion that does not allow you to get diabetes just because you want to be well.

Brain Training App Improves Memory of People With Schizophrenia

That is the title of this article I am writing about today. "A new brain training iPad game developed by researchers at the University of Cambridge may improve the memory of patients with schizophrenia, according to new research. While the psychotic symptoms of schizophrenia are reasonably treated by current medications, patients are still left with debilitating cognitive impairments, including in their memory, and so are frequently unable to return to school or work, the researchers said.  They added that while there are no medications to improve cognitive function for people with schizophrenia, there is increasing evidence that computer-assisted training can help them overcome some of their symptoms, with better outcomes in daily functioning and their lives.
In a study published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, a team of researchers led by Professor Barbara Sahakian from the Department of Psychiatry at Cambridge describe how they developed and tested Wizard, an iPad game aimed at improving episodic memory.
Episodic memory is the type of memory required when you have to remember where you parked your car in a multi-story parking garage after going shopping for several hours or where you left your keys several hours ago, for example. It is one of the facets of cognitive functioning affected in patients with schizophrenia, the researchers said.  The game is the result of a nine-month collaboration between psychologists, neuroscientists, a professional game developer, and people with schizophrenia. It is intended to be fun, attention-grabbing, motivating and easy to understand, while at the same time improving the player’s episodic memory."I would love to try it the last game I tried for memory was posit.  It does work if you use it everyday  like I did and I could see the improvement each day.  It is hard for some people as a coworker with schizophrenia just said it is repeating and you just have to remember where the things are.  That gets your memory working.
The article goes on to say: "The memory task was woven into a narrative in which the player is allowed to choose their own character and name. The game rewards progress with additional in-game activities to provide the user with a sense of progression independent of the cognitive training process, the researchers explain.  For the study, the researchers recruited 22 people diagnosed with schizophrenia. They were then randomly assigned to either the cognitive training group or a control group. Those in the training group played the memory game for a total of eight hours over a four-week period, while those in the control group continued their treatment as usual. At the end of the four weeks, the researchers tested all participants’ episodic memory using the Cambridge Neuropsychological Test Automated Battery (CANTAB) PAL, as well as their level of enjoyment and motivation, and their score on the Global Assessment of Functioning (GAF) scale, which doctors use to rate the social, occupational, and psychological functioning of adults. The researchers found that the patients who had played the memory game made significantly fewer errors and needed significantly fewer attempts to remember the location of different patterns in the CANTAB PAL test relative to the control group. In addition, patients in the cognitive training group saw an increase in their score on the GAF scale. Those in the training group indicated that they enjoyed the game and were motivated to continue playing across the eight hours of cognitive training. In fact, the researchers found that those who were most motivated also performed best at the game. This is important, as lack of motivation is another common facet of schizophrenia." This one sounds a lot better than the one I was doing. If they can stay motivated that is great.  That is most of the battle having someone keep playing the brain game for a long time to get results.
The article ends with: "'We need a way of treating the cognitive symptoms of schizophrenia, such as problems with episodic memory, but slow progress is being made towards developing a drug treatment,' Sahakian said. “So this proof-of-concept study is important because it demonstrates that the memory game can help where drugs have so far failed. Because the game is interesting, even those patients with a general lack of motivation are spurred on to continue the training.”
In April 2015, the researchers began a collaboration with the team behind the brain training app Peak to produce scientifically-tested cognitive training modules. The collaboration has resulted in the launch of the Cambridge University & Peak Advanced Training Plan, a memory game available within Peak’s iOS app, designed to train visual and episodic memory while promoting learning.
The training module is based on the Wizard memory game, developed by Sahakian and colleague Tom Piercy at the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Cambridge. Rights to the game were licensed to Peak by Cambridge Enterprise, the university’s commercialization company.
'This new app will allow the Wizard memory game to become widely available, inexpensively,' Sahakian said. 'State-of-the-art neuroscience at the University of Cambridge, combined with the innovative approach at Peak, will help bring the games industry to a new level and promote the benefits of cognitive enhancement.'
The game is built for four weeks of training and is priced at $14.99/£10.99."It is not bad priced if it works and it sounds like it does. Also keeps people wanting to continue that is great. Only four weeks of training that sounds even better if it helps your memory.

Scientists identify schizophrenia's 'Rosetta Stone' gene

That is the title of this article I am writing about today. " Scientists have identified a critical function of what they believe to be schizophrenia's "Rosetta Stone" gene that could hold the key to decoding the function of all genes involved in the disease.

The breakthrough has revealed a vulnerable period in the early stages of the brain's development that researchers hope can be targeted for future efforts in reversing schizophrenia.
In a paper published in the journal Science, neuroscientists from Cardiff University describe having uncovered the previously unknown influence of a gene in ensuring healthy brain development.
The gene is known as 'disrupted in schizophrenia-1' (DISC-1). Past studies have shown that when mutated, the gene is a high risk factor for mental illness including schizophrenia, major clinical depression and bipolar disorder. The aim of this latest study was to determine whether DISC-1's interactions with other proteins, early on in the brain's development, had a bearing on the brain's ability to adapt its structure and function (also known as 'plasticity') later on in adulthood.
Many genes responsible for the creation of synaptic proteins have previously shown to be strongly linked to schizophrenia and other brain disorders, but until now the reasons have not been understood."It would be great if they can reverse schizophrenia and all mental illnesses.  I hope for the people who have not been diagnosed that they do not have to go through the same that I went through and all people who have this disease.
The article goes on to say: " Their experiments in mice revealed that by preventing DISC-1 from binding with these molecules -- using a protein-releasing drug called Tamoxifen at an early stage of the brain's development -- it would lack plasticity once it grows to its adult state, preventing cells (cortical neurons) in the brain's largest region from being able to form synapses.
The ability to form coherent thoughts and to properly perceive the world is damaged as a consequence of this.
Preventing DISC-1 from binding with 'Lis' and 'Nudel' molecules, when the brain was fully formed, showed no effect on its plasticity. However, the researchers were able to pinpoint a seven-day window early on in the brain's development -- one week after birth -- where failure to bind had an irreversible effect on the brain's plasticity later on in life.
'We believe that DISC-1 is schizophrenia's Rosetta Stone gene and could hold the master key to help us unlock our understanding of the role played by all risk genes involved in the disease,' said Professor Fox.
"The potential of what we now know about this gene is immense. We have identified a critical period during brain development that directs us to test whether other schizophrenia risk genes affecting different regions of the brain create their malfunction during their own critical period.
'The challenge ahead lies in finding a way of treating people during this critical period or in finding ways of reversing the problem during adulthood by returning plasticity to the brain. This, we hope, could one day help to prevent the manifestation or recurrence of schizophrenia symptoms altogether.'" It would be great if they can fix schizophrenia before it starts but it would be good also if they can just return the plasticity of the brain once people are diagnosed with a mental illness.
The article ends with: "Professor Jeremy Hall, an academic mental health clinician and director of Cardiff University's Neuroscience and Mental Health Research Institute, said:
"This paper provides strong experimental evidence that subtle changes early on in life can lead to much bigger effects in adulthood. This helps explain how early life events can increase the risk of adult mental health disorders like schizophrenia."
Schizophrenia affects around 1% of the global population and an estimated 635,000 people in the UK will at some stage in their lives be affected by the condition. The projected cost of schizophrenia to society is around £11.8 billion a year.
The symptoms of schizophrenia can be extremely disruptive, and have a large impact on a person's ability to carry out everyday tasks, such as going to work, maintaining relationships and caring for themselves or others."I do not have the problems that most with schizophrenia have. I have paranoid schizophrenia that did not start until age twenty eight I had all the symptoms but did not get fully diagnosed until age twenty nine.  So all I learned in those years stuck with me except math. I saw it as a chance to get out of a rotten life that all I was doing was always being locked up.  I will always wonder if being hit in the head with a barbell at age five had something to do with be ending up with this disease.  I know it was an accident but I will never know how my life could have turned out if I wasn't hit in the head.

Understanding Memory Loss Linked with Psychosis

That is the title of this article I am writing about. " New research may lead to a solution for the overwhelming side effect of memory loss among people with psychosis.
Although current mediation regimens can control delusions and hallucinations, psychosis’ devastating toll on memory is often a significant impediment to living a normal, high-quality life.

The new University of California, Davis investigation pinpoints potential target areas for treatments to help the more than 3.2 million Americans for whom medication quells the voices and visions, but not the struggle to remember.
The study found that memory is most impaired when people with schizophrenia try to form relationships between items — remembering to also buy eggs, milk, and butter when buying flour to make pancakes — and that this relational encoding problem is accompanied by regionally specific dysfunction in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex.
People with schizophrenia also have greater difficulty retrieving this relational information even when they can remember the individual items, and this relational retrieval deficit is accompanied by functionally specific dysfunction in a brain area called the hippocampus.
The research appears online in JAMA Psychiatry.  Schizophrenia is well-known for its more florid manifestations, said J. Daniel Ragland, professor of psychiatry in the University of California, Davis School of Medicine and lead author of the study.
'Everyone has had the experience of hearing their name called or phone ring, or that someone is standing beside them. When these events take place initially we experience them as real,' Ragland said. 'What happens in psychosis is that you continue to have the experience, and the feeling becomes more developed, more real, and more intrusive.'" I know I have the memory issue at the store I have to have a list and I have to look at it in the store or I will forget something like if I am making enchiladas I will get everything I think and then forget the tortillas. Also when I was taking math in college my tutor would say he remember everything then when he walks out the door everything is forgotten.
The article goes on to say: "Decades-old medications treat these symptoms effectively. But what remains is often more intractable: memory loss and other cognitive difficulties that make it difficult to perform the activities of daily living.

'People with schizophrenia have difficulty retrieving associations within a context, and this creates a pervasive loss of memory that makes everyday life a challenge,' Ragland said. “You can’t work if you can’t remember the next step in what your boss told you to do.”
'If you’re going to develop a drug or other therapy to improve memory, we found that this frontal and temporal lobe relational memory network may be a target or ‘biomarker’ for treatment development,' he said.
The multi-site functional magnetic resonance (fMRI) study was conducted in approximately 60 male and female patients with schizophrenia who were age matched with unaffected control subjects.
Participants with psychosis were clinically stable, had remained on medication for one month, and were experiencing mild symptoms. Participants were located at University of California, Davis, Washington University in St. Louis, University of Maryland, and Rutgers University.
For the study, participants viewed a series of pictures of everyday objects, and made either an item-specific encoding decision about whether the object was living or non-living, or made a relational encoding decision about whether one of the objects could fit inside of the other during fMRI scanning.
This was followed by an item-recognition task consisting of previously studied objects presented together with never-studied objects. Participants had to assess whether or not the object was previously studied.
Participants also were tested on their associative recognition of which objects were paired together during the relational encoding task. The more severe pattern of relational memory deficits and dorsolateral prefrontal and hippocampal dysfunction was revealed by contrasting the item-specific and relational memory conditions during encoding and retrieval.
In the participants diagnosed with psychosis, the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex appeared substantially less activated than in healthy control participants — 28 percent to 30 percent less activated.
Although participants with schizophrenia activated the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex during relational versus item encoding, they failed to activate the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex — a finding that is consistent with earlier fMRI studies of attention and problem-solving in individuals with schizophrenia."  This is hard for people with schizophrenia, you want to learn something new for your job and your life and you can never get past a step because your memory does not work it can be frustrating.  My memory of number is excellent besides math and at the store I do not have any real problems in that area. It does take a lot of repetition for me to really grasp something.
The article ends with: "In addition, the study revealed that healthy controls exhibited increased activation in the hippocampus, while activation was significantly reduced in the participants with psychosis for retrieval following relational-memory encoding, but not for retrieval following item memory encoding.
Thus, the hippocampus, which plays a unique role in creating relational memories, joins the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex in helping to explain the disproportionate relational memory deficits experienced by people with schizophrenia.
Dr. Cameron Carter, senior author and professor of psychiatry, said that the finding is exciting because it points the way to potential pathways to improve the lives of people with psychosis.
'This shows that the memory problems in people with schizophrenia are not the same as those of people with Alzheimer’s disease,' where the brain region is damaged and deteriorating. “It’s more like those of people with other cognitive deficits, such as ADHD,” said Carter, who is director of the Imaging Research, Behavioral Health and Neuroscience centers at University of California, Davis.
'We now know that, if we’re going to improve memory in people with psychosis we have to improve the functioning of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. And there are many different ways that we can do that, such as through cognitive brain training,' he said.
Carter said that another experimental treatment, called transcranial direct current stimulation, is designed to activate and enhance the function of the brain region.
'This research is directly informing the next steps in our research. And the area that we’ll stimulate will be this one.' 'Twenty or 30 years ago we couldn’t do any of this,” Carter said. “So this is real progress.'"That is where repetition comes in you just keep training the brain by doing exercises. I wrote an article when I was doing those brain exercises they said it is just memory but as you go along and start getting better so does your memory for other things.

Unlocking the Neurobiology of Schizophrenia

That is the title of this article I am writing about. "Summer research in Associate Professor of Neuroscience Tracie Paine’s lab is aimed at understanding the neurobiological changes that underlie the complex, less commonly recognized symptoms of schizophrenia.
May 2015 graduate Daniel Lowes and second-year student Gabriel Hitchcock are working on models to determine whether changes in the GABA neurotransmitter system, a chemical messenger that regulates anxiety, can cause schizophrenia-like changes.
Schizophrenia is a complex, long-term mental illness that interferes with a person’s ability to think clearly, manage emotions, make decisions, and relate to others. The illness is characterized by three classes of symptoms: positive, negative, and cognitive. Positive symptoms are the psychotic behaviors that most people think of when they refer to schizophrenia—hallucinations, delusions, and paranoia. Those symptoms are treated fairly well with currently available medications.
The negative symptoms can include social withdrawal or social isolation, flattened emotional responses, and a lack of self-care and personal hygiene. The cognitive symptoms include deficits in attention, memory, and decision-making. Both categories lack effective treatment, and the severity of these symptoms predicts how well afflicted individuals can live independently and maintain employment.
One current hypothesis suggests that changes in GABA (gamma-aminobutyric acid) contribute to the negative and cognitive symptoms. This hypothesis is based on the observation that there are a number of changes in GABA system in people with schizophrenia. Despite this, it is not known whether these changes in the GABA system cause the symptoms of schizophrenia. 'Our past research has shown that decreasing GABA function leads to cognitive deficits—specifically, attention and decision-making deficits—and decreases in sociability,' Paine says."I know I have anxiety after schizophrenia I do not know if i had before.  Except when I was waiting for a court case then I did have anxiety. I do not get it as much now but I do get it.  So this is interesting to see what they find out.
The article goes on to say: "The broader goal of Paine’s research, which is supported by the National Institute of Mental Health, is that it will lead to better, more targeted treatments for these symptoms of schizophrenia.
Lowes, who has been working in Paine’s lab since his second year, is continuing the work of his senior honors research project. He has designed a developmental model of schizophrenia to analyze changes in the GABA neurotransmitter.
A native of Parma Heights, Ohio, Lowes has been accepted as a PhD candidate in Columbia University’s pharmacology and molecular signaling program. He says the research and mentoring experience has been critical to shaping his career aspirations in science.
'Dan started at ground zero learning relevant techniques in the lab, and now he’s involved in experiment design, data collection and analysis and co-authoring papers. Gabe is currently learning all the relevant techniques but is pretty independent and is independently collecting all the data for his current experiment. He will become more involved in the experimental design aspects of upcoming experiments,' Paine says."I can only hope that for future people with mental illness that they come farther in treatment and stopping people with mental illness from losing so much if they can figure out what triggers mental illness.
The article ends with: "'Students in my lab get the technical skills—both in animal behavior and molecular analysis—and they learn how to properly execute an experiment with the appropriate controls. I also want students to understand why they’re doing the research, how it fits in the theoretical framework. You get that at Oberlin by working with your research mentor.'
Hitchcock, who is majoring in neuroscience and German, says he was one of those rare incoming students who knew exactly what he wanted to study. 'I discovered that Oberlin has one of the first and best neuroscience programs among liberal arts schools. I auditioned in the Conservatory of Music, but I decided to focus on the sciences.'
Trained as a classical pianist, he takes piano lessons in the conservatory, and he’s a percussionist in the Arts & Sciences Orchestra. This year, he will be editor-in-chief of The Synapse, Oberlin’s student-produced science publication.
Hitchcock is working on a model of schizophrenia using a pharmacological analog of the drug PCP. 'There’s strong data taken from animal studies and observations of people taking PCP that the effect mimics the behaviors of people with schizophrenia,' he says. 'It’s a good model to work from to try to ameliorate the cognitive and negative symptoms.'"That is what I thought when I had schizophrenia the closes to it is pcp that is one awful drug your whole world stops.  The paranoia in schizophrenia though is like cocaine it makes you paranoid.  It makes you wonder why people take theses drugs that mimic schizophrenia.

Mild Jolt to Brain Can Improve Cognition in Schizophrenia Patients

That is the title of this article I am writing about. " Applying mild electrical stimulation to the brains of schizophrenia patients has been found to improve certain aspects of cognition, according to a new study by psychologists at Vanderbilt University. Specifically, the small jolt allows patients to recognize recent errors and to make the appropriate corrections just as a healthy person would.
One of the core symptoms of schizophrenia is poor cognitive control. This means that patients often have difficulties with working memory, attention, focus, and error-monitoring. Error-monitoring can be measured by “post-error slowing”– the nearly undetectable pause that healthy people take after making a mistake, such as a typo, in order to avoid doing it again. 'It has been known for decades that error-monitoring is reduced in individuals with schizophrenia,” said Dr. Sohee Park, Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Professor of Psychology, who contributed to the research. “This impairment has been extremely difficult to remediate.' In an earlier study, lead author Robert Reinhart, a graduate student in psychology, was able to improve post-error slowing in healthy people by applying a very safe, low-voltage electric current — transcranial direct stimulation, or tDCS — to the medial-frontal cortex (a brain region involved in cognitive control). He wanted to see if people with schizophrenia could benefit as well." It sounds like it would be good.  I would like to hear from some that have used this to see if it brings about results. I do know it has been used for sometime but do not know the results of it.
The article goes on to say: " For the study, participants performed a challenging cognitive control task while wearing EEG monitors. 'We saw a beautiful burst of low-frequency activity [from the medial-frontal cortex] right after someone made a mistake,' said Reinhart. 'But it was deficient in our patients with schizophrenia.'  In healthy subjects, these theta waves were steady and synchronized, but in those with schizophrenia, the waves were weak and disorganized, suggesting that they were having more difficulty processing the mistake.  The participants' outer behavior also reflected the scan findings: The healthy subjects slowed down by a few milliseconds when they made a mistakes and did better in the next round, while patients with schizophrenia did not.  After the electrical stimulation, the picture was dramatically different.  The mild jolts to the scalp significantly improved the strength and synchrony of the brain waves in both groups but most notably in those with schizophrenia.  'We found that medial-frontal stimulation resulted in normalization of patients' post-error slowing such that their performance was identical to that of healthy control subjects at baseline,' the researchers wrote.  'The global burden of schizophrenia is greater that that of untreated AIDS, metastatic cancer or severe dementia,' said Park.  'The results of our study clearly indicate that it is possible to restore error-monitoring with tDCS.'" What about long term memory. I know that fixing mistakes is a big deal also.  If you can remember that you made the mistake then correct it the next time that would be great.
The article ends with: "The findings have important implications for treatment. 'Cognitive deficits in people with schizophrenia are treated with drugs, without significant success,' Park added. 'But I want to emphasize that there is much work to do before we can be certain that tDCS can be used as a treatment.  We need to work out why and how these changes occur, how long these effects last and whether there are no other consequences.' The researchers also warn that the tDCS systems used in research or the clinic shouldn't be confused with consumer devices that deliver current to the brain. 'In the laboratory, tDCS is conducted in a controlled environment, and the safety of specific tDCS protocols are approved by institutional ethics review boards,' Reinhart said.  No one should try to replicate the research themselves." Why and how these changes occur.  That is something I hope they find out soon.  It seems like everything takes time no matter what it is.