Planet FSN

I’ve just added a new section to this blog of mine. For years now I’ve spend a lot of time researching another hackable entity - human mind. Psychology, NLP and other mind related techniques have consumed a lot of my time. I haven’t been writting much about any of those but with this post I plan to change that. Human mind is a vast and unexplored ocean. We strive for faster CPU’s, bigger buildings, other planets and stars but we have yet to understand our own mind. Let this be my small contribution to the world of human mind, social engineering and mental disorders.

Let’s first define two terms that will be mentioned in this text:



Schizophrenia

Schizophrenia is a severe, chronic brain disorder that usually strikes in late adolescence or early adulthood and is marked by hallucinations and delusions. Sufferers may hear voices or believe that other people are controlling them or reading their minds. Such experiences can be terrifying and can cause fearfulness, withdrawal or extreme agitation. People with schizophrenia have reduced brain receptors for the dopamine messenger. They may not make sense when they talk, or they can appear to be perfectly fine and normal until they are asked what they are really thinking. Treatments can be effective, but most people have some residual symptoms that can stay with them for life.

Bipolar disorder

Bipolar disorder, or manic depression, is marked by unusual shifts in mood, energy, activity levels and the ability to carry out day-to-day tasks. Like schizophrenia, bipolar disorder often manifests itself in late adolescence or early adulthood, although it may not be diagnosed for many years. The ups and downs are different from the normal ones that everyone experiences and they can result in damaged relationships, poor performances in school and jobs and even suicide. Sometimes a person with severe episodes of mania or depresssion has psychotic symptoms such as hallucinations or delusions, such as believing that he or she is famous or has lots of money.

One of the most interesting news I’ve read today (I get RSS/Atom info from around 300 web sites) was that scientists at the National institute of Mental Health (NIMH) found a link between schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. This is a really important discovery since up to now it was thought that these to mental disorders share no common ground. Read here the full text.