Monday, 6 December 2010

Molecular Psychiatry - Dopaminergic polymorphisms associated with self-report measures of human altruism: a fresh phenotype for the dopamine D4 receptor

<http://www.nature.com/mp/journal/v10/n4/full/4001635a.html>

OK. Now this is some seriously interesting shit. Bit too advanced for my
drunken mind to full process. First and foremost the criticism of this
research is it's just about attitudes. Not behaviour. Altruism isn't an
attitude though many this is all many supposed altruists have. Guardian
readers take note.

It's also about dopamine transmission. The dopamine hypothesis of
schizophrenia is a load of arse but it's the prevailing one in
biomedical psychiatry. It's why anitpsychotics are popular. They do the
opposite of cocaine. They make people docile.

But....my personal experience the last few times I've had coke - good
coke - is the opposite of what people might expect from cocaine. My
thinking (rather than, necessarily, my behaviour) becomes more
altruistic. I can remember a few years back getting some dealer coke -
the best kind - and rather than becoming a ranting moron I was a ranting
nice guy, thinking about the world and it's problems and the solutions
and hope of a revolution to a better world rather than rambling on about
what a great bloke I was or whatever other people do on coke (and where
the stereotype of coked behaviour comes from).

Bah. Tooo tired and drunk.

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We It comes in part from an appreciation that no one can truly sign their own work. Everything is many influences coming together to the one moment where a work exists. The other is a begrudging acceptance that my work was never my own. There is another consciousness or non-corporeal entity that helps and harms me in everything I do. I am not I because of this force or entity. I am "we"