Hello. This is Tenmei Watanabe from Seito Medical School. This time, it's a continuation of Parkinson's disease. Let's proceed by assuming that Parkinson's disease is NREM sleep and schizophrenia is REM sleep.
In the previous article, we showed that Parkinson's disease is characterized by low blood pressure, hypothermia, and parasympathetic predominance. In fact, during sleep, during non-REM sleep, the parasympathetic nervous system is dominant, and body temperature tends to be lower than when awake, and many similarities can be found between Parkinson's disease and non-REM sleep.
On the other hand, schizophrenia has high blood pressure and high body temperature, and is dominated by the sympathetic nervous system. Even during REM sleep, when you dream, your body temperature is higher than during non-REM sleep, and the sympathetic nervous system is dominant, so you can say that you are in a state of tension.
The heart rate is high during REM sleep, and it is also high in schizophrenia, but this state of high body temperature and high heart rate is very important when symptoms of schizophrenia such as hallucinations and auditory hallucinations occur. This is an important factor.
In other words, the state of dreaming is accompanied by hallucinations and auditory hallucinations, and it is the difference between being awake and dreaming, and sleeping and dreaming.
Febrile delirium, which causes symptoms such as hallucinations due to high fever, also occurs when the body temperature is high and the heart rate is high. Furthermore, when smoking cannabis, there is a noticeable increase in heart rate, and in severe cases, symptoms such as hallucinations appear.
Schizophrenia, fever delirium, and drug addiction all cause similar symptoms such as hallucinations due to increased heart rate and large amounts of dopamine released.
During REM sleep, your heart rate and breathing rate increase, and your breathing becomes shallow. This is exactly the reaction when the sympathetic nervous system is dominant.
During non-REM sleep, heat release increases, sweating occurs, and body temperature decreases. It can be said that this is when the parasympathetic nervous system is dominant.
Activities that release dopamine include eating sugar, staying up all night, and meditating. There is no problem if taken in moderation, but if these are combined, symptoms of schizophrenia may appear.
These actions increase your heart rate and raise your blood pressure. In other words, the sympathetic nervous system is dominant.
When the sympathetic nervous system becomes dominant, cardiac muscle contraction increases, heart rate increases, and peripheral nerves throughout the body contract. When the parasympathetic nervous system is dominant, the opposite effect occurs.
There is a heart in the heart. In the past, people believed that the heart was in the heart. In modern times, it is common knowledge that humans use their brains to think and feel things.
However, heart rate and even blood flow may control human sensations. When the heart rate increases and blood flow increases, the metabolism of various substances in the body becomes active. It may be said that the reason why something that does not normally exist in front of our eyes appears in front of our eyes as a hallucination depends on the blood flow rate of the heart.
On the other hand, Parkinson's disease is exactly the opposite of schizophrenia, so it may be a good idea to think about what I have described so far in the opposite way.
Parkinson's disease has the same symptoms as non-REM sleep, with low blood pressure and low heart rate dominated by the parasympathetic nervous system. There is also less blood flow, so as mentioned in the previous article, you will probably experience symptoms such as trembling in your hands in response to the cold.
Furthermore, if you explore the information that the amygdala becomes active during REM sleep and its relationship with peripheral nerves, you may come across some interesting facts.
I would like to explore this area as a future issue. It may be possible to broadly divide diseases and diseases into two types based on whether the sympathetic nervous system is dominant or the parasympathetic nervous system is dominant. that's all. See you soon.