AboutNicholas Unger Expertise I am particularly adept at answering any sort of question relating to the action of various neurotransmitters on neurons. Any sort of Neurophysiology/Cell Physiology or Neuropharmacology questions, particularly ion channel based in relation to physiological response. Anything other than that will earn you an educated guess.
Experience I have worked in a Neurophysiology lab for 3 years now on various projects for my dissertation. My expertise is the hypothalamic homeostatic control mechanisms in thermoregulation. Also neural control mechanisms in general as well as Suspended Animation techniques and theory.
Organizations American Physiology Society
Education/Credentials Capital Univeristy- B.A Biology-premed Minor Psychology 06'
The Ohio State University - Ph.D Candidate Biophysics 10'
Expert: Nicholas Unger Date: 11/26/2007 Subject: schizophrenia & physical changes
Question QUESTION: someone suggested that it is possible for eye colour to change during an episode or personality transition.
is this possible?
they also said that a personality can "become" diabetic during the "split".
i find this difficult to imagine, believe or understand.
could you please give me your opinion on this.
thank you very much.
sincerely, kathleen
ANSWER: Kathleen,
After a brief search through the journals many papers yielded this..
"People with schizophrenia have higher prevalences of HIV infection and hepatitis, osteoporosis, altered pain sensitivity, sexual dysfunction, obstetric complications, cardiovascular diseases, overweight, diabetes, dental problems, and polydipsia than the general population."
Basically during an averaging of the population with Schizophrenia they found that they have an above average prevelance of those disorders. This could be for a variety of reasons. Unfortunately these correlation studies are somewhat dangerous in and of themselves as people tend to be misled by them, much like yourself. For example, Ice Cream sales is directly correlated with violent crime. Well Do people become psychotic after eating a few scoops of ice cream? The Brain freeze makes them go on killing sprees? All kinds of hypothesis' might pop up over this statement that is TRUE but completely out of context. You see Ice cream sells in the summer time, in the summer time violent crime averages are up for a variety of reasons; Warmer weather, more people outside etc etc. So be careful when hearing these statements!
I seriously doubt that an eye color change would occur during a split, there are many physical barriers to this happening in a noticeable manner. Not that Schizoprenia is 100% genetic, but in some cases when you have one disease, you are more likely to develope another disease, maybe its because these things are in the same chromosome, not exactly but I'm sure you catch my drift.
Hopefully I cleared these things up.
Cheers Kathleen!
---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------
QUESTION: i also doubt that eye color could change. apparently it was a physics teacher who said this and added that a "personality" could "transfer into/become diabetic" with one of the personalities.
is there ANY physical/medical chance that this could ever happen?
Answer Kathleen,
I need some clarification here. Your saying that during the transition the person medically becomes diabetic? If this is the case, this indeed "could" happen. Blood sugar levels can cause a variety of mental problems, fogs, people in diabetic emergencies have impaired judgement and more. So I suppose in a way that could lend to this schizophrenic condition. Also eating habits of another personaility could drastically change. In science there is always a small chance for just about anything, you can rule things out to a 99.999 percentile but there is always a chance.
There is always a chance that at a deep level that the personality might extend into that it could alter metabolism for some reason. I would place 99.999 percent against this but it is possible. These types of things are more along the lines of a very core programming that would not really change with personality.
So yes, there is always a chance, but more than likely it is just a coincidence.
