PHILOSOPHY & POLITY

Recently researchers at the University of Texas at Austin have been able to induce Schizophrenia-like symptoms in their computer system nicknamed DISCERN. Capable of remembering the details of simple narratives as well as processing languages, grammar, and story structure, DISCERN was created to hopefully mimic the way the human brain can process this type of information.

Suspecting that dopamine levels might play a causal role in Schizophrenia in humans, researchers attempted to give DISCERN higher than normal capabilities of retaining information in an attempt to uncover whether the inability to filter relevant information could be a partial culprit for Schizophrenia. In the human brain, dopamine has been linked to “memory learning and consolidation.” Increasing DISCERN’s abilities was one of many approaches attempted in order to mimic schizophrenic behavior, and the results were quite interesting. Read more…