Could complex beliefs like paranoia have roots in something as basic as vision? A new study finds evidence that they might. When completing a visual perception task, in which participants had to identify whether one moving dot was chasing another moving dot, those with greater tendencies toward paranoid thinking (believing others intend them harm) and teleological thinking (ascribing excessive meaning and purpose to events) performed worse than their counterparts, the study found. Those individuals more often -- and confidently -- claimed one dot was chasing the other when it wasn't. The findings suggest that, in the future, testing for illnesses like schizophrenia could be done with a simple eye test.
Read more …Paranoia may be, in part, a visual problem
New research combines two powerful imaging techniques to study the complete structure of a common aGPCR, including how its long and complex extracellular region interacts with the transmembrane region embedded in the cell surface. The different positions and movements of the extracellular region appear to be an important way to activate the receptor.
Read more …Images of crucial cell receptors show promising new drug targets