The Bizarre Link Between Blindness and Schizophrenia 

My mother had schizophrenia. As she got older many of the symptoms became less and less and as she got better she became a prolific visual artist and made complex paper cut outs and drawings.

The link between the thinning of the auditory cortex and Schizophrenia should be easy to test for. There is one group of people who should have a thickening of the auditory cortex: Musicians. As part of learning how to sing or play a musical instrument is using your hearing as feedback. Especially for those who sing or play wind and string instruments, where note tuning can be done by change of airflow, position of fingers and/or instrument, or tightening/relaxing of the vocal cords, hearing is very important to the process of music performance. A study that compared symptoms experienced by musicians with Schizophrenia versus non-musicians with Schizophrenia should be enough to verify this. If thickening of the auditory cortex does reduce the chances that the person experiences auditory hallucinations, then musicians should experience less auditory symptoms than the average person. If this is true, then the next question is: Can learning a musical instrument or singing positively affect the auditory symptoms. There are studies out there that have shown changes to the brains of those who learned how to sing from a vocal coach, even in adults. These changes would have to include the Auditory Cortex. So, could someone with the auditory hallucinations of Schizophrenia be treated by teaching them how to sing or play an instrument? It wouldn't cure the disorder, but it might offer a measure of relief.

I'm glad you pointed out that correlations (especially with small sample sizes) say nothing... It's a mistake that many journalists and newspapers seem to make. *Thanks guys!*

Finally! A study about blindness that takes into account the cause of the blindness itself! It’s so frustrating that cause is rarely noted and that lack invalidates a lot of results. Thank you for making not of it here!

Oof, for a moment I thought I was at risk of going blind...

"Doctor! I think I'm schizophrenic!" "Why is that?" "I'm seeing things. Like, I think there's a tree outside the window." "There... _is_ a tree outside the window." "Yeah, but I'm blind."

Tbh I learn more on this channel than in school

I've never heard this... thanks for passing it along :)

Very interesting, this idea of sens integration is intriguing, maybe more information on it ? Thanks !

I know nothing about this woman, but she looks like she is or would be an amazing mom

Well I mean... it would be pretty weird to have a visual hallucination if you can’t see

This is making me wonder if my symptoms would've been as intense if I had the kinda training/conditioning you were talking about towards the end when I was a kid

Is there any research on people who were partially blind at birth (neurologically?)

Can we talk about how Brit got her hair done and she looks AMAZING? (I mean she always does, but God I'm jealous of her hair right now lol)

But schizophrenia doesn’t just include hallucinations. What about delusions, olfactory or tactile hallucinations, flat affect, etc. This study talked about Positive cluster of symptoms but no Negative or Disorganized ones. How would being born blind of deaf stop any of those?

How many SciShow channels are there and what are they?

Very cool.

My schizophrenia has brought me here again

I would guess that knowing you were at risk fot schitzophrenia and having someone help you work with that from a young age would be helpful even without a unique cognitive training regimen. Like a medical dula, kind of. I remember reading that other cultures with ways of codifying schitzophrenia as something other than mental illness tended to have better results with folks, and I wonder if expectation of disease progression plays a role there.

Thanks, this is very interesting! I heard how music can help with alzheimer, maybe it can help with schizophrenia too?

Interesting!

Just a suggestion for the video editor: check de-essing the voice!

Interesting. Would musical training in childhood and early adulthood effect this?

That’s strange ! I was born with congenital cataract ( that has been healed) so I’m supposed to have less risk to develop psychotic disorders but now I suffer from schizotypy and I have already had brief visual hallucinations.

So would the auditory correlation really have to be because of CCB? Anyone who went blind at a young enough age has spent their lives building that auditory sense the same way as anyone with CCB, regardless of specific condition. I wish I had brain scans of myself when I was born to compare to today. I was born with sight but lost it by age 2 due to detached retinas. I think it'd be really interesting material regardless of this particular topic.

so make ppl with risk of schizophrenia rely more on their hearing at a young age to help lessen or reduce the symptoms might be an option

Any studies on manually (deliberately and or accidentally) created blindness and deafness, even, say during, before, and or after diagnosis and onset? Anyone is free to answer me with their own knowledge, ideas, and experiences, too. I am mostly curious. I imagine thought disorder would remain. I have plenty of intrusive, unwanted, disorganized thoughts, that could simulate and or replace a lot of the unpleasant chatter they re-produce, but I wonder how deafness 'n' blindness might simplify symptoms _once_ mentally ill.

"At first glance..." Noice.

I don't see the connection and neither do my other personalities.

Wow!

What about cases of schizophrenia that aren't characterized by hallucinations? Paranoia and delusions are common symptoms too. Are there no blind people who have these?

I had a hard following this one. Only because of my learning disability. I will have to watch this a few times.

so if the auditory hallucinations can be repressed by that part of the brain being strengthened because its relied on so much and it become overactive and then cause hallucinations?

Does that mean symptoms of schizophrenia could be modulated through sensory deprivation?

preventing schizophrenia = inducing blindness

You can't "see" what's not there if you can't see.

"At first glance"... oh come on!

DO A VIDEO ON HOW SCHITOFRANIA IS NOT DEMENTIA AND HOW DEMENTIA IS AN UMBRELLA TER EXPLAIN WHAT DEMENTIA IS AND ITS SYMPTOMS ALSO INCLUDE ALZTEIMERS AND SINILITY AKA SENILE.

Please do one on Parkinson’s

Schizophrenia is not a single disorder though, like most mental health conditions it's simply a label attached to a cluster of symptoms, so it is extremely unlikely that there's a common cause across different incidences of schizophrenia. It seems very likely that there are a whole lot of different processes involved in developing a disorder that is then labeled schizophrenia, which would also explain the vastly different clinical outcomes.

I'm red/green colorblind and have been diagnosed with schizophrenia. I don't see or hear things that aren't real though.

Is it just me or is psychology more full of uncertainty compared to other branches of science?

Can we get good news on schizophrenis

this is an extremely proscribed and artificial way of defining the experiences associated with a psychiatric diagnoses. The positive and negative symptoms scale which is a staple for treatment, does not define one organic disorder and most recent research has shown that this diagnoses is far from 'one thing'. More likely, there is a bias in the way we investigate positive and negative symptoms related to our sightedness and others experiencing problems might experience them in different ways. Note: schizophrenia research used to study "multiple personalities", then a focus on delusion, today auditory hallucinations are focused on, it's also true that many meta-analyses have confounded various incarnations of diagnoses...actually a problem with the DSM in general, compounding from generation to generation.

Has anyone experimented with putting someone who has schizophrenia in a sensory isolation tank?

(In Russian accent) iiiiiiiinteresting

I'm blind. NO, I'M NOT!

i have Schizophrenia

Why then are people blind from birth from none brain causes not be included in this 'conclusion'...they also relie heavily on tneir auditory ability, so could also have this protection against schizophrenia...or else, something else is helping, not only the blindness. A function of the occipital lobe, maybe, that is damaged in these types of blindness?

I had just been looking into the 'imprinted brain theory' that suggests in a percentage of cases that schizophrenia could be the opposite of autism - which is apparently supported by a list of symptoms associated more closey with either autism or schizophrenia such as chronic pain for example. I had also heard that 'williams syndrome' is apparently the opposite of autism to. All I know about schizophrenia and the brain is the reduced grey matter and increased ventrical size associated

Im blind not deaths

I'm sending this to my schizophrenic friend.

Hope there's a vid about clinical lycanthropy lined up for the 31st...

Music training.

dont scare me please, im blind and the voices in my head say this is just bs

Can you research schizophrenia in deaf people?

I think if that wheat enzyme the breachs the gut. Similar blood brain lock and key issues could be the culprit Theres studys if correlation between high fever and strep throat,? If you lay on your back For visual hallucinations , Courtesy of your oxsipitel lobe geting the action of blood on brain conflict or sleep Was a high fever and strep throat on the left side like me and the blood goes to the Frontal parietal rear frontal cortex damage evrey thing on the way. We do know? What causes of hallucinations the question is how many ways can You hallucinate i have 3 ways Sencery over lode to much info in chemical form geting passed down strem ?? As seen in Autism spectrum and (hsd)( spd) Hypostases Breach of the spinal fluid Clover whole Leaching In to the brain??? Because the fiser being a week point in the folds ot could reach the porriol and rear frontal cortex?? Hypothesis Pinel spasm Short release in to the blood as seen in death Near death Other traumatic incidents (fact) (thats why heaven is what we believe In our native Tongue With a finle bow from are Favorite cast ... Say Hi To the green brothers For me They're my favorite RU-vid demigods O if only we had pudi pie followers the world wold be a better place 👨‍🏫🤷‍♂️👨‍🏫

Sooooo play video games ( requires both sharp visual and auditory senses to excel in ) I’ll just assume that’s the case!

So what would happen if a schizophrenic person was in total darkness for a period of time? What about schizophrenics in northern areas where the sun hardly shines in winter and barely sets in summer? I have severe, chronic migraine and occasionally, in the aura phase, have flashes of visual or auditory hallucinations. I always know these things do not exist and I am not mentally ill. Perhaps living most of my life free of any hallucinations allows me to reject unreal stimuli?

Presenters talking too quickly without natural pauses doesn't give me Schizophrenia, but It drives me Nuts.

Interesting, but couldn't it just be that when you're blind from birth, one has to learn to trust other people more? And can't secluded oneself? But the video also said that blindness related to eyes doesn't reduce the rate. Weird.

They just need a easer way to spell it.

Everything is connected, inside and outside the human body, and this fact was no surprise to me xD

You need to stop using the word "Listicles". Every time you do, it sounds like testicles... and then 12 year old me takes over, and you know how that goes.

Someone did a great job on your hair today, girlfriend!

FYI: The plural of cortex is cortices, not cortexes. Similarly, the plural of index is indices, not indexes.

Captain Marvel is that you?

1:12 hehe she says genital

Yes, good, but why are you using sign language in the video?

The other day I bumped into a blind person (correction: he bumped into me) and at first I thought he might have schizophrenia. He was acting a little, you know, different. But I was wrong. Turns out he was just blind drunk.

Ok but what about this: I don't have schizophrenia I am also not blind. I have been vaccinated. So... checkmate science! /s

Schizophrenia is contagious and can be passed by talking to people who have it.

You had me until the auditory part; I thought you were going to say that people who were born deaf also don't have schizophrenia. Instead you said just said the auditory part is the opposite of the visual part. The whole thing fell apart. 😕

Psych drug side effects are the cause of most serious mental health issues.

This would be a lot easier to watch if you lost about 50lbs !!!