Monday, March 26, 2018
Abstract
Conclusive Proof of the Covariance between Hallucinations and Delusions and the Presence of an Underlying Mechanism for these with Applications in Psychosis Treatment
The purpose of this project was to develop a new methodology that would allow for the early detection and intervention in neurodegenerative diseases. Since simply attempting this problem in such a broad manner was infeasible, to give my project a focus, the main question that I sought to answer was, do two main symptoms of psychosis, hallucinations and delusions, fluctuate together over time? In order to make this project as objective as possible, I drew upon published data and conducted an analysis. After performing my preliminary analysis, I formulated a final methodology which had three steps. The first step was to prove that a correlation ostensibly exists on the surface level between the two symptoms. The second was to prove that such a correlation between the symptoms was not artifactual, by which I mean not driven by medication and truly reflective of the underlying relationship between the symptoms. The final was to prove that the correlation between hallucinations and delusions was specific, meaning stronger than the correlation between hallucinations and any other symptom, or delusions and any other symptom. Ultimately, it was concluded that hallucinations and delusions are covariant and that since the correlation is not artifactual, there exists a common underlying mechanism for the two symptoms. This discovery will help experts in the field of neurodegenerative disease and psychosis treatment because of its strong potential to aid in the identification of new treatment targets for patients with psychosis and other neurodegenerative diseases because most of them have hallucinations and/or delusions as symptoms.
The purpose of this project was to develop a new methodology that would allow for the early detection and intervention in neurodegenerative diseases. Since simply attempting this problem in such a broad manner was infeasible, to give my project a focus, the main question that I sought to answer was, do two main symptoms of psychosis, hallucinations and delusions, fluctuate together over time? In order to make this project as objective as possible, I drew upon published data and conducted an analysis. After performing my preliminary analysis, I formulated a final methodology which had three steps. The first step was to prove that a correlation ostensibly exists on the surface level between the two symptoms. The second was to prove that such a correlation between the symptoms was not artifactual, by which I mean not driven by medication and truly reflective of the underlying relationship between the symptoms. The final was to prove that the correlation between hallucinations and delusions was specific, meaning stronger than the correlation between hallucinations and any other symptom, or delusions and any other symptom. Ultimately, it was concluded that hallucinations and delusions are covariant and that since the correlation is not artifactual, there exists a common underlying mechanism for the two symptoms. This discovery will help experts in the field of neurodegenerative disease and psychosis treatment because of its strong potential to aid in the identification of new treatment targets for patients with psychosis and other neurodegenerative diseases because most of them have hallucinations and/or delusions as symptoms.
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