June 2004 Archives

I've decided to write an article on hyperacuity, after a comment posted by one of my readers about the lack of information about the subject. Here's some links and quotes about hyperacuity in the mean time: Zebra References: The Tell-Tale Heart "The disease had sharpened my senses -- not destroyed -- not dulled them..." "Differential Diagnosis: adrenal cortical insufficiency" "The senses are rendered morbidly acute [in rabies], the surface of the body irritatable and readily acted upon by the slightest gust of air, even the feeling of the pulse, inducing an accession of the convulsive paroxysm." - The Nature and Treatment of Rabies or Hydrophobia. 2nd ed. Dolan TM. London: Ballière, Tindall, and Cox, 1879: 136. " Contains sections the menstrual cycle and other endocrine influences on olfactory sensitivity. Notes that epileptic individuals are reported to exhibit greater olfactory sensitivity than nonepileptic individuals." - SOCIAL LEARNING "One report illustrates the “wisdom” of the body regarding specific hungers: a child (later diagnosed after death as suffering from adrenal cortical insufficiency) who had exhibited a profound preference for salt from the time of weaning. The child was hopitalised but the hospital diet did not provide enough salt and he died after a week due to an inability to maintain electrolyte balance." A Natural History of Extraordinary Human Functioning "All living creatures have vision, hearing, taste, touch, and smell. Each of these has all sorts of supernormal expressions. What I have discovered in my research is that there is a whole bunch of this stuff, particularly in sport and high adventure, that is kind of in-between—you don't know whether it's a hyperacuity of the senses or clairvoyance. Another set is kinesthesis—the ability to read our own insides. There's an immense lore of supernormal kinesthesis in the yogic traditions." I saw kinesthesis as something I developed because I went through cycles of being sick and well so many times a year every year of my life. Also because I've consciously tried to develop it, to monitor my health and choose the best way to help myself. The fact that I was able to self-diagnose my bronchitis infection before the symptoms were manifest to the doctors was just practice. When I could feel all the seperate little hairs and dander in the house in my throat it was making use of the extra information from my toxin-induced hyperacuity. I was ready for the extra information. THE MIND'S EYE, What the blind see "Alvaro Pascual-Leone and his colleagues in Boston have recently shown that, even in adult sighted volunteers, as little as five days of being blindfolded produces marked shifts to nonvisual forms of behavior and cognition, and they have demonstrated the physiological changes in the brain that go along with this. And only last month, Italian researchers published a study showing that sighted volunteers kept in the dark for as little as ninety minutes may show a striking enhancement of tactile-spatial sensitivity." Superheroes can tune hyper-senses in and out at will, sufferers of hyperacuity have no such luck. More later.

Ciguatera has the same effect on the lungs as high altitude! In the 29th May 2004 issue of New Scientist, there is a story called "Why your lungs might not cope with high altitudes", which describes High Altitude Pulmonary Oedema (HAPE), where the lungs fill with fluid at high altitudes in susceptible people. Researchers at the Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois in Lausanne have shown that the illness is connected with the efficiency of the sodium pumps in the cells lining lung alveoli air sacs. These rid the lungs of excess fluid by pumping sodium ions out, which draws water outside the lungs by osmosis. The Swiss team showed that the asthma drug salmeterol boosts the sodium pumps activity and halves the risk of HAPE. Ciguatera blocks sodium channels receptors and forces open calcium channels. This looks like the mechanism of pulmonary problems with Ciguatera poisoning and the failure of asthma drugs to help with breathing are tied to the way they act on the ion channel pumps. Chronic Fatigue Group - University of Glasgow Neurology of Ciguatera - Professor Pearn, University of Queensland So my lungs are filling with fluid when I have trouble breathing, but the asthma drugs can't get the sodium pumps to clear them, because the sodium ion receptor is blocked by the ciguatera toxin. Against my gastroenterologists' wishes, my GP has me back on antibiotics to fight the chest infection and fevers, after a month of non-treatment. The fact that I feel able to make a blog entry after two months of having trouble even reading the screen for more than ten minutes shows what a good move that was! The reading has slowed way down while I deal with the fevers. However I'm still working my way through Tuning The Brain , and my pile of New Scientist as they arrive each week.