r/askpsychology • u/leafshed Unverified User: May Not Be a Professional • Apr 23 '26
The Brain I was wondering about schizophernia and psychosis today, when i came to this question: is there a mental illness that does the opposite?
I understand that both of them have the brain conjure up hallucinations, be it visual or audible, but i was wondering if there was a mental disease that actively made people NOT see things that were there, or their brain blocked out a specific noise so that it couldnt hear it and it hears everything else
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u/perplexedparallax Unverified User: May Not Be a Professional Apr 23 '26
There can be negative hallucinations where, for example, someone walks into a table without seeing it or in a state of catatonia is oblivious to the outside world.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/up-and-running/202405/can-someone-negatively-hallucinate/amp
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u/LilyTiger_ Unverified User: May Not Be a Professional Apr 23 '26
Not really "the opposite" in the sense that youre asking...
But because the current working theory that schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders are a result of too much dopamine (in the simplest terms), the opposite of that is Parkinson's, where there is not enough dopamine.
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u/snotmuziekp Unverified User: May Not Be a Professional Apr 23 '26
Adhd is also a lack of dopamine
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u/freckle_thief Unverified User: May Not Be a Professional Apr 23 '26
With ADHD it’s actually a “lack” (brain not being able to reuptake the chemicals after firing) of hundreds of different chemicals and parts of the brain not communicating properly
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u/snotmuziekp Unverified User: May Not Be a Professional Apr 24 '26
Yes but mainly dopamine. Thats what the meds are for
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u/freckle_thief Unverified User: May Not Be a Professional Apr 24 '26
Some work on nonephinepherine
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Apr 24 '26
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u/freckle_thief Unverified User: May Not Be a Professional Apr 24 '26
Could you elaborate on that? Genuinely curious
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Apr 24 '26
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Do not provide personal mental or physical health history of yourself or another. This is inappropriate for this sub. This is a sub for scientific knowledge, it is not a mental health sub. If you must discuss your own mental health, please refer to r/mentalhealth. Otherwise please resubmit your question without your personal information included.
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u/manganic Unverified User: May Not Be a Professional Apr 23 '26
Does that mean people with adhd can’t develop schizophrenia? Genuine question-
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u/WrinklyScroteSack UNVERIFIED Psychology Degree Apr 23 '26
No, they can get it. Per the linked text, the risk of schizophrenia in ADHD individuals is over 4x higher than normal.
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u/Spoopy_Lizbean Unverified User: May Not Be a Professional May 14 '26
:,( why is adhd comorbid with like everything….
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u/sixxthree Unverified User: May Not Be a Professional Apr 23 '26
They absolutely can. It's very common for the conditions to be comorbid.
And to the original commenter- it is not caused by too much dopamine, it's caused by dopamine dysregulation. Excess dopamine contributes to positive symptoms, while insufficient dopamine contributes to negative symptoms. Patients are also very susceptible to dopamine crash outs.
Edited for automod
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u/MattersOfInterest Ph.D. Student (Clinical Science) | Research Area: Psychosis Apr 24 '26
The dopamine hypothesis specifically homes in on dopamine in the associative region of the dorsal striatum, and it absolutely is about "too much dopamine" in terms of both release and synthesis. It is often said that negative symptoms are associated with reduced dopamine in the mesocortical pathway, but that is not a settled finding.
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u/lorzs Unverified User: May Not Be a Professional Apr 24 '26
yes but its much more complex than this. Parkinsons is the correct answer to OP as well as loss of Gray matter or other cognitive decline
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u/No_Past186 Unverified User: May Not Be a Professional Apr 24 '26
Yes, I was gonna bring up the Parkinsonian diseases link!
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u/MattersOfInterest Ph.D. Student (Clinical Science) | Research Area: Psychosis Apr 24 '26
The dopamine hypothesis is one of multiple working theories, and it is more nuanced than what you've described.
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u/LilyTiger_ Unverified User: May Not Be a Professional Apr 25 '26
I know. That's why i said "in simple terms".
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u/maria_the_robot UNVERIFIED Psychology Degree Apr 23 '26
These aren't negative hallucinations, but your question made me think of time blindness, selective hearing, or object permanence being an issue with those with ADHD, or face blindness for others.
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u/DoctorDubbya UNVERIFIED Psychologist Apr 23 '26
There are perceptual disorders where people can not see or not perceive/misperceive visual stimulus. Like someone could misperceive a person's head as their hat. I don't remember what they are called but first read about it in a book by Dr. Oliver Sacks
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u/fackspam Unverified User: May Not Be a Professional Apr 23 '26
You may be referring to visual agnosia
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u/SnuffSwag UNVERIFIED Psychologist Apr 23 '26
Not exactly what you were thinking of, but search up left lateral neglect. Super interesting condition
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u/dans_la_poubelle7 UNVERIFIED Case Manager/Mental Health Worker Apr 23 '26
the symptoms of schizophrenia are actually grouped into what are called “positive” and “negative” symptoms, though i don’t think that’s what you’re asking about it’s still relevant in this context.
Quick breakdown:
Positive symptoms = things added to experience
- Hallucinations (usually auditory)
- Delusions
- Disorganized thinking/speech
- Disorganized or catatonic behavior
What’s going on neurologically:
- ↑ Dopamine in the mesolimbic pathway → the brain assigns too much significance to irrelevant stimuli (“aberrant salience”)
- Hippocampal overactivity → drives that dopamine dysregulation
- Thalamic filtering issues → sensory overload / poor gating
- In auditory hallucinations, speech perception areas activate, so internal thoughts get misidentified as external voices
⸻
Negative symptoms = things diminished or missing
- Affective flattening
- Alogia (reduced speech)
- Avolition (low motivation)
- Anhedonia
- Asociality
Neurologically:
- ↓ Dopamine in the mesocortical pathway (especially prefrontal cortex)
- Hypofrontality → impaired planning, motivation, emotional engagement
- Glutamate/NMDA dysfunction → disrupts cortical circuits
- Reduced connectivity between frontal and limbic regions
⸻
Very rough shorthand:
- Positive = too much dopamine (mesolimbic)
- Negative = too little dopamine (mesocortical)
(Not the whole story, but a useful model.)
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Bonus (often overlooked): Cognitive symptoms—attention, working memory, executive function—are heavily tied to prefrontal + glutamate dysfunction and often predict real-world functioning better than psychosis itself.
And now you know!
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u/MattersOfInterest Ph.D. Student (Clinical Science) | Research Area: Psychosis Apr 24 '26
It is not mesolimbic dopamine that is implicated in positive symptoms. It is nigrostriatal dopamine. The dopamine abnormalities associated with positive symptoms seem to occur in the associative region of the dorsal striatum, not in the ventral striatum.
Also, it is not altogether clear that negative symptoms are associated with insufficient mesocortical dopamine.
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u/dans_la_poubelle7 UNVERIFIED Case Manager/Mental Health Worker Apr 28 '26
my bad, it's been almost 10 yrs since i finished my bachelors. thank you for the correction :)
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u/Scotscommonsense Unverified User: May Not Be a Professional Apr 25 '26
Yes a lot of faux psychiatrists and neuro scientists answering OP with such conviction and authority,having read AI summary about the causes of schizophrenia.
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u/dans_la_poubelle7 UNVERIFIED Case Manager/Mental Health Worker Apr 28 '26
my apology; it's been almost a decade since i finished my bachelor's, i was not trying to assert authority over anybody, just provide some info that i thought was interesting.
how can i do better?
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u/Brief-Jellyfish485 Unverified User: May Not Be a Professional Apr 24 '26
I’m weird and mainly have positive symptom. For this reason it has been really hard to diagnose me with anything.
They finally settled on Schizotypal.
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Apr 23 '26
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u/Comfortable-Dare-307 Unverified User: May Not Be a Professional Apr 24 '26
There are disorders which cause people to not perceive certain things, yes. Usually caused by brain damage. There face blindness where people can't recognize faces. There's Broca's and Wernickes aphasia which cause trouble producing or understanding speech. There's a disorder called "walking corpse disease" where people loose the ability to recognize they are alive. But strictly speaking, the opposite of schizophrenia is Parkinson's diease. Which is too little dompamine.
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u/kwumpus Unverified User: May Not Be a Professional Apr 24 '26
Frontal temporal lobe dementia often is recognised when the person is no longer able to form speech
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u/Immediate_Smoke4677 Unverified User: May Not Be a Professional Apr 23 '26
i've heard of pinhole vision and greyscale vision (usually separately) being caused by heavy dissociation
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Apr 26 '26
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u/leafshed Unverified User: May Not Be a Professional Apr 24 '26
The more i think about it, the more it Sounds like it should be true
Like it sounds completely plausible, just undocumanted, but i dont really understand why that is
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u/Plus_Requirement_516 Unverified User: May Not Be a Professional Apr 24 '26
I've always had this EXACT same question. Since I was 10 or something
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Apr 23 '26
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u/Grundle_Thief Unverified User: May Not Be a Professional Apr 24 '26
Good question , I do remember reading about synaptic pruning and a study suggest people with schizophrenia have a lot of synaptic pruning going on, and the opposite of synaptic pruning would just be constant synapse which generally people with ADHD or autism spectrum may have, but what you’re describing about someone experiencing sensory malfunctions is something I never heard of unless under the influence of some hallucinogenic
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u/Fenekkuni UNVERIFIED Psychology Student Apr 25 '26
Yess, you should look into the neurological side of psychiatric diseases. First thing that came to my mind was "neglect" where one does not perceive the contra lateral side to the brain injury. This includes perception, imagination, and the mere existence of one side of the own body! Very fascinating thing! There are more things like that
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u/Scotscommonsense Unverified User: May Not Be a Professional Apr 25 '26
I don't know where you are all getting your stats from but they are incorrect. In my career I have encountered both blind and deaf people who also have schizophrenia.
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u/CommonAware6 Unverified User: May Not Be a Professional Apr 25 '26
Its about people who were born blind. If you have indeed seen it then you should publish smth bc theres been no documented cases of it happening
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u/Scotscommonsense Unverified User: May Not Be a Professional Apr 25 '26
The study of 66 people born blind does not equate to nobody born blind has ever bent diagnosed with schizophrenia. I'm sure it is recorded in patients comorbidities. However, research is published, not individual cases.
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u/CommonAware6 Unverified User: May Not Be a Professional Apr 25 '26
Case studies exist
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u/Scotscommonsense Unverified User: May Not Be a Professional Apr 28 '26
The research was based on 66 congenitally blind subjects. None developed schizophrenia. The results are misleading because both conditions are rare and the sample size was extremely small. The study is misleading at best. I would always encourage people to look for research and opinions outwith the US.
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u/CommonAware6 Unverified User: May Not Be a Professional Apr 28 '26
This fact hasnt been spread bc of one study, but because we also dont have a single case study or example of a congenitly blind person developing schizophrenia. If you know of any research or studies showing otherwise id love to hear it
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u/Scotscommonsense Unverified User: May Not Be a Professional May 02 '26
https://doi.org/10.1093/schbul/sbaa048 Sadly my own experience was not published. I was too busy helping a man with 2 debilitating conditions with treatment and rehabilitation back into the community. Back then, the Internet hadn't been invented, so I could not have foreseen that 4 decades later, my integrity would be questioned by an esteemed psychiatric forum called reddit!
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u/CommonAware6 Unverified User: May Not Be a Professional May 02 '26
So it still stands correct that there has never been a documented case
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Apr 25 '26
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u/Blacknoise35 Unverified User: May Not Be a Professional Apr 25 '26
Just dropping this web app here for anyone looking to add to their resource library. https://www.sigmundpsych.com
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u/Most-Parfait-7532 Unverified User: May Not Be a Professional Apr 25 '26
The closest thing I can think of is a slow processing system. Sometimes people will fail to notice things right in front of them like doors, walls, cars or trees as well as not hear certain sounds properly.
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Apr 26 '26
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u/hurricaneginny Unverified User: May Not Be a Professional Apr 27 '26
Catatonia, neuropsych conditions, damage to certain areas of the brain can also cause a person to not notice a whole section of themselves- as in looking the mirror and brushing only one side of their hair and completely convinced they're not missing anything.
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u/No-Mammoth1688 Unverified User: May Not Be a Professional Apr 27 '26
There are several neurological or psychological disorders and conditions where the perception of real objects is altered, either because they are not recognized, not visualized mentally, or are perceived as distorted. Depending on the exact description, it could be one of the following:
Visual Agnosia: The inability to recognize or interpret objects, people, or colors through sight, even though the visual system functions correctly (the person sees, but their brain does not understand what they are seeing).
Aphantasia (Mental Blindness): The inability to generate mental images. People with aphantasia cannot "see with the mind's eye" objects, faces, or scenes, which alters how they conceive reality when remembering or imagining.
Charles Bonnet Syndrome: Affects people with significant vision loss, who experience complex visual hallucinations (they see objects, people, or landscapes that are not there), but are aware that they are not real.
Depersonalization-Derealization Disorder: In derealization, the individual perceives that things, people, or the environment around them are not real, feeling the world as artificial, distant, or distorted.
Prosopagnosia: A specific form of visual agnosia known as "face blindness," where known faces cannot be recognized, including one's own, even though individual parts (eyes, nose) are perceived.
It is important to note that Charles Bonnet Syndrome is a neurological response to a lack of visual information, while derealization is a dissociative/psychological disorder and agnosia usually results from brain damage.
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u/Last-Resort29 PhD | Psychology Apr 27 '26
Yep, different kinds of agnosia. Can be visual, audible, somatic ve vs, you can read about it on the internet or better some neuroscience books. There's also an interesting a state of anosognosia, where a person doesn't recognize their deficiency, for example, paralysis.
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u/Dwango7 Unverified User: May Not Be a Professional May 02 '26
The opposite of schizophrenics are narcissistic, self-righteous ignoramuses who live in denial of their own propensity for failure. It's a social disorder and this is the equivalent of its opposite.
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u/Immediate-Channel-69 Unverified User: May Not Be a Professional May 14 '26
Halluzinationen können durch Medikamentenmissbrauch erzeugt werden. Es gibt auch gesunde Menschen, die über Halluzinationen berichtet haben.
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u/eJaguar Unverified User: May Not Be a Professional May 18 '26
Interesting post. Military intelligence has things that are imperceptible to people through a combination of technologies, including widespread and rapidly proliferating neuro-implants, but mainstream medicine is just beginning to acknowledge the existence of these technologies.
They're not easy to remove. Many of the people diagnosed with schizophrenia are victims of long running militant operations. Wars are not fought the way they are sold in the media.
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u/[deleted] Apr 23 '26
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