However, since animal dreaming can be only inferred, not confirmed, animal studies yield no hard facts to illuminate the neurophysiology of dreams. Examining human subjects with brain lesions can provide clues, but the lesion method cannot discriminate between the effects of destruction and disconnection and cannot target specific neuronal groups in heterogeneous regions like the brain stem. Generation
Denied precision tools, obliged to depend on imaging, much dream research has succumbed to the law of the instrument. Studies detect an increase of blood flow in a specific brain region and then credit that region with a role in generating dreams. But pooling study results has led to the newer conclusion that dreaming involves large numbers of regions and pathways, which likely are different for different dream events.Image creation in the brain involves significant neural activity downstream from eye intake, and it is theorized that "the visual imagery of dreams is produced by activation during sleep of the same structures that generate complex visual imagery in waking perception. "Dreams present a running narrative rather than exclusively visual imagery. Following their work with split-brain subjects, Gazzaniga and LeDoux postulated, without attempting to specify the neural mechanisms, a "left-brain interpreter" that seeks to create a plausible narrative from whatever electro-chemical signals reach the brains left hemisphere. Sleep research has determined that some brain regions fully active during waking are, during REM sleep, activated only in a partial or fragmentary way.
Lanreotide, sold under the brand name Somatuline among others, is a medication used in the management of acromegaly and symptoms caused by neuroendocrine tumors, most notably carcinoid syndrome. It is a long-acting analogue of somatostatin, like octreotide. Lanreotide (as lanreotide acetate) is manufactured by Ipsen. It is available in several countries, including the United Kingdom, Australia and Canada, and was approved for sale in the United States by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on August 30, 2007. Medical uses
Lanreotide is used in the treatment of acromegaly, due to both pituitary and non-pituitary growth hormone-secreting tumors, and the management of symptoms caused by neuroendocrine tumors, particularly carcinoid tumors and VIPomas. In the United States and Canada, lanreotide is only indicated for the treatment of acromegaly. In the United Kingdom, it is also indicated in the treatment of thyrotrophic adenoma, a rare tumor of the pituitary gland which secretes TSH. Lanreotide also shows activity against non-endocrine tumors, and, along with other somatostatin analogues, is being studied as a possible general antitumor agent.In December 2014, the US FDA approved lanreotide for the treatment of people with unresectable, well or moderately differentiated, locally advanced or metastatic gastroenteropancreatic neuroendocrine tumors (GEP-NETs).It is used for polycystic liver disease. It has also been shown that it reduces the volume by 264mls on average. Side effects
The main side effects of lanreotide treatment are mild to moderate pain at the injection site and gastrointestinal disturbances, such as diarrhea, nausea and vomiting.