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Secrets of Schizophrenia and Depression "Unlocked"
Oracle Goddess writes "According to the US National Institute for Mental Health in Bethesda, Maryland, scientists have discovered a remarkable similarity between the genetic faults behind both schizophrenia and manic depression in a breakthrough that is expected to open the way to new treatments for two of the most common mental illnesses, affecting millions of people. Previously schizophrenia and depression were assumed to be two separate conditions, but the new research shows for the first time that both have a common genetic basis that leads people to develop one or the other of the two illnesses."
There, fixed it.
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... it is not the 'depression' you may be lead to believe.
I know this is Slashdot and all, but that is rather the point of TFA. In fact, for a change, it does a reasonably good job.
Recommended.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
The summary seems to confuse being depressive with being bipolar (i.e., manic-depressive). Clinical depression is a common problem, and is generally treatable to some extent with drug and cognitive therapy. Last I checked, bipolar was much less common and a lot less treatable.
So, it isn't going to lead to new treatments for two common problems. It may well lead to new treatments for two problems, one of which is distinctly less common. Those who are clinically depressed but not bipolar may well not benefit at all.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
i'd like to thank Steve Ballmer for making himself available for this important breakthrough.
Steve says, "show yourself, human!"
My work here is dung.
Indeed, the disease is no longer called "manic depression". It's "bipolar disorder" now. And BTW, schitzophrenia is not multiple personalities, that one is called "disassociative identity disorder". Schitzophrenics experience delusions, like changing their memories of a movie or TV show into memories of their own life experience; or hallucinations, like hearing voices in their heads telling them what a terrible person they are.
Depression is a completely different disease and often leads to suicide and usually leads to drug or alcohol abuse, although the metal health industry usually blames the substance abuse for the depression that started before the substance abuse did.
You meet a lot of crazy people in bars. One guy I saw in a bar said "I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy".
Free Martian Whores!
Similarity of some symptoms, medication that is effective for both conditions, a history of one or other condition in a person's ancestry...
I just wish the summary were better. The title and summary use Depression and Manic Depression interchangeably, which is just dead wrong.
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Just to put this in perspective, this is not a gene, but just a region of a chromosome. And the association with any particular locus is weak, so it doesn't look like it is strong enough for diagnosis or prenatal testing. Even when the gene is identified, going from a gene to a treatment tends to be very difficult. We've know of genes for Huntington's Disease and Alzheimer's Disease for years, and while this has inspired a lot of promising research, so far this knowledge has not yet resulting any major improvements with respect to treatment or prevention.
Moreover, finding that the same genes are involved does not necessarily mean that the diseases are the same, because genes can be "broken" in multiple ways.
The idea that there is a relationship between schizophrenia and bipolar disorder is not actually new, as there are some people who exhibit characteristics of both disorders, and some people diagnosed with one respond to drugs that are commonly used to treat the other. So this basically adds a bit more evidence to a long-standing suspicion.
Despite the drug company propaganda, there's no objective test to distinguish the two. In general the levels of neurotransmitters in a patient's brain aren't measured anyway... and even if they were, there's no available way to tell if the levels were what they were because of some physical issue, or if they're that way because your wife left you.
However, TFA is talking about bipolar disorder, which is not the same as clinical depression.
You seem to have the same faulty knowledge of Schizophrenia as most. What you are talking about is something like Dissociative identity disorder. Being Schizophrenic doesn't mean you have multiple personalities. I should know as I'm Schizophrenic myself.
I just want to be able to marry myself and file myselves as a depedents.
Exactly. Especially in times, where people prefer to take meds, instead of healing their problems, it should always be made very clear, that there is a huge difference between genetic disorders, and environment-based disorders. And that there also is a huge difference between intoxication (bad food, toxic waste, polluted nature, etc) and purely psychological influences (evil people, mind-boggling events, wars, extreme mobbing, and especially bad parents).
Because the last one can't be cured by and medicine at all! At least not in your lifetime.
It can only be partially overlayed, and numbed down, having more bad than good effects.
That kind has to be treated with a proper psychotherapy. With the help of someone, who does not fear to take you at the hand and help you go to the deepest and darkest place in your soul, to face it. Luckily this has a very good chance of really healing you.
But the genetic kind of course can only be treated with meds.
It is very important to make this distinction, for sure.
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
Well, the medicated state is unnatural. And there are certainly people who feel 'muted' much of the time and the tolerance to mood swings is quite varied among folks. Lots of bipolar patients like the "up" when the can handle it. Everybody seems to hate the down part and it can be rough to cycle up and down quite a bit. The differences between monopolar (clincal, classical, typical depression) and bipolar disease aren't all that great and there is no strict line between "normal" and a "disease" state. Sometimes it's really obvious and much of the time it isn't.
IMHO (and IAAMD) the term "antidepressant" is a big misnomer. They are really mood stabilizers, ala lithium. They do flatten both the ups and downs and they do interfere with creative energy and ability. If you look at the personal lives of many creative people, both in the sciences and arts and in fact in much of the religious sphere, you can discern clear DSM-IV diagnoses. They are 'mentally ill' by our current definitions. And if you look at their often short lived, self destructive lifestyles it's easy to believe that.
There currently is no such thing as a free lunch when it comes to neuropsychiatric drugs - they're really more like hand grenades then rifle bullets. They hit the target, but often cause collateral damage. Whether and how much and what you should take is often a long term, complicated dance between the patient, the physician and occasionally the courts.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!