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"Jumping Genes" Linked To Schizophrenia
sciencehabit writes "Roaming bits of DNA that can relocate and proliferate throughout the genome, called 'jumping genes,' may contribute to schizophrenia, a new study suggests (abstract). These rogue genetic elements pepper the brain tissue of deceased people with the disorder and multiply in response to stressful events, such as infection during pregnancy, which increase the risk of the disease. The study could help explain how genes and environment work together to produce the complex disorder and may even point to ways of lowering the risk of the disease, researchers say."
These rogue genetic elements pepper the brain tissue of deceased people with the disorder and multiply in response to stressful events, such as infection during pregnancy, which increase the risk of the disease.
What sort of pregnancies and stressful events are deceased people having?
Jumping genes are better known as retroposons. Shame on Science for not explaining this.
Everyone moods to be examined at birth, or before. Full testing is the only way!
The genes are not really jumping; you're just hallucinating that.
Table-ized A.I.
Better or worse than the "normal" type? Watch out for schizophrenic zombies!
There's little evidence that what happens to children causes these disorders in adults. Barring organic brain damage, it's the underlying thought processes that cause a lot of dysfunction later on, but it's not the events themselves. Which is why one child might be scarred for life by being molested and another emerges relatively unscathed to become an advocate for the abused. The difference is primarily in how the children thought about the events. This applies to most other things as well, the way that you view and cope with the event is far more important to ones future risks of mental illness than the event itself.
There's also typically a genetic component that makes it easier or harder to cope with such situations as well as a cultural aspect that may include more or less helpful responses to the event.
Schizophrenia isn't a collection of behaviors, the behaviors are what psychologists use to identify the disorder, but it's not what causes the disorder. Now, if we started to give everybody in the general populace a SPECT or fMRI to see if they needed treatment, we would likely find that the diagnostic criteria change, but as people don't come in for random screenings against every possible mental illness, the screenings tend to focus on the behaviors. I expect that this will change as the brain scanning techniques become more affordable. Even a relatively inexpensive SPECT scan runs several grand and is overkill in most cases.
What you're arguing is like there being no such thing as a table because it's just a label given to movable objects that have a flat surface on top to hold things on while you're working.
saying these make up more than 50 percent of the code in your DNA is not something I've seen in medical genetics.
Perhaps their might be some confusion between "hot spots" or coding mishap regions which cause miRNA, siRNA, mRNA, and cisRNA to recode protein segments in response to environmental conditions, which can include stress (which is a factor, including environmental biochemical stress during pregnancy) and inflammation (which is a severe factor).
But the statement in the actual article that this is 50 percent of the Human Genome is not what I would describe as an accurate depiction.
You're confusing frame relay switch effects from loops in DNA coding, which may be there for good reasons to adapt to changing environmental or other stress conditions, or are survivor characteristics from prior infections and biochemical events in human history (plagues, massive food diet changes), with "half your DNA is damaged and you should blame your mom cause she stressed out when she was pregnant".
Just my two cents.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
TFA says
One tantalizing possibility is that as these restless bits of DNA drift throughout the genomes of human brain cells, they help create the vibrant cognitive diversity that helps humans as a species respond to changing environmental conditions, and produces extraordinary "outliers," including innovators and geniuses such as Picasso,
But didn't they observe the same thing on mices?
I know people with this illness, hearing voices seeing "hidden meanings" etc.
Note, hearing voices, and seeing "hidden meanings" are two entirely different things. I experience the latter, not the former. Note also the "hidden meanings" thing is also basically what is going on with a large percentage of religious people. Like really, lots of people. It's also something that was induced by the East German secret police (the Stasi) in order to silence political dissenters. (or tactics similar to that). And then lets not even bring up the fun of how that melts into "targeted advertising". I.e. having your personal thoughts sent by email used to select the most psychologically influencing image to present to your eyes in exchange for a 'free' email service. And note also that I imagine the _effect_ is not so much disease that is on or off in people, but I think an artifact of our pattern-seaking minds. Our brains live and thrive on making connections of signifigance. It has been my experience that drugs such as cannabis and LSD tweak/stimulate this natural phenomena. I.e. making your brain more likely to see meaningful connection ("hidden meaning") in otherwise not obvious seperate events. A good example is what happens if you are camping, and you hear leaves rustling. It is simply a survival trait that your brain has a tendency to over-react ('be paranoid') and err-on-the-side of assuming that noise was a predator about to devour you. The upside of preventing a successful predator attack against yourself is more evolutionarily valuable than the downside of being wrong some percentage of the time. So I see the mental illness as properly diagnosed when this sort of thing falls so far out of whack that people cannot cope and live decent lives. Unfortunately this very natural and common affliction has also been widely used by social predators to politically silence opponents. I urge you not to dismiss any aspect of that. People need to realize that both are important when considering the topic of schizophrenia. And note, I'm no trained psych, and have never been diagnosed with any mental illness such as schizophrenia. But I have done a lot of mind altering drugs, and I'll let others consider what I've just said and decide if it rings true.
"I know people with this illness, hearing voices seeing "hidden meanings" etc. It is real it is a problem for them, as well as those around them. If you do not know this from personal experience then you have little exposure to the less advantaged parts of society"
I once met such an individual, used hang round car-parks getting drunk and yelling at passerbys. A classic case of schizophrenia if there ever was one. Turns out he grew up in a small farm house with his mother. Mother dies and his brother came back moved the wife and kids in and got him commitment. After a full course of treatment both chemical and electrical, now he can't find his own arse with both hands nor remember huge chunks of his past, carries round old newspapers in a briefcase, a substitute for his lost memories I suppose. I only know this as I was the only one else who would have a conversation with him.
Maybe so, but anyone who would sign a release to have their brain dissected ought to have his head examined.
ironically moments after that post, I see a user AHuxley reply to an earlier comment on another article. Another great example of 'hidden meaning' versus 'interesting coincidence' versus I'm too lazy and uninterested to see if AHuxley replied seconds after the LSD comment.
In any event, I'd also like to further add to the above sentiment, that I think in some cases the 'hearing voices' may be related to the same effect. I.e. the case of hearing something that sounds like a voice, then your by-evolutinary-advantage paranoid mind doing a pattern match against any theoretical threat. In this case, the threat of some voice saying something menacing. I do have a close relative that did go off the paranoia deep-end, and part of it involved believing they heard nefarious talk about them from the hallway beyond a closed door where they work. That fits my model of a commen scenario- you hear muffled far away voices, and your brain, in its attempt to gleam meaning from insufficient pixel or audio sample resolution, tries to 'guess' the likelyest actual conversation, but guesses wrong. I actually think my history of hallucinogenic drug use has made my mind more skeptical of such guesses. Does that make me a "high functioning schizophrenic"? Dunno... But I think the effect must be common enough. Same thing going on in the childrens "telephone game". (i.e. a ring of players, a message whispered from one ear to the next, by the time it makes it around the circle, it is entirely unrelated to the original actual message due to such misinterpretations of audio input- compounded by feedback loop. And similar feedback loops exist in paranoid thought, that perhaps increase adrenoline/anxiety and make the effect worse (but still for evolutionarily advantageous reason- over all). And worse yet when you have political enemies trying to amplify the feedback).
To add to the biological component, some study has attempted to link Celiac Disease in the mother to underdevelopment of key brain areas in the infant that lead to disorders such as schizophrenia. Makes sense, too, since the mother's body is busy "fighting" gluten and thus fighting it in the developing fetus as well, or so I understood it.
Schizoaffective sucks - if you need a good place to go, message me (if there's a way to do that?). There are plenty of good communities, and I know one that's been very helpful for friends of mine.
Best of luck to you!
Presumably, but we don't know much about who they were or what their treatment was like. Where they locked up in padded rooms for the vast duration of their lives? There isn't much incentive to do more than sedate them. Were they actively working with a therapist and psychiatrist? Then they'd probably have more access to antipsycotics. Were they plain untreated? Knowing the sample would be very helpful...even in the "treated" population you have a wide array of tools that more often combat symptoms, not just the diagnosis: Ambien for sleep, Seroquel for knocking out the hard stuff, antipsychiotics to keep the hard stuff at bay on normal days, antidepressents and mood stabilizers to keep you level, vitamins to help supplement what your body doesn't absorb, etc etc etc. Some medications lower your body's ability to intake nutrients, or flat-out destroy your reproductive system. Celiac and other diseases generally compliment SZ. People suffering from SZ tend to be smokers, so throw some cancer treatment into that group.
Another diagnosis would be along the lines of "periods of psychosis," happening more than once, for an extended amount of time. Tack on some emotional bits for the "schizoaffective" aspect. A diagnosis of anything can and has been used for all sorts of nefarious reasons, but just because someone fakes a cold to get out of work, it doesn't mean that all people sneezing and coughing are liars.
Schizophrenia due to infectious disease of the bra
Either you're into some weird stuff, your you need to watch the length limits of your subjects.
I think psychosis is a physiological human conscious response to electro-magnetic solar phenomenon. The craziest thing, is that there's already evidence that this theory might have legs [nih.gov].
It's like trying to download a much more advanced quantum consciousness into a limited RAM, standard binary human brain.
You seem to be implying that the sun is intelligent and is broadcasting its intelligence across radio frequencies, attempting to infect new hosts. Strange theory.
I wouldn't deny that it's possible that some people are sensitive to EM and that perhaps they have a brain structure that acts as an antenna, receiving noise but in trying to make sense of it, perceiving it as intelligent input.
This would have nothing to do with ancient worship. They simply believed (accurately) that the sun is the source of all life on this planet, and therefore thought that this made the sun an intelligent being.
Corpses have really weird legal status. They're not people, and they're not property, not even the property of the deceased (or deceased's estate). They can become property after being donated to medical science, but strings one might attempt to attach to donation aren't legally binding, even if there's a signed contract of some sort. And even then, they're property with very limited legal uses. The most accurate characterization of the legal status of a corpse is "ward of the state", because what can or cannot be done with a corpse is determined almost entirely by the law.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
For the record, the above is a variation of a well known quote from Samuel Goldwyn: "Anyone who would go to a psychiatrist ought to have his head examined"