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Posts Tagged ‘Mental health’

Image via Wikipedia According to the authors of  “Protective effect of CRHR1 gene variants on the development of adult depression following childhood maltreatment: replication and extension“  [PMID: 19736354], theirs is “the first instance of Genes x Environment research that stress has been ascertained by more than 1 study using the same instrument“.  The gene they [...]

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Twin studies have long suggested that genetic variation is a part of healthy and disordered mental life.  The problem however – some 10 years now since the full genome sequence era began – has been finding the actual genes that account for this heritability. It sounds simple on paper – just collect lots of folks [...]

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Image via Wikipedia This past friday, I attended my first meditation session at my new yoga school.  I love this school and hope – someday – to make it through the full Ashtanga series and other sequences the instructors do.  In the meantime, I found myself sitting on my folded up blanket, letting my mind [...]

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Just a pointer to a great book – The Loss of Sadness: How Psychiatry Transformed Normal Sorrow into Depressive Disorder by Allan V. Horwitz and Jerome C. Wakefield.  Its an in-depth treatment on the many reasons and contexts in which we – quite naturally – feel sad and depressed and the way in which diagnostic [...]

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Image by noahg. via Flickr If you’ve started to notice the arrival of spring blossoms, you may have wondered, “how do the blossoms know when its spring?“  Well, it turns out that its not the temperature, but rather, that plants sense the length of the day-light cycle in order to synchronize their  own life cycles [...]

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According to wikipedia, “Jean Philippe Arthur Dubuffet (July 31, 1901 – May 12, 1985) was one of the most famous French painters and sculptors of the second half of the 20th century.”  “He coined the term Art Brut (meaning “raw art,” often times referred to as ‘outsider art’) for art produced by non-professionals working outside [...]

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Image by theloushe via Flickr ** PODCAST accompanies this post** I have a little boy who loves to run and jump and scream and shout – a lot.  And by this, I mean running – at full speed and smashing his head into my gut,  jumping – off the couch onto my head,  screaming – [...]

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Image via Wikipedia The A-to-T SNP rs7794745 in the CNTNAP2 gene was found to be associated with increased risk of autism (see Arking et al., 2008).  Specifically, the TT genotype, found in about 15% of individuals, increases these folks’ risk by about 1.2-1.7-fold.  Sure enough, when I checked my 23andMe profile, I found that I’m [...]

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If you’re a coffee drinker, you may have noticed the new super-sized portions available at Starbucks.  On this note, it may be worth noting that caffeine is a potent psychoactive substance of which – too much – can turn your buzz into a full-blown panic disorder.  The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for psychiatry outlines a [...]

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Image by MAMJODH via Flickr Oxygen is the key to life.  This is because it loves electrons.  In the mitochondria of every cell in your body, oxygen (in is atmospheric O2 state) serves as the ultimate electron acceptor and provides the chemical energy that drives the formation of ATP (a form of chemical energy storage [...]

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Image by muffintoptn via Flickr Humans are spiritual creatures – there’s no denyin’.  How & why we got this way is one of THE BIG questions of all time.  Since our genome shapes the development of our brain and its interaction with our culture, its not a surprise to see that, from time to time, [...]

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Image via Wikipedia Everyone has a birthday right. Its the day you (your infant self) popped into the world and started breathing, right?  But what about the day “you” were born – that is – “you” in the more philosophical, Jungian, spiritual, social, etc. kind of a way when you became aware of being in [...]

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Image via Wikipedia For a great many reasons, research on mental illness is focused on the frontal cortex.  Its just a small part of the brain, and certainly, many things can go wrong in other places during brain/cognitive development, but, it remains a robust finding, that when the frontal cortex is not working well, individuals [...]

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One of the complexities in beginning to understand how genetic variation relates to cognitive function and behavior is that – unfortunately – there is no gene for “personality”, “anxiety”, “memory” or any other type of “this” or “that” trait.  Most genes are expressed rather broadly across the entire brain’s cortical layers and subcortical systems.  So, [...]

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Image by Corrie… via Flickr Coping with fear and anxiety is difficult.  At times when one’s life, livelihood or loved one’s are threatened, we naturally hightenen our senses and allocate our emotional and physical resources for conflict.  At times, when all is well, and resources, relationships and relaxation time are plentiful, we should unwind and [...]

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DON’T tell the grant funding agencies, but, in at least one way, the effort to relate genetic variation to individual differences in cognitive function is a totally intractable waste of money. Let’s say we ask a population of folks to perform a task – perhaps a word memory task – and then we use neuroimaging [...]

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Image via Wikipedia In their forecast “The World in 2010” special issue, the Economist points to “The looming crisis in human genetics” wherein scientists will reluctantly acknowledge that, even with super-cheap genome sequencing tools, we may not soon understand how genetic variation contributes to complex illness.  The argument is a valid one to be sure, [...]

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Image via Wikipedia If you slam your hand in the car door and experience physical pain, medical science can offer you a “pain killer!“.  Certainly morphine (via its activation of the mu opioid receptor (OPRM1)) will make you feel a whole lot better.  However, if your boyfriend or girlfriend breaks up with you and you [...]

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The recent paper, “Comparative genomics of autism and schizophrenia” by Bernard Crespi and colleagues provides a very exciting take on how genetic data can be mined to understand cognitive development and mental illness.  Looking at genetic association data for autism and schizophrenia, the authors point out that 4 loci are associated with both schizophrenia and [...]

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The human brain is renown for its complexity.  Indeed, while we often marvel at the mature brain in its splendid form and capability, its even more staggering to consider how to build such a powerful computing machine.  Admittedly, mother nature has been working on this for a long time – perhaps since the first neuronal [...]

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