A LOT of genetic data is out there … and more coming all the time … easy to get excited about, but hard to make sense of. Here’s an epic story of just one SNP. One of the best research teams in the business performed a genomewide association study (GWAS) of neuroticism in 1,227 US [...]
Posts Tagged ‘Mental health’
A neurotic search gets lost in the statistical seas
Posted in MDGA2, Uncategorized, tagged Genetic testing, GWAS, Mental health, Mind, Neuroticism on February 7, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
50 Resources for Students Attending Online Health Psychology Schools
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Education, Mental health, Student on October 29, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
Image by Paladin27 via Flickr Pointer to … “50 Resources for Students Attending Online Health Psychology Schools” @ Online Schools .org which lists this blog as a resource. From this site: Health psychology news and information allows online students and professionals to understand the goings on in the health industry. The information makes it possible [...]
A wide river flows inside the developing brain
Posted in breathing, clinical trial, Mindfulness, tagged Breathing, Central nervous system, Meditation, Mental health, Mind, mindfulness, Practice, Psychology, Teachers and Centers on September 21, 2010 | 1 Comment »
Image by Preconscious Eye via Flickr As a parent, there are times when I realize that the world of my children is not the world I grew up in. Yes, the Readin’, ‘Ritin’ & ‘Ritmetic are still just as important … and there is nothing as precious as apple pie and little league in the [...]
Some 40 million-year-old ancestors have all the luck
Posted in 5HTT, Amygdala, Frontal cortex, tagged 5-HTTLPR, Anxiety, Brain, Cognition, Depression, Development, Frontal lobe, Gene expression, Genetics, Klaus Peter Lesch, Mental health on August 30, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
One day, each of us may have the dubious pleasure of browsing our genomes. What will we find? Risk for this? Risk for that? Protection for this? and that? Fast twitching muscles & wet ear wax? Certainly. Some of the factors will give us pause, worry and many restless nights. Upon these genetic variants we [...]
First ever replication of a GxE in psychiatric genetics
Posted in CRHR1, Uncategorized, tagged Add new tag, Depression, Development, Emotion, Genetics, Hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis, Major depressive disorder, Mental disorder, Mental health, Single-nucleotide polymorphism, Stress on April 6, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
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 [...]
Bigger genetic studies, more missing heritability
Posted in Uncategorized, Chromosome structural variants, Intronic or repetitive sequences, tagged Add new tag, Depression, Genetic testing, Mental disorder, Mental health, Twin, Biology, Genetics, DNA, Gene, Single-nucleotide polymorphism, Genome-wide association study, bipolardisorder, Twin study, Copy number variation, Genetic variation on April 5, 2010 | 1 Comment »
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 [...]
Sit quietly (with your genome) and discover yourself
Posted in default network, tagged Brain, default mode network, default network, Emotion, Functional magnetic resonance imaging, Genetics, Heritability, Meditation, Mental health, Neural network, Research, Yoga on March 28, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
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 [...]
Feeling good about feeling bad
Posted in 5HTT, tagged Book Reviews, Depression, Disorders, economics, Emotion, Genetics, Health care, Major depressive disorder, Mental health on March 26, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
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 [...]
Photoperiod sensitive humans bloom much like spring flowers
Posted in Suprachiasmatic nucleus, tagged 23andMe, Add new tag, Biology, bipolardisorder, Brain, Circadian rhythm, CLOCK, Depression, DNA, Mental health, Mood disorder, Seasonal affective disorder on March 17, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
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 [...]
rs35753505 C-alleles make de l’Art Brut of the brain
Posted in Fusiform gyrus, Middle frontal gyrus, middle occipital gyrus, NRG1, tagged 23andMe, Add new tag, Art, Brain, Cognition, DNA, Frontal lobe, Functional magnetic resonance imaging, Fusiform gyrus, Memory, Mental disorder, Mental health, Outsider art, Painting on March 10, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
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 [...]
Genes in the brain are like genes in muscles
Posted in Basal Ganglia, Caudate nucleus, DAT, Dopamine, Putamen, Substantia nigra, Subthalamic nucleus, tagged ADHD, Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, Basal Ganglia, Brain, Cognition, Development, Frontal lobe, Gene expression, Genetic testing, Genetics, Health, inhibition, Mental disorder, Mental health, Neural network, Personalized medicine, Substantia nigra on March 5, 2010 | 1 Comment »
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 – [...]
A look inside brains that carry (my) genetic risk for autism
Posted in Cerebellum, CNTNAP2, Frontal cortex, Frontal pole, Fusiform gyrus, Rostral fronto-occipital fasciculus, Thalamus, White matter, tagged 23andMe, Add new tag, autism, Autism spectrum, Brain, Development, Frontal lobe, Functional magnetic resonance imaging, Genetic testing, Genetics, Grey matter, Health, Mental disorder, Mental health, Neural development, Neurodevelopmental, synaptogenesis, White matter on March 5, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
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 [...]
Genetic road signs for super-size coffee SUV drivers
Posted in ADORA2A, DRD2, Uncategorized, tagged 23andMe, Anxiety, Brain, Caffeine, Coffee, Cognition, Disorders, DNA, evolution, Genetic testing, Genetics, Mental disorder, Mental health, panic disorder, Personalized medicine, Psychoactive drug, Starbucks, Stress on March 4, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
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 [...]
rs4880 knows that when I’m breathing I’m dying
Posted in SOD2, tagged aging, Brain, Mental health, Mitochondrion, Neuron, Oxygen, Reactive oxygen species, Superoxide, Superoxide dismutase on February 19, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
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 [...]
RARB says I was born when my late born striosomal cells were born
Posted in Basal Ganglia, RARB, Striatum, tagged Ann Graybiel, Basal Ganglia, Brain, Cognition, Development, Dopamine, Mental health, Neural network, Psychology, schizophrenia, self, self awareness, Striatum on February 5, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
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 [...]
Semaphorins integrate the sweetness and development of our cortical 6-layer cake
Posted in RLN, SEMA(1-7), tagged Brain, cerebral cortex, Circuitry, Cognition, Development, economics, Frontal lobe, Gene expression, Mental disorder, Mental health, Messenger RNA, neural migration, Neuron, Prefrontal cortex, schizophrenia, Stem cell, University of Pittsburgh on January 26, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
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 [...]
rs4680 helps me tonically ponder the Burger King menu and phasically choose the least healthy items
Posted in Cingulate cortex, COMT, Frontal cortex, Hippocampus, tagged Brain, Cognition, economics, Frontal lobe, Functional magnetic resonance imaging, Gene, Gene expression, Mental disorder, Mental health, Neural network, Neuron, Parkinson's disease on January 20, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
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, [...]
Suffocation and the developmental continuity between childhood separation and panic disorder
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Biology, Cognition, Development, DSM, Emotion, fear, Genetics, Mental disorder, Mental health, panic disorder, parental loss, separation anxiety disorder, Stress, Twin on January 11, 2010 | 1 Comment »
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 [...]
Thousands of genes together with thousands of resting-state nodes actually makes the genes-to-cognition problem LESS complex
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Biology, Brain, Cognition, connectome, default network, Development, DNA, Dopamine, Frontal lobe, Functional magnetic resonance imaging, Genetics, Memory, Mental health, Prefrontal cortex, Psychology, resting state network on January 7, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
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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