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Post by The Great Aztec Joe on Aug 7, 2010 16:07:42 GMT -8
BALTIMORE -- Johns Hopkins University scientists trying to determine why people develop serious mental illness are focusing on an unlikely factor: a common parasite spread by cats. The researchers say the microbes, called Toxoplasma gondii, invade the human brain and appear to upset its chemistry - creating, in some people, the psychotic behaviors recognized as schizophrenia. If tackling the parasite can help solve the mystery of schizophrenia, "it's a pretty good opportunity ... to relieve a pretty large burden of disease," said Dr. Robert H. Yolken, director of developmental neurobiology at the Johns Hopkins Children's Center. poststar.com/news/local/article_00a51042-a1d0-11df-882e-001cc4c002e0.htmlIt is a most interesting read. |
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Post by monty on Aug 8, 2010 6:47:31 GMT -8
Thanks for the link Joe, it might be a factor or a cause of certain situations, but genes, environment and more and more something like Meth (which might merely mimic the effects) seem to be the cause.
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Post by The Great Aztec Joe on Aug 8, 2010 8:37:06 GMT -8
Thanks for the link Joe, it might be a factor or a cause of certain situations, but genes, environment and more and more something like Meth (which might merely mimic the effects) seem to be the cause. I have known several families that had multiple generation history of mental illness. In almost all cases it was Simple Paranoid Schizophrenia. For the longest time I was convinced that it was an inherited trait. In the past few years I have read articles that say the genes that they suspect are related to SPS are not consistent. Some have them and are perfectly sane and others have them and are quite off balance. There does appear to be some correlation, though. So now, the question is, "Does the presence of the gene indicate that the SPS person is susceptible to an additional influence that causes that person when exposed to develop SPS?" If that is plausible, then could that additional influence be a virus? In other words, you do not inherit the illness, but you inherit the susceptibility to the damage the virus can bring if it gets inside of your body. An inverse type of susceptibility is noted for Flu in humans. Approximately one third of humans do not get sick from flu viruses. They appear to be immune to the flu. We do not know what the DNA is for that either, only that we all wish we had it. |
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Post by monty on Aug 9, 2010 20:35:31 GMT -8
It could, of course, and any research into mental illness is needed. But, they really don't even know why the old school drugs work not to mention the newer a-typicals like clozaril. They don't fully understand what the drug is doing to decrease the psychosis, so I think it is much more likely that this is a false corollary and the product of a small sample size, experimental error, human observation creating the results.
Foucault is one of my favorite thinkers for not only the way he researches a topic but the way he approaches it. In his Madness and Civilization he traces the rise of the Hopital in France to the diminishing of the Leoparcy epidemic, not in that one wrought one, but that one replaced the other in terms of what groups of people should be cordoned off from society. The underlying thesis is: what a society determines needs to be kept away, to be quarantined, to be locked up tells us the most about that society: the quest for rationality of the late modern period has led to the mentally ill not merely being amusement or put in a ship of fools and toured throughout europe from port to port for a time, but them being locked away.
It is an act of Bad Faith that we have neglected knowing what really is happening in Mental Illness or even taking the old hands off of the pre-modern times, we are in an active turning away from it lest it affect us. Even the difference in the past century from the sort of dumb-ox, noble-savage type view of something like in steinbeck to the rigid institution of Keasey.
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Post by The Great Aztec Joe on Aug 10, 2010 6:40:32 GMT -8
It could, of course, and any research into mental illness is needed. But, they really don't even know why the old school drugs work not to mention the newer a-typicals like clozaril. They don't fully understand what the drug is doing to decrease the psychosis, so I think it is much more likely that this is a false corollary and the product of a small sample size, experimental error, human observation creating the results. Foucault is one of my favorite thinkers for not only the way he researches a topic but the way he approaches it. In his Madness and Civilization he traces the rise of the Hopital in France to the diminishing of the Leoparcy epidemic, not in that one wrought one, but that one replaced the other in terms of what groups of people should be cordoned off from society. The underlying thesis is: what a society determines needs to be kept away, to be quarantined, to be locked up tells us the most about that society: the quest for rationality of the late modern period has led to the mentally ill not merely being amusement or put in a ship of fools and toured throughout europe from port to port for a time, but them being locked away. It is an act of Bad Faith that we have neglected knowing what really is happening in Mental Illness or even taking the old hands off of the pre-modern times, we are in an active turning away from it lest it affect us. Even the difference in the past century from the sort of dumb-ox, noble-savage type view of something like in steinbeck to the rigid institution of Keasey. The most sad thing is that there is no continuity of care for the mentally ill from State to State. Here in California most of the seriously mentally ill are allowed to wander the streets as a legacy of the Reagan years. That is a disgrace! Back in the heavily Germanic Midwestern states there is a far higher percentage of mentally ill who are cared for in the states. Further East there are more modern approaches to care being practiced in some states, but not all. New York and New Jersey hope that they will wander to other states for care. In the past few years the quality of care has suffered do to budget cuts. Usually after recessions, cut funds are not readily restored to mental health programs. Friends of political friends are usually served first. |
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Post by Deleted on Aug 10, 2010 13:25:27 GMT -8
The most sad thing is that there is no continuity of care for the mentally ill from State to State. Here in California most of the seriously mentally ill are allowed to wander the streets as a legacy of the Reagan years. That is a disgrace! Far be it from me to worry about defending Reagan but to be fair, all he did was sign a bill placed on his desk. As I understand it, the prime proponent of the bill was Nicholas Petris, a Democrat. I think the Lanterman-Petris-Short Act was necessary and well meaning but should have been amended years ago to liberalize the circumstances under which people can be committed to a psychiatric facility involuntarily. As you say, Joe, it's my understanding that authorities have to find them to be an "immediate" threat to themselves or others. That qualifier should be amended out of the statute. |
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Post by monty on Aug 10, 2010 14:27:08 GMT -8
The most sad thing is that there is no continuity of care for the mentally ill from State to State. Here in California most of the seriously mentally ill are allowed to wander the streets as a legacy of the Reagan years. That is a disgrace! Far be it from me to worry about defending Reagan but to be fair, all he did was sign a bill placed on his desk. As I understand it, the prime proponent of the bill was Nicholas Petris, a Democrat. I think the Lanterman-Petris-Short Act was necessary and well meaning but should have been amended years ago to liberalize the circumstances under which people can be committed to a psychiatric facility involuntarily. As you say, Joe, it's my understanding that authorities have to find them to be an "immediate" threat to themselves or others. That qualifier should be amended out of the statute. Having worked extensively under and with LPS conserverterorship, I think it is well meaning and effective in retaining rights for the mentally ill, the problem comes with funding, we'd often ship off to a place with no care far to early and san diego county has about 12 beds in state hospitals. So the problem, as I saw it, wasn't LPS and the ability to hospitilize it was the ability to treat people after hospitlization or long-term hospitiliaze the chronic, unable to care for themselves types. |
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