the soul disease

[davidivad]

one might wonder what the life of a schizophrenic is like. they come in all shapes, sizes, and types.

here is a comparison against other diseases reaching 2.2 million in the U.S. alone.

 

teens with the disease have a 50% mortality rate due mostly to suicide.

why might I ask?

 

imagine that everyone around you can hear your deepest thoughts.

imagine that voices inside your head lead your mind to bad places.

they are not real but yet they are undeniably there scoffing at your every thought.

the weather man on TV infers things to you as if it were a live one on one Skype.

your look of shyness amuses others around you giving credence to the lashings of the voices.

anti psychotics are given in hopes that at least one will show progress.

many make it worse.

imagine not being able to concentrate or sit down without immediately needing to stand up.

only constant movement soothes the problem slightly.

many of these drugs cause breasts to grow on males in some cases (what a bonus!)

in the end they all cause permanent brain damage.

 

we need funding here.

we are not even truly sure of its cause.

it costs too much to permanently house these individuals so we "rehabilitate them" for return to a competitive society where people cast them out and do not want to work with them.

we try cognitive therapy to teach them how to handle their symptoms but how effective can that be?

you may have a slight chance at getting them to ignore the voices but this does nothing to reform their perspective.

 

until better funding comes along to help understand the schizophrenic brain, the pharmaceutical companies have nothing more than a stab in the dark.

 

i present this article under psychology but would love to get input of the physicists and mathematicians to. in fact, anyone with an experience of or relating to this is par for the course

 

please give me a thumbs up if you thought the article was interesting.

[davidivad]

• Lionel Aldridge - professional football player^[1]
• Parveen Babi - Indian actress^[1]
• Syd Barrett - British musician, founding member of Pink Floyd^[1]
• Buddy Bolden - pioneering jazz musician^[2]
• Clara Bow - Hollywood flapper actress and "It Girl" of the 1920s^[3]
• Camille Claudel - French sculptor of the 19th century^[4]
• Philip K. Dick - American author ^[5]
• Eduard Einstein - son of Albert Einstein^[1]
• Will Elliott - Australian writer^[6]
• Roky Erickson -- rock musician, founder of The 13th Floor Elevators ^[7]
• Zelda Fitzgerald - wife of writer F. Scott Fitzgerald; writer, dancer and artist^[8]
• Vincent van Gogh - visual artist/painter (with schizophrenia and/or bipolar)^[9]
• Andy Goram - Scottish football/soccer player^[1]
• Jim Gordon - drummer and member of Derek and the Dominos^[9]
• Peter Green^[1]
• Darrell Hammond - comedian, actor on Saturday Night Live^[10]
• Tom Harrell - successful Jazz Musician^[1]
• John Hinckley, Jr., American failed assassin.^[11]
• Adèle Hugo - Daughter of French writer Victor Hugo; her story is told in the film The Story of Adele H.^[12]
• Daniel Johnston - musician ^[13]
• Veronica Lake - Hollywood actress of the 1940s^[14]
• Ash Lieb - Artist, comedian and writer^[15]
• Mary Todd Lincoln - Wife of Abraham Lincoln and First Lady of the United States^[16]
• Rufus May^[17]
• Joe Meek - pioneering English record producer and songwriter^[1]
• William Chester Minor - contributed to Oxford English dictionary^[7]
• Bob Mosley -- rock musician, member of Moby Grape ^[1]
• John Nash - economist/mathematician^[1]
• Vaslav Nijinsky - ballet dancer, choreographer^[1]
• John Ogdon - English pianist and composer^[18]
• Jeremy Oxley - Musician and member of Australian band the Sunnyboys.^[19]
• Katherine Routledge - British archaeologist^[20]
• Elyn Saks - law professor/schizophrenia writer/researcher^[21]
• Alexander "Skip" Spence - rock musician, cofounder of Moby Grape ^[1]
• Gene Tierney - American actress^[22]
• Louis Wain - artist^[23]
• Wesley Willis - Musician and artist.^[24]
• Brian Wilson - Musician and member of The Beach Boys^[9]

 

this disease hits between 1% to 3% of the population. it strikes the rich, the poor, the intellectuals; it is nondiscriminatory in every way.

you may end up with it at almost any age.

imagine spending years and thousands on college becoming the best of the best only to be dashed by schizophrenia.

[CharonY]

I am not sure what you try to discuss here. Schizophrenia (to my limited knowledge) is not a precise diagnosis but tends to be based on a number of symptoms. As such one can not easily compare incidence with other, much more narrowly defined health conditions.

It would be a bit to compare incidence of pain with hereditary diabetes.

 

It is very likely that there are very different mechanisms involved which makes it quite difficult to research. There are some advances and brain imaging technologies have found certain alterations that are quite often associated with schizophrenia. However there are quite differences between individuals and (again, to my knowledge) the relevance is not quite clear.

Creating useful treatments is even trickier, of course.

Edited April 3, 2014 by CharonY

[davidivad]

there is no doubt that precautions should be taken in the diagnosis of schizophrenia. bipolars often share some of the positive sympoms at times as well as some other diseases and conditions.however, proper diagnosis is achievable. it is a shame that so many people go for so long without a diagnosis. i would say that the vast majority are found after a psychotic episode.

 

you are right when you say that this disease is difficult to research. under an MRI, physical abnormalities in the folding of specific areas of the brain are often present and there is often enlargement of the ventricles and loss of grey matter. it is also said that the short term memory is affected (they have less RAM). some contributors believe there are genetic abnormalities which by themselves do little but when combined lay hand to the disease.

 

they need funding in several fields of research but the disease does not have enough public attention.

 

here is a link that shows how desperately we need better drugs.

akathisia is a common side-effect of anti-psychotics.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svoDpICEnsg

Edited April 3, 2014 by davidivad

[Dekan]

davidivad's posts keep referring to schizophrenia as a "disease" which needs to be treated by "drugs".

 

But is that really what it is. Perhaps it's just a different condition of the brain. Which mightn't necessarily be a bad thing.

 

For example, I have "Asperger's" syndrome. That causes some social inconveniences, such as shyness, Especially a reluctance to look strangers in the eye. That's why I welcomed the the introduction of "self-service" checkouts in supermarkets. They relieve you from confronting the human checkout person!

 

But my Asperger brain has provided a lifetime's pleasure in books, literature, history, language, and scientific interests, and puzzles like crosswords, sudoko and hanjie,, and computer programming, and loads of other subjects. I certainly don't regard my brain as "diseased". Rather, as an advance in human evolution..

 

Perhaps so-called "schizophrenia" is another advance. So mightn't calling it a "disease" and desperately seeking better drugs to cure or suppress it, be misguided.?

[CharonY]

I am not sure. How much funding does it receive? That being said, since we do not have a good grip on mechanism it could be a bit tricky to formulate a good research plan. At least compared to diseases where one can start with a strong hypothesis.

[Sato]

If it was such an advance I would suppose that we'd all be searching for autistic and schizophrenia-afflicted mates (maybe innately), but it seems that is, in fact, the antipode of the actual situation.

[davidivad]

davidivad's posts keep referring to schizophrenia as a "disease" which needs to be treated by "drugs".

 

But is that really what it is. Perhaps it's just a different condition of the brain. Which mightn't necessarily be a bad thing.

 

For example, I have "Asperger's" syndrome. That causes some social inconveniences, such as shyness, Especially a reluctance to look strangers in the eye. That's why I welcomed the the introduction of "self-service" checkouts in supermarkets. They relieve you from confronting the human checkout person!

 

But my Asperger brain has provided a lifetime's pleasure in books, literature, history, language, and scientific interests, and puzzles like crosswords, sudoko and hanjie,, and computer programming, and loads of other subjects. I certainly don't regard my brain as "diseased". Rather, as an advance in human evolution..

 

Perhaps so-called "schizophrenia" is another advance. So mightn't calling it a "disease" and desperately seeking better drugs to cure or suppress it, be misguided.?

 

you make a good point.

i apologize for my insensitivity.

 

perhaps a video would help you better understand the condition of the patient.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qb8wQjwVu2g

 

 

I am not sure. How much funding does it receive? That being said, since we do not have a good grip on mechanism it could be a bit tricky to formulate a good research plan. At least compared to diseases where one can start with a strong hypothesis.

 

you have to start somewhere. not funding something for research because you know little about it may very well be part of the problem. however, the ball must eventually start rolling if we are going to be able to afford the costs of this condition.

Edited April 3, 2014 by davidivad

[CharonY]

That may very well be the case. By my question still is: "is research in schizophrenia underfunded?". I.e. how much does it receive? A search in journal database shows 108126 papers in which "schizophrenia" is a keyword. "Alzheimer" yields 73332 papers (multiple sclerosis about 60k). These are only rough indicators but it shows that there is quite some active research going on.

As such I would think that the premise as presented in OP is quite flawed.

That being said, I do think that investment in mental health is important, but the amount of research clearly indicates that scientists are looking into it.

Edited April 4, 2014 by CharonY

[davidivad]

while your numbers on research papers seems high if you directly look at your numbers such a comparison can not be made due to the prevalence of the disease being twice as high.

 

 

 

according to NAMI

"The impact of underfunded research

However, research on serious mental illnesses remains markedly underfunded, when

you consider either its cost to society or the disability it causes. The World Bank, the World Health Organization, and the Harvard School of Public Health recently published an extensive study The Global Burden of Disease, which examined the impact of a wide range of disease on the loss of years of healthy life.

Several key findings deserve emphasis:

• The burden of psychiatric conditions has been heavily underestimated.

• Four of the top ten causes of disability in the world are mental illnesses (unipolar major depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and obsessive-compulsive disorders)
• Among women in developed countries aged 15-44, the leading causes of disease burden are: unipolar major depression, schizophrenia, road traffic accidents, bipolar disorder, and obsessive-compulsive disorder. Across all age groups worldwide, depression will produce the second largest disease burden in the year 2020."

http://www.nami.org/Template.cfm?Section=issue_spotlights&template=/ContentManagement/ContentDisplay.cfm&ContentID=8552

 

so you are right that they are starting to take things seriously, but there is a long road ahead.

Edited April 4, 2014 by davidivad

[CharonY]

 

so you are right that they are starting to take things seriously, but there is a long road ahead.

 

This is true for almost any ongoing research. Is mental health underfunded? Possibly. Much more goes into cancer than into mental health, I would guess (just looking at publication numbers, would need a split of the actual funding to be certain).

As I said above shizophrenia is a mix of conditions, whereas alzheimer's is a specific one, which is why I do not think it is a very good infographics.

The NIMH indicates a 12 month incidence of 1.1% of US adult population whereas dementia the prevalence is about 6%, for example. And due to the changes in demographics the latter is likely going to be a increasing issue.

[davidivad]

statistics can be quite confusing but it makes for a great tool. consider that if it wasn't this way nobody would ever get funding.which i feel may be the underlying argument here.

 

EVERYONE needs more funding.

 

I assume that you feel the same way?

[CharonY]

Sure, but that is not going to happen. There is always a finite amount of money and the need for distribution. And the latter should be based on facts as much as possible rather than cherry-picked data.

Obviously a big part of research is even worse off: fundamental research.

In these cases one does not directly take aim at diseases. However, many will argue that understanding biological fundamentals will be key to also understand effects of aberrations and diseases better. That, in turn can lead to be better treatments.

[davidivad]

now that you mention it, i am curios about the biological aspect of these things.

it is clear to me that when there is so much debate about the actual cause of such diseases we must be missing some underlying fundamental cause.

do you have any thoughts or ideas on the possible mechanism beyond mutations of various genes?

[CharonY]

This is far outside my area of expertise. In order to form an opinion on it I would have to seriously review the lit. Note that the genetic link that have been proposed are not due to mutations in genes per se. That would imply that there is an unmutated baseline and disease are caused by aberrations from that norm. That is of course not the case as all extant allele variations have arisen by mutation (and recombination) regardless of whether they are linked to diseases or not.

Most likely is that certain combinations are associated with a higher risk, but again, I would have to look into lit to see what the current consensus is.

[davidivad]

thank you,

i appreciate the clarification as i am not well versed on the topic of genetics.

 

so it is not that they are mutations as they are all mutations in that sense. it is possible however that certain combinations are associated with a higher risk.

this sounds about right from what i have "browsed" online.

i appreciate your time and comments on the topic.

 

if you find the time to contribute more, please fell free to do so. i will take all the information i can get.

especially from a fresh perspective of a biologist.

Edited April 6, 2014 by davidivad

[MathCat]

The sciences in general could use more funding. Perhaps the government could spare one less nuclear weapon in order to produce some much needed development in these areas.



My only quibble with OP's claims is that Schizophrenia disproportionately affects the impoverished and minorities instead of richer majorities. It's not equally distributed, at least in the United States.