Category: Mental Illness

Glutamate and Schizophrenia

The NY Times has an article, Daring to Think Differently about Schizophrenia, about research on glutamate, schizophrenia, and drug development.  In addiction research, there is also increasing consideration of the role of glutamate, moving beyond the dopamine-centered models.  Glutamate-targeted drugs “might help to treat the cognitive and negative symptoms of schizophrenia. Drugs currently on the market do little to treat those symptoms.”  Here are some early quotes from the article:

“Dr. Schoepp and other scientists had focused their attention on the way that glutamate, a powerful neurotransmitter, tied together the brain’s most complex circuits. Every other schizophrenia drug now on the market aims at a different neurotransmitter, dopamine.”

“Glutamate is a pivotal transmitter in the brain, the crucial link in circuits involved in memory, learning and perception. Too much glutamate leads to seizures and the death of brain cells. Excessive glutamate release is also one of the main reasons that people have brain damage after strokes. Too little glutamate can cause psychosis, coma and death.  ‘The main thoroughfare of communication in the brain is glutamate,’ says Dr. John Krystal, a psychiatry professor at Yale and a research scientist with the VA Connecticut Health Care System.”

Pattern #2

The current issue of Harvard Magazine has a cover article on autism.  In reading through the piece, I was struck by this one line about Asperger’s syndrome: “they shared key impairments in social interaction, reciprocal communication, and imagination (i.e., repetitive behaviors and interests).”  It many ways this description struck me as presenting a similar dichotomy to addiction, where the repetitive behaviors and interests are linked diagnostically with failed social roles, family difficulties and “denial” in communication. 

I am not saying that addiction and autism are the same, or that biologically or phenomenology they come from similar causes or problems.  But I do wonder if the rush to focus in on singular brain circuits leads us to overlook the human dimensions of imagination, sociality, and behavior.  These abilities and practices are linked in profound ways in everyday life, and thus will drive biology in profound ways. 

Sandy G, who linked to us (thanks!) through his post on The Rat Park, has several posts on autism.  In one on joint attention, he relates Tomasello’s recent work: “The authors concluded that, at least at this developmental period, children with autism seem to understand the social components of situations that call for “helping” behaviors and engage in helping behaviors, but only when such help does not require interpersonal cooperation. However, when cooperation is required to complete the task, these children are less likely to correctly engage with another partner, possibly because the unique “shared” component of cooperation. That is, cooperation requires shared goals, shared attention, and a shared plan of action, processes that seem to be affected in children with autism.” 
Continue reading “Pattern #2”

Denial

Today I will lecture to my students in my Alcohol and Drugs class on denial.  We had a provocative discussion of the topic last Thursday, building off our reading of the wonderful and powerful memoir Drinking: A Love Story by Caroline Knapp. 

A group of students opened last Thursday’s class with a presentation that framed denial in the two ways it is generally discussed in addiction (in the US).  As I wrote to this group to help in preparing their presentation, “There is a basic debate in the addictions field (particularly alcoholism) on the role and importance of denial in addiction and recovery.  On the one side, denial is seen as a defining feature of addiction and breaking through denial as a core component of successful recovery.  On the other side, denial is seen as a marginal feature of addiction, likely the result of some other internal problem or even of social relations.  In this approach, attacking denial can backfire, causing anger in the substance abuser while not addressing either addiction itself or the promotion of therapeutic change.” 

After the students gave their presentation, I wanted to encourage class discussion, and used a technique I often employ, getting them to reflect on their own everyday lives and what that can tell us about ourselves.  I asked the class to write down an example of someone they knew “in denial,” and then give their gut reaction about why they think that person reacted that way.  In other words, I wanted some ethnographic data and some culturally-framed “explanations” to generate discussion.  It worked. 
Continue reading “Denial”

Autism and Mirror Neurons

Autism has been my latest lens for learning about neuroanthropology. It started with reading claims that autism is linked to mirror neuron disfunction. Mirror neurons are currently used to explain how the brain understands the intentions and emotions of others. Researchers suggest that lack of brain activity in mirroring areas of the brain found in autistic children could explain deficits in social interaction and empathy. A related article on the site links the mirror system to the study of culture: Culture Influences Brain Cells: Brain’s Mirror Neurons Swayed By Ethnicity And Culture. A study compared reactions of subjects to both American and Nicaraguan hand gestures, measuring differences in mirror neuron activity in the brain depending on who was giving the information and whether they were a member of their own ethnic group or a different group.

“We believe these are some of the first data to show neurobiological responses to culture-specific stimuli,” said Molnar-Szakacs. “Our data show that both ethnicity and culture interact to influence activity in the brain, specifically within the mirror neuron network involved in social communication and interaction… An important conclusion from these results is that culture has a measurable influence on our brain and, as a result, our behavior. ” “We are the heirs of communal but local traditions,” said Iacoboni. “Mirror neurons are the brain cells that help us in shaping our own culture. However, the neural mechanisms of mirroring that shape our assimilation of local traditions could also reveal other cultures, as long as such cross-cultural encounters are truly possible. All in all, our research suggests that with mirror neurons our brain mirrors people, not simply actions.”

I’m still trying to wrap my mind around this article—it seems as if it would be a given that culture impacts behavior so am not sure if they discovered something new so much as found a more scientific way of measuring it. Could this possibly be a tool that would indicate whether someone would suffer from culture shock? And linking it back to the first article, would this imply that autistic people would have equal trouble picking up on social cues regardless of who they are with while for others it would depend on whether they share the same cultural background?

Autism, Depression and The Body

Blogging on Peer-Reviewed ResearchMental disorders such as depression and autism are generally viewed in one of two lights, either as something neurological or something psychological.  Cultural anthropology obviously has greater affiliation with the psychological side, and biological anthropology with the neurological.  The same split is true in psychiatry, ably demonstrated by Tanya Luhrmann’s Of Two Minds, which, to radically simplify, describes the fight between talk-therapists and pharmaceutical-dispensers.  (Still, at least this anthropologist wishes Luhrmann had gone beyond ethnographic description of fields to tackle the same problem that both anthropology and psychiatry embody—bridging the nature/nurture or biology/culture split.)

 But is this way of dividing things, an enculturated mind versus an epigenetic brain, an accurate description?  Recent research suggests no. 

Continue reading “Autism, Depression and The Body”

Repressed Memory

Blogging on Peer-Reviewed ResearchIn the January-February issue of Harvard Magazine, there is a short piece on “Repressed Memory: A Cultural Symptom?”  The basic point: some “neurological” symptoms are cultural.  Harrison Pope, co-director of the Biological Psychiatry Lab at McLean Hospital, posted a $1000 bet that no one could identify a “case of dissociative amnesia in any work of fiction or nonfiction prior to 1800.”  The exception was found—a 1786 opera—and the $1000 dolled out.  But that only helped prove the researchers’ premise: unlike some other neurological phenomena, repressed memory appears to be a culture-bound syndrome.  (What’s also impressive is that these are hard-core neuroscientists arguing for this…)

 For example, accounts of hallucinations and depression appear in the world’s literature for hundreds of years.  But the development of amnesia after a serious traumatic event, such as being raped or witnessing the death of a friend, appears to be a phenomena developed initially in modern Western culture and then imposed on the brain.    Continue reading “Repressed Memory”