Fascinating Articles About Mental Illness With Misleading Titles

July 12, 2014 4:45 PM

MIT Technology Review summarizes new directions in medical research, while a Pacific Standard writer experiments with Botox to treat depression.
posted by StrikeTheViol (4 comments total)

I'm still working my way through the first article, but this is fascinating. And as someone who has a family member with schizophrenia, this is relevant to my interests. Thanks for posting!
posted by MexicanYenta at 6:12 AM on July 13, 2014 [1 favorite]

"The conventional approach to discovering drugs for diseases with a strong genetic component is to identify the gene causing or playing a prominent role in the illness, and then test compounds against the protein it codes for. That approach is not likely to work for most psychiatric illnesses, given that they are caused by combinations of so many genetic variants."

To a neophyte of medicine, this statement sounds very interesting--interpreting the rules versus the network generated by the rules involve different orders of complexity.
posted by xtian at 8:21 AM on July 13, 2014

CAMH is currently doing a lot of research investigating the genetic effects on efficacy of various medications, to try and tailor treatment much more tightly to each individual.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 9:40 AM on July 13, 2014

Botox to treat depression? Then Kim Kardashian is the happiest girl on the planet.
posted by stormpooper at 7:24 AM on July 14, 2014