Health - A Cure For Schizophrenia?

Auntie Beeb airs a report from Lancet that identifies the gene responsible for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

Dr Sabine Bahn, who led the research, published in The Lancet, said: "We believe that our results provide strong evidence for oligodendrocyte and myelin dysfunction in schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

"The high degree of correlation between the expression changes in schizophrenia and bipolar disorder provide compelling evidence for common pathophysiological pathways that may govern the disease phenotypes of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder."

Writing in the journal, Dr Kenneth Davis of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, USA, said: "The observation that at least some myelin-related gene- expression deficits are common between individuals with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder is intriguing because schizophrenia and bipolar disorder have different symptom profiles and require treatment based on quite different neurotransmitter systems."

From cause to cure, I'm sure will take some time, but at least there's hope. We've gone from beating the devils out of the mentally ill and subjecting them to horrendous torture to lobotomy, shock therapy, ice baths, insulin shock, to drugs that render them passive (chemical lobotomy), and now to this. Someday soon, we'll be able to help people who are mentally ill, instead of consigning them to the scrap heap for the course of their natural lives.

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