I just read an interesting editorial in the current issue of The American Journal of Psychiatry on schizophrenia.  In particular this paragraph intrigued me: “What causes schizophrenia? The short answer may be “nothing” or more precisely “no one thing.” In most cases, schizophrenia is an end result of a complex interaction between thousands of genes...Read More

International studies conducted by the World Health Organization over the past three decades, have concluded that people with schizophrenia fare better over time in developing countries compared with industrialized nations.  In the current issue of The New York Times Magazine, writer Ethan Watters has an article entitled The Americanization of Mental Illness, wherein he provides some interesting...Read More

In response to news reports that it may be possible in the future to “cure” Down syndrome by intervening early in development using psychoactive medication, Jenn Power, the mother of identical twins with Down syndrome, responded on the blog Contrarian: “As you know, I have many years of history supporting people with intellectual disabilities. Through...Read More

Since 2006, Walter Reed Medical Center has been treating soldiers diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) using a healing practice employed in ancient India:  yoga.  Consisting of a series of physical postures, breathing techniques, and relaxation strategies, yoga is seen as instrumental in helping to calm down the autonomic nervous system, or “fight or flight” brain, that has been...Read More

Researchers at Stanford Medical School have demonstrated that children of bipolar parents score higher on a non-verbal creativity test than children of “healthy” parents.  The study compared creativity scores of 40 bipolar parents and 40 offspring (half of whom had bipolar disorder and the other half of whom had ADHD), with 18 healthy adults and 18 healthy...Read More