Category: schizophrenia

A Dearth of New Medications for Neuropsychiatric Disease on the Horizon

On By A.P.In Alzheimer's disease, autism, Dementia, Depression, Drugs, Medicine, Neuropsychiatric Disease, Parkinson's disease, Psychosis, PTSD, schizophrenia, seasonal affective disorder1 Comment

 

Neuropsychiatric diseases like schizophrenia, depression, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease and more cost billions per year and account for 13% of the global burden of disease (a measure of years of life lost due to premature mortality and living in a state less than full health), according to the World Health Organization.

However, pharmaceutical companies have decided that generating new drugs to treat these disorders are simply too costly to pursue, and are pulling the plug on research and development in this area.

Read more here:  http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=a-dearth-of-new-meds

What’s Happening to the Scientific Method?

On By A.P.In Alzheimer's disease, Depression, Health, Medicine, Neuropsychiatric Disease, schizophrenia, ScienceLeave a comment

All sorts of well-established, repeatedly-confirmed findings have started to look increasingly uncertain in a wide range of scientific fields, from psychology to ecology.  This phenomenon is particularly widespread in the field of medicine. 
To read more about this, click on this article by Jonathan Lehrer in the The New Yorker:

Mental Illness and the Sun

On By A.P.In Depression, Health, Neuropsychiatric Disease, schizophrenia, Science, seasonal affective disorder, The Brain1 Comment

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It’s been known for a long time that winter-born babies are more likely to develop severe mental illness, including schizophrenia, depression and seasonal affective disorder.  Researchers at Vanderbilt and the University of Alabama may have identified clues as to how seasonal sunlight exposure could affect expression of clock genes that control our normal biological rhythms.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=blame-it-on-winter