Word: affective
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...HORIZON Researchers are exploring two related molecules, gaba and glutamate, that are responsible for 90% of chemical signaling in the brain. Because they control so much of the brain's activity, the trick is to fine-tune their levels in ways that relieve depression but don't affect other brain functions. Other targets of drug development: the sex hormone testosterone (a transdermal patch proved effective in a recent clinical trial for men); the stress hormone cortisol, which researchers are trying to regulate with the abortion drug RU 486 and compounds called CRF antagonists; the dynorphins (the evil twins of feel...
Precisely how these powerful chemicals affect the course of heart disease, cancer and other illnesses isn't well understood yet, but preliminary research has yielded some tantalizing clues. When serotonin circulates in the bloodstream, for example, it appears to make platelets less sticky and thus less likely to clump together in artery-blocking blood clots. For years, heart-attack survivors have been advised to take a children's aspirin daily for clot prevention; such drugs as Prozac, which keep serotonin in circulation, seem to have a similar effect...
That could explain why drugs that improve serotonin chemistry don't always work on depression--and why Parkinson's and depression can feed on each another. Epilepsy, stroke and Alzheimer's, which, like Parkinson's, involve physical alteration of the brain, probably also affect that organ's ability to make or process neurotransmitters--not only serotonin and dopamine but also glutamate and norepinephrine, all of which may be involved in different forms of depression...
...else. Not only is the mind like the rest of the body, but the well-being of one is intimately intertwined with that of the other. This makes sense because they share the same systems--nervous, circulatory, endocrine and immune. What happens in the pancreas or liver can directly affect brain function. Disorders of the brain, conversely, can send out biochemical shock waves that disturb the rest of the body. The pages that follow, our annual special report on health, take you to the cutting edge of mind-body research, where scientists, having left Descartes's great mistake far behind...
Readers of the science pages could be forgiven for thinking that the conversation in the cartoon on the opposite page really took place. Study after study has shown that genes can affect behavior and mental life. Identical twins separated at birth (who share their genes but not their environment) are similar in their intellectual talents, their personality traits (such as introversion, conscientiousness and antagonism), their average level of lifelong happiness and such personal quirks as giggling incessantly or flushing the toilet both before and after using it. Identical twins (who share all their genes) are more similar than fraternal twins...