Word: nimh
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Research into brain chemistry is progressing so quickly that doctors in the frustrating field of schizophrenia finally have reason to be optimistic. "We can do for schizophrenia what we've done for so many major illnesses," insists Dr. Samuel Keith, head of NIMH's National Schizophrenic Plan. "We can dissect and demystify it. Then we can defeat...
...Flynn family, in Alexandria, Va., had to pay an extra $6,000 in insurance to obtain coverage that allowed their daughter Shannon, 24, to use clozapine. Once seriously ill, the young woman has recovered sufficiently to graduate from Georgetown University and hold a part-time job at NIMH...
...There is an explosion of activity," says Richard Wyatt, chief of neuropsychiatry at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) in Bethesda, Md. With computerized scanners, researchers are peering at the chemistry of the working mind. Meanwhile, molecular biologists are beginning to map abnormal behavior to specific strands of dna. And by tracing the action of drugs like clozapine for schizophrenia and Prozac (fluoxetine) for depression, scientists can link moods and feelings to the action of certain chemicals in the brain. The result is a burst of new ideas about how the mind works -- and what is going on when...
...kindling effect"; it seems to carve a pathway in the brain that leaves 70% of its victims vulnerable to another attack. "While a psychosocial stress can be involved in the onset of the first episode, the triggering mechanism for subsequent depressions can be more autonomous," says Robert Post, the NIMH scientist who developed the kindling theory. "Once someone has a number of depressions, they are likely to happen on their...
...entire brain at once. Discovered in 1981 by researchers studying the biochemistry of stress, crh is known to promote vigilance and decrease interest in food and sex when administered in small doses. In higher doses, it triggers anxiety. When Philip Gold, chief of the clinical neuroendocrinology branch of the NIMH, began looking for the hormone in his depressed patients, he found it was not only elevated, but elevated all the time -- even during sleep. What looked like depression was really a state of hyper-arousal, a kind of permanent flight-or-fight response. "In melancholia," explains Gold, "CRH gets stuck...