Word: schizophrenias
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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...
...year, clozapine still looms beyond the reach of most who need it. The stiff price has discouraged many state institutions and agencies, which are responsible for the care of the vast majority of American schizophrenia patients. While a few states have embraced the drug -- Minnesota, for example, has provided clozapine to 1,000 of its 4,300 eligible patients -- most have not made that commitment. California, for instance, with 60,000 potentially eligible patients, has treated only 1,300. Veterans hospitals, which treat as many as 9,000 eligible schizophrenia patients annually, have given clozapine to only...
Mental illness can wear many masks. Most are subtler than the deranged face of schizophrenia, but they can be just as paralyzing. Take the case of Dick Cavett. To many TV viewers, the talk-show host and actor seemed to have it all -- wit, charm, fame and fortune. But behind the glib facade, Cavett was falling apart. About 12 years ago, a chronic depression that had haunted him for years rose up and began undermining what he believed was his most valuable asset: his intellect. He became convinced that his brain was "broken" and that life without it was hardly...
That conviction reflects a growing consensus among scientists that dysfunctions like depression and schizophrenia -- and indeed most mental disorders -- are at their core disruptions of normal brain chemistry and can often be treated as such. The talk-therapy tradition pioneered by Freud and others still has its place. Subconscious issues are believed to affect brain chemistry, and most studies show that drug treatments work best when administered along with some form of talk therapy. But it is the psychopharmacologists, not the psychiatrists, who are making the breakthroughs in mental-health circles...
...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 it does not -- unequaled since the days of Freud and Jung...