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Schizophrenia: The new etiological synthesis

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Re: Schizophrenia: The new etiological synthesis

#11

Post by 0x4d464d48 »

Wonderful!

I've worked in the mental health field for years and when it comes to treating diseases like schiziphreina the go to model has been to give drugs to manage symptoms. There were a bunch of models for what _could_ be happening but there was no solid etiology for what is actually happening.

Gut inflamation along with a bunch of correlations with infections and autoimmune issues have been noted for years. Yet, there hasn't been a foundation setup to truly answer what _IS_ schizophrenia etiologically speaking.

Schiziphrenia is a heart-wrenching disease both for the people suffering from it and for their loved ones. Seeing papers like this give me tremendous hope.

:)

Re: Schizophrenia: The new etiological synthesis

#14

Post by 0x4d464d48 »

bitL wrote: post #6

Wasn't schizophrenia identified as basically off-by-one (multiple?) error of the deletion algorithm in the brain that is garbage collecting more (glial?) cells in a row than needed during teenage years? And "overclocking" glial cells by adding large quantities of Niacin/NAD+ partially alleviates those symptoms?

No.

Re: Schizophrenia: The new etiological synthesis

#15

Post by nine_k »

ipnon wrote: post #10

"Living in an urban environment during childhood or as an adult has consistently been found to increase the risk of schizophrenia by a factor of two."[0] While city life is as complex of a confounding factor as anything, the fact that they found hunter-gatherers have practically no incidence of SZR is interesting. Is the modern megalopolis simply too intense of a stimulus for the minds of the sensitive to handle with…

Does schizophrenia occur more often in people with certain genetic traits? Does the majority of people with such traits live in urban environments, e.g. in highly urbanized countries?

(No idea; just a hypothesis to test.)

Re: Schizophrenia: The new etiological synthesis

#16

Post by diyseguy »

ipnon wrote: post #10

"Living in an urban environment during childhood or as an adult has consistently been found to increase the risk of schizophrenia by a factor of two."[0] While city life is as complex of a confounding factor as anything, the fact that they found hunter-gatherers have practically no incidence of SZR is interesting. Is the modern megalopolis simply too intense of a stimulus for the minds of the sensitive to handle with…

Hunter gatherer societies no doubt considered them to be shamans or treated them with psychedelics

Re: Schizophrenia: The new etiological synthesis

#17

Post by WhackyIdeas »

Fascinating. I self-diagnosed myself with schizophrenia once. A horrible 6 months locked in an alien world where all I could think about was time and space (at about a million miles a second). I would hear chatter in my head and was convinced I was overhearing random conversations people were having and was even certain of the locations they were having these conversations. The idea that we all shared one consciousness and that time and space was an illusion would give me constant panic attacks every day. I would look at tv and faces would warp, become big and small. It was like living inside a nightmare.

But then I broke out of it in an instant 6 months later whilst I was trying to distract my thoughts by focusing on the shoes that peoples were wearing inside a busy train station - I started to find it amusing how silly people looked in certain styles etc. Who knows, I was out of my mind. What a feeling.

Re: Schizophrenia: The new etiological synthesis

#18

Post by berberous »

Dig1t wrote: post #13

> It is therefore possible that the behavioral changes induced by Toxoplasma in humans, including suicidality, are a part of its adaptations to increase the probability that our ancestors were eaten by lions or leopards What the what

I am skeptical that most suicidal people, who may idealize or even follow through on shooting or hanging themselves, would willingly let themselves be eaten by a lion. Fight or flight adrenaline in the face of big cats feels like a likely effective cure for suicidal ideation…

Re: Schizophrenia: The new etiological synthesis

#19

Post by jwilber »

If it’s the case that it’s driven by some organism/parasite/virus, it’s interesting that there’s a prevalence for certain age groups to get it over others (or rather, it is much more rare to get after certain ages). Maybe some combination of genetic factors or comorbidities at play as well.

Would love to learn more. Especially how this relates to other disorders eg OCD, bipolar disorder, etc.

Re: Schizophrenia: The new etiological synthesis

#20

Post by berberous »

oliveshell wrote: post #3

Okay, this is fascinating. The fact that “schizophrenia is rare or nonexistent in hunter-gatherer populations” is particularly interesting. I had no idea this was the case. Clearly there is much more research to be done, but I feel like the authors are on the right track here.

Similarly interesting:

“The striking difference was that while many of the African and Indian subjects registered predominantly positive experiences with their voices, not one American did. Rather, the U.S. subjects were more likely to report experiences as violent and hateful – and evidence of a sick condition.“

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