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When "Mental" Illness Isn't

N

natasa778

Senior Member
Messages
1,774
Nice blog by a neuroscientist :)

http://neuroskeptic.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/when-mental-illness-isnt.html

... It turned out the guy had autoimmune encephalitis: his body was generating antibodies that blocked the brain's key NMDA receptors; the drug ketamine does that too. Treatment with immunosuppressant drugs was started and he recovered fairly quickly. For a first-hand account of the disease, in which it was also diagnosed as a psychiatric disorder initially, see the recent book Brain On Fire.

Now, let's imagine that this had happened in 1960. What would the guy's story have been then?

He'd have been seen by a psychiatrist and diagnosed with bipolar, just as he was today. Depending on how severe the depression was, and whether or not he had any more episodes, he might well have ended up in a psychiatric hospital.

But he probably wouldn't have been diagnosed with a neurological disorder. He'd have tested negative for all the neurological diseases known at the time. No-one tested for NMDA antibodies back then, because NMDA receptors weren't even discovered until 1981. ...
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as Szasz said, if all mental diseases were shown to have a biological cause then psychiatry would cease to exist. When behavioural symptoms are shown to have a physical cause then the treatment is moved to a scientific medical discipline.
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