Tag: epidemiology of mental health

Are DNA Changes the Link Between Poverty and Mental Illness?

28
Researchers at Duke University who studiedĀ 183 adolescents forĀ three years found that increased depression associated with poverty may be mediated by epigeneticĀ changes in DNA. The...

Comments on Jeffrey Lieberman and Ogi Ogasā€™ Wall Street Journal Article...

71
The March 3rd, 2016 edition of the Wall Street Journal featured an article by past President of the American Psychiatric Association (APA) Jeffrey Lieberman and his colleague, computational neuroscientist Ogi Ogas. The article was entitled ā€œGenetics and Mental Illnessā€”Letā€™s Not Get Carried Away.ā€ In their piece, the authors started by expressing the belief that a recent study identified a gene that causes schizophrenia, and then discussed whether it is desirable or possible to remove allegedly pathological genes in the interest of creating a future ā€œmentally perfect society.ā€ The authors of the article, like many previous textbook authors, seem unfamiliar with the questionable ā€œevidenceā€ put forward by psychiatry as proof that its disorders are ā€œhighly heritableā€ In fact, DSM-5 Task Force Chair David Kupfer admitted that ā€œweā€™re still waitingā€ for the discovery of ā€œbiological and genetic markersā€ for psychiatric disorders.

Child Poverty Linked to Early Neurological Impairment

2
A new NIH-funded study suggests that children from low-income environments are more likely to have neurological impairments. The researchers claim that these neurodevelopmental issues are ā€œdistinct from the risk of cognitive and emotional delays known to accompany early-life poverty.ā€