Hmm. Hmmmmm. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm........
Okay, a word to both brain structured and the analytically structured:
Why is there interest in brain imaging mental illnesses in the first place? Why cant all mental illnesses be talked through? True, psychoanalytic theory isnt in vogue at the moment in general medical practice. Plain old talk therapy and CBT are. But talk therapy is still considered a medically viable way to confront mental illness. Why brain image the mentally ill if talk therapy seems to work? Good question. Glad you asked.
The brain isnt the only adaptive organ in the body. Probably the most adaptive to our behaviour, and by far the most regenerative, is the liver. People dont give it the credit it deserves. Everything you breathe, everything which touches your skin, everything which enters your gastrointestinal track, eventually goes through it. Hundreds of thousands of these chemicals are toxic to our bodies. Breakdowns of meat, vegetables, and air produce toxic substances. Its the liver which adapts to these things we take in, and produces a tailored antidote which neutralizes them, allowing our bodies to use them, or pass them from our system. And its regenerative. You can lose all but a tenth of your liver, and it will grow an entirely new organ from that. You lose liver cells all the time when you drink. Luckily, you regain them when you treat it well. In that way, its a little like the brain. And just like the brain, your behaviours can cause it to get sick. Sure, there are viruses like hepatitis C. But then there's diseases like alcoholism. What you put into your liver makes it sick. And there's diseases like porphyria. That can be tricky. Although the liver is adaptive - it isnt perfectly adaptive. Small toxic exposures can allow it to lose the ability to properly break down red blood cells, leaving the toxic porphyrins circulating in your system. So removing the exposure can correct the porphyria. But sometimes that doesnt even help - because the problem is genetic. Now I can look at the problem and say - You know what, you have an elevated Liver Function Test( what doctors call your LFTs). Your AST and ALT are high. If I'm of the alchoholism school of thought ( and an awful doctor) I'll tell the person that if they lay off of alcohol, they'll be fine. Which wont work very well when their liver fails from hepatitis C. Or I can be of the toxic porphyria school of liver disease thought. Your liver is inflammed? Well, just move out of your house. Your liver is adaptive and you'll be fine. Oops. It was the genetic variety. My patient is now in the ICU with paralysis and a sodium of 126 ml.
Brain SPECT studies and fMRIs popped up for a reason. Large tracts of mental illness were not responding to talk therapy. And there seemed to be no apparent reason why. The brain, like the liver adapts to behaviour, right? If alcoholics faced up to their past, wouldnt they be able to stop drinking? The answer of course, is no. The latest research indicates that alchoholics are missing a protein which the rest of us lucky folks have. Drinking alcohol seems to temporarlily fix the problems on their brain scans. Does this mean that talk therapy doesnt work at all? The answer to that, of course, is also no. Talk therapy has been shown to change the scans of many a depressed patient as well. So have meds. Prozac has increased the size of depressed patient's hippocampuses. So has biofeedback. What does this mean? It means that like all organs of the body, there are multiple diseases of the brain with multiple causes. Some of them you need a protein to fix. Some you need to take epilepsy medicine for. Some you need to change your envronment and the way you react to it. Is it worth it in any of these cases to have objective testing done to elucidiate causes and a cure? Yes, absolutely. If you have the means, by all means do. Once you have this information at your disposal, ask yourself if you feel this way because of, or in spite of your actions. If, in your heart of hearts, you know that your actions are bringing on your current emotional funk, take steps to change or talk about them. But if, in your heart of hearts, you know that these mood swings, the 2 dimensional vision, the visual distortion, happens in spite of your life, then you have to ask if the real hidden demons in your life arent your malfunctioning neurons. I dont need a brain scan to tell me that I feel mildly depressed because I've been housebound for most of a year. But I needed one to tell me why I was DPed. Its tough to tell, but science, and young doctors, are getting closer and closer to telling the difference between the causes of mental illness and leaving guesswork psychiatry behind for good. A word to those with actual CT or MRI scan abnormalities: the differences Janine and myself brought up are microscopic changes. You shouldnt see them on an MRI. If you have changes in brain size, lesions, etc...It usually infers a neurologic problem. Thats why you need a neuroligist to check out anything unusual. Yeah, the hippocampus loses cells when your depressed, but to get a change in ventricular size you have to lose a LOT of tissue. You cant think your brain into having a lesion or losing tissue. Anything psychological happens on a molecular or cellular level between the synapses.
Peace
Homeskooled
Okay, a word to both brain structured and the analytically structured:
Why is there interest in brain imaging mental illnesses in the first place? Why cant all mental illnesses be talked through? True, psychoanalytic theory isnt in vogue at the moment in general medical practice. Plain old talk therapy and CBT are. But talk therapy is still considered a medically viable way to confront mental illness. Why brain image the mentally ill if talk therapy seems to work? Good question. Glad you asked.
The brain isnt the only adaptive organ in the body. Probably the most adaptive to our behaviour, and by far the most regenerative, is the liver. People dont give it the credit it deserves. Everything you breathe, everything which touches your skin, everything which enters your gastrointestinal track, eventually goes through it. Hundreds of thousands of these chemicals are toxic to our bodies. Breakdowns of meat, vegetables, and air produce toxic substances. Its the liver which adapts to these things we take in, and produces a tailored antidote which neutralizes them, allowing our bodies to use them, or pass them from our system. And its regenerative. You can lose all but a tenth of your liver, and it will grow an entirely new organ from that. You lose liver cells all the time when you drink. Luckily, you regain them when you treat it well. In that way, its a little like the brain. And just like the brain, your behaviours can cause it to get sick. Sure, there are viruses like hepatitis C. But then there's diseases like alcoholism. What you put into your liver makes it sick. And there's diseases like porphyria. That can be tricky. Although the liver is adaptive - it isnt perfectly adaptive. Small toxic exposures can allow it to lose the ability to properly break down red blood cells, leaving the toxic porphyrins circulating in your system. So removing the exposure can correct the porphyria. But sometimes that doesnt even help - because the problem is genetic. Now I can look at the problem and say - You know what, you have an elevated Liver Function Test( what doctors call your LFTs). Your AST and ALT are high. If I'm of the alchoholism school of thought ( and an awful doctor) I'll tell the person that if they lay off of alcohol, they'll be fine. Which wont work very well when their liver fails from hepatitis C. Or I can be of the toxic porphyria school of liver disease thought. Your liver is inflammed? Well, just move out of your house. Your liver is adaptive and you'll be fine. Oops. It was the genetic variety. My patient is now in the ICU with paralysis and a sodium of 126 ml.
Brain SPECT studies and fMRIs popped up for a reason. Large tracts of mental illness were not responding to talk therapy. And there seemed to be no apparent reason why. The brain, like the liver adapts to behaviour, right? If alcoholics faced up to their past, wouldnt they be able to stop drinking? The answer of course, is no. The latest research indicates that alchoholics are missing a protein which the rest of us lucky folks have. Drinking alcohol seems to temporarlily fix the problems on their brain scans. Does this mean that talk therapy doesnt work at all? The answer to that, of course, is also no. Talk therapy has been shown to change the scans of many a depressed patient as well. So have meds. Prozac has increased the size of depressed patient's hippocampuses. So has biofeedback. What does this mean? It means that like all organs of the body, there are multiple diseases of the brain with multiple causes. Some of them you need a protein to fix. Some you need to take epilepsy medicine for. Some you need to change your envronment and the way you react to it. Is it worth it in any of these cases to have objective testing done to elucidiate causes and a cure? Yes, absolutely. If you have the means, by all means do. Once you have this information at your disposal, ask yourself if you feel this way because of, or in spite of your actions. If, in your heart of hearts, you know that your actions are bringing on your current emotional funk, take steps to change or talk about them. But if, in your heart of hearts, you know that these mood swings, the 2 dimensional vision, the visual distortion, happens in spite of your life, then you have to ask if the real hidden demons in your life arent your malfunctioning neurons. I dont need a brain scan to tell me that I feel mildly depressed because I've been housebound for most of a year. But I needed one to tell me why I was DPed. Its tough to tell, but science, and young doctors, are getting closer and closer to telling the difference between the causes of mental illness and leaving guesswork psychiatry behind for good. A word to those with actual CT or MRI scan abnormalities: the differences Janine and myself brought up are microscopic changes. You shouldnt see them on an MRI. If you have changes in brain size, lesions, etc...It usually infers a neurologic problem. Thats why you need a neuroligist to check out anything unusual. Yeah, the hippocampus loses cells when your depressed, but to get a change in ventricular size you have to lose a LOT of tissue. You cant think your brain into having a lesion or losing tissue. Anything psychological happens on a molecular or cellular level between the synapses.
Peace
Homeskooled
