Schizophrenia, a term coined in 1908 by Eugen Bleuler, is one of the most difficult mental illnesses to treat. Rates of recovery today are no better than they were 100 years ago. Antipsychotics, which target dopamine receptors in the brain, are the most common model of treatment, though the side effects can be crippling and permanent, and may even worsen the symptoms and prevent recovery. Part of the problem is that schizophrenia as biomedical concept has not been validated. Research has shown that people with schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorders tend to have abnormalities in the metabolism of tetrahydrobiopterin, dopamine, and glutamate, but how these abnormalities might cause the symptoms of schizophrenia is not understood. The illness has been shown to run in families, but specific genes have not yet been identified.
Some doctors are trying alternatives to drugs, like cognitive behavioral therapy, a kind of talk therapy that involves actively reorienting one’s thought patterns. It has been used to treat depression for over a decade, but some research suggests it may also be effective at treating schizophrenia.
Some believe schizophrenics are better off learning to cope with their voices, including journalist Robert Whitaker, who writes about it at his website Mad in America. In fact, studies have shown that schizophrenics in developing countries, where antipsychotics are less widely available, have better rates of long-term recovery than those in developed nations.
In this blog, I plan to cover new developments and research on schizophrenia treatment, and the drug companies, scientists and doctors behind them. I also plan to look at the phenomenon of auditory hallucinations, the hunt for the “missing heritability” of the condition and the way the illness is presented in the media.
A number of smart neuroscience blogs have addressed these topics from one angle or another, including Neuroskeptic (unnamed but widely cited UK neuroscientist), Reasonable Excuse (Andy Balmer), Thoughts on Thoughts (Janet Kwasniak on consciousness), Wiring the Brain (neurogeneticist Kevin Mitchell), the NeuroCritic (unnamed blogger, widely linked), Neurotribes (Steve Silberman), Neuron Culture (journalist David Dobbs), The Loom (Carl Zimmer), and Mind Hacks (Vaughan Bell, who writes about psychiatry and post-traumatic stress disorder). Most of these writers are also on Twitter.
There is also a blog put together by Hearing the Voice, an interdisciplinary project led by researchers at Durham University in the UK. The project aims to “help us better understand the phenomenon of hearing a voice no one else can hear (a phenomenon also referred to as auditory verbal hallucinations), its cognitive-neuroscientific mechanisms, its social, cultural and historical significance, and its therapeutic management.”
This is such a great list of cognitively oriented blogs – bookmarked.
I’m interested in the rise of hallucinogenics as a treatment source; isn’t this more like a circle? At least in the US a lot of commercial production of LSD, opiates etc. began for medicinal purposes. I’m kind of intrigued as to the lineage of this shift back. (Emphatically NOT a paradigm shift..)
Whilst I am fully supportive of MAPS and its objectives in bringing Psychedelics back into the fold should we say, or laying them open for serious study for mental health benefits purposes, I don’t think we should forget the fact why we are so enthusiastic about them after all these years. We ought to be fully truthful and admit that we still think mankind as a whole would benefit from having a psychedelic experience. Aldous Huxleys and many great thinkers of his time who took LSD left a legacy and message that seems to have been ignored, or do you think that the thin end of the wedge approach is the only way. I am at the end of my fifities and still feel that we have a lot to learn from the psychonauts who have continued to explore, despite prohibition, and who are not raving loonies with crystal worshipping tendencies (no offence meant to you lot, if it helps you, then go for it!). Dr Hofmann said ”die Welt ist verzaubert in grundegenommen”, that is ”the world is basically magical”, let’s not lose fact of its wonder !
It is basically time for all those perfectly well functioning (maybe a bit better than !) to stand up, open their mouth and tell their friends about the wonderful glimpse of their nature they gleaned through their experiences. Quit the pussyfooting speak up, as it is said, ”better to die on your feet than to live on your knees”, mankind needs to evolve, the sooner the better !