medicalcondition:psychiatric disorders

  • Gene Editing for ‘Designer Babies’? Highly Unlikely, Scientists Say - The New York Times
    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/04/science/gene-editing-embryos-designer-babies.html

    Here is what science is highly unlikely to be able to do: genetically predestine a child’s Ivy League acceptance letter, front-load a kid with Stephen Colbert’s one-liners, or bake Beyonce’s vocal range into a baby.

    That’s because none of those talents arise from a single gene mutation, or even from an easily identifiable number of genes. Most human traits are nowhere near that simple.

    “Right now, we know nothing about genetic enhancement,” said Hank Greely, director of the Center for Law and the Biosciences at Stanford. “We’re never going to be able to say, honestly, ‘This embryo looks like a 1550 on the two-part SAT.’”

    Even with an apparently straightforward physical characteristic like height, genetic manipulation would be a tall order. Some scientists estimate height is influenced by as many as 93,000 genetic variations. A recent study identified 697 of them.

    Talents and traits aren’t the only thing that are genetically complex. So are most physical diseases and psychiatric disorders. The genetic message is not carried in a 140-character tweet — it resembles a shelf full of books with chapters, subsections and footnotes.

    So embryonic editing is unlikely to prevent most medical problems.

    But about 10,000 medical conditions are linked to specific mutations, including Huntington’s disease, cancers caused by BRCA genes, Tay-Sachs disease, cystic fibrosis, sickle cell anemia, and some cases of early-onset Alzheimer’s. Repairing the responsible mutations in theory could eradicate these diseases from the so-called germline, the genetic material passed from one generation to the next. No future family members would inherit them.

    A composite image showing the development of embryos after injection of a gene-correcting enzyme and sperm from a donor with a genetic mutation known to cause hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. Credit Oregon Health & Science University

    But testing editing approaches on each mutation will require scientists to find the right genetic signpost, often an RNA molecule, to guide the gene-snipping tool.

    #génomique #designer_baby #thérapeutique_génique #CRISPR

  • LSD Microdosing Is Trending in Silicon Valley, But Can It Actually Make You More Creative? | Alternet
    http://www.alternet.org/drugs/lsd-microdosing-trending-silicon-valley-can-make-more-creative

    Microdosing LSD also purportedly enhances overall well-being, helping to reduce stress and anxiety while improving sleep and leading to healthier habits. Although a widely reported phenomenon in the media, the lack of scientific studies on microdosing makes the prevalence near impossible to estimate. Reports suggest that what started off as an underground practice in Silicon Valley may be spreading rapidly to other workplaces.

    It is currently unknown how such low doses of psychedelics act in the brain to produce these intriguing self-reported effects on creativity. Like all classic hallucinogens, LSD produces its potent mind-altering effects primarily by mimicking the effects of the brain chemical serotonin, which regulates our mood. In particular, LSD activates 5-HT2A receptors in the pre-frontal cortex, which increases activity of the chemical glutamate in this region. Glutamate enables signals to be transmitted between nerve cells, and plays a role in learning and memory.

    In humans, two distinct effects of recreational doses of LSD have been reported. Initially, people experience psychedelic and positive feelings of euphoria. This may be followed by a later phase characterised by paranoia or even a psychotic-like state. LSD at low doses may produce mood elevation and creativity, mediated by the serotonin-mimicking effects. Actions on both glutamate and serotonin may also act to improve learning and cognitive flexibility, necessary for creativity, in the workplace. These findings could partly help to explain the microdosing phenomenon.

    Clinical research with psychedelics is currently undergoing a major revival after having been brought to a halt in the 1960s. One of the benefits of conducting research into psychedelics is their potential to help deepen our understanding of consciousness. In 2016, researchers from Imperial College London were the first to use brain scanning techniques to visualise how LSD alters the way the brain works. One key finding was that LSD had a disorganising influence on cortical activity, which permitted the brain to operate in a freer, less constrained manner than usual.

    In a small pilot study, LSD in combination with psychological therapy also led to a slight improvement in anxiety experienced by terminally ill cancer patients. Many of these psychiatric disorders are characterised by inflexible, habitual patterns of brain activity. By introducing a disordered state of mind, LSD and other psychedelics may help to break these inflexible patterns.

    In an increasingly competitive world it is tempting to find a quick fix to help us achieve more, better and faster. Yet, is this right? As a society we should consider the reasons as to why healthy people choose to use drugs in the first place. A reliance on cognitive-enhancing technologies to cope with demanding working conditions may ultimately reduce the health and well-being of individuals. So we must take care to ensure that enhancement is not seen as a substitute for a healthy working environment.

    It is therefore important that more research is done on the safety and efficacy of microdosing. In the meantime, physical exercise, education, social interaction, mindfulness and good quality sleep have all been shown to improve cognitive performance and overall well-being.

    #psychédéliques #LSD #études_médicales #santé_publique

  • Hidden: PsychiatrIc Hospitals

    "Between 1999 and 2002, I visited three psychiatric institutions while living and working in Kosova and Serbia on a long term project, Between The Lines, on the aftermath of the NATO conflict with Serbia. The work from the institutions, a story on it’s own, is also an integral part of this bigger narrative of conflict, division, difference and exclusion.
    Having spent four years teaching a photography class to people with psychiatric disorders in London prior to this, psychiatric institutions and patients were not alien to me and I was aware of the fluctuating behavioural patterns. What I found in Kosova and Serbia was a far cry form contemporary practice in London.

    When I first visited the institutions they were hidden from the gaze of the general public and came as a shock to Serbs when they were exposed. Money, during the years of the Milosevic regime had drained away, leaving filthy conditions, contagious diseases, lack of medical care and rehabilitation and a failure to provide oversight due to an unmotivated low paid staff struggling with their own economic difficulties.

    The worst aspect was the total lack of care and stimulation and the high number of people who should never have been in these places. People with physical disabilities, (the boy with no legs was a victim of a car accident and orphaned), downs syndrome, a high proportion of Roma or children whose misfortune was to have been born in the institutions. By living in this environment of deprivation, with little stimulation or compassion they start to display repetitive rocking behaviour and self-injury.

    By 2002, on my final visits, money had been raised in a public campaign of awareness in Serbia and with the help of a number of NGO’s conditions had improved. For me, after the initial shock at the conditions and total lack of care, it became clear that the patients from all ethnic backgrounds were able to display more community, affection and care with each other, than the sad situation that their “sane” countrymen were displaying to each other on the outside."


    http://www.georgegeorgiou.net/gallery.php?ProjectID=159

    #photographie #hôpitaux_psychiatriques #santé_mentale #psychiatrie #Serbie #Kosovo #George_Georgiou

    cc @albertocampiphoto

  • Sperm RNA carries marks of trauma
    http://www.nature.com/news/sperm-rna-carries-marks-of-trauma-1.15049

    Trauma is insidious. It not only increases a person’s risk for psychiatric disorders, but can also spill over into the next generation. People who were traumatized during the Khmer Rouge genocide in Cambodia tended to have children with depression and anxiety, for example, and children of Australian veterans of the Vietnam War have higher rates of suicide than the general population.

    Trauma’s impact comes partly from social factors, such as its influence on how parents interact with their children. But stress also leaves ‘epigenetic marks’ — chemical changes that affect how DNA is expressed without altering its sequence. A study published this week in Nature Neuroscience finds that stress in early life alters the production of small RNAs, called microRNAs, in the sperm of mice (K. Gapp et al. Nature Neurosci. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nn.3695; 2014). The mice show depressive behaviours that persist in their progeny, which also show glitches in metabolism.

    The study is notable for showing that sperm responds to the environment, says Stephen Krawetz, a geneticist at Wayne State University School of Medicine in Detroit, Michigan, who studies microRNAs in human sperm. (He was not involved in the latest study.) “Dad is having a much larger role in the whole process, rather than just delivering his genome and being done with it,” he says. He adds that this is one of a growing number of studies to show that subtle changes in sperm microRNAs “set the stage for a huge plethora of other effects”.

    #sperme #gènes #epigénétique #traumatismes #environnement