Mental Disease

   Neuropsychology of Mental Diseases

Skyler McKinney

For years mental diseases have infested the minds of people. Diseases such as schizophrenia, ADD or ADHD, bipolar disorder, multiple personality disorder and so on the list goes. One thing each of these diseases has in common in activity spreading across the brain. Certain parts of the brain are too high in activity and others are too low, depending on where the brain is faulted is where the different illness’ originate from.

There are 6 different parts of the brain. The temporal lobe, the prefrontal cortex, the frontal lobe, the motor cortex, the somatosensory cortex, the parietal lobe, the occipital lobe, and the cerebrum.  Each controls different bodily functions.

Unfortunately science cannot just magically fix the brain and make it work, therefore mental illness’ are usually permanent. However new studies on the prefrontal cortex reveal untold science and could lead to breakthrough discoveries. This is my theory on how developing a new medicine could overtime lead to a cure for mental diseases.

Above is a comparison of a normal brain to the brain of a schizophrenic patient. As you can see, the activity is extremely different. The prefrontal cortex and frontal lobe are in an extreme lack of activity. The prefrontal cortex and frontal lobe are responsible for hormones, chemicals, the ability to mature and the mental perspective of a person. The back part of the brain is vividly chaotic with activity. This would mean the parietal lobe, occipital lobe, and cerebrum are mutated. This area of the brain is mainly responsible for vision,  hearing, and this  part of the brain where most strong emotions source from. This explains why a schizo would have constant auditory and visual hallucinations. Some of which they conduct serious emotional attachment to. It also explains why they seem to be unable to mature and learn.

History of Treatment on Mental Patients. There is no known cure for most mental diseases. In the early 1820’s to as recent as the 1960’s, victims of severe mental illness were often locked up in mental hospitals, such as insane asylums or psych wards. Most of these units mostly consisted of an over population where the patients always outnumbered the staff, leading to extreme neglect of patients forced to live there.  Treatment inflicted on the patients were often cruel, crazy, and inhumane. Practices such as a shock chair, where the patient would be strapped down to a chair and shocked with high burst of electricity that produced extreme pain. This practice was done in an attempted to “shock the crazy out”. When patients would act out, attempt to escape or have a fit, staff would use restraining straightjackets to keep them “under control”. But if often made it worse, which is reasonable because not being able to move your arms and control your body creates a panic. Patients would be tied down to metal beds and be left for hours there. Sometimes tied to beds of ice for days. Then, mental illness wasn’t treated as a medical problem but instead victims were treated as humans of lesser importance. Now, society has advanced and new studies are revealing new ways to try and cure victims. In a logical, humane, cruelty free way.

Above shows a brain scan of a person through the years. The blue indicates grey matter loss and shows the development of maturity.  Below shows another picture of a child and a teen.

I wanted to focus on the activity change. As you can see, the prefrontal cortex develops slowly over the years, very slowly gaining partial control over chemicals and hormones. The chaotic chemical stress the brain is under during adolescent years is extremely dramatic. Over time, the person will gain more mental maturity from not just common sense but from the prefrontal cortex developing more and filtering more of the hormones and chemicals that release to feel emotion.

The Main Idea. If you’ll notice, the schizophrenic brain shows similarity to that of a childs and young adolescence in the prefrontal cortex. However the schizophrenics may not develop like normal. Artificial hormones and meds to help control the hallucinations also may prohibit the brain to grow as it should. Below is the beginning to an article about Tryptophan.

“Tryptophan is an indole-based, essential amino acid which is unique in its light-absorbing properties. In plants, tryptophan-based compounds capture light energy for use in metabolism of glucose and the generation of oxygen and reduced cofactors. Tryptophan, oxygen, and reduced cofactors combine to form serotonin...”

In animals, serotonin combines with a variety of other chemicals to produce cell maturity and brain growth. In the brain, serotonin stimulates two receptors, 5- HT1a and 5-HT2a. These receptors are actually opposite factors in a mix of neurocellular stimulation and behavioral processes. Luckily, both of these are tangible are can be made into pills however they can be addictive. Doctors and scientist worked together and noticed that when they released more of these to chemicals into an animal, something strange occurred.

Animals who were more commonly exposed to both 5-HT1a and 5-HT2a experienced hyperactivity, rapid brain growth (specifically in the prefrontal cortex), increased ability to learn, and basically the animal seemed smarter in general.

A normal rat would complete a very short easy maze in about 10 minutes depending on how acute their sense of smell is. However, rats with 50HT1a and 5-HT2a completed the maze in an amazing 6 minutes. That’s a four minute difference. Not much difference, but it’s definitely a difference to take notice of.

If we could create some kind of pill, treatment, diet, something to increase the levels of 5-HT1a and 5-HT2a, we might could help stimulate the dead parts of the brain in schizophrenic, ADD/ADHD, bipolar, and multipersonality disorder victims. The idea and theory is very far fetched but as science advances like it is, one day in the future this might just be the beginning to a new study. Hopefully, there will be a cure for mental disease someday soon. Until that day, trial and error is how we can progress and increase our knowledge on mental diseases.