[...] Years later, "he is completely off all medication and shows no psychiatric symptoms," Dr. Miyaoka told me in an email. Somehow the transplant cured the man's schizophrenia.
A bone-marrow transplant essentially reboots the immune system. Chemotherapy kills off your old white blood cells, and new ones sprout from the donor's transplanted blood stem cells. It's unwise to extrapolate too much from a single case study, and it's possible it was the drugs the man took as part of the transplant procedure that helped him. But his recovery suggests that his immune system was somehow driving his psychiatric symptoms.
At first glance, the idea seems bizarre — what does the immune system have to do with the brain? — but it jibes with a growing body of literature suggesting that the immune system is involved in psychiatric disorders from depression to bipolar disorder.
He Got Schizophrenia. He Got Cancer. And Then He Got Cured.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 02 2018, @09:55AM (2 children)
What kind of monster separates twins? "Oh, they're such cute baby girls! But... I just want one of them, two seems like a hassle. Can't we just throw one away?"
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Tuesday October 02 2018, @01:49PM
the pain that results can be said to have meaning, because mono-zygotic twin studies contribute a great deal to our understanding of genetics.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 02 2018, @04:21PM
You fail in the imagination department. I can think of at least one way in which twins might be separated. Twins might be separated at birth and given up for adoption. Next time, try to think a little bit more before putting fingers to keyboard.