Major mental illnesses such as schizophrenia, severe depression and bipolar disorder share a common genetic link. Studies of specific families with a history of these types of illnesses have revealed that affected family members share a mutation in the gene DISC1. While researchers have been able to study how DISC1 mutations alter the brain during development in animal models, it has been difficult to find the right tools to study changes in humans. However, advancements in engineering human stem cells are now allowing researchers to grow mini-organs in labs, and gene-editing tools can be used to insert specific mutations into these cells.
Researchers from Brigham and Women's Hospital are leveraging these new technologies to study the effects of DISC1 mutations in cerebral organoids -- "mini brains" -- cultured from human stem cells. Their results are published in Translational Psychiatry.
"Mini-brains can help us model brain development," said senior author Tracy Young-Pearse, PhD, head of the Young-Pearse Lab in the Ann Romney Center for Neurologic Diseases at BWH. "Compared to traditional methods that have allowed us to investigate human cells in culture in two-dimensions, these cultures let us investigate the three-dimensional structure and function of the cells as they are developing, giving us more information than we would get with a traditional cell culture."
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday April 21 2018, @11:40AM (2 children)
There's no horror movie potential in this, nope, none at all.
Anybody know an agent who handles horror movie scripts? I'm asking for a friend.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 21 2018, @12:54PM (1 child)
Don't go there. We're having more than enough problems with one horrible "mini-brain" already.
(Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Saturday April 21 2018, @02:36PM
Believe me, it's more than one. So many Zika Babies, very sad situation. But, maybe Psychiatrists have a use for them now!
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Saturday April 21 2018, @03:01PM (8 children)
My maternal grandfather committed suicide in 1948
I speculate that he was manic depressive but I don't want to upset my mom or my aunt by asking about it
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday April 22 2018, @12:20AM (7 children)
It's really common (all three: suicide, manic depression, and denial.)
Everybody is manic depressive to some degree, it's only a clinically diagnoseable condition when it interferes with your quality of life.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Sunday April 22 2018, @01:49AM (6 children)
-n to everybody
When I get manic I usually have racing thoughts: I can't think in complete sentences because my mind keeps changing the topics that I think about
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday April 22 2018, @04:17AM (5 children)
That is extreme, and I'm sure you know that there are pills for that (not that they solve everything, but...)
On the other hand, I know some highly functional ADHD people who live like that almost all the time, if you can carry on a conversation with them for 3 minutes without them getting 100% distracted by something entirely different that's an unusual event.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Sunday April 22 2018, @06:23AM (2 children)
To quickly move from topic to topic is also regarded as a symptom of mania; that lead every Kuron and his brother to claim I was manic when I was just being creative.
Somewhere I found a page that argued for flight of ideas to be a completely normal behavior of creative people, but linking never satisfied my many Kuron friends.
Racing thoughts exhibit flight of ideas, but to think that way is very taxing because when I'm manic I think so FAST.
There are some good things about being hypomanic - "less manic" - but I avoid even hypomania because full-blown mania often follows. When I'm manic I'm like a bull in a china shop. A very charming, witty and friendly bull but still a self-driven engine of destruction.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday April 22 2018, @11:50AM (1 child)
Google is weak on the Kuron reference...?
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Sunday April 22 2018, @02:35PM
BEHOLD. [archive.org]
Us Kurons got the bad news that the server's entire data center got decommissioned without Lawrence Calvin "Rust" Foster III even knowing about it.
He gets a lot of email, see. And he very rarely actually checks it.
Rusty announced that he would publish a read-only archive. That there is still no such archive leads us all to believe that he didn't have any offsite backups.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday April 23 2018, @03:27PM (1 child)
I suspect the 3 minutes is quite an exaggeration as I'm a "highly functioning ADHD" person. Though, it's quite possible that the environment you're interacting with them in is highly distracting. A calm relaxing environment with few distractions greatly helps someone with ADHD. I've learned that Caffeine can be my friend too. Best effect with as little sugar as possible.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday April 23 2018, @04:53PM
Yeah, standing outside is not the best place even for me - there's always a weed to pull, an ant to track back to their source, etc.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 21 2018, @05:18PM (3 children)
"Studies of specific families with a history of these types of illnesses have revealed that affected family members share a mutation in the gene DISC1."
wake me up when you show everyone with these illnesses has this mutation.
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Sunday April 22 2018, @08:45AM
That is not likely. Those 'illnesses' are really symptoms and can probably have other causes than the mutation.
It might be possible to show that everyone with the mutation has [some of] the illnesses.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Sunday April 22 2018, @02:38PM (1 child)
-in.
To have Schizophrenia as an adult is correllated with having owned outdoor cats as a child. This is thought to be caused by the same catshit parasite as gives pregnant women toxoplasmos, but so far all we have is a correllation.
For one's mother to have had the flu during one's gestation is also correllated.
The symptoms of schizophrenia manifest in a great many different ways. This leads the mental health community to believe that it's many different illnesses that have common symptoms.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 22 2018, @06:35PM
i would add physical brain trauma and street pcp use to the list of possibilities.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 21 2018, @11:44PM
Not wanting to work for joos, or be enslaved (via debt) are perfectly natural reactions based in mammalian physiology. Don't let the joos trick you into taking their pharmaceuticals, and turn you into a mindless automaton.