3 ms·

I'm reminded being scoffed at: "It's not contagious." I don't mean to be part of a panic, but there's been a lot of "it isn't" based not on science but on, fr

I'm reminded being scoffed at: "It's not contagious." I don't mean to be part of a panic, but there's been a lot of "it isn't" based not on science but on, frankly, opinion. Nowadays they think that they can link something like 25 - 30 % of cancers to viral infections. (I seem to recall 25 being more current, with 30 being expected soon.) In a broader context, sooner or later we will have to re-evaluate things like OCD. (I'm thinking of the hand washing and "cleanliness" aspects, currently.) They may not be "merely" a disease or disfunction, but rather an extremity on yet another "spectrum", one that may in some circumstances actually provide an advantage. Perhaps explaining its continued occurrence. Prions are new to our understanding. Except, as we continue to look at long-standing human behaviors, now with knowledge of them, we may find that, indirectly, they are not entirely new to our understanding and behaviors. (Nonetheless, I agree with others here and in general: Scary stuff.) P.S. I wonder whether/when we will discover any advantageous aspects to some of them, or at least benign.

srj 11y ago
While the cause remains unknown there's research showing that OCD may in part be triggered by infection: http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/pandas/index.shtml http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/pandas/index.sht...
caycep 11y ago
Maybe but people look at epidemiologic patterns (i.e. the whole point of the World of Warcraft Zombie paper earlier), and Parkinson's disease doesn't really seem to show any of the typical patterns. It's a really difficult problem, and also the reportability of linked cases may be an issue, as if you "get" parkinson's, you don't really know until 10 years or more after the fact... There may be something to whatever makes misfolded synucleins agregate, but at the last big international conference, there was a battle royale between the pro's and the con's of prionism, i.e. do synucleins exhibit the properties of the prions involved in CJD and other prion disease, vs. just being an example of a self aggregating protein. The con's won by a healthy margin

srj 11y ago

While the cause remains unknown there's research showing that OCD may in part be triggered by infection: http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/pandas/index.shtml http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/pandas/index.sht...

caycep 11y ago

Maybe but people look at epidemiologic patterns (i.e. the whole point of the World of Warcraft Zombie paper earlier), and Parkinson's disease doesn't really seem to show any of the typical patterns. It's a really difficult problem, and also the reportability of linked cases may be an issue, as if you "get" parkinson's, you don't really know until 10 years or more after the fact... There may be something to whatever makes misfolded synucleins agregate, but at the last big international conference, there was a battle royale between the pro's and the con's of prionism, i.e. do synucleins exhibit the properties of the prions involved in CJD and other prion disease, vs. just being an example of a self aggregating protein. The con's won by a healthy margin