4 ms·
Schizophrenia study finds new biomarker, drug candidate in mice
- readthenotes1 8mo agoThat would be an incredible cure and raises the ethical question of how to get schizophrenic people well enough to understand that they need it.
- guerrilla 8mo agoYou just do your best and leave them alone otherwise.
- morley 8mo ago"Leave them alone" is easy to type into a comment textbox but is much more difficult when it's a neighbor, or a family member, or someone else you have to interact with at a regular interval. I highly recommend the book Hidden Valley Road for anyone curious about how difficult schizophrenia is for families and the researchers trying to find treatments.
- guerrilla 8mo agoI have two close friends who are schizophrenic and have been psychotic myself. I know what I'm talking about.
- H8crilA 8mo agoThis seems to be mainly about the so called negative symptoms, not positive symptoms (like hallucinations or delusions). While it is often hard to argue with people about their positive symptoms in schizophrenia or in mania, pretty much nobody who has negative symptoms wants to have them. The fact that antipsychotics do little about the negative symptoms is probably the biggest pain of schizophrenia sufferers - and they are aware of that. Also, and this depends on the jurisdiction, but people can be forced to take psychiatric medication against their will. Or even forced to go through a treatment like ECT, for example when presenting with strong and dangerous mania. BTW, ECT has an extremely unfair popular opinion, it's one of the best treatments in all of psychiatry. It could even be that it is impossible to get a response from the patient, for example if they are catatonic and don't budge within a reasonable time - you just inject them with benzodiazepines, as this is a serious condition if left to last a long time.
- intrasight 8mo agoECT just comes across as a bit barbaric. I'd welcome more research into Psilocybin to achieve system reset.
- dakolli 8mo agoMy great friend, when we were 20, shot himself in the head while we were doing shrooms. This is not an uncommon occurrence. Thousands of incidents of self harm happen every year in the US alone because of these drugs. I would advise anyone against this. Don't believe the weird hype (that mostly all comes from a few small clicks of people looking to profit off this drug) about mushrooms being some spiritual, mental catch all. If you have any sort of mental illness you probably should avoid. Don't play Russian roulette with your sanity.
- kjkjadksj 8mo agoPeople do that after getting drunk too.
- mothballed 8mo agoDepressed people killing themselves as soon as they start to get treatment is a known phenomenon. The energy that comes from treating depression gives them just enough oomph to get to the 'finish line.' It's quite possible they were thinking about it and never told anyone and everyone thinks it's a complete surprise caused by the drug, plenty of people have suicidal ideation or depression while giving zero indication or clues to anyone close to them that would be the case.
- kjkjadksj 8mo agoEven outside a drug. Breakup happens this can be a result. Maybe if guns weren’t so accessible people wouldn’t be so quick to use them on themselves in those moments. There’s a statistic out there where a gun in the home is most likely to harm you.
- deleted 8mo ago[deleted]
- treyd 8mo agoDrug has only been tested in mice. Of course, in this case the issue seems like it's caused by a general deficiency of single protein, maybe that's a good sign for adapting the treatment to humans.
- dang 8mo agoInmiced above. Thanks!
- slibhb 8mo agoWhile the protein was tested in mice, it seems that it was identified by looking at human spinal fluid.
- vercaemert 8mo agoYes. Not a drug in the typical sense. Simply replacing the protein in which the mice are deficient (that was identified by measuring levels in human spinal fluid).
- deleted 8mo ago[deleted]
- booleandilemma 8mo agoIt's been awhile since I read about this stuff...is schizophrenia a spectrum disorder like autism? If so, I wonder if there's a point on the spectrum where it's not worth treating it because of possible side effects. I feel like our society over-pathologizes a lot of stuff and it would be a shame if we "cured" something that doesn't need a cure.
- ceejayoz 8mo agoTo this point, some cultures see schizophrenia as friendly, not scary. https://news.stanford.edu/stories/2014/07/voices-culture-luhrmann-071614 https://news.stanford.edu/stories/2014/07/voices-culture-luh... > In the United States, the voices are harsher, and in Africa and India, more benign, said Tanya Luhrmann, a Stanford professor of anthropology and first author of the article in the British Journal of Psychiatry.
- shermantanktop 8mo agoThis idea relocates the problem from the individual to “culture” or “society,” leaving no solutions for someone suffering from schizophrenia. I also have a hard time believing that schizophrenia manifests as something like benign quirkiness in some other country.
- ceejayoz 8mo ago> I also have a hard time believing… Well, publish that null result in a journal! > This idea relocates the problem from the individual to “culture” or “society”... No, one could incorporate this information just fine on an individual level by treating it as less of a scary symptom and more of something to understand.
- shermantanktop 8mo agoI'm skeptical that doing mental visualization exercises can cure cancer, or that crystals give off healing energy. I'm generally skeptical of too-good-to-be-true factoids. My skepticism is not publication-worthy, it's pretty common, and taken too far it becomes cynicism. Every once in while my skepticism is misplaced. I am curious though - do you have individual examples, or personal experience, of how some other culture handles schizophrenia in an understanding way? I saw the journal reference...i'm more interested in specific examples.
- mdevere 8mo agoVery strange how HN elevates news about random drug candidates at very early stages of development. There is a very active landscape of people developing/validating 'biomarkers' for neurological and psychiatric disorders and developing drugs specifically for those populations with the biomarker present; this news is far from extraordinary. The real news is when these reach FDA approval.
- lich_king 8mo agoDisproportionately many geeks have very strong opinions about psychiatry, probably because we have a lot of people who consider themselves neurodivergent, as well as plenty of folks who experiment with drugs.
- derektank 8mo agoIdentifying a biomarker for a psychological condition, particularly one like schizophrenia which is hugely disruptive for individuals affected and has a seemingly random onset around early adulthood, is significant in its own right even if it doesn’t lead to a pharmaceutical intervention. It could help identify new risk factors, potential non-pharmaceutical interventions like life style changes, and maybe even identify people who are at risk of developing schizophrenia and preparing them for its onset before their first hallucination and avoiding a downward spiral.
- lenerdenator 8mo agoGiven how debilitating schizophrenia can be, and how compromised the current treatments are - hey, you don't mind making uncontrollable strange expressions on your face forever, do you? - things like this give hope, even if it's just a little bit.
- tokai 8mo agoAbsolutely nothing strange about following research, and sharing and discussing has nothing to do with elevating. What is actually weird is how often users here makes it an issue when research papers on novel drugs are shared here.
- xbar 8mo ago
- puppycodes 8mo agoInteresting... too bad it requires a spinal tap, not a super fun test to get.
- p_j_w 8mo agoI don't have schizophrenia so I don't speak from personal experience, but it sounds bad enough that a spinal tap is worth the diagnosis and potential relief.
- ryanjshaw 8mo agoApproximately half of the people with schizophrenia don’t believe they are ill, which is why they refuse treatment (see: anosognosia). It is a very strange illness.
- puppycodes 8mo agoSure, but any test that requires something painful like a spinal tap requires someone to already be in a dire state. What I mean is if it could be done through a blood test prevention would be much easier to test for without needing to have a severe episode first.
- webdoodle 8mo agoI find this very suspect that a biomarker for schizophrenia is found before "black" gene/biomarker is found. It sounds like a setup for mass gaslighting and institutionalization by big pharma. Society is always looking for an easy way to institutionalize people it doesn't agree with. This is the big tech version.
- anonanon123z 8mo ago[dead]