Question:
The following might be of interest to the list ... Brain shrinkage: early sign of schizophrenia?
The brains of people in the early stages of schizophrenia shrink twice
as fast normal, Australian researchers have found, suggesting a
possible new way to treat the illness.
Answer:
"I have developed an explanation of schizophrenia that may explain your, et
al., hypotheses. It is my hypothesis that low dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA)
prenatally and / or postnatally reduce brain growth and development. (My
principal hypothesis is that DHEA evolved because DHEA optimizes replication
and transcription of DNA. Therefore, all tissues, especially neural tissues,
are affected by availability of DHEA.) Early lack of DHEA would produce
brain structures of less robust growth which would be vulnerable to adverse
phenomena; this is the "early neurodevelopmental insult." Following growth
and development, DHEA acts to maintain and activate the brain. It is known
that DHEA exerts very positive effects on neural structures.
I also suggest the hormones cortisol and testosterone (in men and women)
adversely affect availability of DHEA. Therefore, a precipitating, stressful
events near/around puberty will combine to adversely affect the availability
of DHEA and adversely affect brain function. (It is my hypothesis that
cortisol, in fact, evolved to counteract the effects of DHEA; this is my
explanation of the 'fight or flight' response.) Since it is known that
cortisol is a neurotoxin, cortisol would adversely affect function and
structure, especially in a person of low DHEA. The early lack of development
due to low DHEA would produce weak structures. Continued exposure to
cortisol and testosterone would eventually cause degenerative changes in
easily affected structures, with more robustly built structures succumbing
later. Therefore, symptoms would appear sequentially, the type dependent
upon brain development. So, the same mechanism could explain various kinds
of differential destruction of brain structures and the timing of such.
Brain "shrinkage" is a phenomenon of all aging, given a sufficient life
span. I suggest this is due to the natural loss of DHEA of old age.
Schizophrenia would exhibit early shrinkage as a result of earlier loss of
DHEA and the combined actions of cortisol, the natural antagonist of DHEA. I
invite you to read my explanation of schizophrenia at
www.anthropogeny.com/physiology.html ; simply scroll down to "other" to find
schizophrenia or do a search for 'schizophrenia.' " Considering that there's no such thing as the alleged biological
malfunction known as 'schizophrenia' I'd say that brain shrinkage is much
more likely to be observed in those who (for their own reasons) obsessively
maintain that this 'disorder' exists. I apologize; I have dealt with this so long, I forgot to mention that DHEA
is known to be low in schizophrenia. We use "schizophrenia" for completely delusional people who
think they are Jesus one day, the King of Norway the next,
and a secret government operative in charge of stopping the
alien invasion the next. And who often hear voices in their
heads telling them such things, which in times past they
attributed to supernatural, and today seem to attribute to
government or extraterrestrial technology. Are you suggesting a better word, for this sad condition, or
are you saying such people don't exist?
I actually thought, that it was only part of the brain that was shrinking. I
actually thought that it was only because of depression and not
schizophrenia. As I recall, schizophrenia is thought to be caused by
depression?
If both cases are the creations of psychiatry then you must presume that all
those studies using imaging studies have been forged. There are now abundant
studies showing shrinkage of the hippocampus in severe prolonged depression,
and various changes in the schizophrenic brain, the latter being associated
with a neurodevelopmental disorder. So before you start lambasting the whole profession as a pack of liars I
suggest you read the relevant research and figure out why so many would even
want to create this scenario of brain damage. It would be much better for
the profession if such damage was not occurring because it would
substantially raise the hopes of finding cures for these devastating
complaints.
