The probability of having autism is greater for an individual if it runs in their family. This suggests hereditary factors. But what do you actually inherit? What you inherit is a predisposition for a specific development of your brain. This, together with what you experience while growing up, can lead to the development of a mild to severe form of autism.
The new crystal ball: predicting future disease
Disease can be seen as the antechamber of death.
Are there reliable tests for predicting disease? The short answer is: not for Alzheimer’s or other common diseases. Tests do exist for some specific diseases, most with known familial predispositions, such as Huntington’s disease, cystic fibrosis, Duchenne’s dystrophy and many more.
Where are the new medicines for psychiatry?
I do not foresee any new medicines for psychiatry coming any day soon.
Everybody wants fast acting psychotropics, but that is not possible for most psychiatric disorders.
But integration of pharmacotherapy and psychotherapy can be extremely rewarding.
The basis for most of the severe mental disorders is clear
The basis for most of the severe mental disorders is in your genes and the early development of the brain. But we will not be able to find THE cause of these disorders. Why not?
What causes depression: serotonin or your experiences?
What causes your depression: serotonin or what you experience? The answer: the question is invalid! Both play a role, and are interconnected. You cannot say that one of these is the cause.
Why people don’t want antidepressants but do want psychotherapy
A lot of people think antidepressants are worthless. Is psychotherapy better than an antidepressant? There is no evidence for this. It seems to me that antidepressants suffer a disadvantage in our perception as compared to psychotherapy, in that their mechanism of action is quite invisible and not instinctively comprehensible.
Does dopamine make you happy, and is methylphenidate (Ritalin) addictive?
Dopamine the happiness hormone? Not at all! Dopamine helps to choose where to direct your attention. This process does not work properly in children and adults with ADHD. Methylphenidate (Ritalin) corrects this without having an addictive effect.
The girl with half a brain
The girl without the right hemisphere of her brain functions pretty normally. How is this possible?
The placebo effect doesn’t exist
Depression lifts with placebo pills, joint pain disappears after a placebo operation. Changes in the brain can be observed after the use of a placebo. How do such effects of sham treatment come about? Placebos do have effects. But THE placebo effect does not exist.
Amazing and paradoxical
What is the relation between what the neurologist calls amazing and the psychiatrist paradoxical? Our impression of the world around us is not formed on the basis of what we actually perceive with our senses. Instead, we carry a preexisting image of our surroundings in our head, and we check if that matches with our perceptions. Sometimes this goes awry.