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13 Comments to "Schizophrenia is Linked to Pre-Natal Flu"
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Miss Cellania
April 21st, 2008 at
4:43 am
Remember Charley, the cat with cerebellar hypoplasia? http://www.neatorama.com/2007/07/31/charley/
The condition is supposed to be caused by exposure to the distemper virus before birth. This sounds like the same sort of mechanism at work.
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Tim
April 21st, 2008 at
7:19 am
This is completely amazing! Especially given that schizophrenia is a subjective diagnosis and that there is no biological test to prove its existence. Oh sure there is lots of talk about diseases as the cause of mental illness, but there is no proof - even after 50 years there are no atopsies, blood tests, etc to demonstrate what psychiatrists are saying…
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bean
April 21st, 2008 at
11:51 am
Tim-
Flat out wrong. You just proved that you’ve never personally known a schizophrenic. Someone with a serious case of paranoid schizophrenia, even if they are a high-functioning schizophrenic, is near impossible to diagnose any other way. There is a comprehensive list of symptoms that can be used for diagnosis. -
Ashley
April 21st, 2008 at
12:17 pm
This is actually kind of scary. If I ever get pregnant, I want to spend the time in a microbe-free bubble.
Not feasible, but what can you possibly do to ensure you have a healthy child?
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Ashley
April 21st, 2008 at
12:18 pm
The fact that it used my “get pregnant” phrase as an ad is hilarious. “Compare choices and prices on everything you need to get pregnant!”
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Morgan
April 21st, 2008 at
12:24 pm
This is slightly disturbing. I’m 6 months pregnant, suffer from depression (my family is convinced I’m bipolar) and am constantly dealing with sinus infections. Fantastic.
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Tempscire
April 21st, 2008 at
12:26 pm
And just yesterday I saw a biopic about Gene Tierney having a retarded, deaf, half-blind daughter because she was exposed to German measles during her pregnancy.
Worrisome things. Good thing abnormalities still aren’t especially common.
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L
April 21st, 2008 at
1:14 pm
I’ve also heard that toxoplasmosis infections can lead to schizophrenia. But there’s no money to be made in getting rid of the family cat. Not like pre-natal flu vaccines…
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esskay
April 21st, 2008 at
2:01 pm
@ all disbelievers,
this type of evidence has been around for years, it’s not a wacky correlation: there’s a very rational cause and effect happening here.
During the neuroblast stage of embryonic development (when all our cells are nothing but a fluid filled ball) our neurons begin developing on the inner surface of that ball structure relative to the functional mapping they will eventually have in the brain. This is only two dimensional though: like putting billions of dots on a piece of paper, it will fill up pretty quick. In order to help disperse the newly formed neurons through the thickness of the shell (outwards) there are helper cells called “radial glia” that move neurons to their correct three dimensional orientations in an orderly fashion.
When the mother gets the flu (@ Morgan: not a sinus infection, that’s usually not anything but a localized immune response, I wouldn’t worry) and it transfers to the unborn fetus, the enzyme (organic catalyst: in this case a solvent) - that is meant to break the connection between the neuron and the radial glia cell when it reaches the right position in the newly formed brain - is rendered inoperative. The radial glia keep pulling the neurons past where they’re supposed to go, so instead of a neat and orderly distribution of neurons: they end up bunched up and all topsy-turvy; yet still a functionally complete model. What causes schizophrenia after this point is mostly speculation, but I’ve heard offhand that the brain may form new more-efficient pathways between neurons to compensate for the (now) inefficient destined pathways, and they end up competing for the same functions.
The brain’s formation and function is a beautiful process that is barely understood, I hope I’ve helped to shed light on this situation instead of making it even more confusing.
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esskay
April 21st, 2008 at
2:15 pm
@ bean
schizophrenia, like many other neural disorders, is nothing but a term. It describes a group of specific functionally debilitating abnormalities that often manifest themselves together.
Although there may be other causes for some of the symptoms found in highly effected schizophrenics, this proposed model has been found to explain many of the grouped symptoms that are known to be the basis for a proper diagnosis of clinical schizophrenia.
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Lore
April 21st, 2008 at
4:20 pm
So how do we, as women and soon to be mothers, try to prevent some of this from happening? Short of locking myself away in a bubble with an oxygen machine… it seems that the odds aren’t very good.
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Terry
April 21st, 2008 at
6:10 pm
There’s a new cause for a mental illness hitting the news every week, none of which, (given time) are correct and they are withdrawn at a later date.
I’ve read those World Health Organisation studies demonstrating recovery rates for schizophrenia in third world countries where antipsychotic medication was not used (80% recovery). I’ve also read the work of Loren R. Mosher, M.D., former Chief of the Center for Studies of Schizophrenia, National Institutes of Mental Health. He was getting recovery rates of 85% without the use of drugs. http://www.moshersoteria.com/
It’s pretty clear to me most people can be talked through to recovery from schizophrenia. This doesn’t sound like a disease to me. I think the medical approach has failed, toxic brain disabling drugs should not be used and all research/funding should focus on L Mosher’s approach.
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Jiminy Jizzbang
April 22nd, 2008 at
11:44 am
It is already well known that if a mother gets especially stressed during preganacy, her stress hormones can cross the placenta and this can cause problems for the baby.
When you get an infection, your immune system produces cytokines, which can trigger stress through the hypothalamo-pituitary-adrenal axis, which can cause an upregulation in stress hormones.
So essentially, when the baby recieves these hormones, it is essentially bieng told that the world outside is a stressful place. Because of this, it changes the sensory apparatus in it’s brain to adapt to this situation. This is known as Foetal programming.
It has been hypothesised that in the wild, in times of stress, it was more beneficial to be schizophrenic than it is now, in our heavily industrialised society.
However, there has never been any incidence in which the actual influenza virus has been observed in the brains of foetuses. Instead it is believed that the inflammatory response to the flu is what causes these responses.
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