Saturday, December 17, 2011

Hormone Receptors Bring a New Brain

With the ever looming threat of a greater amount of mental illness due to the chemicals in our environment, Northwestern University is working on a new revolutionary treatment. Using chemicals that increase estrogen production in the brain, without adding the risks of effects on the body, they have found new ways to affect mental illnesses such as depression and schizophrenia.

The mechanism of action is activating receptors on the branches of brain cells, called dendrites, making them become more numerous and better connected.  The dendritic spines may be affected in development by endocrine disrupting chemicals because they have these hormone receptors. The drug company, Pfizer, is actively developing drugs that use these receptors, increasing the amount of communication between brain cells.

The key to an issue called, “the gamma binding problem,” in schizophrenia may be in this new drug therapy.  The gamma binding problem refers to sensory processing and decision-making resting in a low performance state in mental illness.  The “gamma” in that term refers to high frequency brainwaves which are abundant and coherent in the mentally stable.  In meditation studies, the gamma brainwave pattern is increased, and may help to fitfully allay schizophrenic illness – though further study in this regard should take place.  The reason is the exchange of nitric oxide  in the brain is also malfunctioning in schizophrenia, and, due to nitric oxide release during meditation, people with psychotic illness should be careful about their practice.  Though meditation has its utility, exercise could be favored as a complimentary approach to the treatment of severe mental illnesses.

The medication developed by Northwestern University will be an easier and reliable game changer for those with mental illness in the future.  Medicine compliance is the safest way to thwart psychotic problems in those who suffer.

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