From: mjs23x@gmail.com   
      
   On Wednesday, August 6, 2014 at 9:55:31 PM UTC-5, Oliver Crangle wrote:   
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   > On Sunday, October 5, 2008 7:56:00 PM UTC-5, rpautrey2 wrote:   
   > > The Infection Connection   
   > > Examines the possible connection of microorganism with psychological   
   > > problems. Cause of poor parenting; Technology that helps in revealing   
   > > damage to the brain.   
   > >    
   > > By: Harriet Washington   
   > > PSYCHOLOGY HAS LONG HELD THAT MENTAL ILLNESS IS BORN OF ADVERSE   
   > > EXPERIENCES.MORE RECENTLY, RESEARCH HAS POINTED THE FINGER AT FLAWED   
   > > GENES. NOW A THIRD CULPRIT MAY BE EMERGING: INVASION BY BACTERIA AND   
   > > VIRUSES.   
   > >    
   > > Eight-year-old Seth broke from the grasp of Jane, his harried mother,   
   > > for the third time in 10 minutes. Tearing across the emergency room,   
   > > he stopped short, transfixed by a piece of paper lying on the floor.   
   > > His red-rimmed eyes seemed to bulge from their sockets and his mouth   
   > > twitched violently, as if he were in pain. Indifferent to Jane's pleas   
   > > to stop, he proceeded to pick up from the floor every piece of paper,   
   > > no matter how filthy, with hands that were reddened and raw. It was   
   > > the state of his hands that had precipitated the trip to the hospital:   
   > > Seth had spent most of the night in the bathroom, washing them over   
   > > and over.   
   > >    
   > > With his head jerking spasmodically and his fingers pecking at pieces   
   > > of paper and cigarette butts, the boy resembled some strange overgrown   
   > > bird. Then, suddenly terrified, he flew back to Jane and began pulling   
   > > on her arm. "Mommy, Mommy, let's leave!" he whimpered. "They're going   
   > > to kill us. They're coming!"   
   > >    
   > > Jane tried her best to calm him, but she too was beginning to panic.   
   > > Two days before, Seth had been a perfectly normal little boy whose   
   > > most serious health problems were the occasional cold or sore throat.   
   > > He had become mentally ill overnight.   
   > >    
   > > What caused Seth's anxiety, his tics, his obsessive-compulsive   
   > > behavior? Astonishingly, it was probably that minor sore throat, his   
   > > doctors concluded. Today, scientists are increasingly coming to   
   > > recognize that the bacteria and viruses that frequently invade our   
   > > bodies and cause sore throats and other minor ailments may also   
   > > unleash a host of major mental and emotional illnesses, including   
   > > anorexia, schizophrenia and obsessive-compulsive disorder.   
   > >    
   > > It is a theory sharply at odds with earlier views of the genesis of   
   > > psychological illness. Followers of Freud long held that mental and   
   > > emotional trouble is primarily the result of poor parenting,   
   > > especially by mothers. Indeed, until about 30 years ago,   
   > > psychoanalysts frequently placed the blame for schizophrenia on   
   > > "schizophrenogenic" mothers. Obsessive-compulsive disorder, also, was   
   > > put at Mom's door. "It was thought to be the result of harsh toilet   
   > > training," observes Susan Swedo, M.D., chief of pediatrics and   
   > > developmental neuropsychiatry at the National Institutes of Mental   
   > > Health. But such theories, which added immeasurable guilt to the   
   > > burdens of parents with mentally ill offspring, have turned out to   
   > > have little evidence to back them up, most experts now agree.   
   > >    
   > > Instead, in recent years, the focus has shifted to genes as the main   
   > > source of mental illness. Faulty DNA is thought to be at least partly   
   > > responsible for, among other problems, anxiety and panic disorders,   
   > > schizophrenia, manic depression and antisocial personality disorder,   
   > > which is characterized by impulsive, excessively emotional and erratic   
   > > patterns of interpersonal behavior.   
   > >    
   > > Yet genetics doesn't appear to wholly account for the occurrence of   
   > > major psychiatric ailments. If heredity alone were to blame, identical   
   > > twins would develop schizophrenia with a high degree of concordance,   
   > > but in fact in only 40% of cases in which one identical twin has the   
   > > disease does the other twin have it as well. Autism, though it has   
   > > been observed to run in families, also strikes five of every 10,000   
   > > children apparently arbitrarily. Nor can depression and other   
   > > affective disorders be completely explained by damaged DNA. Says Ian   
   > > Lipkin, Ph.D., a neuroscientist and microbiologist at the University   
   > > of California at Irvine: "Genetics doesn't hold the key to   
   > > understanding how to fit these square pegs into round holes."   
   > >    
   > > Bacteria and viruses may be that key, but scientists have been slow to   
   > > grasp the idea. Consider the case of syphilis, which is caused by the   
   > > bacterium Treponema pallidum. In its final, or tertiary, stage, the   
   > > disease can precipitate psychiatric problems like dementia, mania,   
   > > depression, delusions and Tourette's like tics. Though some scientists   
   > > suspected a connection between infection with the bacterium and the   
   > > mental disturbances that may take three to five decades to emerge, the   
   > > link became widely accepted only in the 1940s after the introduction   
   > > of the antibiotic penicillin as a treatment for syphilis. In the   
   > > interim, patients with syphilis who later developed psychiatric   
   > > problems were often institutionalized as crazy. But even with the link   
   > > established, Freud's theories were in ascendance and few scientists   
   > > were willing to consider that microbes might be a common source of   
   > > other mental illness.   
   > >    
   > > Now, decades later, infection has emerged as a prime suspect in   
   > > psychological illnesses. The inadequacy of genetic and experiential   
   > > explanations has prompted scientists to look elsewhere--and their gaze   
   > > has come to rest on physical ailments, such as heart disease, cancers   
   > > and ulcers, that in some cases have an infectious origin. Could the   
   > > same be true, they wonder, for mental and emotional ills?   
   > >    
   > > Improved technology has made it easier to find out. Since active only   
   > > when inside other living creatures, microbes are notoriously hard to   
   > > grow, and therefore study, in the lab, but scientists' ability to do   
   > > so has increased steadily over the last few decades. Other tools have   
   > > allowed researchers to see their quarry more clearly. For about a   
   > > decade, microbiologists have used a technique called polymerase chain   
   > > reaction, or PCR, to replicate a small piece of genetic material over   
      
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