From Pacific Standard, this is an interesting article on how humans are using DNA — ours and other species’ — to change the world. One wonders if that is such a good thing considering how little we still know about how DNA functions. Why DNA Is One of Humanity’s Greatest Inventions By Michael White • … Read more
Over the last decade or two, a lot of scientific interest has shifted from DNA and the genome to RNAs, then non-coding RNAs, and now micro RNAs are the new frontier in disease research as well as how genes shape and are shaped in development. Most of us know very little about these tiny little … Read more
For all of recorded history, billions of years, the blueprint of life has been written with just four letters — adenine (A), thymine (T), cytosine (C) and guanine (G), the DNA subunits contained in all organisms. Now that has changed. Scientists at Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California, have identified a pair of bases, … Read more
This is an interesting article on schizophrenia from The American Scholar. The author seems to throw all of the prevailing theories against the wall the see what sticks, to find some way to make sense of how her sister died. One of the pieces missing, however, is the fact that an extremely large percentage of … Read more
From Frontiers in Psychiatry: Schizophrenia, this new article looks at the foundations of severe mental illness in gene-environment interactions, which is at least a first step toward grasping the significant impact of environment on all psychological challenges. Full Citation: Uher, R. (2014, May 15). Gene–environment interactions in severe mental illness. Frontiers in Psychiatry: Schizophrenia; 5:48. doi: … Read more
We, as therapists, see the results of intergenerational trauma (also known as transgenerational trauma) in our offices all of the time, especially with incest and/or neglect. The work of the interpersonal neurobiologists demonstrates that many of the cognitive beliefs and affect dysregulation in mental illness result from faulty or absent attachment bonding. [Aside: It’s interesting … Read more