Thanks Roger

I need time to consider the paper but remind you it addresses only Test 2 of the four set before psychiatry.  Should it go some way towards proving a marker (which I rather doubt) there remain three further issues demanding evidence:  Consistent cause-effect relationships; agreed chemical base line standards; evidence psychotropic drugs can reliably correct deviance from them and heal or cure

Until all those Tests are passed it cannot scientifically/reasonably be claimed mental illness/disease exists at all - vide House of Lords 'Bolitho Test'.  Recently posted one-in-three statistics emphasise the issue

Since people's liberty and basic human rights depend on it I'd like to see an agreed definition of psychosis too

dixie
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Roger Lass wrote:

Well definitions are always a problem, since they lead ultimately to reification. As Karl Popper said, the most useless philposophical activity there is is trying to define the meanings of words.

 

I don't want to carry this discussion into the realms of the fanatical and boring, so I'll just suggest the issue of PLoS ONE devoted largely to biomarkers for mood disorders (No. 4(1)). Perhaps for an overview that I at any rate find to be just normal study of disease in the usual sense in this collection,

 

A. Bartolomucci & R. Leopardi (2009), Stress and depression: Preclinical research and clinical implications. PLoS One 4(1), avaolable at http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.ppone.0004265 . There are papers in Nature and other respectable journals too showing biomarkers for depression (neuronal loss in the hippocampus, abnormal amygdala) going back at least to the 90s, and biochemical work on amine neurotransmitter metabolites going back a good deal further than that. OK I'm not a scientist or professional, but I can read and utilise what I think is a normal definition of 'disease', and this literature I find satisfying. Even very primitive and not always reliable procedures like the dexamethasone suppression test, and the induction of depression by depletion of the serotonin precursor put depression solidly into the realm of the medical as far as I can see.

 

Reading of the work of Robert Sapolsky on serotonin levels and depressive behaviours in non-human primates, and the role of cortisol in mood would also be useful.

 

I will now withdraw. 

----- Original Message -----

From: Dixie Dean

To: psychiatry-research@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Sunday, July 12, 2009 7:37 AM

Subject: Re: [psychiatry-research] Reflective States