THE EFFECT OF BRAIN DAMAGE AND HEREDITY TO CAUSE MENTAL HEALTH DISORDER

sylivester phaustine ([email protected])

THE OVERVIEW

Brain research on mental illnesses has made substantial advances in recent years, supported by conceptual and technological developments in
cognitive neuroscience. Brain-based cognitive models of illnesses such as schizophrenia, anxiety disorders, bipolar disorder, attention
deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and depression have been tested with a variety of techniques, including the lesion method, tract tracing,
neuroimaging, animal modeling, single-cell recording, electrophysiology, neuropsychology, and experimental cognitive psychology. A relatively
sophisticated picture is emerging that conceptualizes mental illnesses as disorders of mind arising in the brain. Convergent data using multiple
neuroscience techniques indicate that the neural mechanisms of mental illnesses can be understood as dysfunctions in specific neural circuits and
that their functions and dysfunctions can be influenced or altered by a variety of cognitive and pharmacological factors. Diseases of the brain,
whatever their pathophysiological basis, ultimately affect behaviour by altering the function of brain circuits. For example, stroke is an illness in
which neurons die because of a lack of oxygen.

BRAIN DEVELOPMENT

Brain development depends on complex, often non-linear, gene–gene and gene-environment interactions, as well as on stochastic processes
associated with the interconnection of 100 000 million or more neurons. As we are beginning to understand, the complexity of the brain and the
combinatorial interactions of many genes and non-genetic signals involved in building it are consistent with the richness of our mental lives and
behaviour. Each neuron in the brain
makes thousands of connections or synapses with neighbouring and distant neurons; there are probably more than 100 trillion such connections,
and across
them each neuron may utilize several of more than 100 chemical neurotransmitters. Signals encoded by each neurotransmitter are decoded by the
receiving cell, using one or several of the many receptor subtypes that exist for each neurotransmitter. For example, the neurotransmitter
serotonin has at least 14 different known subtypes of receptors. Neurotransmitter receptors initiate complex signalling cascades within nerve
cells. These cascades process information, produce immediate outputs, such as a decision to fire, and, at the same time, initiate longterm, activity-
dependent changes in the receiving cells which may eventually lead to synaptic plasticity.

FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTUAL ISSUES

The relationship between mind and brain. Mental illnesses have historically been distinguished from other medical illnesses because they affect
the higher cognitive processes that are referred to as “mind.”. That is, mental phenomena arise from the brain, but mental experience also affects
the brain, as is demonstrated by many examples of environmental influences on brain plasticity (1). The aberrations of mental illnesses reflect
abnormalities in the brain/mind’s interaction with its surrounding world; they are diseases of a psyche (or mind) that resides in that region of the
soma (or body) that is the brain.
It is well established that the risk of mental illness runs in families. Family, twin and adoption studies have shown that, for schizophrenia, autism,
manic depressive illness, major depression, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, panic disorder and other mental illnesses, the transmission of
risk is due to heredity (2-6). How might this come about? DNA transmits information contained in the sequential order of its four nucleotide
bases across generations and is the information repository that, in interaction with environmental signals, controls the development of an
organism and the cells and organs within it. In cells, the information contained in DNA is transferred to proteins via other molecules including
structural RNA and messenger RNA. Messenger RNA is translated to produce proteins, which, for example, control the shapes of cells, regulate
their chemical reactions and form neurotransmitter receptors and ion channels. With respect to neural development, proteins form guidance
cuesor control their synthesis; these direct themigration of neurons to their correct places in the brain, leading to the establishment of appropriate
connections.

COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY

Approaching schizophrenia from the background of cognitive psychology, Frith has divided the symptoms of schizophrenia into three broad
groups or dimensions: disorders of willed
action (which lead to symptoms such as alogia and avolition), disorders of self-monitoring (which lead to symptoms such as auditory
hallucinations and delusions of alien control), and disorders in monitoring the intentions of others (“mentalizing”) (which lead to symptoms such
as “formal thought disorder” and delusions of persecution). Frith believes that all these are special cases of a more general underlying
mechanism: a disorder of consciousness or self-awareness that impairs the ability to think with “metarepresentations” (higher order abstract
concepts that are representations of mental states) (7).

HOW THE BRAIN FUNCTION

The Working Brain is helped by Neurotransmitters Everything we do relies on neurons communicating with one another. Electrical impulses and
chemical signals carrying messages across different parts of the brain and between the brain and the rest of the nervous system. When a neuron is
activated a small difference in electrical charge occurs. This unbalanced charge is called an action potential and is caused by the concentration of
ions (atoms or molecules with unbalanced charges) across the cell membrane. The action potential travels very quickly along the axon, like when
a line of dominoes falls.
When the action potential reaches the end of an axon, most neurons release a chemical message (a neurotransmitter) which crosses the synapse
and binds to receptors on the receiving neuron’s dendrites and starts the process over again. At the end of the line, a neurotransmitter may
stimulate a different kind of cell (like a gland cell), or may trigger a new chain of messages.
Neurotransmitters send chemical messages between neurons. Mental illnesses, such as depression, can occur when this process does not work
correctly. Communication between neurons can also be electrical, such as in areas of the brain that control movement. When electrical signals are
abnormal, they can cause tremors or symptoms found in Parkinson’s disease.
• Serotonin—helps control many functions, such as mood, appetite, and sleep. Research shows that people with depression often have lower
than normal levels of serotonin. The types of medications most commonly prescribed to treat depression act by blocking the recycling, or
reuptake, of serotonin by the sending neuron. As a result, more serotonin stays in the synapse for the receiving neuron to bind onto, leading to
more normal mood functioning.
• Dopamine—mainly involved in controlling movement and aiding the flow of information to the front of the brain, which is linked to thought
and emotion. It is also linked to reward systems in the brain. Problems in producing dopamine can result in Parkinson’s disease, a disorder that
affects a person’s ability to move as they want to, resulting in stiffness, tremors or shaking, and other symptoms. Some studies suggest that
having too little dopamine or problems using dopamine in the thinking and feeling regions of the brain may play a role in disorders like
schizophrenia or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
• Glutamate—the most common neurotransmitter, glutamate has many roles throughout the brain and nervous system. Glutamate is an
excitatory transmitter: when it is released it increases the chance that the neuron will fire. This enhances the electrical flow among brain cells
required for normal function and plays an important role during early brain development. It may also assist in learning and memory. Problems in
making or using glutamate have been linked to many mental disorders, including autism, obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD),
schizophrenia, and depression.

RECOMMENDATIONS

It is clearly that mental health there is a defective in the functioning ability of the brain and it is either ther neurone or the neurotransimiters are
not sufficient so with this it is recommended that
1. There should be imaging of the brain especially to the people with mental problem to look for connection of neurones and axonb
2. Also another thing is to investigate for the amount of neurotransmiters like serotonin or glutamate accros the synapse
3. There should be a recombination of drugs those inhibit neurotransimiters reuptake and those which improves brain activities and those
drugs which may improve neurones in the brain
For the case of heredity there should be gene correction to the parents

Refe

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2. Craddock N, Jones I. Genetics of bipolar disorder. Journal of Medical Genetics, 1999, 36: 585–594.
3. Kendler KS et al. Independent diagnoses of adoptees and relatives as defined by DSM-III in the provincial and national
samples of the Danish Adoption Study of Schizophrenia. Archives of General Psychiatry, 1994, 51: 456–468.
4. McGuffin P et al. A hospital-based twin register of the heritability of DSM-IV unipolar depression. Archives of General
Psychiatry, 1996, 53: 129–136.
5. Risch NJ et al. A genomic screen of autism: evidence for a multilocus etiology. American Journal of Human Genetics,
1999, 65: 493–507
6. Genetics and mental disorders: report of the National Institute of Mental Health’s Genetics Work-Group. Rockville, Maryland; National
Institute of Mental Health; 1998 (http://www.nimh. nih.gov/research.htm)..
7. C. D. Frith, The Cognitive Neuropsychology of Schizophrenia (Erlbaum, East Sussex, United Kingdom, 992).