Depression

Lesson 8: The Science of Depression

Further Reading, NIMH Trials, Parting Thought

Further Reading

This writer has recently contracted with the National Depressive and Manic-Depressive Association to write research-oriented articles for their revamped website. The articles include a wide range of subjects from a novel treatment for depression to the hunt for mood genes to new understanding of how medications work in the brain.

You can check out the articles here.

NIMH Trials

The NIMH is investigating everything from what happens in the brain during a mood episode to new potential pathways to treatment. You can check out their current and future clinical trials here.

Parting Thought

In Feb 2002, a mother carrying the early-onset Alzheimer's gene underwent in vitro fertilization. Four embryos without the gene were selected and implanted into her uterus. Nine months later she gave birth to a healthy child.

In 2000, an article in the British Medical Journal discusses the prospect of designer babies as if it were an inevitability. In this brave new world of genetically-engineered humans, concerned parents would ensure their offspring were free of such diseases as cancer and cystic fibrosis, and for good measure had blue eyes and could skate like Wayne Gretzky. An overreaching government might even order parents to produce these kind of babies.

Naturally, the gene doctors would hastily do away with all those nasty little chromosomes responsible for depression and manic depression. In a perfect world, there would be no place for these genetic rogues. Remember the day when the World Health Organization announced there was no more smallpox on earth? Imagine a world cleansed of clinical depression and manic depression.

Of course, this would mean a civilization with no Lincolns, no Churchills, no Michelangelos, and no Beethovens, which leaves me with this unsettling question: By saving our children and grandchildren, are we actually condemning the human race they are part of?

  1  2  3  4