It was tough to pass up writing a quick note on a fascinating article that just came out by Benedict Carey at the NY Times on a new theory about the mind as it relates to our genes.
Their idea is, in broad outline, straightforward. Dr. Crespi and Dr. Badcock propose that an evolutionary tug of war between genes from the father’s sperm and the mother’s egg can, in effect, tip brain development in one of two ways. A strong bias toward the father pushes a developing brain along the autistic spectrum, toward a fascination with objects, patterns, mechanical systems, at the expense of social development. A bias toward the mother moves the growing brain along what the researchers call the psychotic spectrum, toward hypersensitivity to mood, their own and others’. This, according to the theory, increases a child’s risk of developing schizophrenia later on, as well as mood problems like bipolar disorder and depression.
In short: autism and schizophrenia represent opposite ends of a spectrum that includes most, if not all, psychiatric and developmental brain disorders. The theory has no use for psychiatry’s many separate categories for disorders, and it would give genetic findings an entirely new dimension.
While these theories will undoubtedly remain highly controversial for some time, they are a fascinating new lens to view the topology of mental health disorders currently detailed in the DSM-IV. You can read the full DSM-IV text at Mindsite on Autism as well as Schizophrenia. The implication that all human mental health can be characterized as a continuum of predisposition between these two conditions is definitely very 'out of the box' thinking; only time will tell if there is an evidence base to support these assertions.
“We do not know with any of these neuropsychiatric disorders what the ultimate basis is,” Dr. Greengard says. “Let’s say you could find that too much of protein X was involved in schizophrenia. Would you then know what schizophrenia is? You would not.”