Genetics+Sheds+Light+on+Mental+Illnesses

[|The Boston Globe] October 14, 2008 The past year thousands of samples of DNA was taken from various patients and it uncovered very important information on how genes of mental illnesses have been pasted down to cause illnesses such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and autism. Dr. Thomas Insel, who is the director of the National Institute of Mental Health has been researching this for a very long time and says that it is all starting to piece together. Boston area scientists believe that not only are the illnesses inherited by genes passed down but it can just come from random mutatuons that happen in the womb. Some people who mght have had an illness cause dramtically different illnesses for offspring. For example,schizophrenia can be linked to autism and mental retardation. This has come to be very complicated.

This research has helped to better understand how somebody can get a mental illness. Also it can help young children who seemed to be suffering to determine it the have bipolar disorder or just growing pains. The discovery is found to actually help better medicne or drugs because now there is a better look at the brain. Really it all happens with mutations in the body and mutations of the people who passed it down. Scientists saythis is just the beginning to a wide span of information.

Shannon Johnson March 18, 2010