Reducing the Brain, Ignoring the Soul

[Guest guest]

> JustSayNo

> Tue, 13 Jul 2004 19:18:14 -0400

> [sSRI-Research] Reducing the Brain,

> Ignoring the Soul

>

> Reducing the Brain, Ignoring the Soul

> Grace E. Jackson, MD

> December 5, 2002

>

>

http://psychrights.org/Articles/ReducingTheBrainIgnoringTheSoul.htm

>

> The TV commercial shows a bouncing ball, frowning

> before the onset of therapy with the appropriate

> pill. The announcer reminds viewers that they may be

> suffering from a chemical imbalance, for which

> medical help is readily available. They should ask

> their doctors if they have symptoms of clinical

> depression for which the specific remedy should be

> swallowed. The ad closes with a picture of the

> animated ball (post-medication), smiling broadly

> before skipping out of view.

>

> A psychiatry residency program drills its junior

> clinicians in the art of medical clearance. Before

> any patient may be admitted to the inpatient

> psychiatry ward, the admitting resident must

> demonstrate that symptoms are not the result of an

> undiagnosed or unstable " medical " condition. To this

> end, vital signs are taken; EKGs and x-rays are

> performed; and a variety of blood and urine tests

> are obtained. Only if, and when, a patient's

> neurobehavioral symptoms are determined to be

> non-organic in origin (or if organically caused,

> then the product of a stable underlying condition)

> is the patient deemed appropriate for treatment on

> the psychiatric ward of the hospital.

>

> " Non-organic in origin. " " Medically cleared. " Then

> the same psychiatrist determines that the patient

> must be treated for a medical condition, with

> pharmaceutical agents. The doctrine of biological

> psychiatry commands its adherents to medicate people

> for speculative or presumptive chemical disorders,

> despite the lack of evidence that such a disturbance

> ever exists.

>

> There are at least five problems with the chemical

> imbalance model of mental disease:

>

> 1) the model ignores the reality that there has

> never been a consistently reproducible biological

> marker, to substantiate the levels of normal or

> abnormal neurotransmitters in the human nervous

> system

>

> 2) the model fails to respect the enormous

> complexity of neurotransmission in the human brain:

>

> a) there are over five kinds of dopamine receptors

> which have been characterized to date, and even

> the best researchers know nothing about the D5

> subtype

>

> b) there are five separate kinds of cholinergic

> receptors

>

> c) there are fifteen different kinds of serotonin

> receptors

>

> d) neuroscientists do not yet understand the

> relationship between neuroreceptor density,

> sensitivity, or neurotransmitter turnover

>

> 3) the model fails to consider the fact that many of

> the neurochemicals which are presumed to be the

> basis of " mental disease " are, in fact, broadly

> distributed throughout the body. This fact casts

> doubt about our conceptualization of " brain tissue "

> (perhaps it is not limited to the cranial vault) and

> also raises questions about the reliability of serum

> or urine tests, as those assays may be capturing

> levels which reflect non-brain locations of

> neurotransmitter activity

>

> a) over 90% of the serotonin in the human body is

> made by the enterochromaffin cells of the stomach

> and small intestine, rather than the raphe nucleus

> of the midbrain and pons

>

> b) a broad variety of cells in the human body

> possess receptors for many of the neurotransmitters,

> including white blood cells and platelets

>

> 4) the model fails to acknowledge the impossibility

> of measuring discrete events in the human brain, due

> to the speed of neurotransmission; and due to the

> relative bulk of our measuring devices, relative to

> the size and complexity of each synapse

>

> 5) the model fails to acknowledge the impossibility

> of explaining the brain in reductionistic terms.

> That is to say, the organic whole may so far exceed

> the sum of the component parts, that science will

> never be able to fully explain the workings of this

> magnificent system. Part of the problem here is that

> the brain is never capable of being studied in a

> vacuum - the system is forever open, due to the

> conscious, and unconscious, processes of the subject

> who is being observed. Part of the problem, too,

> arises from the phenomenon of diaschisis, or

> non-local effects, through which changes in one part

> of the brain reflect, and then precipitate, complex

> cascades of events in multiple locations throughout

> the nervous system. Thus, it is impossible to speak

> of serotonin or dopamine without analyzing the

> interactions of all complex chemicals, peptides, and

> amino acids upon each other, but far too little

> research has occurred to study the gestalt of these

> intercommunications.

>

> The human brain consists of over 100 billion

> neurons, an equal number of support cells (glia),

> and dozens of neurotransmitters and neuromodulators,

> all of which participate in the most intricate

> network known to man. Superimposed upon this

> incredible array of cognition, sensation, movement,

> and imagination is the human will. Biological

> psychiatry, and its TV commercials, seem to have

> completely dismissed this essential element of the

> species. While it has become fashionable to compare

> the human brain to the elements of a computer - the

> brain tissue, comprising the hardware; and the

> neuronal circuits and chemical events, comprising

> the software - it has become disturbingly acceptable

> to reject the existence of a third component: the

> operator, who sits at the keyboard.

>

> Humans are corporeal beings, who record the events

> of life with electrical and chemical fluctuations of

> a highly refined nervous system. Unfortunately, the

> chemical model of mental illness has too often

> confused association with causation. Worse, still,

> it has failed the species more fundamentally , by

> suggesting that fluctuations in brain activity occur

> randomly, and are ultimately more important than the

> processes through which the human operator comes to

> work at the keyboard of such an amazing machine.

>

>

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