PROGRESS IN LOOKING AT BRAIN ILLNESS

http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/national/2016/02/19/brain-hacking-the-minds-biology/?post_id=1297460443602530_1297460440269197#_=_


With mental illness, the nature vs. nurture debate goes on, but increasingly we see that mental illness is brain illness.  Formal medical research and anecdotal evidence as well are lessening the the stigma and making it more acceptable to look at those suffering from emotional dysfunction as being unable to "snap out of it."  The recent attention paid to the serious damage found in postmortem brain autopsies of former NFL players supports this direction in research.  Some of the extreme behaviors of athletes (such as O.J. Simpson) have now been attributed to this damage.

This is progress.  Technology such as the SPECT brain scans promoted by Dr. Daniel Amen and other avenues are demonstrating that there are avenues of treatment that address the physical and chemical causes of brain illness first, ahead of "talk" therapies.  There is hope.