# Schizophrenia Revealed To Be 8 Genetically Distinct Disorders



## CaptSwan (Mar 31, 2013)

A new study reveals the role specific clusters of genes take a role in the development of Schizophrenia. I leave below the link to the article


Schizophrenia Revealed To Be 8 Genetically Distinct Disorders | IFLScience


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## VinnieBob (Mar 24, 2014)

interesting article I always wondered what personality types are the most susceptible and if they experience more then one given type


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## Amine (Feb 23, 2014)

Interesting indeed. Good to know psychology is making progress. They've also come up with a blood test for depression recently, which I think is pretty great.


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## Ace Face (Nov 13, 2011)

Amine said:


> Interesting indeed. Good to know psychology is making progress. They've also come up with a blood test for depression recently, which I think is pretty great.


I sincerely hope that the majority of doctors with depressed patients are sending their patients out for blood tests, not because of this "new depression testing method" but because they should be checking for other things that factor into depression such as low vitamin D levels. Just throwing people on random pills that screw with their hormones is irresponsible when they are other healthier remedies. A vitamin D supplement and a little walk in the sunshine never hurt anybody. Oh, and it's cheaper, too. Imagine that. Sorry, had to go on my little rant. 

Back to the topic at hand, I think this is truly fascinating. I hope to be reading a more detailed account of their findings very soon


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## William I am (May 20, 2011)

Amine said:


> Interesting indeed. Good to know psychology is making progress. They've also come up with a blood test for depression recently, which I think is pretty great.


WAT? Really? Details please?


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## Amine (Feb 23, 2014)

William I am said:


> WAT? Really? Details please?


A Blood Test For Depression Shows The Illness Is Not A Matter Of Will


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## prplchknz (Nov 30, 2010)

I got diagnosed schizoaffective (I don't think I am at this point, but that's not the point of this post) anyways before I got the diagnosis, they sent my for ct scans, blood tests, eegs, a bunch of shit. even been tested for Wilson's disease - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia so yeah medical tests are important. i think.


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## ThatOneWeirdGuy (Nov 22, 2012)

Amine said:


> Interesting indeed. Good to know psychology is making progress. They've also come up with a blood test for depression recently, which I think is pretty great.


Also quite scary, but maybe I've read too many dystopian novels.


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## Amine (Feb 23, 2014)

ThatOneWeirdGuy said:


> Also quite scary, but maybe I've read too many dystopian novels.


Must be. I can't really conceive of how that would be scary. I can easily see how it would be basically a miracle for society, though. Depression is an unrecognized plague.


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## ThatOneWeirdGuy (Nov 22, 2012)

Amine said:


> Must be. I can't really conceive of how that would be scary. I can easily see how it would be basically a miracle for society, though. Depression is an unrecognized plague.


Depression is very well recognized. It is not a "plague." It's a mental illness. 

Trying to understand depression on a purely biochemical basis is absurdly reductionist for humans, and has shown to not work compared to therapy and self-knowledge in terms of treatment. It's certainly worked for pharmaceutical companies, but we've now degraded to drugging children instead of looking at the environmental causes, and more importantly, ourselves. 

I don't want a bunch of morons claiming people are depressed because a blood-test supposedly says so. If you're depressed, you know it, especially after quick conversation with a trained psychologist. I don't see the usefulness of a blood test for actually helping patients. And I especially don't want that sort of thing to be on any sort of official documentation that could be accessible to any entity other than the patient and the healthcare provider. 

If the blood-test is very accurate for screening for depression, and is simply used as a numerical indicator and diagnosis along side therapy (I don't see how that could be consistent, but I'm not a doctor), and said quantitative information about your mental health will remain completely private, that's dandy

Your optimism with technology and cultural trends seem to be ideological rather than thought-out.


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## Amine (Feb 23, 2014)

ThatOneWeirdGuy said:


> Depression is very well recognized. It is not a "plague." It's a mental illness.
> 
> Trying to understand depression on a purely biochemical basis is absurdly reductionist for humans, and has shown to not work compared to therapy and self-knowledge in terms of treatment. It's certainly worked for pharmaceutical companies, but we've now degraded to drugging children instead of looking at the environmental causes, and more importantly, ourselves.


It sounds like you may have some emotional stake in this that is preventing you from seeing things a certain way. First things first, it should be clear that I was being a bit loose with the term "plague" and using it to prove a point; that is, it is _severely underrecognized _ in society. Tons of people have it, and they basically suffer in silence. I think you should agree that this is hard to deny. To this day, many if not most depressed people get told by others to "suck it up and get over it" or whatever.

Second, depression does have a physical basis whether or not our current drugs are good at addressing it. Again, you seem to have this emotional hang up about the drugs we currently use, and I agree it needs work, but don't let that cloud your thinking about the entire subject. If the drugs were more effective, we would see the depression clear up immediately. Give a depressed person a drug like ecstasy, and they will _not be depressed anymore_, period, for as long as the drug lasts. That is proof of concept that the basis for depression is largely if not entirely biochemical.

It _does not_ mean that we should treat people with ecstasy, nor does it mean that talk therapies and exercise and sunlight don't help. I'm certainly not arguing those things, and I don't think anyone is. 



> I don't want a bunch of morons claiming people are depressed because a blood-test supposedly says so. If you're depressed, you know it, especially after quick conversation with a trained psychologist. I don't see the usefulness of a blood test for actually helping patients. And I especially don't want that sort of thing to be on any sort of official documentation that could be accessible to any entity other than the patient and the healthcare provider.
> 
> If the blood-test is very accurate for screening for depression, and is simply used as a numerical indicator and diagnosis along side therapy (I don't see how that could be consistent, but I'm not a doctor), and said quantitative information about your mental health will remain completely private, that's dandy
> 
> Your optimism with technology and cultural trends seem to be ideological rather than thought-out.


Uh. I would assume it would be accurate. Why would we care, and why would it be important if it is not accurate? If it isn't accurate, then this just isn't going anywhere and we won't hear much about it in the future. I think it sounds reasonable enough, though. It shouldn't be terribly hard to have a good blood test for depression because there are a number of heavily implicated hormones and biological molecules involved in it.

This could be a good thing. I think there is a lot more grey area than you think in diagnosing mental illnesses and personality disorders and such. I myself have been through severe and mild depression in the past. I even basically fooled my doctor into giving me meds for depression when I didn't have it because I wanted to try them and see their effect (spoiler: no effect on mood and it was harder to orgasm. bummer.). Psychology currently tends to be a very crude and imprecise science. Findings like the one in the OP and things like blood tests for various mental illnesses could help it solve this problem.

Which is all to say, a bunch of "morons" claiming people are depressed because a blood test says so is probably better than a bunch claiming that people are depressed because some _person_ said so. You should see that there is _way_ more potential for corruption in the latter than the former.

I would definitely question who is ideological and who is thought out here.


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## ThatOneWeirdGuy (Nov 22, 2012)

You tell me that I'm getting emotional when you use language that has the same exaggerated effect, and when you've explicitly explained your emotional stake in all of your predictions for the future in being your purpose. You're dedicated to it, and it's impressive, but all of your predictions on technology and cultural trends are only rapid and optimistic, which is very suspicious, especially when you skip over any ethical or social issues. 



Amine said:


> To this day, many if not most depressed people get told by others to "suck it up and get over it" or whatever.


The trend seems to be going in quite the opposite direction from my experience.



Amine said:


> Second, depression does have a physical basis whether or not our current drugs are good at addressing it. Again, you seem to have this emotional hang up about the drugs we currently use, and I agree it needs work, but don't let that cloud your thinking about the entire subject. If the drugs were more effective, we would see the depression clear up immediately. Give a depressed person a drug like ecstasy, and they will _not be depressed anymore_, period, for as long as the drug lasts. That is proof of concept that the basis for depression is largely if not entirely biochemical.
> 
> It _does not_ mean that we should treat people with ecstasy, nor does it mean that talk therapies and exercise and sunlight don't help. I'm certainly not arguing those things, and I don't think anyone is.


Yes, emotion is biochemistry, but the process is very complicated with many external factors that we puny humans cannot completely synthesize, which is why the biochemical approach to psychiatry is overly reductionist and why ectasy and prozac suck. 



Amine said:


> Uh. I would assume it would be accurate. Why would we care, and why would it be important if it is not accurate? If it isn't accurate, then this just isn't going anywhere and we won't hear much about it in the future.


Yeah, people never write useless articles that just get people's attention. Plus wasn't there only one test on this? 



Amine said:


> This could be a good thing. I think there is a lot more grey area than you think in diagnosing mental illnesses and personality disorders and such. I myself have been through severe and mild depression in the past. I even basically fooled my doctor into giving me meds for depression when I didn't have it because I wanted to try them and see their effect (spoiler: no effect on mood and it was harder to orgasm. bummer.). Psychology currently tends to be a very crude and imprecise science. Findings like the one in the OP and things like blood tests for various mental illnesses could help it solve this problem.
> 
> Which is all to say, a bunch of "morons" claiming people are depressed because a blood test says so is probably better than a bunch claiming that people are depressed because some _person_ said so. You should see that there is _way_ more potential for corruption in the latter than the former.


Sorry, I never said modern psychology is flawless. I was actually denouncing it... 

You fail to see that blood doesn't talk though. People talk, and if they think a number on a blood test means depression, they'll say it, whether that person is in fact depressed or not.



Amine said:


> I would definitely question who is ideological and who is thought out here.


You're the one claiming extreme positives with no negatives mentioned.


If you have a response, PM me so the thread doesn't get too OT.


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## prplchknz (Nov 30, 2010)

Amine said:


> It sounds like you may have some emotional stake in this that is preventing you from seeing things a certain way. First things first, it should be clear that I was being a bit loose with the term "plague" and using it to prove a point; that is, it is _severely underrecognized _ in society. Tons of people have it, and they basically suffer in silence. I think you should agree that this is hard to deny. To this day, many if not most depressed people get told by others to "suck it up and get over it" or whatever.
> 
> Second, depression does have a physical basis whether or not our current drugs are good at addressing it. Again, you seem to have this emotional hang up about the drugs we currently use, and I agree it needs work, but don't let that cloud your thinking about the entire subject. If the drugs were more effective, we would see the depression clear up immediately. Give a depressed person a drug like ecstasy, and they will _not be depressed anymore_, period, for as long as the drug lasts. That is proof of concept that the basis for depression is largely if not entirely biochemical.
> 
> ...


personally I'd believe a blood test over someone saying they were. I mean we're so conditioned to think certain things that even if we think differently or feel sad cuz our life sucks, we can diagnosed with depression, and so instead of learning skills or coping we're so quick to medicate, and it's not good. Plus with blood we'd be able to treat it more effectively. Oooh what if they did blood transfusions to replaced the depressed blood?


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## Amine (Feb 23, 2014)

ThatOneWeirdGuy said:


> If you have a response, PM me so the thread doesn't get too OT.


Ah, a sneaky play for the last word. This is a public debate my friend. I understand you don't want to derail, but you should have PMed me if that were the case. Well, I think the topic we are discussing is relevant to others who may be reading this, so I'm going to make my reply public and say that if you want to PM me afterward you can, or you can post it publicly. The last word should always be offered by the person who wants to end a public argument, though.



> You tell me that I'm getting emotional when you use language that has the same exaggerated effect, and when you've explicitly explained your emotional stake in all of your predictions for the future in being your purpose. You're dedicated to it, and it's impressive, but all of your predictions on technology and cultural trends are only rapid and optimistic, which is very suspicious, especially when you skip over any ethical or social issues.


I don't at all skip over ethical or social issues. Good lord. Not only did I have kids with AK-47s in my avatar for like 6 months (if that isn't a sign of something), but I have shown a huge amount of concern about the global situation we are in and most of the posts I make address that, not technology. I even made an entire thread about the social and ethical issues I think will be solved in the next couple of decades, making a point to say that it won't happen unless we fight for it. _And I quote_, from the OP:

_"I say - do whatever you can do to spread the word and encourage these things. Fuck pessimism and fatalism. Have the spirit that these things can be done *if we fight for them*... We need to get the word out and spread these ideas, we need to fight. I don't think any of it is guaranteed, but I have HOPE... We need as many people on this bandwagon as possible pushing for the third option: openness, peace, love, acceptance, maturity, rationality. We've got to give it everything we've got."_

Not sure how you think I am skipping over ethical issues. Hell, I've even become a vegetarian in the last month (and stuck with it) due to ethical concerns. And I have expressed a huge amount of concern for world events all over this forum. Make no mistake, I acknowledge the reality of and am very concerned with doing something about the negative potentialities of the future. You are merely selective in your reading, apparently.



> The trend seems to be going in quite the opposite direction from my experience.


Never said it wasn't. In fact I agree, totally. It still has a long way to go, though, and that's the point.



> Yes, emotion is biochemistry, but the process is very complicated with many external factors that we puny humans cannot completely synthesize, which is why the biochemical approach to psychiatry is overly reductionist and why ectasy and prozac suck.


This is just short-sighted. The whole idea behind my original comment on this thread was that of progress. If we continue at the current rate, it won't necessarily be long until the biochemical approach to psychiatry not only _doesn't suck_, but is actually way more effective than the alternative.



> Yeah, people never write useless articles that just get people's attention. Plus wasn't there only one test on this?
> 
> Sorry, I never said modern psychology is flawless. I was actually denouncing it...
> 
> You fail to see that blood doesn't talk though. People talk, and if they think a number on a blood test means depression, they'll say it, whether that person is in fact depressed or not.


This is a step up in rigor, period. It's a way to quantify. No one said it was perfect.



> You're the one claiming extreme positives with no negatives mentioned.


Maybe you could flesh out these negatives you perceive a bit more for us. You've said that you think doctors being able to identify depression via the blood is "quite scary" and you've said that this is because you think "people will claim they are depressed because a blood test says so." I'm not really getting the scary vibe, yet. Do expand.


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