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Budapest W9: Performing Arts - Neuroscience and the Future for Mental Health

Nikolas Rose, “Neuroscience and the Future for Mental Health,” Epidemiology and Psychiatric sciences 25 (2), 2015: 95-100

 "diagnoses were to be specified in terms of discrete categories each based on a set of observable symptoms. But despite this emphasis on the observable, and the wish to eschew commitment to any specific explanatory framework, the approach was based on belief that for each category, identifiable
biological aetiology and diagnostic markers would eventually be found" p.100 

 "there was no clear boundary of ill and well, there were no simple genetic disorders, similar symptomology could arise from different biology, similar biology could lead to different symptomatology" p.96

 When clear observable diagnosis could not be made, the brain was looked to as the indicator of all problems. Despite the reliance on disorders eventually being diagnosed as brain-related, there has been great difficulty in identifying how exactly the brain and these anomalies create the diseases. 

 "at present, we have no idea how such multiple genetic variations are linked to the pathways or circuits that underpin higher cognitive functions." p.97

 "In 2013 in England alone over 53 million prescriptions were issued for antidepressants, a 6% increase on the previous year and a 92% increase since 2003" p.97

 "First, a disorder – even a ‘mental disorder’ – is a disorder of a whole person (not just a brain) – a living organism shaped by time and development from conception, and always in transaction with a social and environmental setting – a form of life... Second, 'brain' and 'body' are inseparable, not just biologically and neurobiologically, but also clinically... Third, an organism is not merely a sum of parts that can be isolated and experimented on in the purified space of the laboratory, then simply extrapolated to the whole as it lives in the wild world of real existence" p.97-98

 "While neurochemical intervention may play a part, the most effective and long-lasting forms of intervention are often those that prioritise both the adverse social conditions under which those diagnosed with disorder live their lives" p.98

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