The future of psychiatry

‘Is this problem biological, or psychological?’ This is a great fallacy of the lay population with regards to the origins of ailments of the mind. Schizophrenia, depression, autism, Tourette’s syndrome – all of these have a biological ‘substrate’, meaning they can be traced to something going awry in the brain. This represents both a great simplification as well as an immense hurdle in treating these conditions, how do you manipulate these brain areas in a non-invasive, straightforward, and safe way to help the patient? Some prospects are offered by the emerging fields of controlling brain activity, such as optogenetics.

Mark Revan Rangotis

28. 02. 2021

1 minuta čtení

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The idea behind optogenetics is astoundingly simple – give neurons tiny walkie-talkies and when you call them, they activate. These walkie-talkies are of a genetic origin and the transmission of signal to them is achieved by visible light, hence opto-genetics.

Applying this technology to treat humans would consist out of expressing these molecular walkie-talkies and then stimulating them through the skull to manipulate neuronal activity.

Have an overactive anxiety circuit? No problem, we can just call in an inhibitory signal!

There are many, many challenges ahead, although we now do have a prospect of manipulating the activity of neurons in the brain so directly that one day, many human mental health disorders will be a thing of the past.

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