Monday, January 21, 2013

Hypochondriacs Know Best

The WSJ reports on two promising developments in brain science:

1) Some children with autism appear to grow out of their symptoms and recover fully.
researchers last week reported that they had identified 34 people who had all been diagnosed with autism by age 5 but years later were indistinguishable from peers on language, socialization and communication skills.
2) Animal studies show that neurons can be turned off and on by using beams of light, possibly leading to cures for psychiatric disorders like depression and drug addiction.
researchers have found they can instantly modify animals' behavior, suppress memories and lay bare the biological underpinnings of psychiatric disorders—all by illuminating neurons primed with light-sensitive proteins...."You can play the brain like a piano."
There are obvious privacy and philosophical concerns about free will and the manipulation of an individual's actions by other human beings, but to the many who must contend with mental illness and diseases like Parkinson's, development of such drug-free treatments seems like a godsend.

Advances in medical science are proceeding at such an astounding pace that one can't be blamed for being hypochondriacally vigilant about one's health. We should all try to stay alive as long as we can; conditions that portended an unhappy future a few years ago have much better prognoses today. Truer than ever: if one has life, one has hope.

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