The Biology Of Mental Disorders

This book explores the underlying biology associated with the pathology of mental health disorders and the related nervous system. Fully revised for this third edition, each chapter has been updated to include the latest research, ideas and concepts in each field, and includes a new chapter on sleep. Integrating up-to-date pharmacological and genetic knowledge with an understanding of environmental factors that impact on human biology, The Biological Basis of Mental Health covers topics including brain development, neural communication, neurotransmitters and receptors, hormones and behaviour, genetic disorders, pharmacology, drug abuse, anxiety, schizophrenia, depression, epilepsy, subcortical degenerative diseases of the brain, dementia, developmental disorders, and sleep. Accessible and engaging, this is an essential text for mental health students, practitioners and educators.

Mind Fixers tells the history of psychiatry’s quest to understand the biological basis of mental illness and asks where we need to go from here. In Mind Fixers, Anne Harrington, author of The Cure Within, explores psychiatry’s repeatedly frustrated struggle to understand mental disorder in biomedical terms. She shows how the stalling of early twentieth century efforts in this direction allowed Freudians and social scientists to insist, with some justification, that they had better ways of analyzing and fixing minds. But when the Freudians overreached, they drove psychiatry into a state of crisis that a new “biological revolution” was meant to alleviate. Harrington shows how little that biological revolution had to do with breakthroughs in science, and why the field has fallen into a state of crisis in our own time. Mind Fixers makes clear that psychiatry’s waxing and waning biological enthusiasms have been shaped not just by developments in the clinic and lab, but also by a surprising range of social factors, including immigration, warfare, grassroots activism, and assumptions about race and gender. Government programs designed to empty the state mental hospitals, acrid rivalries between different factions in the field, industry profit mongering, consumerism, and an uncritical media have all contributed to the story as well. In focusing particularly on the search for the biological roots of schizophrenia, depression, and bipolar disorder, Harrington underscores the high human stakes for the millions of people who have sought medical answers for their mental suffering. This is not just a story about doctors and scientists, but about countless ordinary people and their loved ones. A clear-eyed, evenhanded, and yet passionate tour de force, Mind Fixers recounts the past and present struggle to make mental illness a biological problem in order to lay the groundwork for creating a better future, both for those who suffer and for those whose job it is to care for them.

This textbook introduces the reader to some of the most common psychological disorders, from schizophrenia, depression and substance abuse to disorders of childhood, adolescence and ageing. Coverage of these disorders is combined with a comprehensive grounding in the fundamentals of neurobiology and the principles of psychopharmacology that underpin their treatment. Written by David Linden, Scientific Director at the School of Mental Health and Neuroscience at Maastricht University, The Biology of Psychological Disorders sits at the intersection psychology, psychiatry, biology and neuroscience. Aimed primarily at undergraduate psychology students, it is also of relevance to trainee psychiatrists and clinicians. New to this Edition: - Two completely new chapters on the immune system and mental health, and on environmental influences on brain development - Incorporates recent advances in genetics and psychopharmacology - Updated chapters in accordance with the DSM-5 - Discusses biological aspects of psychological interventions and psychological disease models - Suitable for neuroscience curriculum for trainee psychiatrists - New 'controversies' feature that promotes critical thinking skills by exploring the validity of disease concepts and evidence bases

Our understanding of the neurobiological basis of psychiatric disease has accelerated in the past five years. The fourth edition of Neurobiology of Mental Illness has been completely revamped given these advances and discoveries on the neurobiologic foundations of psychiatry. Like its predecessors the book begins with an overview of the basic science. The emerging technologies in Section 2 have been extensively redone to match the progress in the field including new chapters on the applications of stem cells, optogenetics, and image guided stimulation to our understanding and treatment of psychiatric disorders. Sections' 3 through 8 pertain to the major psychiatric syndromes-the psychoses, mood disorders, anxiety disorders, substance use disorders, dementias, and disorders of childhood-onset. Each of these sections includes our knowledge of their etiology, pathophysiology, and treatment. The final section discusses special topic areas including the neurobiology of sleep, resilience, social attachment, aggression, personality disorders and eating disorders. In all, there are 32 new chapters in this volume including unique insights on DSM-5, the Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) from NIMH, and a perspective on the continuing challenges of diagnosis given what we know of the brain and the mechanisms pertaining to mental illness. This book provides information from numerous levels of analysis including molecular biology and genetics, cellular physiology, neuroanatomy, neuropharmacology, epidemiology, and behavior. In doing so it translates information from the basic laboratory to the clinical laboratory and finally to clinical treatment. No other book distills the basic science and underpinnings of mental disorders and explains the clinical significance to the scope and breadth of this classic text. The result is an excellent and cutting-edge resource for psychiatric residents, psychiatric researchers and doctoral students in neurochemistry and the neurosciences.

The past twenty years have manifested worrying trends in the field of mental health in the United States. Most concerning is the increasingly popular idea that mental disorders are best understood as brain disorders. From this point of view, when confronted with an overly-energetic little boy, parents are informed that their son has a "brain disease" which causes inattention and hyperactivity and that this disease is best treated with drugs. Likewise, a person suffering from a major depressive disorder is told that her depression is caused by a "chemical imbalance" in her brain and that this imbalance is best treated with other chemicals that can restore equilibrium to her brain's chemistry. The idea is not just common - it is ubiquitous. "Everyone knows that mental illness is caused by the brain; those are the facts." And therein lies the problem. Those are not the facts. In this groundbreaking study, William Schultz demonstrates on both philosophical and scientific grounds that mental disorders are best understood not as brain disorders, but rather as solvable problems of personal agency and meaning. This book is essential reading for clinicians, practitioners, philosophers, and any interested in the future of mental health.