Brain, Genes, and Everything In-Betweens

I could start my journaling on abnormal psychology and probably talk about that for the full journal. I took abnormal psychology here at SUU last semester and it was one of my favorite classes. I loved learning about abnormal behavior and the non-biological components of those disorders. Balance and harmony of the body and mind was interesting especially as it relates to Ayurveda. I had always wondered when taking abnormal psych how much of these disorders were truly caused by childhood trauma and how much were caused by a genetic predisposition. In certain disorders such as depression and antisocial personality disorder, genetics play a huge role in determining if a person will develop those disorders. It isn’t unlike a genetic predisposition to type 2 diabetes for that matter. But at the same time, there are behavioral components that are very important for the development of these imbalances, whether we’re talking about psychological disorders, type 2 diabetes or other physical issues.

I also think that how we define abnormal behavior is very much related to disease. In abnormal psych, we talked specifically about the 3 D’s of abnormal behavior. In order for something to truly be considered abnormal, the behavior must be distressing, dysfunctional, and deviant from social norm. Easy enough right? It’s easy to see how that definition could be extended to disease of the body as well as disease of the mind. The problem is that some behavior that we deem definitely abnormal doesn’t always fit that criteria. Schizoid personality disorder is characterized by an antisocial lifestyle, lack of social connection, flattened affect, and general uneasiness around people. This extreme form of behavior often drives people to live as hermits in their own space and they rarely interact with society. Certainly this meets 2 of the 3 criteria, meaning deviation from social norm and dysfunction. But is this behavior truly distressing to the individual? Most of those who have Schizoid personality disorder feel perfectly comfortable living alone and see no need for social interaction. They feel no distress at all. So we don’t see the 1st D, but clearly this behavior can be classified as abnormal.

So where does biology fit in? Honestly I think it’s there all along, it’s just harder to see. I think that the biological component of the mind and how it relates to behavior is running in the background all the time. Childhood trauma or modeling of a certain behavior of parents are very visible things, but examining genetic code is difficult and often inaccurate. Nevertheless, we can see genetic and biological influence upon the mind all the time. Anxiety is a classic example. Anxiety generally is defined as an inappropriate sympathetic nervous system response to a regular stimuli. Panic Disorder tells the body to interpret bodily cues as a signal for the sympathetic nervous system to become activated, and can trigger a panic attack. Something as simple as running up a flight of stairs raises the pulse, blood pressure, and increases respiratory rate. These cues in someone with panic disorder can send them into a full blown panic attack very easily. Clearly biological function can easily influence what happens in the mind.

A similar observation can be made with something like gut microbe colonization. We spent a fair amount of time in class on gut microbes and their influence. It’s easy to see how ayurveda can be influenced by the GI tract. It seems like ayurveda almost gets expanded in this idea as well, specifically because gut microbes are an entire other living organism. In fact, there are millions and millions of other living things inside of our own body that contribute to and take part in our overall balance. How can the criteria for abnormal psychological traits be expanded to other areas? Sometimes it’s tricky to nail down. Gut colonization seems to be more in the middle on the continuum of what is considered really healthy and what is not. It’s not as simple as just slapping a label on it and saying it’s healthy or not, sometimes those criteria are difficult to define, but easy to see.

Gene therapy is also a very interesting subject. Questions of ethics and morality are not my strong suit. Perhaps it’s because I’m a scientist, I seek to know the right answer, but morality doesn’t work that way. I suppose more often than not, especially in regards to complicated issues, the answers can be just as complicated. Unfortunately I’m an aspiring doctor, so complex questions of ethics are certainly in my future. I personally believe that in order to really make an ethical decision, one has to have all the information. Sometimes this is hard because those decisions are not always able to be made over time. Sometimes those decisions are made in a split second. I think with gene therapy though, we can have most, at least a lot of information. Genes are confusing to me. Some aspects of biology are easy for me, they are clear cut and easy to understand, genetics is not one of those aspects. Genes can be complicated, messy and unpredictable. I have to wonder just how much about gene therapy we really understand. Like I said before, I don’t really know much about gene therapy, so at this point I have more questions than answers.

The human genetic code is a complex thing that we’re still learning how to understand. We only learned how to read it just a few years ago, so I feel like there is so much more to learn from it. The study of epigenetics is particularly interesting to me. This aspect of genetics really demonstrates just how sophisticated our genetic code really is. I constantly am amazed at how intricate and complex the human body can be. I’m amazed at how much possibility exists in the realm of gene therapy, but it’s a tricky science. The nervous system is an amazing and intricate aspect of our biology as well. However, sometimes that intricacy is problematic. From what I know about the nervous system, we don’t know that much about it at all. We can track thought to areas of the brain and measure stimuli and reaction, but as to why or how most of this works, we’re still in the dark. I have to wonder if gene therapy in the realm of the genetic code will be the same way. Furthermore, how is ayurveda play into this? Again, it’s hard to nail down what is right and what is wrong. Or even what is good or bad. If anything, when we start labeling genes as good or bad, we start dabbling in the field of eugenics.

Part of my concerns about ethics comes from that complex nature of our genes. I have to really wonder if we know what we’re doing? I’m sure that there have been tests and trials and research done to determine the safety of gene therapy, but just how old is this practice? Have we seen the repercussions over generations yet? Maybe I’m being overcautious, but in class we talked about a moral stance of “Do no harm”. I stand by that stance. If it means we might harm someone in the process, I think they should know full well the risks. Perhaps that's why clinical trials exist. And of course no medical treatment is guaranteed to work or be safe. I have a feeling that we will continue to make more mistakes before we figure it out. I honestly think that’s part of the process though.

Finally, we reach the issue of sharing of genetic information. Quite frankly, I don’t really know what to think about this. Would an insurance company want to know if someone has a predisposition to cancer? Of course they would want to know that. But is it really that different from asking people if they have a family history of cancer? Maybe. I don’t really know. I do know that the information is valuable, and just like anything valuable, it is potentially dangerous in the wrong hands. I think that more steps need to be taken to protect individual genetic information, but I also think that the use of genetic information will become more widespread as time goes on. I don’t think there is much use in fighting it. I think the only way to fight it would be to stop learning. But I think we all know that isn’t going to happen. Genetic information and gene therapy is the wild west of research right now. It’s new, and it’s wild.