Heckers explores different paths of brain research
Are mental illnesses disorders of the brain? That question, posed last week by Stephan Heckers, M.D., Ph.D., chair of Psychiatry, is deceptively simple.
Stephan Heckers, M.D.
Alois Alzheimer's discovery of plaques and tangles in the brains of patients with severe dementia a century ago “in one stroke reduced a very complex degradation of memory and change of personality” into the brain disease that is named for him.
The same, however, cannot be claimed for schizophrenia or many other diagnoses, Heckers said during a Brain Awareness Month lecture at the Adventure Science Center. They may never be proven to be diseases of the brain.
That may not be so bad, Heckers said. Both lines of inquiry — the clinical exploration of the signs, symptoms and syndromes, and the discovery of genetic and biochemical contributors to abnormal brain function — are important and can inform each other.
To view Heckers' lecture, and hear how he answers the question, visit http://media-srv1.its.vanderbilt.edu/asxgen/lectures/heckers_090311.wmv for a Windows Media player, or http://media-srv1.its.vanderbilt.edu/ramgen/lectures/heckers_090311.rm for a Real player.