Dr. Karl Deisseroth: Understanding & Healing the Mind | Episode 26
Main Takeaways
Neurologists use imaging to diagnose physical brain disorders such as stroke, Alzheimer's, brain damage, while psychiatry focuses on diseases diagnosed through words that don't appear on scans or neuroimaging.
Efforts are being made to look at brain waves and imaging to diagnose mental health disorders, but there are still limitations to these methods.
The barriers to psychiatry include the stigma of mental health disorders and the difference between colloquial and medical terminology.
Observations of other people can be useful in detecting changes in mental health, and there is still much to learn about the microcircuitry of the human brain.
Cognitive-behavioral therapy and certain medications, including anti-psychotics and vagus nerve stimulation, have been successful in treating mental health disorders.
The field of optogenetics uses channelrhodopsins to control neurons using light, allowing for more precise stimulation of specific regions of the brain.
Optogenetics and brain-machine interfaces hold potential for more targeted treatments of mental health disorders.
Psychiatrists use cues from the body such as eye contact, body language, and tone of voice to inform diagnoses.
There is ongoing debate about what percentage of the population with ADHD symptoms should be treated with medication, and research is being done to diagnose the disorder through quantitative EEG.
Psychedelic medicine holds promise for therapeutic benefits but also carries risks, and there is a need for further research in this area.
