Here's an old gem steered from a gem down under......
praccus wrote:
>From virtropy@yahoogroups.com
___________________________________
Schizophrenia 'helped the ascent of man' Scientist says gene mutation is
key to genius and despair
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4154224,00.html Robin
McKie, science editor Observer
Sunday March 18, 2001
Tiny mutations in our ancestors' brain cells triggered mankind's
takeover of the world 100,000 years ago. But these changes also cursed
our species to suffer from schizophrenia and depression.
This is the controversial claim by biochemist David Horrobin in a new
book, The Madness of Adam & Eve: How schizophrenia shaped humanity, to
be published by Bantam Press next month.
Horrobin - who is medical adviser to the Schizophrenia Association of
Great Britain - argues that the changes which propelled humanity to its
current global ascendancy were the same as those which have left us
vulnerable to mental disease.
'We became human because of small genetic changes in the chemistry of
the fat in our skulls,' he says. 'These changes injected into our
ancestors both the seeds of the illness of schizophrenia and the
extraordinary minds which made us human.'
Horrobin's theory also provides support for observations that have
linked the most intelligent, imaginative members of our species with
mental disease, in particular schizophrenia - an association supported
by studies in Iceland, Finland, New York and London. These show that
'families with schizophrenic members seem to have a greater variety of
skills and abilities, and a greater likelihood of producing high
achievers,' he states. As examples, Horrobin points out that Einstein
had a son who was schizophrenic, as was James Joyce's daughter and Carl
Jung's mother.
In addition, Horrobin points to a long list of geniuses whose
personalities and temperaments have be-trayed schizoid tendencies or
signs of mental instability. These include Schumann, Strindberg, Poe,
Kafka, Wittgenstein and Newton. Controversially, Horrobin also includes
individuals such as Darwin and Faraday, generally thought to have
displayed mental stability.
Nevertheless, psychologists agree that it is possible to make a link
between mental illness and creativity. 'Great minds are marked by their
ability to make connections between unexpected events or trends,' said
Professor Til Wykes, of the Institute of Psychiatry, London. 'By the
same token, those suffering from mental illness often make unexpected or
inappropriate connections between day-to-day events.'
According to Horrobin, schizophrenia and human genius began to manifest
themselves as a result of evolutionary pressures that triggered genetic
changes in our brain cells, allowing us to make unexpected links with
different events, an ability that lifted our species to a new
intellectual plane. Early manifestations of this creative change include
the
30,000-year-old cave paintings found in France and Spain.
The mutation Horrobin proposes involves changes to the fat content of
brain cells. 'Sixty per cent of the non-aqueous material of the brain is
fat. Humans have bigger heads than chimpanzees because their heads are
full of fat.' By adding fat to our brain cells, we were able to control
the flow of electrical signals more carefully and make more complex
connections within our cortexes.
Our 'schizophrenia inheritance' was 'the single most important event in
human history' and marked the break 'between our large-brained, possibly
pleasant but unimaginative ancestors, and the restless, creative
creatures we are today,' he adds.
This idea was last week described as 'a reasonable hypothesis' by
palaeontologist Professor Chris Stringer, of the Natural History Museum,
London. 'It is well known there have been key brain cell mutations in
our species in our recent past. It is also likely there would have been
undesirable side-effects.'
Horrobin points out that schizophrenia is found in every racial group,
at a frequency of between 0.7 and 1.0 per cent. However, mankind would
initially have been largely unaffected by the disease because our
hunter-gatherer forebears ate meat and other fat-rich foods.
These supplied our brain with the chemicals needed to maintain proper
mental operation. With the invention of agriculture our diets changed
and the fat content of our food altered - making us more vulnerable to
mental diseases, says Horrobin.
Many scientists remain sceptical about the ideas of Horrobin, former
managing director of Scotia Pharmaceuticals, which made evening primrose
oil and other chemicals until it fell into insolvency this year.
Professor Tim Crow of Oxford University agreed genetic changes may have
made us vulnerable to schizophrenia. 'The trouble is Horrobin's
mechanism does not explain why so very few of us ever develop the
disease.'
--------------------------------- The Madness of Adam and Eve David
Horrobin Not Yet Published: You may still order this title. We will send
it to you when it is released by the publisher. Hardcover - 279 pages (5
April, 2001) Bantam Press; ISBN: 0593046498 AMAZON - UK
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0593046498/humannaturecom/
Synopsis
This volume presents an argument which aims to fundamentally alter our
view of the roots of humanity and answer questions of how a species of
clever ape evolved into something different. Schizophrenia is the only
illness to be found in equal measure in all racial groups, pointing to
the fact that the disease must have been present at the dawn of mankind
before the races diversified and spread from Africa throughout Eurasia
and Australasia. The book aims to reveal how the genetic legacy of
schizophrenia is at the heart of the best and worst of human
achievement.
The publisher, Simon Thorogood, Transworld Publishers , 27 February,
2001 'Immensely readable: smoothly written, clearly argued,
imaginatively constructed. A very important book.' Matt Ridley, author
of Genome
--Walter Watts Tulsa Network Solutions, Inc.
"He preferred the hard truth to his dearest illusions, and that is the heart of science." -Carl Sagan on Johannes Kepler in "Cosmos"
--
Walter Watts Tulsa Network Solutions, Inc.
"No one gets to see the Wizard! Not nobody! Not no how!"
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