My visit to the brain drug doctor. Today I saw a psychiatrist. It was an interesting experience. I went to get an assessment for possible OCD based on a genetic predisposition and my poor work-life balance (all work, no life). I ended up discussing my car accident at 12 years old where I witnessed a the gory death of a beautiful girl, and then my traumatic experience of letting people down by forgetting my lines in the middle of a high-school play where I was the star (only happened on one of the shows, but why do I still remember it as one of my worst memories ever?) , my occasional anxiety about public speaking, and so on. He seemed interested and said I was the first patient ever to suggest that he tell me what drugs he might recommend so I could research their action on the brain and find healthy alternatives to do the same thing without the side effects. I came out of the hour session with a list of drugs to research: Pristiq, Lexapro, Welbutrin, Abilify, Depakote, and Lamictal.
My summary of what these do for a brain: Can’t sleep? Cooling your brain may be a natural and effective treatment for insomnia. Happiest places have highest suicide rates. Happiness peaks in our eighties. Micro-RNA's contribute to risk for panic disorder. Public release date: 24-Mar-2011 [ Print | E-mail Share ] [ Close Window ] Contact: Chris Pfisterc.pfister@elsevier.com 215-239-3266Elsevier Philadelphia, PA, 24 March 2011 - Studies in twin pairs suggest that 40% of the risk for panic disorder is heritable, yet the manner in which genes contribute to the risk for panic disorder is far from clear. To date, variations in a growing number of genes have been implicated in the risk for panic disorder, but the magnitude of the impact of each individual gene is relatively small. The pattern of these implicated genes raises the question of whether there might be molecular "switches" that control the function of groups of genes in a coordinated fashion, which would help to explain the observed findings related to the genetics of panic disorder.
A new study published in the current issue of Biological Psychiatry now implicates one type of molecular switch, microRNAs (miRNAs), in panic disorder. Ribonucleic acid (RNA) is the immediate product of DNA.