On Jan 10, 2007, at 11:53 AM, Charlie Coleman wrote:
> Basically, most medical 'science' is 'guessing'. Don't
> get me wrong, they have a lot of information, data, research, etc,
> to help
> them guess, but in the end it's pretty much guessing. Surgury is, of
> course, a bit more 'scientific', but most things beyond that are
> 'lets try
> this and see what happens.'
The 'guessing' is the result of those pesky ethical issues involved
in sampling living human brains for analysis.
The mechanisms have been confirmed in those mammalian creatures for
whom such issues are not as much of a problem. I did my thesis
(degree in Neurological Biochemistry) studying the enzyme monoamine
oxidase (MAO), which is a major actor in schizophrenic disorders, but
they wouldn't let me work with human patients for some odd reason.
However, more than a few rats gave their all for the research.
All kidding aside, it isn't as simple as 'guessing'. There has to be
a ton of neurological research to establish a mechanism, and then
testing on non-human subjects to confirm the guess there. Only then
can they actually start trying it out on humans. But as I mentioned
in a previous post, a single disease such as depression is actually
several distinct conditions. It would be as unreasonable to expect
every one of those conditions to respond the same way to the same
drug, just as you wouldn't expect the same treatment for one kind of
cancer have the same effect on all other cancers.
-- Ed Leafe
-- http://leafe.com
-- http://dabodev.com
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