Biology 202 Web Paper 1

In order to describe the deeper issues involved with depression, I think it’s important to define what addiction really is. Addiction is a chronic, often relapsing brain disease that causes compulsive substance seeking and use despite harmful consequences to the individual who is addicted and to those around them. Addiction is a brain disease because the abuse of drugs leads to changes in the structure and function of the brain. It is a behavioral syndrome in which substances impede one’s ability to exert control over the impulse to use drugs despite adverse consequences. This is the defining characteristic of addiction. There is a slight difference between substance abuse and addiction. Substance abuse means using a substance in the wrong way.

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    “Is he still there, somewhere we can’t reach?” For many people whose loved ones are in a vegetative state, this might be one of the most asked questions. For doctors and researchers studying human consciousness, this is always a hard question to answer. Thanks to the development in methods of neuroimaging, we are now able to detect awareness in some patients who used to be thought of having no consciousness. Furthermore, these advanced techniques also indicate revision in medical terminology and the care of those patients in a vegetative state.

Historically termed “hysteria” and thought to be a physical manifestation of disordered emotions, little is known about the mystery that is conversion disorder (5). In the seventeenth century, some individuals with unexplained paralysis, blindness or “fits” (seizures) were thought to have been involved with witchcraft and were burned at the stake (2). Nowadays, these symptoms are considered relatively common and oftentimes debilitating. Although not much is known about conversion disorder, it seems possible that the neurological processes responsible for its development are related to those involved in anxiety and depression disorders.

Hysteria!

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The face of mental health in the Western world has certainly changed throughout time and history, revealing its fluid nature.  Mental illnesses have continuously been defined, redefined, disregarded, categorized, recategorized, and rated according to the perceived needs of a community of patients.  In the New York Times article The Americanization of Mental Illness, Watters explains that changes in the expression of mental health and illness across global cultures are due to, “…those who minister to the mentally ill – doctors or shamans or priests – inadvertently help to select which symptoms will be recognized as legitimate.”   The key word here in ‘inadvertently.’ What does Watters mean when

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