Neuropsychiatric Diseases

As mentioned in my introductory post, neuroscience is connected with many other studies. Medicine is a widely researched study which includes the study of psychiatric and neurologic disorders. Neuropsychiatric disorders are, for instance, Alzheimer's disease, epilepsy, Parkinson's disease, or multiple sclerosis. So neuropsychiatry is concerned with mental disorders due to diseases of the nervous system.

Alzheimer's disease
is the most common form of dementia. It is a progressive disease, which means that the symptoms worsen over time starting with difficulty remembering newly learned information. leading to difficulty speaking, walking and swallowing and eventually death. The cause for Alzheimer's is still, for the greatest part, unknown. Also, what exactly happens to the brain is not entirely explored. It is only known that some sort of loss of neurons in the cerebral cortex is responsible for the disease. There is no treatment to completely stop it yet, however, there is treatment to slow down the worsening symptoms.

Epilepsy
Characteristic for this disease are repeated, spontaneous epileptic seizures. It all takes place in the brain: normally, electrical signals are not synchronic but when the brain's neurons start transmitting signals in an unusual, synchronized way, the patient experiences a seizure. Although epilepsy is not 100% treatable, there are many ways to prevent seizures and there are medication possibilities.

Multiple Sclerosis (MS)
is a disease where the immune system within the central nervous system attacks myelin sheath, which protects the axon of a neuron. Therefore, signals traveling to or from the brain are interrupted. Just as with Alzheimer's, there is no known cure for MS only medication or therapies which soothe the symptoms. There are multiple symptoms and every MS patient experiences different ones. Most common symptoms include sensory, visual or motor problems such as numbness, double vision or bladder dysfunctions.


These are only three of a wide range of neuropsychiatric diseases which are a serious problem that should best be addressed as soon as possible. According to predictions by the WHO (World Health Organization) "(...) unless immediate action is taken globally - the neurological burden will continue to remain a serious threat to public health." An estimation is presented by the WHO which predicts a 12% increase of deaths caused by neurological disorders in Europe, including those shortly described above.

sources:
http://www.alz.org/alzheimers_disease_1973.asp
http://www.nationalmssociety.org
http://www.epilepsy.com/learn/epilepsy-statistics
http://www.who.int/mental_health/neurology/chapter_2_neuro_disorders_public_h_challenges.pdf