Psychiatric Disorders as “Whole Body” Diseases

Abstract

In the last decades of the nineteenth century “insanity” was postulated to be a set of discrete mental conditions, which were thought to exist alongside other diseases that are widely recognized by general medicine. However, anatomical studies which focused on the search for pathological processes in the brains of psychiatric patients found little or no evidence for a link with the common clinical signs or symptoms. Nevertheless, the new disciplines of endocrinology, immunology and biochemistry arrived on the scene, and began to offer new insights that pointed towards involvement of the whole body in the precipitation and course of psychiatric disorders. The assumption behind this research was that the brain was not separate from most of the physiological currents that surged throughout other organs and peripheral systems of the body. Thus, the source of insanity might reside not just in the brain, but elsewhere in the body. This chapter will briefly cover the history of physiological models of psychopathology with respect to what we now call schizophrenia, the major mood disorders and other psychiatric Illnesses. Over the past 60 years, most historical narratives have focussed on neuroanatomy, neurotransmitter systems and the genome. There is now an emerging concept that psychiatric disorders can be precipitated by various factors external to the brain, including exposure to certain drugs, infections, nutrient deficits, physical and emotional stress, and by other diseases such as autoimmune conditions and metabolic disorders. With the emergence of proteomic biomarker research at the start of the twenty-first century, whole body causes of psychiatric diseases are once again the prime suspect.