Mental Disorder

A Mental Disorder is a human disorder that arises from the agent's (mentally ill) brain.

• Context:
  • It can be treated with an Mental Disorder Treatment (such as a antipsychotic drug, that can be analyzed with an Mental Disorder Treatment Clinical Study).
  • It can be detected with a Mental Disorder Assessment Tool.
  • It can be assessed by a Mental Health Provider (delivering Mental Disorder Medicine).
  • It can range from being a Mental Health Emergency to being a Chronic Mental Health Disorder.
  • It can be a Contextual Mental Disorder, such as resulting from solitary confinement.
  • …
• Example(s):
  • a Personality Disorder, such as Narcissistic Personality Disorder.
  • a Mood Disorder, such as a: Major-Depressive Disorder.
  • a Psychotic Disorder, such as Schizophrenia.
  • an Anxiety Disorder, such as an Obsessive–Compulsive Disorder.
  • an Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).
  • a Stress Disorder, such as: PTSD.
  • a Maladaptive Behavior?
  • …
• Counter-Example(s):
  • a Intellectual Disability,
  • a Human-body Disorder, such as an Organ Disorder, Hemophilia, ITP, ...
  • a Healthy Mind.
  • a Neurodevelopmental Disorder.
• See: Psychiatry, Psychotherapy, Mental Health Measure, Causes of Mental Disorders, Dysfunctional Emotion.

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References

2022

• (Wikipedia, 2022) ⇒ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mental_disorder Retrieved:2022-3-27.
  • A mental disorder, also called a mental illness or psychiatric disorder, is a behavioral or mental pattern that causes significant distress or impairment of personal functioning. Such features may be persistent, relapsing and remitting, or occur as single episodes. Many disorders have been described, with signs and symptoms that vary widely between specific disorders. Such disorders may be diagnosed by a mental health professional, usually a clinical psychologist or psychiatrist. The causes of mental disorders are often unclear. Theories may incorporate findings from a range of fields. Mental disorders are usually defined by a combination of how a person behaves, feels, perceives, or thinks. This may be associated with particular regions or functions of the brain, often in a social context. A mental disorder is one aspect of mental health. Cultural and religious beliefs, as well as social norms, should be taken into account when making a diagnosis. Services are based in psychiatric hospitals or in the community, and assessments are carried out by mental health professionals such as psychiatrists, psychologists, psychiatric nurses and clinical social workers, using various methods such as psychometric tests but often relying on observation and questioning. Treatments are provided by various mental health professionals. Psychotherapy and psychiatric medication are two major treatment options. Other treatments include lifestyle changes, social interventions, peer support, and self-help. In a minority of cases, there might be involuntary detention or treatment. Prevention programs have been shown to reduce depression. In 2019, common mental disorders around the globe include depression, which affects about 264 million, bipolar disorder, which affects about 45 million, dementia, which affects about 50 million, and schizophrenia and other psychoses, which affects about 20 million people. Neurodevelopmental disorders include intellectual disability and autism spectrum disorders which usually arise in infancy or childhood. Stigma and discrimination can add to the suffering and disability associated with mental disorders, leading to various social movements attempting to increase understanding and challenge social exclusion.

2017

• (NY Times, 2017) ⇒ https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/14/opinion/an-eminent-psychiatrist-demurs-on-trumps-mental-state.html
  • QUOTE: … Mr. Trump doesn’t meet them. He may be a world-class narcissist, but this doesn’t make him mentally ill, because he does not suffer from the distress and impairment required to diagnose mental disorder.
    Mr. Trump causes severe distress rather than experiencing it and has been richly rewarded, rather than punished, for his grandiosity, self-absorption and lack of empathy. It is a stigmatizing insult to the mentally ill (who are mostly well behaved and well meaning) to be lumped with Mr. Trump (who is neither).
    Bad behavior is rarely a sign of mental illness, and the mentally ill behave badly only rarely. Psychiatric name-calling is a misguided way of countering Mr. Trump’s attack on democracy. He can, and should, be appropriately denounced for his ignorance, incompetence, impulsivity and pursuit of dictatorial powers. ...

2016

• (Gandal et al., 2016) ⇒ Michael J. Gandal, Jillian Haney, Neelroop Parikshak, Virpi Leppa, Steve Horvath, and Dan H. Geschwind. (2016). “Shared Molecular Neuropathology Across Major Psychiatric Disorders Parallels Polygenic Overlap.” bioRxiv https://doi.org/10.1101/040022
  • QUOTE: Recent large-scale studies have identified multiple genetic risk factors for mental illness and indicate a complex, polygenic, and pleiotropic genetic architecture for neuropsychiatric disease. However, little is known about how genetic variants yield brain dysfunction or pathology. We use transcriptomic profiling as an unbiased, quantitative readout of molecular phenotypes across 5 major psychiatric disorders, including autism (ASD), schizophrenia (SCZ), bipolar disorder (BD), depression (MDD), and alcoholism (AAD), compared with carefully matched controls. We identify a clear pattern of shared and distinct gene-expression perturbations across these conditions, identifying neuronal gene co-expression modules downregulated across ASD, SCZ, and BD, and astrocyte related modules most prominently upregulated in ASD and SCZ. Remarkably, the degree of sharing of transcriptional dysregulation was strongly related to polygenic (SNP-based) overlap across disorders, indicating a significant genetic component. These findings provide a systems-level view of the neurobiological architecture of major neuropsychiatric illness and demonstrate pathways of molecular convergence and specificity.

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