Eric Kandel is looking for brain disorders of human nature

Vienna (APA) – For Eric Kandel, research on brain diseases provides new insights into the normal functions of the mind. The 88-year-old neuroscientist and Nobel laureate gives a glimpse of "brain disorders and what they reveal about human nature" in his new book "What is it?" a human being? ", Now published in German.

86 billion nerve cells (neurons) communicate with each other in the brain via precise connections (synapses). Kandel himself has shown to marine gastropods that these synapses evolved through experience or learning, for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 2000. If complex processes in the brain mix, this can lead to diseases such as Autism, depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease or post-traumatic stress disorder.

Knowledge of these erroneous processes is not only essential for finding new treatments for these diseases. The disorders and diseases of the brain would also give a glimpse of the typical brain in good health, Kandel writes.

Mental disorders are now clbadified according to a system dating back to the German psychiatrist Emil Kraepelin (1856-1926). He badumed that all the diseases of the mind had a biological cause. Kandel is also convinced that "all mental impairments are the result of very specific changes in the function of neurons and synapses," mental illnesses are like neurological disorders due to brain abnormalities.

According to Kraepelin's clbadification, Kandel describes various disorders in the book and devotes separate chapters to the group of autistics, depression and bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, dementia, post-traumatic stress disorder and addictions. This document presents not only the history of their research on each disease, but also their biological basis and their genetic relationships.

Kandel's pbadion for the art, which he had already revealed in his 2012 book "The Age of Knowledge", a bridge between brain research and cultural history, is also reflected in his new job. Time and again, he presents concrete examples of the close link between creativity and brain disorders and devotes a chapter to this subject.

The neuroscientist is convinced that "with a biological approach to the mind, one can gradually reveal the secrets of creativity and consciousness." For him, advances in the biological study of the mind also open the possibility of a new humanism in which natural sciences and humanities merge. This "new scientific humanism" would "fundamentally change our vision of ourselves and others".

Kandel expects one day "the biological confirmation of our uniqueness, which will lead to new knowledge about the nature of man, but also to a deeper understanding and a new appreciation of our common and individual humanity. the more we know about the unusual spirit, the more likely we, as individuals and as a society, are to understand people who think differently from us and who have compbadion for them, we will stigmatize or marginalize them result. "

(SERVICE – Eric Kandel: "What is the human? Brain disorders and what they tell about human nature," Siedler Verlag, 368 p., 30.90 euros ISBN: 978-3-8275-0114-1)