Cerebellum Research Has Lead to Discoveries in Autism and Schizophrenia. Madeline Boreham 4th period

There is a new understanding from cerebellum research that could end up in treatment for those affected by strokes, autism, or schizophrenia.  It has been disproved that abstract thinking and emotional stability is linked to the cerebellum. The professor of neurology at Harvard, Jeremy Schmahmann, declared that there are functions of the cerebellum that we were previously unaware of.  The original idea of the cerebellum was that it just controls balance and physical coordination, but over the years evidence has come up proving that there might be more to it.  The main source of research comes from people born without  a cerebellum.  With time and effort these people's brains are about to compensate for the missing cerebellum. This can help many people with brain dysfunctions.  Small trials are starting now and the outcome is said to look promising.

It took a while for people to even accept that illnesses like Schizophrenia are caused by an imbalance of chemicals in the brain. Therapists and Psychologists would claim that these illnesses came from"extreme trauma as a child."  It was  Dr. E. Fuller Torrey who came out and said that mental illness is not socially induced and Neurologists need to study the chemical imbalance.  After battling the common perception of mental illness back then, Torrey emerged victorious thus aiding thousands of patients.
Although not all of our hospitals and treatment systems for the mentally ill are great. For example people are still having to fight to improve conditions like Dorothea Dix did for prisons & asylums. It is wonderful to see the breakthroughs in research being done. This is a huge milestone for these illnesses and it is crazy to see how far we have come in our research since the 50s. I hope that we will continue to make break throughs like this, and the public will turn its attention towards aiding the mentally ill ( a large portion of whom are homeless) to be cared for.


This article was written by John Hamilton for NPR. To read the full article click the link below:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2015/03/16/393351760/clues-to-autism-schizophrenia-emerge-from-cerebellum-research