For a long time, scientists have considered that psychiatric disorders reflect very distinct pathological entities, each with its own causes. But a study from McGill University in Montreal seems to undermine this assumption.
Thus, most early stage disorders may have biological, psychological and social factors in common.
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Three key factors
The first of these factors is therefore biological, through individual variability in the reward pathway for dopamine in the brain.
The second component is social. It emphasizes the important role of neglect or abuse in early childhood.
Finally, the third element is psychological and concerns the temperament, and in particular the tendencies to impulsivity and the difficulty in controlling one’s emotions.
Previous research has suggested that each of these three factors, taken in isolation, had modest effects on the development of psychiatric disorders.
For the first time, out of 30 women and 22 men, and via brain scans combined with information about their character traits and a history of adversity in life, scientists looked at all three factors together.
As a result, this combination of three factors predicted, with greater than 90% accuracy, which participants had mental health problems in the past or during the study’s three-year follow-up period.
“A wide range of early psychiatric problems (depression, bulimia, attention deficit / hyperactivity disorder …) can be largely due to the combination of these three factors only”, conclude the authors. “If it were to be confirmed, our research could transform the way we think (and why not heal – editor’s note) about mental illness. “
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