Mind Molecules

Molecules of the Mind

This month’s column is an example of the perils and the promises of using an animal model to ferret out one of psychiatry’s most intractable problems: the genetic substrates mediating schizophrenia and depression. The subject concerns what some describe as the “schizophrenic mouse,” an animal carrying a disrupted gene called “disrupted in schizophrenia 1” (DISC1), and its utility in illuminatin...

Molecules to Mind

Molecules of the Mind

In this article and the next two, I am going to explore the neurobiology of this wretchedly recursive disorder. There is good reason to do so—the literature on PTSD is expanding and changing rapidly. While some of these changes are due to advances in technology, new insights also have occurred because of the oddly changing nature of modern combat. In our current engagements, there is often no h...

Probing the molecules of the mind

The molecular dimension of biology has been finding practical applications in all fields of medicine over the last few decades, but arguably one of the most challenging and exciting areas is that of molecular psychiatry. Much progress has been gained from traditional linkage studies into gene candidates for various psychiatric disorders, including schizophrenia, bipolar states, bulimia, autism ...

Pattern formation within Escherichia coli: diffusion, membrane attachment, and self-interaction of MinD molecules.

In E. coli, accurate cell division depends upon the oscillation of Min proteins from pole to pole. We provide a model for the polar localization of MinD based only on diffusion, a delay for nucleotide exchange, and different rates of attachment to the bare membrane and the occupied membrane. We derive analytically the probability density, and correspondingly the length scale, for MinD attachmen...