http://mindhacks.com/2007/02/27/the-benefits-of-inheriting-despair/ Neuroscience and psychology news and views. Fri, 24 May 2013 17:03:23 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ http://mindhacks.com/2007/02/27/the-benefits-of-inheriting-despair/#comment-7490 Tue, 27 Feb 2007 11:19:38 +0000 http://mindhacksblog.wordpress.com/2007/02/27/the-benefits-of-inheriting-despair/#comment-7490 Regarding the evolutionary origins of mental illness (in particular Schizophrenia), or what is sometimes called the darwinian paradox (e.g. Why deleterious traits persist when those traits prevent biological fitness- the quantity of offspring organisms leave-)
T. Crow is suggesting that schizophrenia is at the basis our unique capacity to speak and language. But he shows skepticism with some evolutionary explanations because some of the advantages that they posit are not at the level or in the same dimension of the disadvantages, say, we cannot expect that a given disorder centered around a cluster of disfunctions could improve certain functions center around another cluster.
When talking on depression some evolutionary explanations suggest an anlogy with pain as an interoceptive or homeostatic signal, but in the case of depression, as a signal that some behaviours of the individual is compromissing its fittness.
In this point i´m skeptic as well, because women that have been mothers recently but suffer post-partum depression, why they have depression interpreted in this sense; having a child increase their fittness don´t you think?

]]>