Writing Worth Reading
Writing Worth Reading
One August night in 2008, Marko Cheseto walked onto a plane in Nairobi bound for Alaska. He had $100 and a cross-country and track scholarship to college in Anchorage. But events soon took a tragic turn for the talented runner
Nine year old Michael is unlike others. His parents took him to see psychologist Dan Waschbusch. Who diagnosed him as a psychopath. "Even if accurate, it’s a ruinous diagnosis. No one is sympathetic to the mother of a psychopath"
American Psychiatric Association's "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders" does its best to define what counts as a mental illness, and what does not. The fifth edition comes out next year. Here's what to expect
"Phoenix is a mecca for America's elderly, who are attracted by the year-round sun. It is also a kind of capital of the forgetful and the confused. Not coincidentally, Phoenix is pioneering the way dementia sufferers are treated"
Was "serotonin hypothesis" of depression discarded too soon? Latest research suggests serotonin is indeed central to functioning of mood, but "its mechanism of action is vastly more subtle and more magnificent than we ever imagined"
Are children being misdiagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder? Is lack of sleep the real issue? “No one is saying ADHD does not exist, but there’s a strong feeling now that we need to rule out sleep issues first"
"We are living in an isolation that would have been unimaginable to our ancestors, and yet we have never been more accessible." Research suggests we're becoming more lonely, and that's making us ill. Is social media to blame?
Scientists have worked out that the same changes to chromosomes that occur with ageing also occur with severe stress and depression. This "accelerated ageing" effect suggests depression is a body-wide illness, not just psychological
"A lot of these kids were having a happy, normal life." And then they started twitching. Quite a lot. What happened when mass psychogenic illness, or mass hysteria, descended on the town of Le Roy, in upstate New York
Harrowing tale of a relationship soured by mental illness, emotional abuse. "I had been so sure that I could handle whatever his illness might throw at me – and now, feeling sick and hurt, I was trapped by my own confidence"
Do brain training games improve the way the brain works? Most psychiatrists think not. But Michael Merzenich disagrees. He believes brain games work and even plans to treat schizophrenia with software. Could he be right?
"The backlash against ADHD relies on recycled 'diagnosis du jour' tropes of subpar parenting and doped-up, misbehaving kids, but it makes no mention of the abundant science showing what really underlies and helps with this disorder"
Concussions in football: "I won't remember much about this interview in 10 minutes' time"
