Like Father like Son

Like Father like Son

Image Via: NIH

I'm predisposed to alcohol dependancy. My grandfather and great grandfather are both alcoholics, and because of this my dad and I are both at risk of alcohol dependency, to make things worse we both have addictive personalities, or when we find something we like we do it a lot. Having known this my study is about the genetics related to mental health. I wanted to know more about this part of my family and see what kinds of risk I was in if I ever decided to drink. This connects to our learning about genetics this semester, as well as talks about how mental information is processed with neurons an neural transmitters.. There are five major disorders directly linked to a person’s chromosomes, Schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, depression, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and autism. These four disorders share differences on four different chromosomes. The difference between a health human being and one with a mental illness of any kind, genetic or otherwise, doesn’t lie in their psyche. The difference exists within the synapse. Mr. Arnold talked about synapse briefly when talking about the brain, they are the small chemical spaces between the axons and the neurons in someone’s brain. These synapse release a chemical signal in order to tell the body how to feel or how to react. These chemicals are dopamine, serotonin, norepinephrine, etc. Genetic mental illness is passed down much like physical disorders, through chromosomes and alleles with dominant or recessive traits. When a person has a mental illness their synapse’s send too much or too little amount of a certain chemical signal. Too much dopamine, person might have abnormal behavior or schizophrenia. Too little serotonin, depression and suicidal thoughts. Too much norepinephrine, could lead to paranoia or increased adrenalin. When it comes to substance abuse the line becomes blurrier for a few reasons. 1. When a patient becomes addicted to a substance that was meant to treat them, the effects of the condition become self fueling, and often cause one another, and in some case’s many professionals say that some medications can cause totally new disorders when given to patients who have an addictive personality, like myself and many of our peers, or that are genetically predisposed to be addicted to substances, also like myself and probably others in our class.