Mental Health & Brain Research

Science is rapidly developing new research techniques to help them understand how the brain of people with mental disorders is different from a healthy brain.

Like Russell Crowe's character in A Beautiful Mind, life is often difficult for the 2.4 million Americans with schizophrenia. A late or incorrect diagnosis and the lack of effective treatment options can destroy a sufferer's quality of life.

Until now, detecting mental illness before symptoms appear has been nearly impossible. Building on her groundbreaking work on facial recognition and brain imaging, Prof. Talma Hendler of Tel Aviv University's Department of Psychology is hoping to make early diagnosis a reality by identifying the physical markers of mental illness—particularly schizophrenia—inside the brain.

For years, the mechanism behind the abnormal social behavior that characterizes many schizophrenic patients has been a mystery. To study the physical manifestation of schizophrenia, Prof. Hendler used brain imaging to illustrate differences between the brain activity of schizophrenic patients and healthy adults. Her work is part of the Functional Human Brain Mapping project at Tel Aviv University.

Prof. Hendler's findings, published recently in the journal Human Brain Mapping, showed that when presented with photographs of emotional faces with "bizarre" characteristics, the brains of schizophrenic patients were much less reactive than established norms. "Recognizing facial emotions is a very early process, so young children could be screened for a predisposition to mental disease by measuring their brain connectivity while detecting emotional cues," Prof. Hendler explains.

An objective early marker of the disease would be especially useful for those already considered high risk, such as children with an immediate family member with the disease. With early diagnosis to guide individually tailored treatment, it may be possible to reduce the effect of the disease and, in some cases, even prevent its outbreak.

By identifying the physical characteristics of a mental disorder, Prof. Hendler is also paving the way for new types of treatment. "Current drugs treat the abnormal behavior, not the brain disorder that is causing the behavior," she says, "We want to be able to develop more specific treatments based on objective brain markers, which are the actual characteristics of the disease."

Future work with "funny faces" will also look at basic human emotions such as shame, envy and guilt. Having a neural marker for these emotions might give clinicians an early-detection tool to spot abnormalities in social interactions. Problems in socializing are a hallmark of schizophrenia.

May is Mental Health Month. Our ProQuest editors have created a BookCart learning activity for you to copy and use with your students—"Mental Health & Brain Research--ELS."

BookCart learning activities are a one-stop solution for conducting 21st Century inquiry-based learning activities. Great editor-selected resources, essential questions for critical thinking, and student directions ensure that no time is wasted and that students have everything they need to maximize learning and save time.

The learning activity for this month is just one of more than a hundred eLibrary Science Carts that educators can copy into their local collection and use right away.

Here's how to do it:

• Logon to the eLibrary Science TEACHER EDITION.
• Click the BOOKCART ADMIN tab link below the Search box of the Teacher Edition.
• Click the PROQUEST CARTS tab.
• Type "Mental Health & Brain Research--ELS" in the SEARCH box.
• Click the COPY icon (middle one) in the ACTIONS column to the right of the title.
• Click RETURN TO MY LOCAL CARTS.

Librarians or teachers can edit this BookCart to customize it for their students.

To edit this BookCart:

• Click the new BookCart TITLE (it will have the prefix "COPY OF".
• Delete "Copy of" and then type your name in the AUTHOR boxes and your initials in the EMAIL box (required info).
• Option: Edit any ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS for your students in the DESCRIPTION box.
• Option: Edit the existing STUDENT DIRECTIONS in the Description box to customize for your students.
• Scroll down and click SAVE.
• Click RETURN TO MY LOCAL CARTS.

Or, you can use this resource to learn more about creating, copying, and editing BookCart learning activities, or view this short video.

Assign students to write a report of at least 150 words or a presentation of at least seven slides. Students should cite at least three resources using the Pathfinders listed below. Students should address the following essential questions for critical thinking (you can add or substitute others):

• What are at least three mental health disorders and what are their symptoms?
  
  
• What are some of the possible solutions being developed to treat these disorders?
  
  
• What are some new discoveries about healthy brain function?
  
  
• How can these discoveries be applied to improve student education, adult learning, and mental health?

#1: Type Mental Health in the Search box > Enter Mental in the Document Title box > Search

#2: Type Brain Research in the Search box > Type Brain in the Document Title box > Search

Your students can use our custom ProQuest models for written and PowerPoint-style reports.

Teachers may be interested in a ProQuest flexible rubrics model for evaluating inquiry-based learning activities.

Educators may also wish to employ the Quizinator Web tool (free, but registration required) for creating a variety of printed resources, including short assessments.