Nature versus Nurture: The Seeds of Mental Health | Dr. Malaspina | 2016 Low-Beer Memorial Lecture

Dr. Dolores Malaspina, Professor of Psychiatry at New York University’s School of Medicine, discusses the risk factors that are associated with mental illness and what could protect someone from developing the disease. This edition of the Low-Beer Memorial Lecture took place in Montreal, Canada in October 2016.

0:00 Introduction by Ella Amir, Executive Director of AMI-Quebec and Dr. Virginia Penhune, Chair of Department of Psychology, Concordia University
5:46 Dr. Dolores Malaspina: Nature and Nurture: The Seeds of Mental Health
13:46 Exposures that are linked to severe risks to mental illness?
19:39 Fathers’ age related to new mutations?
25:37 Risk Factor studies for Mental Illness
31:46 Not just genes that provide blueprint for physiological and how we function.
Twin studies, epigenetics, exposure to trauma can change genes. Mouse/rat studies: mother’s diet, environmental estrogens.
40:52 Stress on hippocampus, making new brain cells, and exercise.
46:33 Study on Six-Day War in Israel on pregnancy, stress, and mental disorders.
48:23 Finding genes, four different conditions.
57:08 The Case of Miss A: autoimmune disease.

Q&A:
1:02:39 Could any mutation in the immune system functioning lead to this?
1:05:20 Is it possible if you have a person with schizophrenia to indicate what the cause is?
1:08:51 What is residual schizophrenia? Are there still subtypes of schizophrenia?
1:10:15 The impact of epigenetics?
1:12:43 Is anxiety that runs in a family related to a gene that’s being transmitted, or a stress signal going across the generations?
1:14:32 What is the best help for depression and anxiety?
1:16:11 What is Mindfulness?
1:17:00 Do you advocate men having children younger in life?
1:18:38 Fathering a last child in your mid 60s