Mental defects

We still need much better medicines to cure cancer, heart disease, stroke, and Alzheimer s disease. We need better drugs to deal with obesity, diabetes, arthritis, and schizophrenia. The treatments of diabetes, arthritis, and mental defects such as schizophrenia or manic depression are not yet cures, just ways to keep the symptoms under control. Cures are needed. Insights from genetics may help guide us toward elegant and rational cures, but we will also make use of screens to identify natural products and libraries of randomly generated synthetic compounds (combinatorial chemistry). A semi-empirical approach may be the best hope over the next two decades to yield drugs to alleviate these diseases. 

Naylor, G.D., Donald, J.M., LePoidevin, D., and Reid, A.H. (1974) A douhle-hlind trial of long-term lithium therapy in mental defectives. Br J Psychiatry 124 52—57. 

Tuchmann-Duplessis, H. and and Mercier-Parot, L. (1971) Influence of neuroleptics on prenatal development in mammals. In Tuchmann-Duplessis, H., Fanconi, G., Burgio, G.R., eds. Malformations, Tumors and Mental Defects, Pathogenetic Correlation s. Milan Carlo Erba Foundation. As cited in Shepard, T.H. Catalog of Teratogenic Agents, 6th ed. Baltimore Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989, pp. 308-309. 

Martin JP, Bell J A pedigree of a mental defect showing sex-linkage./Neurol Psychiatry 6 151-154,1943. 

Does this child have any physical or mental defects (check, and if any, describe)... 

Cade (1949) preferred lithium to lobotomy on restless and psychopathic mental defectives in order to control their restless impulses and ungovernable tempers. ... 

As more people were born into our society who were mentally defective, or just naturally stupid and irresponsible,... 

Early treatment of neonatal hypoth5U"oidism (cretinism) (1 5000 births) is important if permanent mental defect is to be avoided. It must be lifelong. 

P15. Perry, T. L., Hansen, S., Tischler, B., Bunting, R., and Berry, K., Carnosinemia. A new metabolic disorder associated with neurologic disease and mental defect. New Engl. J. Med. 277, 1219-1227 (1967). 

Foiling (272) in 1934 first described a syndrome characterized clinically by mental defect and biochemically by the presence in the urine of phenyl-... 

Abnormal indole derivatives in the urine and low levels of serotonin (a product of tryptophan metabolism) in blood and brain point to a defect in tryptophan metabolism in PKU. 5-Hydroxytryptophan decarboxylase, which catalyzes the conversion of 5-hydroxytryptophan to serotonin, is inhibited in vitro by some of the metabolites of phenylalanine. Phenylalanine hydroxylase is similar to the enzyme that catalyzes the hydroxylation of tryptophan to 5-hydroxytryptophan, a precursor of serotonin. In vitro, phenylalanine is also found to inhibit the hydroxylation of tryptophan. The mental defects associated with PKU may be caused by decreased production of serotonin. High phenylalanine levels may disturb the transport of amino... 

M2. Moncrieff, A., and Wilkinson, R. H., Sucrosuria with mental defect and hiatus hernia. Acta Paediat. 43, Suppl. 100, 495-516 (1954). 

Early and Periodic Screening, Diagnosis, and Treatment (EPSDT) a program which covers screening and diagnostic services to determine physical or mental defects in recipients under age 21, as well as health care and other measures to correct or ameliorate any defects and chronic conditions discovered. 

The most severe effect is endemic cretinism, which is characterized by mental defect, deaf mutism and spastic diplegia. 

Iodine deficiency has been recognized as the most frequent cause, after starvation, of preventable mental defects, affecting hundreds of million people to different degrees. The eradication of iodine deficiency has been approved in resolutions or declarations from most of the international conferences and organisms (United Nations, UNICEF, WHO, FAO, ICCIDD). Adequate iodine nutrition is important for the prevention of brain damage that could be irreversible by birth, and is only preventable when administered very early in gestation. 

At the global level, the ICCIDD has been quite successful in increasing the awareness of IDD as an international health problem of major importance within the UN system and beyond. It is now recognized by the WHO that iodine deficiency is the single most important preventable cause of mental defect in the world today, with more than 2 billion people from 130 countries at risk (WHO, 1994). 

The WHO recognizes that iodine deficiency is the single most common preventable cause of mental defect in the world today, with more than 2 billion people from 130 countries at risk. 

Monte Durham, a man charged with housebreaking, is acquitted as not guilty by reason of insanity, and confined in St. Elizabeths Hospital. His case sets legal precedent as the Durham rule The rule we now hold. .. is simply that an accused is not criminally responsible if his unlawful act was the product of mental disease or mental defect. ... 

Dent C. Discussion of Armstrong MD relation of biochemical abnormality to development of mental defect in phenyletonuria. In Etiologic Factors in Mental Retardation Report of Twenty-Third Ross Pediatric Research Conference November 8-9, 1956. Ross Laboratories, Columbus OH, 1957, pp. 32-33. 

Chengde is an endemia of neurological cretinism in China. Ma and Chen examined the cretins there. Only 2 cases had frank myxedema in addition to their neurological signs. Mental defects (idiot and imbecile)... 

The estimate of the ms tude of the gonad exposure for the average rate of bomb testing for the 5 years preceding 1956, reported by the National Academy of Sciences-National Research Council committee, is 0.1 roentgen in 30 years. Hence 1 year of testing at that rate, it is estimated, will cause about 2700 children with gross physical or mental defect, 10,000 stillbirths and childhood deaths, and 23,000 embryonic and neo-... 

Now let us consider the effect of the increase in world population that can be reasonably anticipated. At the present time the world population is growing at a rate such as to double in about 50 years. If we assume that no catastrophe intervenes, this rate may continue for hundreds of years, and the population may then remain essentially constant, with a value for number of births per year 5 times the present value. The number of defective children correspondir to the first term of Eq. 2 would then be multiplied by a factor nearly equal to 5. If the world population were to increase in this way, the carbon-14 from 1 year of testing would cause an estimated total of about 55,000 children with gross physical and mental defect, 170,000 stillbirths and childhood deaths, and 425,000 embryonic and neonatal deaths. On this as.siimption about world population it is estimated that the bomb tests carried... 

We may consider first the predicted numbers of seriously defective births in the next generation as a result of the ordinary fallout. From Crow s estimates and the gonad exposure 0.1 roentgai in 30 years, there are 270 children with gross physical or mental defect, 670 stillbirths and childhood deaths, and 1304 embryonic and neonatal deaths. 

Cystathioninuria, a deficiency of cystathionase, is a much rarer and less clearly defined disorder . While the disease has frequently been associated with mental retardation, this may only refiect the type of individual with which testing most frequently occurs. Patients with normal mental function are also known. Nonetheless, the high levels of cystathionine in brain and the mental defects associated with its faulty metabolism, have led to speculation that this thioether has some special role in nervous function. In tissues from at least one patient, there was evidence that the defect was in pyridoxal phosphate binding by cystathionase and that normal enzyme activity could be achieved at abnormally high levels of coenzyme. This is often quoted as the classical example of a binding or K mutant, but not all patients with the disorder give the same effect. 

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