Research Opportunity (and response to all the other threads)
Posted: June 5th, 2014, 9:25 pm
Hi all,
I spend 60+ hours a week doing schizophrenia research, so before the rest of this message I wanted to respond to the other threads. While consuming research is absolutely a great practice, you've got to be a cognizant consumer. I say this because the tones of the threads and the research therein were very dismissive and reductionist. Positing that a disease so pervasive and debilitating as schizophrenia can be solved simply by one particular biomarker, or that one particular identification method (which has yet to be developed to any degree) will be the magic wand in treating the disease such that mental health professionals (such as myself, so I'm admittedly biased) will be out of work by 2020 is just dramatic and irresponsible.
Yes--I would love for there to be so little mental illness in the world that there was no need for my profession. But that's clearly not the case, and based upon history, it won't be changing so dramatically anytime soon. If mental health as a field were to soon be defunct, hospitals wouldn't be increasingly integrating psychologists into primary care and other academic health settings.
Further, the most solid theory regarding the etiology of schizophrenia follows a diathesis-stress model, NOT a purely genetic model or anything suggested by any of the cited articles. Diathesis-stress models outline that one may inherit the gene(s) for a disorder, but whether or not that disorder actually onsets at all, at any point, is dependent upon the environment in which they live, which is rarely completely autonomous with respect to the genetics portion. That is, if your parents have the genes, they may display symptoms, and if you grow up with them, you may learn behaviors from them that predispose you to developing the illness. On the flipside, you may inherit genes from your bio-parents, but say you were adopted and your adoptive parents have no inkling of the gene(s)--you're pretty unlikely to develop the disease.
ANYWAY, I don't say any of this to be a downer or discouraging. I say it because I feel a responsibility to keep peoples' outlooks realistic, and because I feel a responsibility to ensure people are consuming research properly.
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Unrelated, I wanted to post about my current research study. I have no interest in putting a bad taste in anyone's mouth by doing this, so please let me know if you find this in bad taste and I'll remove it.
We're having a very hard time recruiting as many people as we need for this study, so I am hoping that using less antiquated methods than craigslist will work. Unfortunately we're only recruiting individuals in the Twin Cities (Minnesota) area, but if you are from that area, I hope you'd consider our study. We're recruiting all persons, but I specifically am posting here to try and tap into the patient community.
We're recruiting both those who take medications and those who don't (note that we will not alter, administer, or render judgment(s) about your current medication status, and that we will not recruit those who change their medication status just to be recruited; we also will not discriminate against those who may need to change their meds mid-study). Perhaps more importantly, this study does NOT involve changing your medications or trying a new form of treatment or anything about your life.
The study is examining the relationships between the structure and function of your retina and illnesses such as schizophrenia (or similar illnesses/symptoms). There's good evidence to suggest that schizophrenia can be identified via structural/functional differences in how the retina works and therefore how the brain receives and processes information. So, in this study, we essentially (1) do a psychological assessment to validate current symptomology, (2) do a simple eye exam to make sure your eyes are healthy and (3) do a specialized eye exam that non-invasively tracks your retina and watches what it does while processing different sets of stimuli.
If you know anyone in the Twin Cities area, I'd appreciate if you'd let them know about this study if you think they'd be interested. You or they can go to tinyurl.com/rbm-study to complete a screening survey that will help me decide your eligibility for the study (generally we only exclude people for having had major eye injuries or illnesses). As it states on the site, ALL information provided is confidential within the bounds permitted by law.
As I stated, if this solicitation is inappropriate, feel free to remove it; I meant no ill will.
It pays $15/hour for three separate appointments (each of which lasts 2-4 hours) and we provide all transportation (or reimburse mileage and parking).
I spend 60+ hours a week doing schizophrenia research, so before the rest of this message I wanted to respond to the other threads. While consuming research is absolutely a great practice, you've got to be a cognizant consumer. I say this because the tones of the threads and the research therein were very dismissive and reductionist. Positing that a disease so pervasive and debilitating as schizophrenia can be solved simply by one particular biomarker, or that one particular identification method (which has yet to be developed to any degree) will be the magic wand in treating the disease such that mental health professionals (such as myself, so I'm admittedly biased) will be out of work by 2020 is just dramatic and irresponsible.
Yes--I would love for there to be so little mental illness in the world that there was no need for my profession. But that's clearly not the case, and based upon history, it won't be changing so dramatically anytime soon. If mental health as a field were to soon be defunct, hospitals wouldn't be increasingly integrating psychologists into primary care and other academic health settings.
Further, the most solid theory regarding the etiology of schizophrenia follows a diathesis-stress model, NOT a purely genetic model or anything suggested by any of the cited articles. Diathesis-stress models outline that one may inherit the gene(s) for a disorder, but whether or not that disorder actually onsets at all, at any point, is dependent upon the environment in which they live, which is rarely completely autonomous with respect to the genetics portion. That is, if your parents have the genes, they may display symptoms, and if you grow up with them, you may learn behaviors from them that predispose you to developing the illness. On the flipside, you may inherit genes from your bio-parents, but say you were adopted and your adoptive parents have no inkling of the gene(s)--you're pretty unlikely to develop the disease.
ANYWAY, I don't say any of this to be a downer or discouraging. I say it because I feel a responsibility to keep peoples' outlooks realistic, and because I feel a responsibility to ensure people are consuming research properly.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Unrelated, I wanted to post about my current research study. I have no interest in putting a bad taste in anyone's mouth by doing this, so please let me know if you find this in bad taste and I'll remove it.
We're having a very hard time recruiting as many people as we need for this study, so I am hoping that using less antiquated methods than craigslist will work. Unfortunately we're only recruiting individuals in the Twin Cities (Minnesota) area, but if you are from that area, I hope you'd consider our study. We're recruiting all persons, but I specifically am posting here to try and tap into the patient community.
We're recruiting both those who take medications and those who don't (note that we will not alter, administer, or render judgment(s) about your current medication status, and that we will not recruit those who change their medication status just to be recruited; we also will not discriminate against those who may need to change their meds mid-study). Perhaps more importantly, this study does NOT involve changing your medications or trying a new form of treatment or anything about your life.
The study is examining the relationships between the structure and function of your retina and illnesses such as schizophrenia (or similar illnesses/symptoms). There's good evidence to suggest that schizophrenia can be identified via structural/functional differences in how the retina works and therefore how the brain receives and processes information. So, in this study, we essentially (1) do a psychological assessment to validate current symptomology, (2) do a simple eye exam to make sure your eyes are healthy and (3) do a specialized eye exam that non-invasively tracks your retina and watches what it does while processing different sets of stimuli.
If you know anyone in the Twin Cities area, I'd appreciate if you'd let them know about this study if you think they'd be interested. You or they can go to tinyurl.com/rbm-study to complete a screening survey that will help me decide your eligibility for the study (generally we only exclude people for having had major eye injuries or illnesses). As it states on the site, ALL information provided is confidential within the bounds permitted by law.
As I stated, if this solicitation is inappropriate, feel free to remove it; I meant no ill will.
It pays $15/hour for three separate appointments (each of which lasts 2-4 hours) and we provide all transportation (or reimburse mileage and parking).