A team of international scientists announced this week that it has found that embryonic stem cells may have potential use in the treatment of psychological disorders. The experiments conducted rodents showed that stem cells may offer a cure disorders such as depression, and potentially schizophrenia. Investment by the US National Institute of Health in this area could significantly speed up the research, which is currently delayed because of lack of political support by President Bush.

Drs. Miles Cunningham and Kim Kwang-soo at Harvard Medical School and Professor Kim Dong-wook at Yonsei University differentiated embryonic stem cells into nerve cells generating dopamine and serotonin and devised a model of psychiatric disease for applying the technology. The eighty animals involved in the experiment behaved as if they had taken anti-depressant medication.

Dopamine and serotonin are well-known neurotransmitters, or the chemicals playing a key role in relaying, amplifying and modulating electrical signals between brain cells - and which are known to also play a role in schizophrenia.

More experiments are progress, but it will take a long time to apply them to human beings.

Source: Psych Central

Now there getting somewhere by the sounds of it... shame we will all most likely be dead before it hits the public sector for treatment. Now now... we don't want to cure people, as cures don't generate profit margins.

I don't know about the rest of the world, but here in the states the religious right has applied so much pressure (negative) to stem cell research that it's going to probably end up that the applications for something like this are going to have to be developed in another country and then imported in.

Of course these are the same nim-rods that say that mental disorders are the work of the devil and the doctors that treat those disorders are just doing a mind-f*ck on you. And if you just prayed harder, all of your problems would just go away. Gee...if that were the case, I'd have been in high cotton months ago!!! *grumbling under breath and going back to work*

The ban in the states has been a boon to research in Canada. There has been a flood of scientists crossing the boarder to the point 4 of 5 is from another country.

there is always going to moral isues in med research but when the polititians get involved all comman sense seems to go out the window.

Let us try really hard not to turn this into political or religious debate. It is simply providing info from world news. No, we may not be around to see it, but those who feel the way they do about it are not all radical right wingers who think it is the devil's work. As stated there are always going to be moral issues in this type of research. And if I am not mistaken some steps have been made in regard to stem cell research not using embryos. It is just a slower study and more difficult. Time will tell.

There are plenty of religious people here who know this is not the devil's work - pray harder; and would take those comments as nothing short as a slap in the face. Please try to be kind to your fellow PTSDers.

I apologize if I offended anyone with my remarks. I know there are religious people that don't believe that. My mother is one (with a daughter with PTSD and a son with bi/polar-she's a big advocate of getting the help you need to have a good life). Unfortunately, in my little corner of paradise, there's a lot who aren't so tolerant and it's a difficult thing. Especially for me and my big mouth!

Again, if I offended anyone, I apologize.

Veiled is right in that they are working on getting them from other tissues(ambilacal cords, spinal fluid and fat cells of all things).

I think its fascinating what science is discoverying. The only obvious implications, are that for everything good developed in this world, those who have the mindset, find a negative use for the development. That is the unfortunate side to science I guess.

It's the old chinese Ying and Yang. Some thing like this the radicals on both sides grab onto it to further their veiw, not that the science should not be scrutinised but sometimes the science gets lost in the debate.

Anthony, if there was enough pressure to get the research done on this type of stuff in a timely manner, it would get done.

Marlene, I understand your comment about those that say this is the work of the devil. With every type of group there are fundamentalists that take tiny bits out of context and blow them up into something huge. Often, IMHO, these people haven't had personal experience or experience with someone close and thus don't fully understand (Tom Cruise comes to my mind, LOL).

Farmer, it doesn't surprise me that researchers are crossing the border into Canada to do their research. Where there's a will, there's a way!