Hacker News Reader

Comment by bitL | Hacker News Reader

Wasn't schizophrenia identified as basically off-by-one (multiple?) error of the deletion algorithm in the brain that is garbage collecting more (glial?) cells in a row than needed during teenage years? And "overclocking" glial cells by adding large quantities of Niacin/NAD+ partially alleviates those symptoms?

View on HN

At the very least there seem to be 10s of causes of schizophrenia and just as many different manifestations of it. Similar to cancer or depression in that regard.

Yes, so another umbrella diagnosis that can have 100s different reasons with the same outward symptoms. Like some people with pellagra exhibiting the same symptoms but when their nutrition improves long-term, they get completely cured from it. I only remember some Harvard/Stanford or similar article in the past five years about deleted cells because of a genetic defect akin to off-by-one error in programs.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S003331827...

It's a neurological disorder and is more complicated than a one off bit, especially when it involved the entire CNS because it's associated with the brain. Many of these issues can't be cured as easy as flipping a bit.

I mean if it is an unrecoverable loss of glial cells during puberty (AFAIK most diagnoses start during that time) then nobody would be able to "flip the bit" back anyway. As glial cells feed and protect neurons, their lack will likely have unrepairable consequences, unless the remaining ones are somewhat boosted to partially cover the functionality of the missing ones. I am interested in this topic because a cousin has inherited it from her father's family (super intelligent people) and their family life is destroyed from it. They basically just manage symptoms with regular crazy periods when one medication ceases to function and they have to switch to another one that might not work.

Most diagnoses for schizophrenia are in the early twenties for men and late twenties for women, so not really in puberty/teenage years. I don't believe anyone can be diagnosed before adulthood if they're not exhibiting exceptionally extreme symptoms either.

No.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com