• Question: What has been the hardest case to tackle in the human brain mentally?

    Asked by anon-216530 to Robert, Olly, Nicola, Jasmin, Dennis, Caroline on 10 Jun 2019.
    • Photo: Dennis Relojo-Howell

      Dennis Relojo-Howell answered on 10 Jun 2019:

      I would say depression, because often we don’t see it. People think it’s not real but it can lead to suicide.

      You probably have heard of suicide cases where family and friends did not realise that the person is suffering from depression. And because of that they committed suicide.

    • Photo: Robert Dempsey

      Robert Dempsey answered on 10 Jun 2019:

      In terms of psychology of mental health, it is very difficult to know who will die by suicide (as Dennis acknowledges) – there’s an argument that we can’t do this better than chance or at random.

      I’ve also had a lot of experience working on research studies with people with bipolar disorder and I’m not sure that we’ve really got to the reason why some people experience such a range of mood episodes that’s common to bipolar. There’s some biological evidence but I don’t think it offers a convincing explanation by itself – I favour a combined approach looking at bio, psychological and social aspects of mental health. I don’t think our mental health is completely ‘brain-based’ in terms of our physiology, I think our social environment has a big part to play and doesn’t get acknowledged enough… which makes it difficult to understand our mental health as there’s a lot to consider!

    • Photo: Oliver Clabburn

      Oliver Clabburn answered on 10 Jun 2019:

      Yes, as Dennis and Robert have said, mental health is certainly ‘up there’ with challenges as it is ‘hidden’. Take things like depression, no two people’s experience is exactly the same, so it’s hard to tackle.

    • Photo: Jasmin Moon

      Jasmin Moon answered on 11 Jun 2019:

      I think all mental health problems can be tricky as they aren’t obvious just by looking at someone, however the mental health problem with the highest mortality rate (number of deaths) is actually anorexia. This is usually because of the long term damage that restricting your food can have on the body and the fact that people with anorexia see themselves as much larger than they actually are which makes treatment very difficult.

    • Photo: Caroline Brett

      Caroline Brett answered on 11 Jun 2019:

      I agree with others – depression can be the most difficult as it is generally hidden, and often people don’t realise that they are experiencing depression because it can cause all sorts of physical and mental health symptoms. This partly explains why being bereaved by suicide is so very difficult to deal with – relatives and friends may have had no idea the person who died was feeling depressed, because even the person themselves may not have known. The more we can learn about this (and other) condition, and the more we talk about it, the more we can help people 🙂

    • Photo: Nicola Johnstone

      Nicola Johnstone answered on 12 Jun 2019:

      To be honest, working with anyone who is struggling can be really really difficult at times. We know quite a bit, and have lots of ways to help, but sometimes as a scientist it feels like we could do more. This is what keeps us going.

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