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Neuroscience And The Pseudoscience Of Phrenology
Neuroscience and the Pseudoscience of Phrenology
Author
Institution
Introduction
Neuroscience has always been a fundamental science as far as understanding the functioning of the human body is concerned. The term neuroscience underlines the scientific study that deals in the nervous system (Bear et al, 2001). Scholars have underlined the fact that neuroscience is similar in some way to the pseudoscience of phrenology. This is especially with regard to the fact that both have their foundations on the interconnectivity between nervous activities and biology (Hayes, 2005). For instance scientists state that the brain regions that are associated with sensitivity to reward are larger than normal for extraverts (Bear et al, 2001). This was the same case for neuroticism, which scientists associated with brain regions that were involved in punishment and threat. Indeed, brain studies strongly supported the notion that the big fiver personality traits incorporate a biological foundation except for the intellect or openness, the umbrella for aesthetics, imagination and intelligence (Hayes, 2005). Even in this case, there existed strong evidence linking the trait to the center of the brain for working memory, reasoning and attention.
However, some differences exist between contemporary neuroscience and phrenology. This is especially with regard to the fact that contemporary neuroscience is based on science whereas phrenology is yet to meet scientific conditions to be classified as true. Indeed, scholars have outlined the fact that phrenology was based on extremely small sets of uncontrolled observations presented as scientific evidence (Fowler & Fowler, 2006). Scholars have noted that phrenology is yet to undergo extensive experimental verification, in which case it falls under the category of unsubstantiated hearsay. Indeed, phrenological localizations are yet to undergo or double-blinded verifications, which, in fact, is the reason for its ultimate rejection (Fowler & Fowler, 2006). Indeed, subsequent neuroscience has underlined the false nature of phrenology as scientists could not replicate the claims on which it was founded.
References
Hayes, N. (2005). Foundations of psychology. London: Thomson learning.
Bear, M. F., Connors, B. W., & Paradiso, M. A. (2001). Neuroscience: Exploring the brain. Baltimore, Md: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.
Fowler, O.S & Fowler, L.N (2006). Phrenology Proved, Illustrated And Applied. New York: Kessinger Publishing
The Great Firewall of China was created by the Golden Shield Project and is the backbone of the world’s largest censorship sy
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Students Name
Institution of Affiliation
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Contents
TOC o “1-3” h z u Abstract PAGEREF _Toc536794349 h 3The historical context of the Great Firewall of China PAGEREF _Toc536794350 h 4Literature Review PAGEREF _Toc536794351 h 9The Chinese Approach to Censorship PAGEREF _Toc536794352 h 9Political Controls PAGEREF _Toc536794353 h 10Method PAGEREF _Toc536794354 h 12Limitations PAGEREF _Toc536794355 h 13Economic, cultural, societal and technological effects of the great firewall on China PAGEREF _Toc536794356 h 14Statics and experiments for bypassing the great firewall PAGEREF _Toc536794357 h 16Conclusion PAGEREF _Toc536794358 h 18Reference PAGEREF _Toc536794359 h 19
AbstractThe Great Firewall of China was created by the Golden Shield Project and is the backbone of the world’s largest censorship systems. The great firewall can monitor traffic and at the same time inject additional packets as it is an on-path system (Marczak et al. 2015). However, the wall cannot stop the in-flight packets from getting to their destinations. To achieve the ultimate goal of censorship, the wall uses three main techniques. It inspects all the internet traffic between China and the rest of the world, terminating connections that contain censored information through injecting the forged TCP reset packets on both ends. Secondly, the wall blocks the access to specific IP addresses through the gateway routers of all the Chinese ISPs and finally, it uses the DNS tampering to return the false IP addresses in response to the DNS queries to the blocked domains. Through the use of the DNA tampering, the wall affects the queries on both the foreign and domestic DNS services.
The great firewall relies primarily on the DNS tampering and the IP blocking to cut off all the access to blocked websites effectively (Feng & Guo, 2013). However, the use of such draconian methods can lead to over-censoring as well as collateral damage to the international web traffic that flows through China and other innocent websites. But despite the presence of the wall in blocking traffic, there are ways through which a user can bypass it, and this includes the use of Tor, VPNs, and Proxies, but the firewall, however, can use the deep packet inspection and the machine learning to shut down the suspected proxy and VPN tunnels and as well use an active probing system to shut down the Tor bridge relays. Presently, only a few commercial VPN services and the latest Tor protocols which use pluggable transports are viable, avoiding detection by the Great Firewall.
The historical context of the Great Firewall of ChinaThe first recorded connection in China was an email sent on September 14th of 1987 to Karlsruher Institut fur Technologie in Germany (Liu & Pan, 2017). The message, however, said that “Across the Great Wall, we can reach every corner of the world” The internet arrived in China in the year 1994, and this was as an extension of the open door policy that opened the Chinese nation to the rest of the world and especially to the western world. As days passed, more and more Chinese citizens adopted the internet, and the Chinese government found themselves on the verge of losing control over the spread as well as the availability of information, and this prompted the government for action. Determined to take control and regulate the online content as well as its citizens with regard to the kind of information that would be available for them to access, the government through the Ministry of Public Security, a branch of the government that deals with access to information took action with immediate effect through the launch of the Golden Shield Project.
In the year 2000, the Golden Shield Project officially made its debut, and since then it has continuously evolved. The Golden Shield Project was initially envisioned by the government to be a comprehensive database-driven surveillance system that could access the records of every citizen and as well link together the national, regional and the local security. The rapid expansion of the internet in China rendered the goal of linking and accessing the records infeasible and therefore the project pivoted from the generalized content control at the gateway level to the individual surveillance of the users at the edge of the network. The surveillance ideology was the beginning of the great firewall as it set the footprints of what the firewall is in the present.
The Chinese censorship apparatus launched a new tool on March 16th of 2015, famously known as the Great Canon by the rest of the world (Marczak et al. 2015). The Great Canon made its grand entry through engineering a denial of service attack on the GreatFire.org, which is an organization that is mandated with the responsibility of collecting data regarding the great firewall as well as sharing the data to the rest of the world. The great firewall servers in the preceding days received up to 2.6 billion requests per hour, which is 2500 more above their normal load. Despite the Great Canon being a separate tool, it is more related in-path system as it can interfere with traffic directly through such processes such as suppression, injection, and redirection and since the time of its debut, the great canon has been used to the DDOS multiple websites and has achieved greater success.
For the past few decades, the Chinese country has experienced massive growth in the internet infrastructure, and this has enabled the Chinese citizens to continue enjoying the internet by crossing over the great wall and communicating to the rest of the world. Despite the restriction of the great wall, the Chinese authorities developed another wall, preventing its citizens from accessing information that they deemed threatening to the Chinese communist party. A set of governing interim provisions for governing computer information was set up in the year 1996, while in 1998, the Ministry of Public Security launched a project known as the Golden Shield Project. The Golden Shield Project is a national filter to which is designed to block all the politically sensitive information from being availed to the domestic network.
The Great Firewall is the censorship tactic scheme and to which has been subjected to periodic changes for an upgrade since the time of its initial introduction (Wang et al. 2017). The upgrading efforts have been periodic since the people have been tireless in crossing the great firewall, with some of the people describing the interplay between the great firewall and the Chinese citizens as a series of unending prison break. The historical context of the great firewall can be divided into four stages. In stage one, the Golden Shield Project identifies and blocks the domain names and IP addresses such as Google or Facebook. The stage involved the filtration of content to ensure that sensitive information could be blocked from access by the citizens.
Figure showing how censorship is achieved.
The second stage involved the Golden Shield Project implanting the keyword censorship (Howlett, 2016). The upgrade on the keyword system was to enable detection to the contents of the websites that the people visited, regardless the internet connection was going through a proxy. In case of a sensitive content communicated through the network connection, the transmission control protocol gets to be reset. The great firewall acts as an inspector going through information, checking for the sensitive content. Virtual Private Networks has been used by the citizens in China to bypass the Great Firewall. Initially, the VPNs were used by global firms to protect their business secrets as the VPNs ensured communication transfers through a private network, with encryptions to ensure that no third party could have access to the messages.
The third stage includes the great firewall began to detect the VPNs as well as other circumvention tools. The great firewall developers with the assistance of the national government were eventually able to identify the weakness in the VPNs, and therefore they were able to detect them in the Great Firewall. Some of the commonly used features of the VPNs such as the L2TP/TPSec, IPSec and the PPTP that used specific ports were identified by the developers. During the processing of the encrypted connection, the VPNs left distinctive traces. Besides, the great firewall was upgraded to detect traces of connections that were irregular and to solve the problem, the developers from the GitHub developed the Shadowsocks, a circumvention technology similar to the VPN.
Figure showing how the Shadowsocks software works
The Shadowsocks encrypts the communication between the user and the website to which they would like to visit, but the connection is hard to detect for a third-party as the technology allows to choose various encryption methods and at the same time allocating it a random port (Fifield, 2017). Shadowsocks is an open-source project, and this implies that even if the initial developers were forced to delete the GitHub by the government, the development would still go on by other developers maintaining the variants such as the V2Ray and the ShadowsocksR.
The Chinese government has blocked more websites including the social media platforms, photo-sharing sites as well as the non-political online game sites, but the demand for circumvention tools has increased. Successful businesses that deal with the circumvention tools have been established, providing circumvention apps to the netizens who uses Shadowsocks. In the year 2014, Apple upgraded their operating system to IOS 8 and the devices were able to open the VPN-related API programming ports, enabling other developers to build privately-owned encrypted VPN apps, and since then, the proxy apps that support Shadowsocks protocols have been flourishing. The Chinese citizens need only to install and open the apps connecting to the websites that are banned by the Chinese government, and this has enabled a large number of people to access the internet outside the Great Firewall.
The fourth stage of the Great Firewall is the cybersecurity laws that target anonymity as well as the VPNs. Besides the constant upgrades on the Great Firewall, the Chinese government has introduced new laws to criminalize the VPN service providers (Clarke, 2018). The Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology on January 22nd 2017, announced a notice on the clearing up and regulating the internet access service market that stated that Without the telecommunication management departments’ approval, an individual must not develop on his own accord, or hire, dedicated lines that include virtual private networks VPNs or other information channels to conduct their business activities across the border. The basic telecommunication business that leased the dedicated international lines to their users were required to create a centralized user archive and make clear to the users the terms of use, as the lines were only limited to the internal office use. Besides, the lines were prohibited from connecting to domestic or overseas data centers or operations platforms to carry out business activities regarding telecommunication operations.
Literature ReviewVarious countries have different approaches to solving their problems. The great firewall is one of the solutions imposed by the Chinese government to censor sensitive content within their geographical locations. The different perspectives in solving problems depend on the policy formulated in the country either allowing or prohibiting the presence of service into their boundaries as well as how useful the services will be for the people. The government of China has a different perspective compared to other nations concerning internet censorship as most of the countries around the globe have little or no censorship at all for its users.
The Chinese Approach to CensorshipJust like other services are controlled by the government in China including the media such as the radio and television, internet as well is not an exemption as the Chinese government has the mandate of controlling the internet access and usage across its boundary. The government of China in recent days has intensified the approaches to censorship, establishing the great firewall, which has been a great achievement to the Chinese government in regulating the content of its citizens (Yang, 2016).
China has experienced rapid growth in the internet usage, and according to the results of a survey conducted by the China Internet Network Center, by the end of the year 2007, there were more than 168 million internet users, with an approximate of at least 122 million broadband internet users in China. The results indicated a close value of the number of internet users as compared to the U.S whereby 2007, the number of internet users ranged between 165 million users to 210 million. Among the most intensified category that has seen a massive increase in the number of internet users is the use of mobile phones, as the mobile phone market in China has experienced exponential growth. There are more than 440 million users of the mobile phone, with a large number of users carrying wireless phones as well as text messaging. Considering that the U.S was the first to use the internet long before China, the rate at which the Chinese citizens have adopted and used the internet has been alarming, recent indications postulating that China has overtaken the U.S regarding the total number of internet users in their countries.
Political ControlsThe Chinese government has been ambivalent towards the internet since its introduction to the country, however, the government still considers both the Information and Communication Technologies and the internet as essential components in the economic development of the nation and therefore the government has successfully and actively been in support for the online business as well as the e-government projects. The Chinese government has continued to work tirelessly towards the expansion and improvement of its ability to control the information especially the online speech and as well silence the voices that seem to be too much provocative and challenging to the status quo of the government.
President Hu in 2007, urged the government authorities to strengthen the internet controls in an interview with the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of Communist Party of China, where he stated that the ability to cope with the internet is a matter that affects the development of socialist culture, stability of the state as well as the security of information (Gang & Bandurski, 2011). According to Hu, therefore, to ensure that the security of information is guaranteed as well as the stability of the nation, restrictions as well as censorship to the internet should be carried out. The Chinese government uses various techniques to control the flow of information through the internet. The techniques include a combination of technology and people process that include the regulations and administrative rules, technical filters as well as the internet police forces. The ultimate technique is the self-censorship from both the website users and administrators.
China has several political bodies that are involved in the control of information regarding both the development as well as monitoring within its boundaries. Some of the most important political bodies include the Central Propaganda Department that is entrusted with the mandate of ensuring that media and the cultural content follows the official standards as stipulated by both the communist party and the State Council Information Office. The Central Propaganda Department is known to be very secretive in their operations as they own no website and as well don’t share any information with the public regarding the whereabouts of their offices. The State Council Information Office, on the other hand, is an official office of the state council and has the mandate of oversight on all the websites publishing news including the official sites of the news organizations and the independent sites which post news content online. At the provincial and city level, counterpart offices have as well been established, with each one of them having an information and publicity offices that are lower level counterparts to the State Council Information Office’s national level bureau. All the offices in conjunction comprise the vast and effective network in the country that monitors the online content as well as the online information. The State Council Information Office is also mandated with the responsibility of China’s perception management to the global community.
The software and telecommunications industries are closely regulated by the Ministry of Information Industry, as the ministry is responsible for the construction as well as the management of the internet infrastructure in China (Tan et al. 1999). The body is as well mandated with the responsibility of building the surveillance and the filtering technologies, The Great Firewall. The Ministry of Public Security is responsible for the monitoring of the online content as well as using the powers of law enforcement the individuals found to violate the laws. The internet police forces, on the other hand, are entrusted with monitoring the websites that contain the illegal information and has the mandate to order the hosting service organizations to warn or shut down an offending website that consists of the information regarded as harmful and qualifies for filtration. The internet police are also responsible for the following duties that include the development of surveillance and encryption technologies in collaboration with the Ministry of Information Industry, implementation of the internet control policies as well as mentoring the online content. The internet control police are as well entrusted with the obligations of reviewing the licensing of the internet processes for the websites and the internet organizations and as well as prohibiting the non-media websites from establishing independent content obtained from the reporters.
MethodThe method of study in this research addresses the question: Since the beginning of the censorship program through the development and installation of the great firewall, what is the impact of the censorship program to the Chinese citizens and government. I made the hypothesis that the Great Firewall has been of significant benefit to the Chinese citizens and the government as it has helped in tailoring content according to the needs of the government making it easy to control the security of their nation as well as minimize harmful content from reaching the members of the public. The great firewall must have had a purpose, and the government cannot invest in a program that will not be of benefit, and therefore I believe that the great firewall must be of significant benefits. A retrospective case study is used since the expected outcome of the great firewall has already occurred. Since the initiation of the great firewall or the censorship program, there has arisen a lot of impacts with some being positive and negative to both the government and the Chinese citizens.
LimitationsThe government of China initialized the great firewall project to protect the welfare of the Chinese people. Promotion of self-made products was the main reason as the foreign products would soon invade and flood in the Chinese markets making it more of a consumption market rather than a production and export nation. Therefore, the government had to cut the links to the outside world, and this could only be achieved by the development of the great wall and as well the great firewall. The potential benefits of the great firewall have to some extent been limited due to various factors of the push and pull between the Chinese government and the Chinese citizens. Despite the efforts of the national government in developing as well as the implementation of policies that concern the censorship program, and also the internet police to monitor content on the internet, there have been challenges that have proved difficult for the full attainment of the benefits. Private companies that are determined to make a breakthrough to the access of the banned content have kept the government in toes as they keep on developing new strategies to cross over the great firewall. One of the most used strategies to bypass the great firewall is the use of virtual private networks (VPNs), and this has been the most challenging task to the Chinese government in regulating content. People still access the contents on the internet despite the tiring efforts of the government to monitor the flow of information across the internet, especially on social media.
Economic, cultural, societal and technological effects of the great firewall on China
The Chinese government has blocked a number of companies from outside China, and this has been in line with the county’s policy of blocking the Chinese population from the western ideologies especially from the United States. Such companies that have been blocked include WhatsApp, Google, and Facebook. All the efforts by the Chinese government were due to the dire need to strengthen the great firewall.
Figure showing the websites blocked by the Chinese Great Firewall.
Despite the move of blocking such a large number of sites by the Chinese government, critics argue that the move discourages creativity as well as innovation and at the same time deprives the people of China the freedom of speech and democracy. But the critics do not bar the government from implementing its policies regarding the great firewall as according to the government it is of great significance. The great firewall helps in the prevention of dissidents as well as the expensive and dangerous riots, and this is through stifling of the public outcry as well as the exposure to other better methods of living and governing (Masterson, 2015). In line to providing a better alternative, the government blocked Google, Twitter, and Facebook after the riots in Xinjiang, a Muslim based region. The idea of blocking the social media sites was to help in preserving the national security as well as political unity and therefore such incidences of riots mostly communicated through such sites will not be present in future. Through improving national security, there is as well the benefit of reducing damage caused in the process of rioting and therefore saves the country’s economy.
Despite being undemocratic, the Chinese government by blocking foreign internet companies, it protects the domestic industries as well as the companies within the boundaries of China that are possibly too weak to compete with international companies especially from the united states (Zhao, 2018). Through this, giant companies in the internet sector have been developed with the examples of the Baidu, Tencent, Weibo, and Alibaba with some of them ranking at the top 10 list of all the international websites. China has a large population, and this implies that the country has a large number of consumers that account to 47 percent of the global e-commerce sales and therefore by establishing their own companies it ensures continuity in the digital economy that grows in a healthier rate.
Statics and experiments for bypassing the great firewallIt is challenging to stay unconnected to the rest of the world through the social networks that an individual is used to such as Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter, and YouTube when visiting China. As long as one is within the Chinese boundaries, these services become unavailable as the Great Firewall takes over immediately censoring all the content that a person is checking on the internet. Life, therefore, becomes difficult without these connections. But that does not mean that a person cannot be reconnected to the sites of choice despite being in China. The great firewall uses tricks such as URL Filtering, DNS poisoning, self-censorship, manual enforcement and making it worse, blocking the VPNs. But despite their efforts, the VPNs have been a major challenge to the realization of the full potential of the great firewall as more sophisticated VPNs have continued to be developed making it hard for the government to restrict connectivity as they are unable to block some of the VPNs (Fallows, 2016).
It is very easy for a person to circumvent through the great firewall through the VPNs as an individual can an individual can anonymize their identity on the internet through spoofing their location. For example, a person may be in Beijing but spoofs their location to New York in the United States where the sites of choice are not restricted. From the Great Firewall’s side, the IP address of the user will appear to be in a far nation and therefore the censorship won’t work as it only monitors the content within the Chinese boundaries. The VPNs creates a private network within a public network such as the internet, and therefore hides and secures data that an individual is sending and receiving (Neuman et al. 2018). The information is encrypted, meaning that a third party cannot view the contents of the message, not even the Chinese government and therefore an individual can easily bypass the great firewall simply by the use of the virtual private network (VPNs). The Shadowsocks is another way that a person can bypass the Great Firewall. It encrypts the communication between the user and the website to which they would like to visit, but the connection is hard to detect for a third-party as the technology allows to choose various encryption methods and at the same time allocating it a random port.
FFii
Figure showing how the VPN works in bypassing the Great firewall. Source Reuters, 2017.
ConclusionChina is the only country around the globe that has made restrictions on the use of internet in their country by blocking all the international internet sites such as google, Facebook, and twitter. The main reason as to the development of the Great Firewall is to encourage and protect homegrown companies such as the Baidu and Weibo and therefore promote economic development within their boundaries. The Great firewall despite being a success have received a lot of critics in that it has restricted the freedom of speech and democracy, but the Chinese government has not been wavered by such as they have as well implemented the censorship program to promote the security of their nation. Through monitoring, the government can control the flow of content, prohibiting and restricting information that may seem to be harmful and this is the main reason the government banned Facebook and Google following the riots in Xiaoping.
The Chinese government has worked tirelessly, recruiting new forces to oversee the censorship of the internet content, but despite all these, bypassing the great firewall has always been simple and this has rendered their efforts to be useless. Most of the people use the private virtual networks to bypass the great firewall by spoofing their location and creating a private network within the Chinese network accessing all the sites and content that have been restricted by the government. Despite all these, the government have remained firm and has continued to modify their systems to restrict and make the censorship program more effective through the development of more sophisticated software to aid in monitoring information within the great firewall.
Reference
Clarke, M. (Ed.). (2018). Terrorism and Counter-Terrorism in China: Domestic and Foreign Policy Dimensions. Oxford University Press.
Fallows, J. (2016). China’s great leap backward. The Atlantic.
Feng, G. C., & Guo, S. Z. (2013). Tracing the route of China’s Internet censorship: An empirical study. Telematics and Informatics, 30(4), 335-345.
Fifield, D. (2017). Threat modeling and circumvention of Internet censorship (Doctoral dissertation, UC Berkeley).
Gang, Q., & Bandurski, D. (2011). China’s emerging public sphere: The impact of media commercialization, professionalism, and the Internet in an era of transition. Changing media, changing China, 38-76.
Howlett, I. V. (2016). The Rise of China’s Hacking Culture: Defining Chinese Hackers.
Liu, L., & Pan, Y. (2017). Review of 20 Years of Internet Development in China. In New Media and China’s Social Development (pp. 1-14). Springer, Singapore.
Marczak, B., Weaver, N., Dalek, J., Ensafi, R., Fifield, D., McKune, S., … & Paxson, V. (2015). An analysis of china’s “great cannon”. FOCI. USENIX, 37.
Masterson, J. R. (2015). Social media in China: a double-edged sword. In Revolutionizing the interaction between state and citizens through digital communications (pp. 238-263). IGI Global.
Neuman, D., Neuman, M., & Kandaswamy, B. (2018). U.S. Patent Application No. 15/789,909.
Tan, Z. A., Foster, W., & Goodman, S. (1999). China’s state-coordinated Internet infrastructure. Communications of the ACM, 42(6), 44-52.
Wang, Z., Cao, Y., Qian, Z., Song, C., & Krishnamurthy, S. V. (2017, November). Your state is not mine: a closer look at evading stateful internet censorship. In Proceedings of the 2017 Internet Measurement Conference (pp. 114-127). ACM.
Yang, F. (2016). Rethinking China’s Internet censorship: The practice of recoding and the politics of visibility. New Media & Society, 18(7), 1364-1381.
Zhao, J. (2018). The Effects of the Internet Firewall on the Development of Chinese Democracy.
Neuropsychiatric Disorders And Cardiometabolic Risks Evidence And Controversies
Neuropsychiatric Disorders And Cardiometabolic Risks: Evidence And Controversies
By
MANDY CHUNG
COURSE: GENERAL ENDOCRINOLOGY AND METABOLISM
A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE………………….
DECEMBER 2010
INTRODUCTION
1.1 General background
The prevalence of cardio-metabolic syndrome (CMS) is increasing worldwide with many studies indicating higher prevalence of the syndrome among people of the African origin. According to national cholesterol education program expert panel of UK on detection, evaluation and treatment of mental related disorders, ethnic alienations influence the prevalence of cardio metabolic syndrome. Mendelso notes that the highest prevalence of cardio metabolic syndrome is recorded in Mexico for both genders while African and American women have higher incidences than their men counterparts. Aaron and Brad predicted the value of increased body mass because it can be used to ascertain the development of cardio metabolic risks.
CMS has many symptoms but the most common and adverse characteristics of CMS are physical and biochemical abnormalities which increases the risks of an individual to contact cardiovascular ailments, diabetes mellitus and other related diseases as highlighted by Yudofsky and Hale in 2002. The antipodal distinction between the brain and the mind which identifies them as two separate entities has complicated the identification of the illness that affects the brain and the mind. This mind-brain monism has been adopted as opposed to mind-brain dualism because mentality is believed to be biological which has formed a common research work for the treatment of neuropsychiatric disorders.
1.2 Problem statement
Despite numerous studies that have done to the effort of establishing the association of mental disorders and the risks that accompany them, no concrete conclusion has been reached to clear the controversies that surround the relationship between the causes of mental disorders and the risks involved. This research paper is therefore concerned about finding a conclusion to the said controversies that surround causes and effects of mental disorders with a great reference to depression as an effect of mental disorders.
2.0 LITERATURE REVIEW
There have been differences in the research concerning the prevalence of neuropsychiatric disorders with the biological cause being the main focal point as noted by Berrios and Markova in 2002. Price, Adams and Coyle agree that mental disorders are not only caused by brain constituents and genetics but also factors outside the skin of an individual. This is true because many diseases that affect human beings are caused by internal factors, external or a combination of the two factors. Mental disorders are no exception and with the distinction between the mind and brain the causing factors of the metal disorders are said to veridical.
2.1 MENTAL DISORDERS AND CARDIOMETABOLIC RISKS
Martin notes that the previous researches have shown that cardio metallic metabolism is associated with functions of the mind and neuropsychiatric disorders. Oestrogen has been indicated as a major factor in maturation and functioning of many parts of the brain and other neurochemical systems involved in neuropsychiatric disorders. Oestrogen usually affects the microstructure of brain regions that support the cognitive functions. Kendler in his 2002 article claims that mental disorders are wholly responsible for all risks that lead to development of mental related ailments such as depression. However, Bell, Halligan and Ellis, 2006 contradict this by noting that mental illnesses can be a result of many other reasons especially fatal accidents and drug abuse.
Epidemiological evidence has been documented to the effect of pathophysiology of many neuropsychiatric disorders. Homocysteine acid has been implicated as a risk factor in some of the evident neuropsychiatric disorders discussed below:
Stoke
Ferenczi indicate that Homocysteine is an independent risk factor in most ailments that come with stoke with a summary odd ratio of 2:0 increment in plasma Homocysteine. Thus, there is good epidemiological evidence that suggest that Homocysteine is a significant risk factor for stoke.
Cognitive impairment
The evidence that planted Homocysteine as a significant risk factor for cognitive functioning is still controversial. An initial study in 2001 by Green indicated that Homocysteine contributed to approximately nine per cent difference in mental performance of adults. However a consequent study indicated that there was no association between Homocysteine and cognitive impairment and failure. Another study indicated that there was an association between Homocysteine and cognitive impairement but the former caused no decline to cognitive development.
Depression
The relationship between Homocysteine and depression has not been fully documented. However, the available literature show some evidence that Homocysteine status dictates the rate of depression on an individual and how antidepressants will perform on the individual. Other studies have indicated that Homocysteine may play a crucial role in elevated rates and cardiovascular mortality in depression.
Alcoholism
Brain atrophy that has been reported in many alcoholics may be related to high levels of Homocysteine. Though alcohol is not a source of Homocysteine acid, it reacts with the acid to increase body and blood pressure which may result to mental disorders.
2.2 DEPRESSION
Depression is a felling that occurs to everyone especially when stressed or sad as documented by Kaye in 2005. Kendler notes that depression is a condition that interferes with daily life and normal function of the individual. Depression just like other ailments needs medical attention for the victims to get better although many individuals never get any medication causing the disorder to be recurrent. While many people with depressive related illness do not seek medical advice, there has been a notable extensive research that has resulted to development of therapies and medications to treat people diagnosed with depressive disorders.
2.2.1 Forms of depression
Depression has many forms but the most common and frequent types of depression that are believed to be caused by mental disorders include:
Major depression
This is a combination of main depression symptoms and can fully interfere with the normal function of an individual such as working, sleeping, eating, and learning among other related functionalities. This form of depression may occur once in a life time or recur if an individual is subjected to too much brain work and stress. Koch and Laurent agree that the main cause of major depression is mental disturbance and can lead to severe mental risks.
Dysthymic disorder
Lerner and Whitehouse say that Dysthymic depression is a long term but has lesser severe symptoms that can’t prevent a person from doing the normal bodily functioning but usually causes the individual to be less active. Similarly, this kind of depression is risk result of mental disorders.
Psychotic depression
Psychotic depression is a severe depressive illness accompanied by hallucination and break from the real world and requires immediate attention because it can cause brain malfunctioning. Linden claims that this type of depression is the most dangerous and can lead to complete mental failure.
2.2.2 Symptoms of depression
Depression occurs in co-existence with other illnesses that precede it, cause it or be a consequence of depression. Thus depression has many signs and symptoms that may be stand alone or caused by other related illnesses. Some of these symptoms include:
Prevalence of sad, hopeless and empty feelings
Loss of interest in treasured activities
Decreased body energy resulting to fatigue
Thought of suicide and suicidal attempts
Troubled thinking patterns because depression affects the memory and the way people think about themselves
2.2.3 Causes of depression
Marr, 2003 argues that there is no one established cause of depression but a combination of environmental, genetic and psychological factors are believed to cause or trigger the causes of depression. Mayberg , 1997 noted that many depressive disorders are caused by the disturbance of the brain functions especially on the parts of the brain that control moods, feelings, thinking and normal body functions. Genetically, many depression disorders are believed to run through family lines though it can affect individuals with no history of depression disorders, Price 2000. Robertson states that the genetic link in causing depression disorders down the line is triggered by multiple genes that act together with other factors believed to cause depression such as psychological factors.
2.2.3.1 Depression in women
In 2006, Ross wrote that depression is much prevalence in women than in men because of their psychological, life cycle and biological differences with men. He further indicated that, women usually get depression after birth when hormonal and physical changes coupled with the added responsibility of the newborns. Additionally, women get stress from their places of work, house hold duties, caring for their children, spouses and parents and other factors such as relationship strains, abuse and poverty
2.2.3.2 Depression in men
Both Sabshin and Sachdev agree that depression is less effective to men that it is in women. Many neuropsychiatric specialists have revealed that men have different ways of experiencing depression and similarly have different ways of coping with the disorders. However, just like women, men experience fatigue, loss of interest and motivation among other symptoms of depression. Contrastingly, men turn to alcohol when depressed or become irritable, frustrated, discouraged and some extend very abusive.
2.2.4 Diagnosis and treatment of depression
Saxena, 1998 claims that irrespective of its degree of prevalence, depression is a treatable illness. Just like other disorders, the earlier the disorder is intervened the better to treat it and prevent future occurrence of the same or related disorder. Schiffer et al. state that oonce a victim visits a medical centre for medication; the doctor usually conducts physical examinations, interviews and lab tests. If nothing is diagnosed at this stage, the doctor can conduct a psychological evaluation or refer the individual to a mental health specialist. The specialist usually focus on depression because it the core result of many mental disorders and conducts an interview to establish the family history in relation to depression so as to get the historical symptoms of the depressive disorder. Once a person is diagnosed with depression, medication is prescribed, psychotherapy applied or Electroconvulsive therapy if the first two fails.
2.2.4.1 Medication
Antidepressants have been used to normalize the activities of the brain by cooling the two common neurotransmitters; serotonin and norepinephrine, Shapiro et al 2001. However, antidepressants have been criticized because they have side effects to individuals who continually use them especially causing short term mildness on the body.
2.2.4.2 Psychotherapy
A talk-therapy has been very successfully to counter depressive disorders. Shergill notes that regimens range from 10 to 20 weeks depending on the degree of disorder and the needs of the individual. Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) and Interpersonal Therapy (IPT) have been successfully applied in treating depression. CBT teaches affected individuals new ways of thinking and behavior thus help individuals change from behavior that has been a cause of their depressive states and adopt positive thinking and behavioral methods. IPT is usually tailored towards addressing depression caused by relation conflicts and it advocates for understanding and working through troubled relationships
2.2.4.3. Electroconvulsive therapy
As Uher and Treasure write in their 2005 article, Electroconvulsive therapy is an intervention for depression that is only applied where both medication and psychotherapy have failed. This is a more physical treatment and patients are put under anesthesia for their body to relax. However, this method has some known side effects such as confusion and memory loss.
3.0 METHODOLOGY
3.1 Study population
In most communities in the United Kingdom (UK), many young people have migrated to cities leaving the elderly at semi urban areas. This population in semi urban and rural areas doesn’t have access to much sophisticated medical care that is needed for such diseases such as mental disorders. Additionally, medical facilities that could be used in diagnosis for these orders are costly and far away in developed areas. Therefore, the study population will be drawn from patients from both semi urban and rural areas.
3.2 Data Resources
3.2.1 Primary Resources
For the purposes of this research, the main sources of primary information were the information accrued from the primary data collection instruments- in depth interviews and questionnaires. The informants were mainly persons who have suffered or are suffering from neuropsychiatric disorder such as depression, stoke or stress. The age bracket for the informants was between 25 and 45 years.
3.2.2 Secondary Resources
The relevant articles, journals, seminar papers, books, online web pages, medical reports and online books formed the basis for the study especially for the literature review which needed more scrutiny because the area of this study faces many controversies and incomplete theories.
3.3 Sampling Methods
Stratified sampling was used for the survey questionnaire to come up with the appropriate sample. Stratified sampling is whereby a stratum is a subset of populations that have common characteristics. The researchers categorize the appropriate stratums then enough subjects from each stratum are chosen through random sampling. It is the best probability method since it lowers sampling error (Galloway, 1997). A minimum target size population size of 2000 adults aged between 25 and 45 was stratified by sex and 10-year group ranges. For the in- depth interviews, judgment sampling was used. This is where samples are chosen on the basis of judgment and are often chosen from one “representative” area (Galloway, 1997).
3.4 Research Design
The proposed study was based on an inductive as opposed to deductive approach. This is mainly due to the fact that this research is to a large extent qualitative in nature. Inductive reasoning, as compared to deductive reasoning, is prevalent in qualitative studies because it is theory generating. The focus of inductive researchers is to search for a theory that provides an explanation for the data while deductive researchers search for data that matches a particular theory they may have. In terms of the approach or strategy, exclusively inductive researches begin with data collection, measurements of some kind or empirical observations. Such an approach is appropriate for this study since the attempt is to generate data concerning association and relationship between neuropsychiatric disorders and the risks that such disorder pose to patients. Since the available data is scanty, an inductive research is important to fill this knowledge gap by generating data (Cooper & Schindler, 2008).
The study was also exploratory in nature and the approach used was the mixed design approach- a combined qualitative and quantitative approach defined by Creswell (2007) as a “Sequential Exploratory Strategy”. In order to meet the research objectives, such an exploratory study is crucial in benefiting from the strengths of both approaches. It is also known as the triangulation approach and is geared towards capturing a more holistic, complete and contextual depiction of the respondents under research while at the same time reducing the effect of bias in any approach used. Moreover, researchers can attain high levels of data validity, verifiability and generalizability by making use of triangulation approaches that provide justification and replication of data results across all methods. In addition, the combination of both research approaches within one research project releases tremendous opportunities for mutual advantage because the weaknesses of one strategy can be neutralized through the incorporation of other methods (Simon and Vosseberg, 2001).
3.5 Research methods
3.5.1 Qualitative Methods
In depth interviews were one of the preferred methods for collecting data from the identified patients. This form of one-on-one interviews is the most appropriate when trying to uncover the thoughts of each respondent without the hitches of group dynamics (The Centre for Strategy Research, 1997). There is more depth in the interviews plus more statistics are obtained (The Centre for Strategy Research, 1997). Statistically, more statistics are obtained from all the participants thus making it impossible to reliably and accurately measure the responses through the content analysis of individual responses. In fact, there has been a growing tendency in the modern world to utilize focus groups to merely provide statistically relevant as opposed to statistically accurate data Therefore, since this particular study was interested in obtaining accurate data, in depth interviews were preferred for their statistical accuracy.
3.5.2 Quantitative Methods
With regards to quantitative methods, the use of questionnaires is proposed for the collection of data from patients who preferred confidentiality; they are viewed as the most suitable for their privacy and anonymity. In addition, a questionnaire is a simple tool that has several questions related to the particular research objectives thus obtaining specific answers for specific questions is easier (Learning Technology Dissemination Initiative, 1999).
4.0 DATA ANALYSIS
For the this research, the SPSS software statistical analysis tool was used to analyze the collected data. The SPSS software is simple to use and also helps generate conclusions and recommendations necessary for the research.
4.1 Clinical evaluation and collection of samples
Screening centers convenient for the study participants were set up in many social and religious institutions such as churches, schools, social centers, heath centers, market places and town halls. The data of the participants was taken such as weight, height and waist circumference. Blood pressure measurements were also taken three times in their arms with Accusons, mercury sphygmomanometer. Blood sugar was also measured using the accuchek glucometer. All the results were measured and analyzed by the UK medical research centre.
4.2 Results of specificity and sensitivity of a diagnostic test
A total of 1342 participants were analyzed out of the 2000 people screened. The rest were not analyzed because some of their data was found to be incomplete. Out of the screened participants, 300 female participants were removed from the list to balance the participation gender wise leaving 1042 participants. Female participants who were listed to participate in the study towards its end were removed.
Figure 1: Mapped causes of Neuropsychiatric disorders (Depression)
The figure indicates the results obtained from the tests that was conducted on the participants. Its clear that mental disorders do not have a specific cause because many cases are caused by a combination of several factors.
4.3 Risks in assessing prognosis and causation of mental disorders
The study also identified several risks that are associated with diagnosis the causes of mental disorders. First, assessing the neuropsychiatric disorders in individuals requires great caution and qualification because a mistake in diagnosis can lead to prescription of a different medication which can have adverse effects on the individual. The fact that people come from different areas and live different lives dictates that each individual must have a personal diagnosis to the cause of the disorder. The number of cases where people have been treated for wrong mental illnesses is increasing all over the world thus there has been increased number of persons who are mentally disturbed and increased deaths resulting to severe mental disorders.
4.4 Intervention for neuropsychiatric disorders
As indicated earlier, there are three main treatments for mental disorders namely medication, psychotherapy and Electroconvulsive therapy. However, in using any of the methods, reduction of risk that may accompany the use of the methods must be addressed. This is done by having the right number of patients for a given treatment program with enough resources regarding the personnel and drugs. Straining the available resources will only reduce the effects of the disorder but leave a great chance of reoccurrence.
This study found out that many patients who know that they have mental related disorders do not seek medical attention while those who seek medication do not use it. This is due to the reason that many people believe that mental triggered disorders such as stoke, depression and stress are caused by overworking the brain and resting could eliminate the disorder. While many specialists of mental disorders have advocated for immediate medical address once an individual feels stressed or depressed, many individuals prescribe medication for themselves by taking simple pain relievers or sleep inducers.
The type I and II statistical errors have played a crucial role in the treatment of mental disorders. In Type I one error, medical specialists indicate that a patient has no mental illness while in real sense the patient is affected while in Type II statistical error, the specialists indicate that a patient is affected by a given mental disorder while in reality the patient in not ill. Such errors have resulted to prescription of medication to the wrong patients and not prescribing medication to the affected individuals.
CONCLUSIONS
This dissertation aimed to clear understanding that most mental risks result from Neuropsychiatric related disorders. However from the study, risks that result from mental disorders may be caused by number factors and neuropsychiatric is just one of the causes of risks associated to mental disorders. The study has focused on depression as one the risks that have been believed to be purely caused by neuropsychiatric disorders. Studies have also indicated that most of the illnesses related to mental disorders are unknown because many people never seek medical advice once they are stressed or depressed thus there is no concrete relation between the neuropsychiatric disorders and the consequent risks that occur after an individual is mentally disturbed.
Conclusively, there has been epidemiological association between mental disorders andmetabolic risks through Homocysteine acid which has been dictating the performance of the brain in the body. The metabolic risk factors have been said to be causes of other severe body diseases such as heart, cancer diseases and hypertension. The cluster of disorders referred to metabolic disorders which include high blood pressure, high insulin levels, increased body weight and abnormal cholesterol levels are risk factors for other diseases that affect human body. Age, race, obesity, other diseases and family history are some of the risk factors that are believed to cause a metabolic syndrome that could consequently result to brain related disorders.
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