Translator: Joseph Geni
Reviewer: Morton Bast
So raise your hand if you know someone
in your immediate family or circle of friends
who suffers from some form of mental illness.
Yeah. I thought so. Not surprised.
And raise your hand if you think that
basic research on fruit flies has anything to do
with understanding mental illness in humans.
Yeah. I thought so. I'm also not surprised.
I can see I've got my work cut out for me here.
As we heard from Dr. Insel this morning,
psychiatric disorders like autism, depression and schizophrenia
take a terrible toll on human suffering.
We know much less about their treatment
and the understanding of their basic mechanisms
than we do about diseases of the body.
Think about it: In 2013,
the second decade of the millennium,
if you're concerned about a cancer diagnosis
and you go to your doctor, you get bone scans,
biopsies and blood tests.