Cover by Lori Huang

Changing Your Mind…One Neuron At a Time

By Kassidy Burke

Imagine waking up and the first thing on your mind is that there are 1,500 genetically distinct bacteria festering on every square centimeter of your hands. Nothing can stop you from racing to the sink to scrub and scrape every single groove and crevice. Even after you thoroughly wash every inch of skin, every nail, you’re still thinking about the unseen germs. Imagine never being able to leave your house because every time you do, you are bombarded by the tantalizing fear that you left the oven on.  

These scenarios may sound a little far-fetched, but what about never leaving your dorm room because you’re depressed? Imagine waking up and the first thing on your mind is how you’re overweight and need to starve yourself. It is a known fact that many teenagers and young adults struggle with mental illnesses such as these. According to The Pew Research Center, “In 2017, 13% of U.S. teens ages 12 to 17 (or 3.2 million) said they had experienced at least one major depressive episode in the past year…” and “The total number of teenagers who recently experienced depression increased 59% between 2007 and 2017.” However, what is not as widely known is this: “OCD affects 2.2 million adults, or 1.0% of the U.S. population...The average age of onset is 19, with 25 percent of cases occurring by age 14.” The fact of the matter is, there are a plethora of mental illnesses plaguing our society today, and because of our pessimistic mindsets, we seem to have set ourselves up to be stuck with our illness forever. This thought is especially intimidating when people acknowledge the scientific fact that OCD is a result of a particular neural wiring.  

When a psychological problem stems from our brain anatomy, you wonder if there could ever be a solution. How does one go about changing something they were born with, or something that has lived with them for so long?  But what if there was a way? Better yet, what if we possessed this power of resolution ourselves, with no need for medication at all? What if our neurological anatomy could completely shift? In Dr. Jefferey Schwartz’s book, “The Mind and The Brain: Neuroplasticity and The Power of Mental Force,” he discusses the idea that our brains are malleable and moveable. In more scientific terms, we possess the potential to rewire our neural pathways and how neurotransmitters are fired, ultimately changing the way we think and function: this is neuroplasticity. He utilizes a four-step method that he assimilated himself; a method that was proven--through numerous studies on chimps and humans--to be incredibly successful in regards, specifically, with those diagnosed with OCD. “I felt that if I could help patients to experience the OCD symptom without reacting emotionally to the discomfort it caused, realizing instead that even the most visceral OCD urge is actually no more than the manifestation of a brain wiring defect, it might be tremendously therapeutic.” Although Schwartz specifically looks at OCD and how training certain neural pathways could help one conquer this illness, he talks prospectively about how this could be applied to other diseases, such as eating disorders and depression.  

However, neuroplasticity is somewhat of a controversial subject in the world of neuroscience. “Neuroplasticity is promising, but there is a lot that is unknown…it is a hot subject to study.” Prominent neurosurgeon and clinical professor at The University of Pittsburgh’s Medical Center, Dr. Daniel Wecht explains that the subject of neuroplasticity is one that needs to be heavily delved into before being applied to mental illnesses. “You need to understand the fundamental circuitry before invasive experimenting on the brain…You have to ask yourself, ‘how well do we truly understand neural mechanisms behind mental disorders?’” The complexity of mental disorders is an obstacle for universal application of therapies such as Dr. Swartz’s four-step method to conquering OCD and future mental ailments. However, in general, the ideology of neuroplasticity has come a long way.  

In an article called The Dynamic Brain: Neuroplasticity and Mental Health from The Journal of Neuropsychiatry, Dr. Katherine H. Taber describes neuroplasticity in this way: “Until fairly recently, the adult brain was considered largely fixed and stable. Although it was accepted that changes occurred in the context of learning and memory, the general consensus was that major processes essential to normal brain development (e.g., generation of new neurons, neuron migration, pruning) ceased once full development was reached. The relationship between physical illness, mental illness, and brain functioning or structure was not heavily considered. However, recent research has led to a major paradigm shift. Most important was the discovery of the birth of new neurons (neurogenesis) in the adult human brain.” This is also something that Schwartz addresses. Not only can you change the paths your neurons follow, but you can also create new ones, which is something that can most definitely alter our words and actions. This alteration I speak of could be changing a pessimistic mind into a positive one. Or allowing someone to be empowered when they think of their body, or essentially helping someone out of bed for the first time in weeks.  

Our society today almost enjoys promoting the mental prisons we have somehow all found ourselves trapped in. Even when we see empowering messages on social media with the intention of inspiring us, sometimes it just stands as a reminder that mental diseases exist and are monstrous entities that impose themselves upon us. This is not true. When we look at them the way Schwartz makes them out to be, they are much less intimidating. “The brain’s going to do what the brain’s going to do...but you don’t have to let it push you around.” Wecht expounds upon this stigma affiliated with mental illnesses, “It is an affliction, not a fault of the patient--not something they did themselves. Most mental illnesses are physical ailments.” We have the power to change our thinking; we, after all, have full possession of that intimidating organ that lives inside our skulls. If we could rid the world of medications for depression and other illnesses, we could even lower the rate of suicide by overdose. According to the National Center for Health Research, “The additional risks of antidepressants first became clear in research on children, and in the fall of 2004, the FDA issued a warning that children and adolescents taking antidepressant medications might experience increased suicidal thoughts and behaviors.” There have been additional studies conducted that substantiate the claim that anti-depressants may not be as effective as they are advertised. In a study conducted by Dr. Andrea Cipriani, it was concluded that, “antidepressant drugs were barely better than placebo, a difference that is unlikely to be clinically significant.” This makes you wonder why the world has been continuing with such unfruitful methods of treating mental illness.  

Although Schwartz’s method for conquering mental disorders presents auspicious potential that could benefit our society as a whole, there is still a lot of work to do. For the sake of everyone suffering from these mental constructs, I say we encourage the further studying of neuroplasticity so we can significantly diminish mental illnesses and give ourselves the freedom we deserve. The benefits of Schwartz’s four-step, mind restoring method continues to grow, and it is something that needs to be well-communicated in the world of mental health and science, for the sake of our society. In Chapter 2 of Dr. Schwartz’s book, his readers hear about one of his patients crippled with intense OCD. He could not go without persistently monotonously washing his hands, so much so that his wife threatened to leave him if he didn’t stop. With the motivation to restore his relationship, Dr. Schwartz’s patient went through with the therapy of The Four Step method. “This was a level of resolve neither I nor anyone in the group had seen before,” Dr. Schwart’s explains in regards to his patient’s determination. “Over the next few weeks, he actually managed to pull it off. He held his hand washing to normal levels and made it through the winter without chapped hands.” It is results like this that continue to motivate the research and work of applying this Four Step Method to other mental illnesses. It gives hope for the future of neuroscience.