Retrovirus in junk DNA activated to cause mental illness?

[zalena]

I love the implications of this article, which suggests a number of chronic disorders may have something to do with activated retroviruses in so-called 'junk' DNA. This is the most exciting and hopeful thing I've heard in the field for sometime, though clearly there is still a long way to go:

http://discovermagazine.com/2010/jun/03-the-insanity-virus

This sentence caught my attention because it sounds like something straight from the BP:

"Beyond that, the insanity virus (if such it proves) may challenge our basic views of human evolution, blurring the line between “us” and “them,” between pathogen and host..." Incidentally, the BP has a schizophrenic brother and gave me my first working sense of the disorder.

However, I would like to put the kibosh on the term 'insanity virus' right now, because that just confuses the issue: making it sound as thought insanity is contagious like the common cold, when really the process (like all retroviruses) is complex and not well understood.

Comments

[zalena.livejournal.com]

Retroviruses definitely include the possibility of genetic predisposition. That's part of what makes this so fascinating... especially since a number of the diseases they are dealing with here are largely considered 'inheritable.'

I guess one of the reasons I love this article is because it demonstrates changes in the orthodoxy even over a very short amount of time. So much is still a mystery. I have a separate rant about 'science is a process not a belief' but I will save it for another time. Suffice to say that I am very heartened that there is still so much room for discovery.