Brain, Mind, Culture, & Mental Illness

When talking about truth and reconciliation, Desmond Tutu recently told the American Psychiatric Association how people recognizing and admitting their mistakes allowed both the victim and the perpetrator to grow. If we continue not to acknowledge the problems we have had with diversity in the past it is not clear how we can develop truly equitable services.

Social–psychological and physical stress are considered to be common contributory factors to many neuropsychiatric illnesses. In humans and laboratory animals, stress increases levels of glucocorticoids, both in the CNS and peripherally175. Accumulating data show that glucocorticoids bound to glucocorticoid receptors not only regulate gene expression in the cell nucleus176 but can also translocate to mitochondria and regulate mitochondrial gene expression176. This mitochondrial translocation is mediated, at least in part, by B-cell lymphoma protein 2 (BCL-2)176. Furthermore, acute exposure of cultured neurons to either low or high levels of glucocorticoids enhances mitochondrial function — including increases in membrane potentials, calcium-holding capacity and oxidation — whereas chronic exposure of neurons to high glucocorticoid levels, which can occur after stress, impairs mitochondrial function176. These data suggest a possible mitochondrial link between chronic stress and psychiatric and neurodegenerative disorders.