Kandel was awarded a 2000 Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology for his discovery of molecular processes that underlie learning and memory. Kandel credits advances in human genetics and genetic models of disease in animals in large part for our modern appreciation of the brain’s role in mental illness. The world’s economically costliest mental illness, major depressive disorder, has yet to be tied convincingly to any genes. And while genetic techniques may be an excellent bet for psychiatric science, whether there will be payoffs in the clinic is far from certain. Kandel himself bridges science and humanities in a chapter on the link between mental illness and artistic creativity.

Source: New York Times September 17, 2018 09:00 UTC