Dr. Michael Kilgard

But at least we understand the nature of the disease.

It's not that they've got a germ or a bacteria or a virus.

It's not that their one gene is big and bad and broken.

It's not contagious.

But there's some wiring challenges.

And at most days, someone with schizophrenia is perfectly normal.

Most people with neurological and psychiatric disorders spend large periods of time normal between periods of migraines or depression.

They are acting totally reasonable.

And we want to spend more time, push them more toward those times of health and satisfaction and reward and away from those times of disability, engagement, limitations.

And I think we're moving in that direction instead of labeling and putting people off in homes, more to engaging, understanding, and then eventually intervening.

No, I think that's exactly right.

I mean if you know you're not going to need it, biology would have said you don't need this.

It's a leaf that's wiggling in the air.

I don't need to know where that leaf is.

But this is the thing that cues me to where I'm going to find my next meal.

That's going to be something I'm going to be interested in.

If this is going to help me get a mate, I'm going to learn that.

If this is going to be an irrelevant fact about a cloud, I'm not going to.

And I think children have a lot of trouble with that.

There's a stage in childhood where they'll see a plane up there and they'll say, oh, my God, there's a little plane up there.