Norman Swan
speaker
15,981 appearances
143 recordings
2 series
first heard Jul 2005
last heard 3d ago
Norman Swan’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 24 in all, peaking in Jun 2026 with 7.
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So this is b using a brain bank and it was done in association with a German group.
And what they were looking at were actually the chemical tags that sit around the genes, that sit around your chromosomes that actually control your genes.
They turn them on, they turn them off, they turn them up, they turn them down.
And it's it's called the epigenome or it's called the the the the study is called epigenetics.
And they were looking at the epigenetics around stress-related genes in particular parts of the brain.
And in summary, they found that these chemical tags that control the stress genes in schizophrenia have been stripped away, which means the stress genes are turned on.
And the sample wasn't large enough, but they actually believe it applies to major depression and bipolar disorder as well.
And the significance here is that they've known for years that people with schizophrenia and other major psychiatric problems are very stress-sensitive.
And stress can actually bring on the symptoms.
And this gives a clue as to why this might occur, and therefore perhaps.
Designing better drugs to deal with this particular problem.
Do we have any idea as to why these chemical tags get stripped away?
Sue.
What influences epigenetics is the environment.
So the environment has a very powerful influence on these chemical tags.
And it's likely and certainly possible that early life stress and childhood disadvantage could actually have an influence on this epigenome and strip away the effects because it's known again that early life stress
Childhood disadvantage, deprivation.
in children can affect their stress responses later on in life and this could give the genetic reason for it.
In our weekly now, WTF segment, and we missed you the last two weeks, Norman.
I was gonna use the nickname I have for you that I know you don't want me to say on air.
Showing 861–880 of 15,981 · page 44 of 800
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