NEUROSCIENCE AND THE PROBLEMS OF SUCCESS

✍ Scribed by Spencer

• Book ID: 104469535
• Publisher: Informa plc
• Year: 1999
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 34 KB
• Volume: 7
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1039-8562
• DOI: 10.1046/j.1440-1665.1999.00185.x

✦ Synopsis

New knowledge may be beneficial to our understanding of illness and help us in devising new and more effective treatments. Conversely, the same new knowledge can simultaneously introduce conceptual confusion and an urgent need to re-examine some of our categorical boundaries. Some of medicine's biggest challenges (for example) are due to a successful contribution to the increase in life expectancy which enables us to enjoy the pleasures of life long after retirement. Unfortunately these pleasures are counterbalanced by the increased demands on the National Health Service due to the high incidence of medical problems associated with ageing. The challenges of success are particularly true in psychiatry and forensic psychiatry where recent advances in neuroscience cause us to re-examine many interfaces and basic concepts of illness and many of the related ethical issues.