[Are mental and neurological disorders related?]

A recent article in Science reported the results of a genome-wide analysis of a variety of psychiatric and neurological conditions, conducted by an international consortium. Psychiatric disorders showed some degree of genetic risk sharing; conversely, the genetic risk profiles of neurological disorders lacked virtually any resemblance to each other as well as to mental diseases. Even though the spectrum of studied diseases was incomplete, the findings are unsurprising. Of course, neurological disorders and mental disorders share a common substrate in the brain, which has led to different methods attempting to discover the material basis of mental disorders. Yet, there is and continues to be an important difference regarding the causal role of the environment, viz. psychological and social factors. However, in terms of the way diseases manifest themselves, i.e. the symptoms experienced by patients, there is considerable overlap between psychological and somatic factors. Body and mind may be separated in medical textbooks, but not in the waiting room.