Research Paper Example: Connection Between the Chemistry of the Brain and Mental Illness

One scientific issue I am interested in researching is the connection between the chemistry of the brain and mental illness. Mental health is becoming a larger topic of discussion as people begin to open up about their experiences. As this conversation is broadening, it is important to be able to discover the direct connections between the brain and mental illness’ in order to advance the understanding of different mental illnesses and to develop better treatments towards these illnesses. If this study were to be conducted I think it would be interesting to determine different levels of hormones and other chemicals within the brain combined with the use of MRI’s to observe whether or not mental illness changes the structure of the brain.

As I further my education, I am hoping to focus my learning on sciences and psychology in hopes to pursue continued education in medical school. A large passion of mine has been research as I love being able to ask a question and find the answers. In school, I am the type of student to questions and to always want to know more information about what we are learning. With this, I find that once I get the hands on ability to answer these questions, especially in scientific labs, the information seems to “click” and my understanding of the topic greatly deepens. The study of mental illness’ has been a focus of interest for me for a while. I have learned about and studied different mental illnesses from the DSM-V, but being able to understand the chemical imbalances and differences would both answer a question I have asked for a long time as well as open up endless doors for other questions to appear. 

There are a few parameters that would have to be put in place in order to conduct this research, as well as a few issues that may arise. In order to gather accurate data, there must be a wide variety of subjects and medical background; meaning data including drug and alcohol use must be collected- so that any unrelated to the chemical makeup of the brain can be noted. If this study were to be done, subjects would have to be taken off of medicine geared towards mental illness in order to determine the true chemical composition of an individual. Without this measure, an individual on medicine may portray a false composition of certain hormones; such as serotonin if this individual is on an SSRI. This may lead to difficulties in finding subjects who are diagnosed with mental illness and are willing to stop taking medication. In order to prevent bias, those conducting the research must be blind as to who suffers from mental illness and who does not. Without the added blindness, when a researcher is reviewing the data from the study they might be more likely to read the results with a biased view. 

I believe that studying and researching the differences in appearance and chemical structures of the brain between individuals with mental illnesses such as depression, OCD, anxiety, ADHD, and PTSD, as well as compared with those who do not have mental illness would lead to breakthrough discoveries in understanding and treating these afflictions.