I wonder how many mental illnesses are the result of imbalances in foreign organic matter/microbes/fungi/dietary issues and not issues fundamental to the brain itself?
Schizophrenia is an interesting one showing a very high correlation with antibodies for a retrovirus called HERV-W which became part of the DNA of our pre-human ancestors about 60 million years ago and which has been passed down ever since.
Exactly, we have lots of instances of other parts of the body becoming infected but brain sicknesses I think go untreated probably because they are hard to detect and the brain is so resilient.
I think it's a combination of it being difficult/expensive to get inside the brain, limiting such exploration to only the most severe cases, and also a latent bias in western culture to buy into Mind-Body Duality. The idea that the Mind is separate from the Body is still prevalent, and has an insidious effect on many people's judgement: even people who are trained otherwise.
