• Question: How do mental illnesses occur?

    Asked by to Daren, Lynne, Phillip, Simon on 18 Jun 2014. This question was also asked by .
    • Photo: Daren Fearon

      Daren Fearon answered on 18 Jun 2014:

      Mental illnesses can be caused by an imbalance of molecules called neurotransmitters in our brains. These neurotransmitters are important in sending signals between parts of our brain and if we have too much of one, or not enough of the other it can lead to mental illnesses, like depression. The brain is very complex though and we don’t fully understand what can cause these imbalances and how to fix them yet. We need to do lots more research as these are very serious illnesses that affect a lot of people.

    • Photo: Lynne Thomas

      Lynne Thomas answered on 18 Jun 2014:

      I think this one of the areas where we need to do much more work. We still don’t understand a lot about the human brain. There are a range of different causes too as some people seem to be prone to mental illnesses whilst other people develop them temporarily often because of big things that are going on in their lives. I’m not sure we understand the causes or the differences between mental illnesses yet but it is good that we are taking the problem seriously. Pretty much every illness boils down to imbalances in the way certain molecules in your body are doing their jobs and thats why its possible to treat them if we can work out which thing people need more of.

    • Photo: anon

      anon answered on 18 Jun 2014:

      There are lots of different types of mental illness, each have different causes. It’s usually due to chemicals or hormones in your brain getting out of balance.

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