title: Biological determination of mental disorders: a discussion based on recent hypotheses from neuroscience.
abstract: Understanding the processes involved in the development of mental disorders has proven challenging ever since psychiatry was founded as a field. Neuroscience has provided new expectations that an explanation will be found for the development of mental disorders based on biological functioning alone. However, such a goal has not been that easy to achieve, and new hypotheses have begun to appear in neuroscience research. In this article we identify epigenetics, neurodevelopment, and plasticity as the principal avenues for a new understanding of the biology of mental phenomena. Genetic complexity, the environment's formative role, and variations in vulnerability involve important changes in the principal hypotheses on biological determination of mental disorders, suggesting a reconfiguration of the limits between the "social" and the "biological" in neuroscience research.
authors: Universidade Federal Rural do Rio de Janeiro, Seropédica, Brasil.
authors: Luna Rodrigues
authors: LR
authors: Freitas-Silva
authors: Instituto de Medicina Social, Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil.
authors: Francisco
authors: F
authors: Ortega
mesh_terms: D001689:Biological Psychiatry; D001938:Brazil; D054022:Cerebrum / Q000254:growth & development; D057890:Epigenomics; D059647:Gene-Environment Interaction; D033141:Genetic Determinism; D006801:Humans; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000209:etiology* / Q000235:genetics; D009473:Neuronal Plasticity; D009488:Neurosciences