Hello everyone!
My inquiry question was “How Close are we to Finding a Cure for any Mental Illnesses?”
a. What challenges did you overcome throughout this inquiry project? How did you go about
overcoming these challenges?
The challenges I faced included not finding any scientists working on a cure and not understanding why scientists were not working on a cure. First, scientists were not working on the cures so I could not include them in my research. The closest thing I did find was scientists seeing how schizophrenia was able to impact the brain. While this did connect to my subject, it was not the exact focus. Although, I was able to show how it did fit.
b. How did this inquiry change the way you think?
My inquiry now impacts my thinking because I had more hope going into it that maybe in this lifetime a cure could be reached but that was not the case. Knowing that made me less hopeful for the mental health community On the other hand, I know that there are some prospects such as new medications being used like cariprazine and esketemine. This counteracts the hopelessness my overall results had caused.
c. How did this investigation impact your future decisions?
Knowing that there won’t be a cure will make me more appreciative of the treatments that are available for the mentally ill. I think that even though we don’t have a cure we have ways of coping and that on its own is amazing. Second, knowing that there won’t be a cure I won’t expect scientists to know much about the possible cures. I believe that they need to learn more about the brain and what impact mental illness has on it before looking for the cures.
d. What impact will this investigation have on others locally and/or globally?
The impacts this could have on the community could be more money put into research on the brain. For example, when I was researching, I found that synaptic pruning was important to schizophrenia. This can be important for later scientists looking for a cure.
Thanks for reading!
