An article on Vice said that “in 2018, a study led by a researcher named Vera Morgan at the University of Western Australia looked at nearly half a million children born between 1980 and 2001,” and none of the kids studied who were blind from birth ever developed schizophrenia. “Pollak, a psychiatrist and researcher at King’s College London, remembered checking in the mental health facility where he works after learning about it; he too was unable to find a single patient with congenital blindness who had schizophrenia.”
“These findings suggest that something about congenital blindness may protect a person from schizophrenia. This is especially surprising, since congenital blindness often results from infections, brain trauma, or genetic mutation—all factors that are independently associated with greater risk of psychotic disorders.
More strangely, vision loss at other periods of life is associated with higher risks of schizophrenia and psychotic symptoms. Even in healthy people, blocking vision for just a few days can bring about hallucinations. And the connections between vision abnormalities and schizophrenia have become more deeply established in recent years—visual abnormalities are being found before a person has any psychotic symptoms, sometimes predicting who will develop schizophrenia.”
Read the rest of this fascinating phenomenon at the source link.
Source: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/939qbz/people-born-blind-are-mysteriously-protected-from-schizophrenia?utm_source=pocket&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=pockethits
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