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Health Check: Does Being Congenitally Blind Protect Against Schizophrenia?

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A neurosurgeon studies an MRI scan.

2019/02/13 GMT

Does Being Congenitally Blind Protect Against Schizophrenia?

BBC World Service - Health Check, Does Being Congenitally Blind Protect Against Schizophrenia?

A large study which found no-one with early cortical blindness developed schizophrenia

How early blindness seems to prevent some psychotic illnesses; Why schadenfreude can be so enjoyable; Research showing that black skin ages 50 times more slowly than white skin.

To date there have been no cases of schizophrenia in people who are cortically blind from birth or in the first few years of life. Cortical blindness is the total or partial loss of vision caused by damage to the primary visual cortex. This idea that being blind is somehow protective against developing the mental illness schizophrenia has been around since the 1950s, but up until now has not been studied in a large population.
Vera Morgan, Professor of Psychiatric Epidemiology at the University of Western Australia, used data from health registers covering almost 500,000 people to examine this phenomenon. The results have recently been published in the journal Schizophrenia Research.

Have you ever experienced that shameful tickle of enjoyment when a gorgeous film star trips up on the red carpet or a politician who has preached high morals gets caught doing something they shouldn't? If you have, then you will be familiar with the feeling of schadenfreude. It may sound mean, but it could have a useful function, according to Tiffany Watt Smith from Queen Mary University of London, who is the author of "Schadenfreude: The joy of another's misfortune".  She joined Claudia along with Wilco Van Dijk, Professor of Psychology at Leiden University in the Netherlands. 

Repeated exposure to the sun ages everyone, but new research now shows that there are remarkable differences between white and black skin in terms of damage sustained by the effects of the sun. Dr Abigail Langton, a research fellow at the University of Manchester compared black and white 18 to 30 year olds with seventy years olds and found ageing happens about fifty years more slowly in black people than white. The study was written up in the Journal of Investigative Dermatology. 

Health Check was presented by Claudia Hammond with comments from Sarah Boseley.

(Main Image:  A neurosurgeon studies an MRI scan.  Credit:  BSIP / UIG via Getty Images)

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