Sane World Aim Of Study

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30841, 28 August 1965, Page 16

Sane World Aim Of Study

The most advanced scientific research in the field of psychopharmacology in the United States was aiming at a sane world, said the professor of psychology at the University of of Indiana, Professor R. \V. Russell, on his arrival from Australia yesterday. “We are at least hoping to be able to treat mental illness when it occurs,” he said. “Or, later on to prevent it from occurring.” Professor Russell, who is also the secretary-general of the International Union of Psychological Science, will be the guest lecturer in Christ church on Monday for the biannual conference of the New Zealand branch of the British Ps"chologica] Society. Professor Russell said scientists were beginning to learn enough about the relationships of chemical events in the brain to human be-

haviour to know that they could be altered by biochemical events and this changed the behaviour.

Discussing his own field of research, Professor Russell said that drugs weri a chemical stimuli to events already going on in the body. What was important in his research was understanding what processes were brought by chemical events and how they were related to what aspects of human behaviour. Chemistry of Nerves Some idea of the progress in this field could be gained from the ability today to take out a single nerve cell (neuron) from the human body and to analyse it for its chemical contents.

Technique today made it possible to analyse these quantities—a millionth of a millionth of a gram—and determine how these processes of learning have changes of molecules within that neuron This, said Professor Russel), would mean a great deal to the human sphere in the treatment of mental illnesses and the prevention of people

from having mental illnesses before they occurred. He cautioned that there were “fears as well as hopes in this."

Professor Russell said that surveys made showed that half the hospital beds in the world were filled with people whose basic problem was mental illness, rather than physical. Big Saving The ability to reduce, or solve this problem by understanding how the chemical events in the brain were related to behaviour, would lead to the saving of unhappiness to hundreds of thousands of people. It could save billions of dollars each year. This, he said, would include the cost of keeping people who were mentally ill, as well as the loss of productivity through mental illness. Professor Russell will return to Australia after his fiv°-day Christchurch stay to continue his post as visiting professor of psychology at the University of Sydney, under the Australian-American Educational Foundation.