Monday, August 26, 2024

By Don Sapatkin

Good Monday morning! In today’s Daily: Mockery of Tim Walz’s neurodivergent son unleashed a tsunami of love and praise. Astronauts study mental health in space. Vaccination appears to protect against mental illness triggered by COVID-19.

Plus, inflammation is linked to psychiatric disorders up to 30 years later. New Jersey will require police to bring a mental health professional when responding to calls about barricaded people, who often are in crisis.  And here’s a bonus: A well-researched opinion essay in the New York Times explored How Psychedelic Research Got High on Its Own Supply.

Tim Walz’s neurodivergent son creates a touching, teachable moment

You’ve probably heard about Gus Walz’s star turn at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, and the reviews that followed. His father, vice presidential nominee Tim Walz, was giving his acceptance speech on Wednesday night, and gave a heartfelt shoutout to his family. “Hope, Gus and Gwen, you are my entire world. And I love you,” he said, looking toward his family in the first row. Walz’s 17-year-old son jumped up from his seat, tears on his face, pointed his index finger and said, “I love you, Dad!,” followed by a super-proud “That’s my dad!” The father-son moment, captured on live TV, went viral and was largely received adoringly. Fox News shared a clip of the moment on its TikTok page, writing “Gus Walz steals show during dad’s acceptance speech.” The comments were overwhelmingly positive.

But not all. Conservative firebrand Ann Coulter posted a photo of an intensely emotional Gus on X with the caption “Talk about weird …,” referencing Tim Walz’s use of “weird” to describe statements by opponents Donald Trump and J.D. Vance.

Talk host Jay Weber went further, saying on X: “Sorry, but this is embarrassing for both father and son. If the Walzs represent today’s American man, this country is screwed: Meet my son, Gus. He’s a blubbering bitch boy. His mother and I are very proud.”

Coulter and Weber later deleted their posts. Neither apologized. But even if they didn’t know (as I didn’t) that Gus has a non-verbal learning disorder, ADHD and an anxiety disorder − conditions his parents called his “secret power” in a pre-convention statement they made to People magazine – the nastiness was still despicable: it’s never OK to bully and emasculate a teenage boy.  

Nevertheless, I see this whole incident as overall positive. Here’s why:

1. The response on social media and elsewhere has been mind-blowingly supportive of Gus and critical of the right-wing bullying. The news media, at least the mainstream part of it, has written far more about the backlash than the posts that caused it. A gazillion average X users and plenty of celebrities, with and without children with disabilities, were effusive. “Thankful for you showing us all what real love looks like, Gus,” Michelle Obama wrote on X. Republicans stood up for Gus, too. “Look, I may not agree with @Tim_Walz prescription for America’s challenges − but I’ve always believed in shielding our children from attack,” GOP Rep. Marc Molinaro wrote on X, with a screenshot of Coulter’s tweet. “His son Gus, our kids − neurodivergent and of all abilities − ought to be celebrated and supported.”

2. Gus’s stardom has become a teachable, shareable moment. “As the mother of Georgie, a 38-year-old on the spectrum who still lives with me, I recognized him immediately as one of ‘ours,’ a sweet, unfiltered, slightly bewildered-looking young man who wasn’t quite sure what was expected of him in this epic moment of political adulation,” celebrity editor Tina Brown wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed. Advocates for children with learning disabilities were outraged by the venom directed at the Walz family, but also took the opportunity to impart information. “What we’re seeing with the bullying of Gus Walz online isn’t just cruel − it’s a painful reminder of what kids with disabilities face every single day,” said Katy Neas, CEO of The Arc, an advocacy group for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. “Bullying can have a direct impact on their academic achievement, which in turn means fewer opportunities as adults. We’re failing these kids when we don’t understand or value their experiences.”

3. It has also become an expansive moment for neurodiversity – while also prompting discussion about outdated notions of masculine behavior. Christina Wyman, in an opinion piece for MSNBC, saw the response to Gus’s sobbing as an alternative “to the subpar, and I dare say pathetic, ‘masculine’ identities that have historically been available to boys and men.” The term neurodiversity was coined in the 1980s to fight stigma against people with autism, ADHD and learning disorders and has become a way to describe differences in the way people’s brains work. Neurodivergent people tend to be highly sensitive and experience life at the extremes − as Gus Walz showed, casting a welcome spotlight on different people’s experiences. “You’ve got a cultural narrative that makes us want to police our emotions in a certain way,” Nancy Doyle, a UK psychologist told The Guardian, “and then you’ve got Gus who’s letting it all hang out and totally going for it. It made everyone go, ‘Wow, what’s that?’”

Mental health in space: Experiments keep astronauts happy (and busy)

Alongside research on radiation exposure and how space travel affects your gut, 25 years of experiments on board the International Space Station (ISS) have opened new pathways for learning about astronaut mental health. They’ve also kept the inhabitants busy during 6-to-12-month missions. Space agencies face a big question – how to keep astronauts happy? – that will get far bigger during lengthy missions in the not-too-distant future. They also want to test in an actual space environment what has been learned from experiments in isolated, confined environments on Earth. An article in Space.com described several research studies about astronaut mental health conducted on board the station.

A project on circadian light looks at how lighting patterns “help astronauts maintain a more normal daily or circadian rhythm,” according to a NASA press release,
which in turn could improve mental well-being through better sleep and reduced stress. It builds on an earlier experiment that examined how the rhythms change during long-duration spaceflight, when cycles of light and dark don’t follow the 24-hour cycle on Earth. An unrelated investigation examined the brain’s structure and function to see how activities like multi-tasking change in space, and then again when an astronaut lands back to Earth. Published results found no effect on spatial working memory but did note significant changes in brain connectivity as well as substantial increases in brain volume.

To track human-induced climate change, natural disasters and other events, astronauts have for many years been taking pictures of Earth for a project called Crew Earth Observations.

Many of them spend a lot of free time shooting from a wrap-around window called the cupola − and researchers realized that taking these photos also improves the crew members’ mental well-being.

Newer investigations focus on how the imagery helps astronaut mental health. VR Mental Care, a European Space Agency project, uses virtual reality technology for astronauts to simulate being in different environments. The 360-degree environment includes video and sound; follow-up questionnaires assess how the astronauts felt. “In addition to helping astronauts, this tool could be used to deal with psychological issues such as stress, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder on Earth,” according to the NASA release.

COVID-19 linked to a higher risk of mental illness. Unvaccinated people were the most affected

Infection with the virus that caused the pandemic is known to worsen or trigger a variety of psychiatric conditions in the short term (long term is still a mystery). A new study found that the mental health risk is exponentially higher for people who were hospitalized compared to those who were not. It also determined that vaccination seems to provide substantial protection for the mental health of people who are infected, CNN reports.

The study, published in JAMA Psychiatry, examined health records for three groups of people aged 18 to 110 in the UK who were diagnosed with COVID-19: 18.6 million before vaccinations became available, 3.2 million who were not vaccinated despite the shots’ availability, and 14 million who were. History of mental illness was a risk factor for mental illness following infection. Depression was the most common mental diagnosis. Researchers found that the incidence of depression in the four weeks after diagnosis was 93% higher in people who contracted the disease before vaccinations were available and 79% higher among the later unvaccinated group. It was just 16% higher among the vaccinated group.

The overall incidence of depression stayed elevated for up to a year among the unvaccinated. The association with depression was strongest among people who were hospitalized with severe infections. Before vaccines were available, depression incidence in that group was 16.3 times higher compared with 1.2 times higher among those who were infected but not hospitalized. Despite the striking difference, it was unclear to what extent the increased incidence of mental illness was the result of severe infection or due simply to hospitalization. Separate research suggests that hospitalizations for any severe sickness can be associated with a higher long-term risk of new mental health diagnoses.

It’s also unclear how well the findings overall apply today. Individuals in the study all contracted COVID-19 in 2020 and 2021, in the early, pre-Omicron days of the pandemic when most people had no immunity to the virus. Now, most have been infected or vaccinated multiple times, and population immunity is much higher. And while the sample size was huge, all participants were from a single nation, and the vast majority were white. Even so, the study findings suggest that vaccination provides substantial benefits for mental health. The FDA last week approved new Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines that are tailored to more recent strains of the virus. The CDC recommends vaccination for everyone 6 months and older.

In other news…

That mental illness has biological aspects just like cancer and diabetes was finally driven home to me by a study that linked inflammatory biomarkers with increased risk of psychiatric disorders. Researchers reported in JAMA Psychiatry that individuals with higher-than-median level of leukocytes had an elevated risk of depression, anxiety, and stress-related disorders up to 30 years later − suggesting a possible causal relationship between leukocytes and depression, the authors wrote. Another study in the same journal found that having persistently raised levels of inflammation throughout childhood, as measured by C-reactive protein, was associated with quadruple the risk of psychotic disorders and severe depression in early adulthood. This does not mean that these illnesses are purely genetic in nature. Adverse childhood experiences such as child maltreatment, parental mental health disorders and parental separation or divorce have been linked to higher levels of C-reactive protein in children, adolescents, and adults.

A new directive intended to “slow and stabilize” encounters between New Jersey police and barricaded people will require law enforcement to bring a mental health professional when they respond in barricade situations, wait instead of forcing their way inside, bring less lethal weapons like Tasers to such calls, and immediately involve a supervisor, the New Jersey Monitor reports. The changes were ordered by state Attorney General Matt Platkin on Thursday, three weeks after police shot and killed a 25-year-old woman experiencing a mental health crisis in her family’s apartment in Fort Lee. They called 911 to report that Victoria Lee was holding a knife and needed to go to the hospital because she was suffering from a mental health crisis, according to the AG’s office. Family members tried to prevent responding officers from entering their apartment, but they forced their way in. Lee approached them in a hallway, and an officer fired a single shot to the chest, killing her, authorities said.

If you or someone you know is in crisis or experiencing suicidal thoughts, call or text 988 to reach the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline and connect in English or Spanish. If you’re a veteran press 1. If you’re deaf or hard of hearing dial 711, then 988. Services are free and available 24/7.