Biography of Nancy Andreasen

Nancy Andreasen, who was then a researcher and Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Iowa, had earlier due to personal circumstances become fascinated by the enigmatic field of psychiatry. For Nancy Andreasen the road to psychiatry was longer than what is ordinary. Before getting her medical degree as a psychiatrist from the University of Iowa in 1970, she actually already had a Ph.D. - in English!!!

After studies at the University of Nebraska, and later Radcliffe College in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Nancy Andreasen finally earned a Ph.D. from the University of Nebraska in 1963. Then after years of teaching English in Nebraska, and becoming an Assistant Professor in English UIOWA Bannerat the University of Iowa, Iowa, Nancy Andreasen's life took an unusual turn. During and after the pregnancy and birth of her first-born daughter, Nancy Andreasen experienced some almost life-threatening complications involving hypertension. Going through the difficult time and hospitalization that followed, Nancy Andreasen started to develop an interest in medicine. She began reading literature about what she was actually going through personally. When she finally came out of the shaking experience, not only did she feel relieved over having survived, but she also somewhere deep down inside felt a gratitude towards medical science, and what it had done for her. She almost felt that she owed it to medicine to give something back, and with the knowledge she had gathered during her time in the hospital, Nancy felt ready to go back to school to head for another degree - this time in medicine.

Many people may find the switch from language to psychiatry quite radical. However, when you think about it, there are quite a few similarities. At least in the case of schizophrenia, where indeed some of the neural circuits known to be affected are actually the ones that control our speech, and our auditory senses. Schizophrenics commonly have auditory hallucinations. The speech may be slow or reduced, and have illogical content. The molecular mechanisms behind these phenomena are still not fully solved, but they have over the years caught many scientists' attention and interest.