The human mind, in my opinion the subject most worthy of our (human) consideration, defining the very profound limits of our inner space, is at the same time ironically the most elusive subject in our experience.  After all, how can one understand mind, using mind? 

Part of the problem is our lack of understanding regarding the relationship, obviously an enormous & a critical one, existing between brain & mind. For example we know that the ephemeral mind is wholly dependent on the workings of the circuits of the brain for its operations, yet we also know that the active process of thinking using this intangible mind physically alters the wirings of the concrete brain, through a process known as neuroplasticity.  In other words the brain is plastic & mutable, at the molecular, the cellular & even at the tissue levels, & as you will soon discover, the adrenal, sexual & thyroidal hormones are potent regulators of this remarkable plasticity.

Hormones, stress & the mind 

Despite that the mind has no physical substance to it, western language forces us to refer to it in a physical way, as if it were an organic structure. Using the word mind to describe the location where our thinking supposedly takes place means using a noun to put substance onto an entity that has no substance or location to it whatsoever. But the mind is nowhere & it is everywhere, an entity of pure, unadulterated process & absolutely no physical state, whatsoever. 

Difficult as it is to come to grips with this concept of mind in & of itself, how then should we go about defining what makes a mind normal, without which it would be even more difficult to progress to the point of defining a mind that was actually abnormal. Some might say that the average mind, in terms of its intelligence level & its adherence to the 'normal" conventions, best defines normality, but where then should that leave people like Einstein & Mozart, with their highly unconventional & far from average minds?   

The normal mind.

Clearly then, the range of mental normality, far from being a very narrow & well defined one, is rather vague & variable from our perspective, depending for example on local differences in culture, religion & so forth. In order then to define mental normality we must try to get a feel for the normal workings of the mind, despite our ongoing ignorance on the subject.  This means black-boxing the mind & pragmatically thinking of it as a holographic screen being simultaneously projected upon by two opposing sources.  One of these projecting sources delivers pieces of information gathered by the senses about the real, outer world in which we live, in real time & real place, to the holographic sphere of consciousness. The other projector delivers data from the inner mind, where our frames of reference reside in layers spanning all the way from our inherited, hard-wired reference points or 'archeological' memories, through our more individualized developmental programs, progressively assembled as we approach adulthood, all the way forward to the present day.

Staying in touch with reality.

The data being delivered by these two projecting sources, an outer one & an inner one must be constantly integrated & reintegrated with each other, over & over again so as to keep the mind current with the real world. The two sources constantly vie with each other for our attention so that a well-balanced mind keeps the two sources in play constantly & equitably, like an expert juggler, never becoming stuck on one or the other of the two sources or becoming hung-up in a time-frame out of sync with the current reality.  

Neurotransmitters as volume controllers

We are all of us familiar with the various types of nerve cell groupings, each cohort being defined on the basis of its characteristic neurotransmitter, that the psychiatric jargon is rife with, including serotonin (SER), nor-epinephrine (NE), dopamine (DA) & acetyl-choline (ACh).  It is likely that these slow neurotransmitters or neuromodulators, which selectively regulate the activity of regional cell groupings within the brain, are involved in the damping down or amping up of data-transfer from our two opposing projectors.  It follows that imbalances between the activities of these neurotransmitters, some of them stimulatory, others inhibitory, would result in a loss of the normal, even-handed balance being maintained between the prioritized activities of the inner & outer minds.  So for example, when the inner mind gets too much attention, appreciation of reality becomes downgraded & delusional thinking may predominate, whether in response to mind-altering drugs such a psilocybin, or as part of a psychotic process such as schizophrenia, whereas when messages from the outer world are so amplified as to relay loud messages connoting threat & evoking fear, it is difficult if not impossible for the inner mind to override these anxiety-provoking messages, in those patients with anxiety disorder or panic attacks. 

Normal in comparison with disturbed minds.

Now using this very simplistic model as a backdrop, we can throw together some ideas about normality & abnormality, sanity & insanity in terms where the sex hormones might play a part, by influencing the checks & balances within these delicate arrangements.  For example testosterone is capable of promoting mania & psychosis by empowering the inner mind, & this fits with the male tendency toward being less reactively receptive & more proactive, even forceful. And in the same vein estradiol protects women against psychosis & mania, in keeping with the average feminine tendency to be instinctively more receptive & less forceful or overweening than males, but a deficiency in testosterone in women may support a lack of resilience & a propensity for being dominated or abused.

This brings us to a general idea of what mental abnormalities or disorders might involve.  The disorders of mood such as anxiety & depression have more to do with the activity of the outer mental projector & involve getting a distorted sense of the value or valence on what is going on in the real world, whereas the psychoses including schizophrenia & schizo-affective disorder are more about over-activity of the inner projector, leading to delusional ideas disconnected from our outer, everyday reality.