Comorbidity and Anticomorbidity: Autocognitive developmental disorders of structured psychosocial stress

Abstract

We examine interacting cognitive modules of human biology which, in the asymptotic limit of long sequences of responses, define the output of an appropriate 'dual' information source. Applying a 'necessary condition' communication theory formalism roughly similar to that of Dretske, but focused entirely on long sequences of signals, we examine the regularities apparent in comorbid psychiatric and chronic physical disorders using an extension of recent perspectives on autoimmune disease. We find that structured psychosocial stress can literally write a distorted image of itself onto child development, resulting in a life course trajectory to characteristic forms of comorbid mind/body dysfunction affecting both dominant and subordinate populations within a pathogenic social hierarchy.