The passage states that 'autophagy may be a common impairment in these diseases.' Given that autophagy is a normal cell function, what might be the impairment in autophagy that causes diseases such as depression and schizophrenia?

Use the following passage to answer questions:   Protein misfolding and subsequent aggregation have been proven to be the leading cause of most known dementias. Many dementias, in addition to neurodegeneration, show profound changes in behavior and thinking, i.e., psychiatric symptoms. On the basis of the observation that progressive myoclonic epilepsies and neurodegenerative diseases share some common features of neurodegeneration, autophagy may be a common impairment in these diseases. A similar line could be argued for some neuropsychiatric conditions, among them depression and... Show more

Use the following passage to answer questions:
 

Protein misfolding and subsequent aggregation have been proven to be the leading cause of most known dementias. Many dementias, in addition to neurodegeneration, show profound changes in behavior and thinking, i.e., psychiatric symptoms. On the basis of the observation that progressive myoclonic epilepsies and neurodegenerative diseases share some common features of neurodegeneration, autophagy may be a common impairment in these diseases. A similar line could be argued for some neuropsychiatric conditions, among them depression and schizophreni","Existing and new therapies for these seemingly different diseases could be augmented with drugs used for neurodegenerative or neuropsychiatric diseases, respectively, some of which modulate or augment autophagy.
 

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