The advances in our understanding of the workings of the brain, and more importantly what happens when it doesn't work, how and why are infused subtly in the popular songs of the era when these facts came to light: "living on reds, vitamins C and cocaine" - Grateful Dead,"feed your head" Jefferson airplane" and HST's not so subtle references to adrenochrome are neither coincidence or fantasy, they all figure into this prominently.

Since programmers rely in their brain and its proper operation fo instantiate purge logic in physical form it can perhaps be argued no other field has a greater need for proper operation of this.

The car analogy is a good one here, a brand news car has all the fluids it needs but as it racks up the miles they become dirty and low and just as you can expect a million mile engine to preform as new with low dirty low oil neither cant you expects the brain to function properly if the precursors to the biochemical reactions of thought and memory do not have the appropriate raw materials.

Two factors affects this: as the human body ages absorption of key enzymes decreases in efficiency. Look at the RDA numbers for C and note they increased tenfold from 18 to 50. This is a reasonably recent discovery and not even doctors are aware of this yet. Ask yours next time you see them if they know this or now the numbers (30 to 300 mg).

This is of such great importance Google places emphasis on this idea:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PA-buwI3q4

One might consider what happens when these nutrients are in deficit, that is when the brain doesn't receive enough of these key enzymes and minerals what are the modalities of failure? According to Horrobin who was the presidents of the British Schizophrenia society, 20% of the admissions to London Hospital were from scurvy, and were talking the 1980s here.

The first thing a doctor will check in cases of dementia in the elderly is whether there is a deficiency of certain key enzymes B3, B6, B12, the lack of which can present as symptoms that fall in the schizo affective disorder spectrum. Pellagra, the horrible disease that plagues the US south from 1960-th re1930s was a B3 (niacin) deficiency and the famous symoting "dementia, dermatitis and death" happened in exactly that order, first you heard voices and wn tmad, the your skin degraded and you died. The wiki article on this is sort of ok and raises the interesting point that the conversion of the essential amino acid tryptophan to niacin is hindered by estrogen which explain why ellara was twice as common in women than men.

Two important biochemical reactions in the body are key here, the one to make energy and the ones for thought and memory.

You probably suffered though the "the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell" lecture in biology and that is entirely true, it is the sole place where glucose (glugenic) or glycogen (ketogenic) raw materials are converted to a molecule of adenosine triphosphate (ATP) by a process known as the Citric acid (or "Kreb's) cycle, an ongoing circular reaction well documented everywhere.

What's significant about this source of all energy us the dozen or so molecules involved in that process. Nearly all are made by the body on demand and unless you're starving to death can never be in deficit, the catch is the three we don't make and have to eat: citrate, niacin (B3) and ascorbate (C). Note the lack of either the last two presents as schiz..

In the early 20th century people died of deficiencies of these two (look up infantile scurvy and pellagra) due to industrial processing of food -heated milk for babies and industrial processing o grain destroyed these nutrients and we to this day added them to the food supply ("enriched flour", "fortified with vitamin C") to compensate for this.

Modern agriculture and processed food practices to this day diminished the ants of the key nutrients and the non ou ca get enough fro the food supply became sles and less true every year. The idea is preposterous on the face of it anyway as just as no two person shave the am fingerprints, DNA or muscle attachment points no two persons have the same biochemistry. Some can taste cilantro, some can't, some react badly to phenylalanine some don't and the idea xxx mg of life critical enzymes is the same in every person on earth is preposterous, some need more, some need less. The people who need more are in trouble.

Think about a car engine that takes X amount of fuel and produces Y horsepower. What happens to X is the motor is tweaked to increase Y? Similarly so there are genes (and COMT4 - Cathechol O-methyltransferase is one such example) that increase the rate of the biochemical reactions of thought and memory, the precursors to which are also well understood. Like Krebs cycle most are made by the body, but two are not: pyridoxine (B6) and zinc. COMT4 is not the only gene that does this many increase the rate at which the brain ticks over.

Now take a guess at what happens to one of these brains, akin to an overclocked CPU, operating more quickly yet has the same levels of these key enzymes that the body does not make. That is what might the oddities of failure of the brain be when it lacks accident raw materials to function properly.

When a computer power supply is low random events happen Gates don't open or close all the way and chaos erupts. Logic breaks down. If you were to look you'd find the working of a schizophrenic mind were all similar: the premises are correct, but the logic is twisted and broken tiles irrational conclusions.

The brain is 50% fat. 40% of that fat are the two omega 3 fatty acids Eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and Docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) and while the body doe make these it doe so exceedingly inefficiently and equipe s source of alpha lipoic acid another omega 3 fatty acids. hese substance are incredibly rne to oxidation an dare further depted in ot modern food supply. That's why flax oil has to be kept refrigerated and ground flax smells funny (like paint) in very short order. In a body with a high oxidative potential they can be oxidised and illness will result which is why adequate amounts of the water soluble (C) and fat soluable (E) vitamins are required.

Other key points: 1) The highest concentration of Vitamin c in the human body occurs in the brain
2) The brian takes the largest part of the energy budget. If the heat has 30% less energy you can walk but not run. If the brain has 30% less your unconscious.
3) There are several dozen essential nutrients we can make and must eat. If the diet is inadequate, don't expect much.

The understanding of mental disease is so poor the National Institute of HEalth (NIH threw out the DSM-V and is developing it's own diagnostic guide. If a kidney is infected, a leg broken or heart isn't pimping mechanical fault are easily diagnosed but he definition and diagnosis for brain diseases are far less quantifiable and we do not have a good handle on them. The lack of key nutrients is not the only cause, there are other common ones (heavy metal poisoning, bad gut flora, food allergies, stress, sugar) but the micronutrients are a overarching fact without them there is zero hope.

tl;dr - take b3, b6, c, zinc, fish oils for improved mental stamina.

The fine line between genius and madness is simply the fuel supply exactly as it is with the car engine.