Psychiatry News and Research

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Psychiatry is the treatment, study and prevention of mental disorders.

Forest, Merz settle NAMENDA patent infringement litigation

Forest Laboratories, Inc. Forest Laboratories Holdings, Ltd., Merz Pharma GmbH & Co. KGaA, and Merz Pharmaceuticals GmbH announced today that they have entered into settlement agreements with all remaining defendants in patent infringement litigation related to Forest's NAMENDA® (memantine hydrochloride) immediate release tablets.

23 Jul 2010

Schizophrenia patients likely to sustain medical injuries during non-psychiatric hospital stay

People with schizophrenia are more likely than others to sustain medical injuries during non-psychiatric hospital stays, a large national study finds.These findings confirm that medical and surgical hospitalizations are an at-risk time for this group, and a national problem, said lead study author Elizabeth Khaykin, at the Department of Mental Health at Bloomberg Johns Hopkins School of Public Health.

23 Jul 2010

Bullied children are at risk for developing emotional problems

Bullying victimization is common among children of school age, although its consequences are often anything but benign. The recent death of a Massachusetts teen by suicide prompted state lawmakers to pass one of the most far-reaching anti-bullying laws within the U.S. Whether such legislative actions result in measurable decreases in physical or emotional distress among school peers remains to be seen.

23 Jul 2010

Gene expression profiling may provide molecular diagnostic tool to diagnose depression

Blood tests have been extremely important tools aiding doctors in making medical diagnoses and in guiding the treatment of many diseases. However, psychiatry is one area of medicine where there are few diagnostic blood tests.New scientific fields may someday generate blood tests that can be used for these purposes. Some of the areas under increasingly intensive study are genetics, the study of variations in the genes that can be extracted from blood cells, and genomics like proteomics, the measurement of the levels of specific proteins in the blood, and gene expression profiling, which measures the levels of RNA produced from DNA as an indication of the level of the "activity" of particular genes.

23 Jul 2010

Call for greater support in mental health services for children

As support for funds for mental ailments mounts, a coalition of mental health experts are lobbying for greater support for mental health services for children. The coalition comprises The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists; the Australian Psychological Society; NIFTeY (National Investment for the Early Years); the Australian Infant, Child, Adolescent and Family Mental Health Association; the Australian Association of Infant Mental Health, and the Australian Child and Adolescent Trauma, Loss and Grief Network.

22 Jul 2010

Euthymics Bioscience completes $24 million Series A financing

Euthymics Bioscience, Inc., a clinical-stage company developing next-generation antidepressants, today announced the completion of a Series A financing -- led by Novartis Venture Funds and Venture Investors - for a total investment commitment of $24 million in milestone-conditioned tranches. Hambrecht & Quist Capital Management, LLC, GBS Venture Partners and the State of Wisconsin Investment Board also participated in the financing.

22 Jul 2010

Physicians Practice, Wolfson Children's Hospital to help doctors manage patient care in Jacksonville area

Physicians Practice and Wolfson Children's Hospital have joined forces to help provide area physicians and their staff more time to devote to patient care. This new partnership is a unique program designed to help doctors in the Jacksonville area better handle the cumbersome and time-consuming issues of managing a busy practice.

22 Jul 2010

New findings suggest link between increased cholesterol, depression

Most people know that high cholesterol levels place them at increased risk for heart disease and stroke. Prior research has shown that particular types of strokes contribute to one's risk for depression, and that abnormal blood lipid levels can increase the risk of depression in the elderly.

21 Jul 2010

Sleep Center established for patients with sleep disorders

A good night's sleep is crucial to daily function, but more than 40 million Americans live with an undiagnosed or untreated sleep disorder in the United States. At Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center, the sleep-challenged can find help at the Sleep Center, now conveniently located at the Hawthorne Inn to provide patients with the highest quality of care in a comfortable and relaxing environment.

21 Jul 2010

Washington University's new Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Research Center to focus on children

Improving the lives of infants and children with developmental disabilities will be the focus of Washington University's new Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Research Center (WUIDDRC).

21 Jul 2010

Mental exercises may help reverse age-related cognitive decline

Specialized brain training targeted at the regions of a rat's brain that process sound reversed many aspects of normal, age-related cognitive decline and improved the health of the brain cells, according to a new study from researchers at University of California, San Francisco.

21 Jul 2010

New report on neuropsychiatric link with ophthalmologic investigations

Regardless of culture, language, era, or individual artist, the arts consistently depict depression using darkness. Scientific findings now lend empirical support to this representation of depression that everything looks gray when you feel blue.

20 Jul 2010

Rottapharm Madaus, Selvita sign drug discovery services contract

Rottapharm Madaus and Selvita announced today signature of a services contract for delivery of drug discovery services. The aim of this project is to deliver to Rottapharm Madaus a set of designed and synthesized compounds, including their optimized synthesis route, which will have a therapeutic potential in an indicated area.

20 Jul 2010

Researchers monitor stress during a real-time war to refine PTSD therapy

Psychologists aren't usually called to the battlefield, but the 2008-09 Gaza War gave Tel Aviv University researchers a unique picture of how anxiety manifests during stressful situations.

20 Jul 2010

GABA disrupts working memory in neurofibromatosis type 1 patients

Imagine if your brain lost its working memory - the ability to hold and manipulate information in your mind's eye. That's the plight faced by millions of people with neurofibromatosis type 1, or NF1. The genetic condition affects one in 3,500 people and is the most common cause of learning disabilities.Now a UCLA research team has uncovered new clues about how NF1 disrupts working memory. Published in the July 12 online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the findings suggest a potential drug target for correcting NF1-related learning disabilities.

17 Jul 2010

Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center ranks first: U.S. News & World Report survey

Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center ranks as one of the top five American hospitals -- and the best hospital in the western United States for the 21st consecutive year -- according to a U.S. News & World Report survey that reviewed patient-outcomes data, reputation among physicians and other care-

17 Jul 2010

Largest effort to find gene-environment interactions underlying schizophrenia risk

At the 23rd ECNP Congress 2010 in Amsterdam, Professor Dr. Jim van Os, Chairman of the Department of Psychiatry and Neuropsychology at Maastricht University Medical Centre, The Netherlands, will present the EU-GEI project, involving more than 7,500 patients and their families, which brings together a multidisciplinary research team from 15 countries in the largest effort to date to find gene-environment interactions underlying schizophrenia risk.

16 Jul 2010

USFDA approves Sun Pharma's generic Flomax ANDA

Sun Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. announced that USFDA has granted approval for its Abbreviated New Drug Application to market a generic version of Flomax ®, tamsulosin capsules.

16 Jul 2010

Brain imaging studies can provide biomarkers for depression diagnosis: Study

Depression, known to be a condition with impaired psychosocial functioning that severely impacts the quality of life of patients and families, is actually defined with specific clinical symptoms such as sadness, difficulty to experience pleasure, sleep problems etc., present for at least two weeks. At least 40% of depressed patients actually benefit from an antidepressant treatment, whereas 20-30% of patients may suffer from chronic depression that negatively impacts their quality of life. In order to improve the efficiency of treatment and reduce the burden of depressive disorders, depression needs to be defined at the neurobiological level.

16 Jul 2010

Johns Hopkins Hospital takes top spot in annual rankings of American hospitals for 20th year in a row

Once more — and for the 20th year in a row — The Johns Hopkins Hospital has taken the top spot in U.S. News & World Report's annual rankings of American hospitals, placing first in five medical specialties and in the top five in 10 others.

16 Jul 2010