Psychiatry News and Research

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

Many older adults remain unaware of national crisis lifeline

In the four years since the launch of the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, the nationwide service for mental health and substance misuse crisis support, Americans have dialed, texted or chatted online with the service over 26 million times.

13 Jul 2026

Scientists trace severe irritability to the brain’s response to frustration

This review identifies maladaptive responses to frustrative non-reward as a potential mechanism underlying clinically significant irritability, particularly in youth. Animal studies reveal conserved behavioral responses, while human research links frustration to altered neural activity and highlights opportunities for cross-species treatment research.

10 Jul 2026

Semaglutide outperforms other GLP-1 drugs for weight loss in psychiatric populations

A network meta-analysis of nine randomized controlled trials found that once-weekly semaglutide showed the largest estimated weight-loss effect among GLP-1 receptor agonists tested in adults with mental illness and obesity or related metabolic risk. The authors cautioned that the findings remain preliminary because the evidence base was small, heterogeneous, and largely indirect.

9 Jul 2026

Pediatric mental health treatment surged after the pandemic

When schools closed in the spring of 2020 at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of children and adolescents receiving mental health treatment in the United States fell by more than half.

9 Jul 2026

Phelan-McDermid syndrome may be more common than previously believed

New research, led by scientists from the Seaver Autism Center for Research and Treatment at Mount Sinai and published June 28 in Autism Research, has estimated that Phelan-McDermid syndrome (PMS) affects approximately 1 in 7,300 people, making it dramatically more common than previous estimates suggested.

9 Jul 2026

ADHD remains underdiagnosed across England despite rising diagnoses

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) may still be under-recognised and under-diagnosed in England despite recent increases in diagnosis, according to a study led by researchers at UCL, University of Liverpool and King's College London.

9 Jul 2026

AI-powered digital twins help train future mental health clinicians

Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania, New York University and Penn's Linguistic Data Consortium have received a two-year, $4 million grant from the Wellcome Trust to develop a scalable, AI-powered platform for training mental health clinicians.

9 Jul 2026

Misuse of ADHD stimulant medications declines sharply among young adults

Misuse of stimulant medications for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) has declined sharply.

9 Jul 2026

Study identifies new target for Parkinson's disease neuroprotection

Parkinson's disease (PD) is the second most common form of neurodegenerative disease and afflicts more than ten million people worldwide. While current therapies address disease symptoms, they do not prevent the underlying neurodegeneration that drives the disease.

8 Jul 2026

LEAP2 hormone may predict anorexia nervosa relapse risk

People with anorexia nervosa have unusually high levels of a hormone called LEAP2 in their blood when they are in the acute phase of the disorder, according to research presented today (Thursday) at the Federation of European Neuroscience Societies (FENS) Forum 2026.

8 Jul 2026

Trial shows potential benefit of ketogenic diet for treating psychotic disorders

Published today in Schizophrenia Bulletin, a first-of-its-kind randomized controlled trial (RCT) from researchers at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), and funded in part by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), adds to growing literature on the potential benefit of a ketogenic diet for treating psychotic disorders.

8 Jul 2026

New framework aligns neural implants with user's needs

Gabriel Lázaro-Muñoz, PhD, JD, and Amanda R. Merner, PhD, of the Health Technology Performance Lab within the Mass General Brigham Neuroscience Institute, are the authors of a paper published in The American Journal of Psychiatry, "Implantable Neuromodulation Devices in Psychiatry: Human Fidelity and Implementation Challenges."

8 Jul 2026

Investigational drug ameliorates neuronal DNA damage and inflammation in Alzheimer's model

Accumulation of DNA damage in the brain's neurons may contribute to the development of Alzheimer's disease.

8 Jul 2026

New review shows why antidepressants often fail in Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s depression

A Molecular Psychiatry review shows that depression in Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease may reflect disease-specific molecular, neurotransmitter, inflammatory, and circuit-level disruptions rather than standard depression biology alone. It argues that broad antidepressants often show limited efficacy in these patients and that future trials should use biomarkers, neuroimaging, and symptom profiling to guide targeted treatments.

7 Jul 2026

Researchers identify brain circuits responsible for triggering OCD symptoms

Most of the time, the origin of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is unknown, but in some rare cases, it starts after a brain injury, such as a stroke or a tumor.

7 Jul 2026

Study offers insight into how long-term inflammation may contribute to cognitive decline

The King's College London study, published in Nature Communications, offers insight into how long-term inflammation may contribute to cognitive decline in disorders such as Alzheimer's disease, aging, depression, and the lingering neurological effects of viral infections.

7 Jul 2026

Study reveals long-term, intergenerational impacts of severe preconception trauma

Can the trauma of a parent rewrite the mental health of a child born decades later? A new compelling study reveals that children born decades after the Holocaust to parents who were older than age five at the time of the initial Nazi persecutions faced elevated schizophrenia risk.

7 Jul 2026