Psychiatry News and Research

RSS

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

Music moves brain to pay attention

Using brain images of people listening to short symphonies by an obscure 18th-century composer, a research team from the Stanford University School of Medicine has gained valuable insight into how the brain sorts out the chaotic world around it.

2 Aug 2007

How language relates to use of mental health services for California Latinos

An examination of usage of publicly sponsored mental health services by Spanish-speaking Latinos in San Diego revealed significant differences from use patterns by either English-speaking Latinos or Caucasians.

2 Aug 2007

Fear protein found

A University of Iowa study shows that loss or chemical inhibition of a protein, known as acid sensing ion channel protein (ASIC1a), reduces innate fear behavior in lab animals, making normally timid mice relatively fearless.

2 Aug 2007

Biological markers of narcolepsy

The first report to identify the biological markers of narcolepsy using gene expression in white blood cells finds that the MX2 gene, which is relevant to the immune system, is significantly less expressed in narcoleptics compared with normal subjects.

2 Aug 2007

Schizophrenia improved by mental and physical exercise

Scientists at Melbourne's Howard Florey Institute have shown that mental and physical exercise can improve behavioural deficits in schizophrenia and repair damaged chemical transmitter pathways in the brain.

1 Aug 2007

Suicides go up as the temperature rises

According to psychiatrists in Britain hot weather increases the risk of suicide.

1 Aug 2007

Bipolar disorder phenome database

A novel, free, public online database opening this week should greatly speed efforts to find genes linked to increase risk of bipolar disorder.

1 Aug 2007

Hallucinations in schizophrenia linked to brain area that regulates emotion and processes human voices

For the first time, researchers using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) have found both structural and functional abnormalities in specific brain regions of schizophrenic patients who experience chronic auditory hallucinations, according to a study published in the August issue of Radiology.

1 Aug 2007

First mouse model of schizophrenia

Johns Hopkins researchers have genetically engineered the first mouse that models both the anatomical and behavioral defects of schizophrenia, a complex and debilitating brain disorder that affects over 2 million Americans.

1 Aug 2007

Severe trauma affect kid's brain function

The first study to examine brain activity patterns in severely traumatized children showed their brains function differently than those of healthy children, say researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine and Lucile Packard Children's Hospital.

30 Jul 2007

Severe trauma affects kids' brain function

27 Jul 2007

New framework for patient dignity

Clinicians are being offered a new guide to help them maintain patients' dignity, according to this week's British Medical Journal.

27 Jul 2007

Malt liquor linked to marijuana use

The cheap, high-alcohol beverage often marketed to teens -- may put young adults at increased risk for alcohol problems and use of illicit drugs, particularly marijuana, according to a new study of malt liquor drinkers and marijuana use by scientists at the University at Buffalo's Research Institute on Addictions (RIA).

27 Jul 2007