Psychiatry News and Research

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

New hope for schizophrenia sufferers

Key research from the University of New South Wales (UNSW) could lead to the first early diagnostic tool for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

2 Aug 2005

Smoking during pregnancy linked to childrens' anti-social behaviour

It has been well documented that smoking during pregnancy can harm the developing baby, but now, according to researchers, women who smoke during pregnancy may increase the risk of their child displaying anti-social behaviour.

2 Aug 2005

More than one fourth of individuals with severe mental illness (SMI) were victims of violent crime in the past year

...eleven times the rate in the general population, according to a study in the August issue of Archives of General Psychiatry.

1 Aug 2005

Nationwide survey reports a high rate of concern about body image in both boys and girls

A nationwide survey of more than 10,000 adolescents, published in the August issue of Pediatrics, reports a high rate of concern about body image in both boys and girls, and finds that adolescents with such concerns are much more likely to use hormones and dietary supplements to enhance their physique.

1 Aug 2005

Riluzole appears to have significant antiobsessional, antidepressant, and antianxiety properties

A medication used to ease symptoms of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig's disease, also is helpful in treating people with treatment-resistant obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), according to a pilot study at Yale School of Medicine.

31 Jul 2005

Fructose sweetning could be even worse than using other sweeteners

A University of Cincinnati (UC) study provides new evidence that drinking large amounts of beverages containing fructose adds body fat, and might explain why sweetening with fructose could be even worse than using other sweeteners.

31 Jul 2005

Habit memory - humans clearly can acquire and retain knowledge through repetition

Humans have a "robust" capacity to learn and retain new information unconsciously, retaining so-called habit memory even when conscious or declarative learning is absent, memory experts at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and the San Diego Veterans Affairs Health System report in the July 28, 2005 issue of Nature.

27 Jul 2005

Methamphetamine users show symptoms similar to brain injury patients

Because today's methamphetamine is stronger, more potent and wreaks greater havoc on the brain, chronic users exhibit symptoms similar to patients with traumatic brain injury (TBI), according to the Brain Injury Association of Arizona (BIAAZ).

26 Jul 2005

Plaques in the brain more likely to be expressed as dementia in women than in men

Researchers from the Rush Alzheimer's Disease Center found that plaques and tangles in the brain, the changes seen in people with Alzheimer's disease (AD), are more likely to be expressed as dementia in women than in men.

25 Jul 2005

Study offers a unique perspective on the beginnings of the alcohol experience and usage patterns of 12-year-olds

Clues looking into the root causes of alcoholism are emerging from new findings that center on the genetic patterns of young drinkers, with particular focus on why adolescents are more likely to drink large quantities of alcohol even if they need more alcohol to get the effects they desire.

25 Jul 2005

Wife determines husband's marijuana use

While it's the husband among newlywed couples who has more influence on whether the couple engages in heavy drinking, it's the wife who appears to be in the driver's seat when it comes to determining her husband's marijuana use, according to researchers at the University at Buffalo's Research Institute on Addictions (RIA).

20 Jul 2005

Research examines the effect of visual impairment on Alzheimer's disease patients in nursing homes

One in three nursing home residents who have Alzheimer’s disease are not getting their vision corrected so they can see clearly, according to new Saint Louis University research in the July issue of the Journal of the American Medical Directors Association.

20 Jul 2005

Vagal nerve stimulation, an innovative therapy for depression

The Saint Louis University Health Sciences Center medical team involved in the research and development of an innovative therapy for depression - vagal nerve stimulation (VNS) - is starting a new clinic for patients who have treatment-resistant depression.

19 Jul 2005

Variations in the gene for protein kinase C beta 1 (PRKCB1) strongly associated with autism

This exciting finding suggests some answers to a number of previous, but unexplained, observations about autism and provides the potential for a mechanistic explanation for some of the characteristics of the condition. The results of the study are published today in the journal Molecular Psychiatry.

18 Jul 2005

Current recommendations for prescribing antidepressants should be reconsidered

Most people with depression are initially treated with antidepressants, and prescribing has risen by 253% in 10 years. Yet recent studies show that SSRIs have no clinically meaningful advantage over placebo, write Joanna Moncrieff and Irving Kirsch.

14 Jul 2005

Shared-environmental influences on gender-role behaviour may be more important in early childhood than in adolescence and adulthood

Whether little boys prefer to play with trucks or dolls depends more on the family environment than genetics, while genetics seems to play a larger role in little girls' preferences for dolls over trucks, according to a study published in the July/August 2005 issue of the journal Child Development.

14 Jul 2005

Desire more important than therapy for quitting alcohol

The positive outcomes of therapy for alcoholism may have less to do with the therapy itself and more to do with participants' determination to quit.

13 Jul 2005

Abnormal heart rate variability is partially responsible for depression's effects in heart patients

Scientists have known for years that depression increases the risk of dying in the months after a heart attack, but they haven't understood how depression raises that risk.

13 Jul 2005

Overactive dopamine receptors may help explain anorexia nervosa symptoms

Just why those with anorexia nervosa are driven to be excessively thin and seem unaware of the seriousness of their condition could be due to over-activity of a chemical system found in a region deep inside the brain, a University of Pittsburgh study suggests.

11 Jul 2005

Size of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) in the brain may be associated with the ability to recover emotionally from traumatic events

A new study by researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) finds that an area called the ventromedial prefrontal cortex is thicker in volunteers who appear better able to modify their anxious response to memories of discomfort. The report will appear in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.