Mental Health News and Research

Latest Mental Health News and Research

Noninvasive test to evaluate risk of ASD in infants

A computational physicist and a cognitive neuroscientist at Children's Hospital Boston have come up with the beginnings of a noninvasive test to evaluate an infant's autism risk.

22 Feb 2011

Newly published paper outlines how physicians practice habits can affect their ability to treat LGBT patients

Noting that a patient's level of comfort and trust significantly impacts the type of medical care provided and received, a newly published paper outlines ways that physicians can examine how their own beliefs and practice habits affect their ability to treat lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender patients.

22 Feb 2011

Research: Blood and hormone level in saliva can reveal burnout symptoms

Your blood and the level of a hormone in your spit could reveal if you're on the point of burnout, according to research undertaken by Dr. Sonia Lupien and Robert-Paul Juster of the Centre for Studies on Human Stress of Louis-H. Lafontaine Hospital and the University of Montreal.

22 Feb 2011

Desperate governors, state Legislatures seek ways to cut Medicaid costs

News outlets across the country are reporting that states are planning to trim Medicaid rolls and benefits. Some are especially focusing on nursing home costs.

22 Feb 2011

Energy drink induced psychosis in mentally ill

A new study that has appeared in the latest publication of the Medical Journal of Australia has shown that the mentally ill should avoid energy drinks as they may result in a trigger of psychosis.

21 Feb 2011

UMass Memorial Health Care selects MedCPU's Meaningful Use Advisor clinical decision support tool

MedCPU Inc., provider of real-time clinical decision support solutions, has been chosen by UMass Memorial Health Care in Worcester, Massachusetts to deliver its Meaningful Use AdvisorTM tool to assure compliance of UMass' physicians and hospitals with the Meaningful Use requirements and qualification for the attendant economic incentives.

21 Feb 2011

New study indicates that personality disturbances can be treated

A new study published in the current issue of Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics by a group of Dutch investigators headed by Paul Emmelkamp indicates that also personality disturbances can be treated.

21 Feb 2011

Scientists present new data on role of treatment preferences in depression outcomes

This study demonstrates that patients' relative preference for medication versus psychotherapy should be considered when offering a treatment to depressed patients because receiving the preferred treatment conveys an additional and clinically relevant benefit in outcome.

21 Feb 2011

Mouse model could help develop new classes of antidepressant drugs

The most widely prescribed antidepressants - medicines such as Prozac, Lexapro and Paxil - work by blocking the serotonin transporter, a brain protein that normally clears away the mood-regulating chemical serotonin. Or so the current thinking goes.

21 Feb 2011

Chronic fatigue syndrome – eased by psychotherapy: Study

New British research suggests that people with chronic fatigue syndrome may be helped the most when standard treatment is coupled with cognitive behaviour therapy or exercise therapy.

20 Feb 2011

Treating depression: A vital step in cancer recovery

With all of the stresses of today’s modern world, depression is unfortunately becoming a common household word for many people in this country and abroad. During the cold winter months, many also struggle with seasonal depression or “winter blues,” known as Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). Depression can be caused by any number of factors, such as chronic stress, inactivity, hormone or neurotransmitter imbalances, nutritional deficiencies, medication side effects, chronic inflammation, or lack of adequate sunshine exposure, among others.

20 Feb 2011

Eating tissue to stay thin

In a recent interview on CNN, Janet Jackson talks about the extreme measures some women in Hollywood take to achieve and maintain a thin body. She says some are even eating Kleenex to stay full so they don't feel hungry. Kimberly Dennis, M.D., and Medical Director at Timberline Knolls Residential Treatment Center, a residential treatment center for eating disorders and addictions, warns about the dangers of this behavior, and says there might be deeper problems hidden below the surface.

19 Feb 2011

BCBSF Foundation honors 5 Florida nonprofits at 2010 Sapphire Award ceremony

Today, five Florida nonprofits were honored for their dedication to improving the health of the state's uninsured and underserved populations at the Sapphire Award ceremony, presented annually by the Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Florida Foundation (BCBSF Foundation).

19 Feb 2011

Author provides tips to combat symptoms of seasonal affective disorder

Winter's chill, dark days, devoid of sunshine can send the best of us spiraling into a bad case of the blues. But those dreary winter months - particularly, February - can debilitate people living with depression.

19 Feb 2011

Deep brain stimulation therapy promising against severe OCD

When obsessive-compulsive disorder is of crippling severity and drugs and behavior therapy can't help, there has been for just over a year a thread - or rather a wire - of hope. By inserting a thin electrode deep into the brain, doctors can precisely deliver an electrical current to a cord of the brain's wiring and soften the severity of the symptoms. "Deep brain stimulation" therapy for OCD won Food and Drug Administration approval in 2009 for extreme cases under its humanitarian device exemption.

19 Feb 2011

2 bills to expand mental health coverage introduced

Two bills to expand mental health coverage were introduced Thursday.

19 Feb 2011

Depression doesn't decline with age in addiction-prone women

Unlike alcohol abuse problems and antisocial behavior, depression doesn't decline with age in addiction-prone women in their 30s and 40s - it continues to increase, a new study led by University of Michigan Health System researchers found.

18 Feb 2011

Scientists discover evidence linking brain function variations to birth size, weight of placenta

Scientists have discovered the first evidence linking brain function variations between the left and right sides of the brain to size at birth and the weight of the placenta. The finding could shed new light on the causes of mental health problems in later life.

18 Feb 2011

Scientists find working memory highly dependent on fast inhibitory cells

Usually, we associate rhythms with dance and music. But they also play an important role in the brain. When billions of neurons communicate with each other, certain rhythmic activity patterns arise. The proper metre in this interplay is provided by nerve cells that do not excite other cells, but inhibit their activity instead. One type of these inhibiting cells acts in a particularly fast and efficient way and is therefore thought to be crucial for memory formation and information processing in neuronal networks.

18 Feb 2011

Scientists discover axons can send signals to cell body

Neurons are complicated, but the basic functional concept is that synapses transmit electrical signals to the dendrites and cell body, and axons carry signals away.

18 Feb 2011