Mental Health News and Research

Latest Mental Health News and Research

Motherhood helps women grow their grey matter: Study

According to the latest research motherhood helps women grow their grey matter. The study was conducted by scientists at the National Institute of Mental Health in Maryland and it showed that the brains of new mothers substantially gained in nerve cells while they coped with the steep learning curve of dealing with a newborn. Also in a bizarre way, mothers who ‘gushed’ the most about their babies showed the greatest growth in key parts of the brain.

24 Oct 2010

New assessment tool to measure cognitive representation of chronic disease

What do we mean by "common sense" when we talk about a disease? What affects the ideas and beliefs that patients have of their disease. Researchers at the University of Granada have developed a test for measuring and assessing chronic patients' cognitive representation of their disease. This advance will enable the development of clinical psychological treatments much more efficient than those currently employed.

22 Oct 2010

Justice dept. pushes for services to move patients out of mental hospitals

A sweeping agreement this week between the Justice Department and the state of Georgia highlights an aggressive new campaign by the Obama administration to ensure that people with mental illness and developmental disabilities can get services in their communities and not be forced to live in institutions.

22 Oct 2010

Mount Sinai School of Medicine launches inner-city mental health program for children

Research has shown that nearly 40 percent of youth in low-income communities exhibit significant mental health needs - needs which remain largely unaddressed due to a myriad of barriers, including system-level obstacles, such as waiting lists, stigma related to seeking mental health care, poverty, family stress and competing priorities.

22 Oct 2010

CIHR, RX&D - HRF to fund research projects on mental illness, palliative care

Six research projects on co-existing heath problems associated with mental illness and one project on palliative care among First Nations received over $9 million in funding announced today. This amount is provided by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Rx&D Health Research Foundation.

22 Oct 2010

Researchers suggest gene therapy may treat patients with major depression

In a report published in the Oct. 20 issue of Science Translational Medicine, researchers at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center say animal and human data suggest gene therapy to the brain may be able to treat patients with major depression who do not respond to traditional drug treatment.

22 Oct 2010

UCLA researchers receive NIH grant to study HIV-positive men from LA County jails

A team of UCLA researchers has received a $4.6 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to study ways to get HIV-positive men who have been released from Los Angeles County jails into medical care and on sustained treatment.

22 Oct 2010

LA. drops plans for quickly setting up new health plan for poor; national health insurer accused on providing "junk insurance" in Calif

In the face of mounting opposition, the Jindal administration dropped plans late Wednesday to expedite approval of rules needed to implement a new health-care delivery system for the poor.

22 Oct 2010

First Edition: October 21, 2010

Today's headlines include news about how opponents of the health law are steering the educational efforts that surround it, as well as poll results that suggest continued Republican inroads at the polls.

21 Oct 2010

Study finds online activities does not effect long-term psychological health

After the campus shootings at Virginia Tech in 2007 and Northern Illinois University in 2008, hundreds of affected students turned to social media websites to share their grief and search for solace. A new study of these students found that their online activities neither helped nor harmed their long-term psychological health.

21 Oct 2010

ISCTM to develop solutions for CNS clinical trial methodology

The International Society for CNS Clinical Trials and Methodology (ISCTM) met recently to develop solutions to challenges facing CNS clinical trial methodology.

21 Oct 2010

Researcher creates novel theory about chronic depression

Chronic depression is an adaptive, reparative neurobiological process gone wrong, say two University of California, San Diego School of Medicine researchers, positing in a new theory that the debilitating mental state originates from more ancient mechanisms used by the body to deal with physical injury, such as pain, tissue repair and convalescent behavior.

21 Oct 2010

Motherhood may cause brain to grow

Motherhood may actually cause the brain to grow, not turn it into mush, as some have claimed. Exploratory research published by the American Psychological Association found that the brains of new mothers bulked up in areas linked to motivation and behavior, and that mothers who gushed the most about their babies showed the greatest growth in key parts of the mid-brain.

21 Oct 2010

Team effort involving providers and parents needed to address rise in pediatric obesity rates

Over the last few decades, the dramatic rise in pediatric obesity rates has emerged as a public health threat requiring urgent attention. The responsibility of identifying and treating eating and weight-related problems early in children and adolescents falls to health care providers and other professionals who work with the child, according to Professor Denise Wilfley and colleagues from the Department of Psychiatry at Washington University School of Medicine in the US. Furthermore, the key to successful treatment is a team effort involving providers and parents.

21 Oct 2010

Effects of breast cancer do not end after chemotherapy

For some women, the effects of breast cancer, the most common cancer affecting women, do not end when they leave the hospital. Now, researchers in the University of Missouri School of Health Professions have studied the lives of breast cancer patients following chemotherapy and found that their environments and available support systems help determine the quality of their lives.

21 Oct 2010

Mothers who gush about babies grow bigger brains

21 Oct 2010

Metabolon receives patent for biomarkers to determine PPAR-affecting drugs

Metabolon, Inc., leaders in global metabolomics, biomarker discovery and biochemical analysis, announced today the grant of US Patent 7,807,138 entitled "Biomarkers of Metabolic Responses to Hepatic Drugs". The USPTO awarded the patent to Metabolon on October 5, 2010. This is the 13th patent issued to Metabolon and the second in its portfolio of biomarker patents.

21 Oct 2010

Employers not dropping coverage as Mental Health Parity law is enacted

American Medical News: The Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act hasn't made employers drop coverage as some feared it might. The full effects won't be felt until early 2011 as health plans begin their new enrollment years, but "[e]arly indications ... are that relatively few employers are dropping mental health coverage in response to the law's mandate, a concern of some of the bill's opponents."

21 Oct 2010

Idaho halts Medicaid cuts for dental care; Georgia and justice department reach accord on mental health services

Gov. C.L. 'Butch' Otter removed a political abscess Tuesday, restoring all previously contracted dental care providers to the state's Medicaid-funded Idaho Smiles program.

21 Oct 2010

Elsevier / MC Strategies partners with AORN to develop latest module for Perioperative Collection

Elsevier / MC Strategies a pioneer in providing e-learning solutions to more than 1,300 healthcare organizations, has partnered with the Association of periOperative Registered Nurses (AORN) to develop the latest module for Mosby's Nursing Skills Perioperative Collection, the only perioperative-specific set of nursing skills approved by AORN to be consistent with the Standards and Recommended Practices.

20 Oct 2010