Mental Health News and Research

Latest Mental Health News and Research

Researchers launch landmark new program to explore potential impact of medical marijuana

Thanks to a $500,000 gift from international best-selling author and mental health advocate Patricia Cornwell, McLean Hospital and Harvard Medical School researchers will launch a landmark new program that will more fully explore the potential impact of medical marijuana on cognition, brain structure and function.

7 Oct 2014

Allen Institute for Brain Science receives $8.7 million NIH grant to explore synapses

The Allen Institute for Brain Science, in a project led by Stephen Smith, Ph.D., Senior Investigator, has been awarded an $8.7 million, five-year Transformative Research Award from the National Institutes of Health to lead the creation of a publicly accessible model of synapse populations in mouse and human brains.

6 Oct 2014

Suicide prevention: an interview with Dr Shekhar Saxena, World Health Organization

Suicide is a serious public health problem. More than 800,000 people die from suicide every year – that’s one person every 40 seconds.

5 Oct 2014

MU researcher gets $1 million from CDC to enhance FASDs prevention efforts

Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASDs), like Autism Spectrum Disorders, manifest in childhood as physical abnormalities along with social, attention and learning difficulties that range in severity and continue into adulthood.

5 Oct 2014

Benefits of low-carbohydrate diet for patients with type 2 diabetes

Low-carbohydrate diet has a good effect not only on blood glucose, but also on physical functions, bodily pain and general health, according to a diet study including patients with type 2 diabetes.

3 Oct 2014

Viewpoints: Another troubled website rollout; insurers fight consumer measures in Calif.

If the federal government's new Open Payments website were a consumer product, it would be returned to the manufacturer for a full refund. Open Payments is the government's site for publishing payments made to doctors and teaching hospitals by drug and medical device manufacturers. It includes 4.4 million payments, worth $3.5 billion, to more than half a million doctors and almost 1,360 teaching hospitals (Charles Ornstein, 10/1).

3 Oct 2014

State highlights: Infant mortality rises in D.C.; Medicaid managed care rates

The District's infant mortality rate ticked up in 2012, city officials announced Wednesday -- an unwelcome development that comes amid the loss of a key federal grant and the launch of a new effort to reduce infant deaths (DeBonis, 10/1).

3 Oct 2014

MSU to provide specialized health benefits to veterans

Mississippi State University will be the first higher learning institution in the nation to partner with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to provide timely, specialized health benefits to veterans.

3 Oct 2014

Depression contributes to abnormal pain processes in IBS patients

High rates of anxiety and depression amongst patients with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) have led many researchers to believe there could be a causal relationship between psychological factors and IBS symptoms. Now, scientists in Germany have found clear evidence that patients with IBS process pain signals from the gut abnormally, and that disturbed brain responses to pain are particularly pronounced in patients with more depression symptoms.

3 Oct 2014

Parent coaching intervention benefits preschool-aged children with autism

A parent coaching intervention brings meaningful benefits for preschool-aged children with autism-spectrum disorders (ASD), according to a clinical trial in the October Journal of Developmental & Behavioral Pediatrics, the official journal of the Society for Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics.

3 Oct 2014

Schizophrenia and bipolar disorder share common pathophysiological features

Schizophrenia and bipolar disorder both appear to be associated with dendritic spine loss in the brain, suggesting the two distinct disorders may share common pathophysiological features, write author Glenn T. Konopaske, M.D., and colleagues at McLean Hospital, Belmont, Mass., and Harvard Medical School, Boston.

3 Oct 2014

Brain structure changes differ between schizophrenia symptoms

The specific areas of the brain with reduced grey matter in patients with schizophrenia differ according to whether they have predominant positive, negative or disorganised symptoms, research suggests.

2 Oct 2014

Dendritic spine density also reduced in bipolar disorder

Patients with bipolar disorder have significant dendritic spine loss in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, postmortem findings show.

2 Oct 2014

Clinical practice study supports ISBD recommendations

Findings in patients with bipolar disorder given short-term antidepressant treatment support the recent International Society for Bipolar Disorder’s task force recommendations.

2 Oct 2014

Psychotic disorders confer ‘staggering’ increase in unnatural death risk

Mortality among patients during the first 10 years after first-episode psychosis is marked by a huge increase in the rate of unnatural death relative to the general population, a UK study shows.

2 Oct 2014

Genetic susceptibility to psychosocial stress can increase risk of cardiovascular disease

A new genetic finding from Duke Medicine suggests that some people who are prone to hostility, anxiety and depression might also be hard-wired to gain weight when exposed to chronic stress, leading to diabetes and heart disease.

1 Oct 2014

Salk researchers receive BRAIN Initiative funding

Joseph Ecker, a Salk professor and Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator, and Margarita Behrens, Salk staff scientist, have been named recipients in the 2014 round of grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) through the BRAIN (Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies) Initiative for leading-edge work in neuroscience.

1 Oct 2014

UMD gets NIH grant to study how neurons process sensory information

A University of Maryland-led research team has been awarded a three-year $1.7 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to develop new imaging technologies and data analysis techniques that will further our understanding of how large networks of neurons in the brain interact to process sensory information.

1 Oct 2014

West Virginia University receives NIH award as part of BRAIN initiative

In its first wave of funding awards, a new presidential project aimed at revolutionizing our understanding of the human brain has pledged its support to a group of researchers led by West Virginia University faculty working to change the future of brain imaging.

1 Oct 2014

New study reports how TMS treatment works in people with depression

On Star Trek, it is easy to take for granted the incredible ability of futuristic doctors to wave small devices over the heads of both humans and aliens, diagnose their problems through evaluating changes in brain activity or chemistry, and then treat behavior problems by selectively stimulating relevant brain circuits.

30 Sep 2014