Feature Channels: Mental Health

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Knowing that there is a small chance of getting a painful electric shock can lead to significantly more stress than knowing that you will definitely be shocked.

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Genes are not destiny in determining whether a person will suffer from depression, reports a new study. Nurture can override nature. When rats genetically bred for depression received the equivalent of rat “psychotherapy,” their depressed behavior was alleviated. And, after the depressed rats had the therapy, some of their blood biomarkers for depression changed to non-depressed levels.

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Providing expedited access to Medicaid to people with serious mental illness as they are released from prison increases their use of mental health and general medical services, but does not reduce criminal recidivism, according to new research published online March 15th in Psychiatric Services in Advance.

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Higher oxytocin levels in the third trimester of pregnancy predicts the severity of postpartum depression symptoms in women who previously suffered from depression, reports a new study. The finding indicates the potential for finding biomarkers to predict depressive symptoms postpartum and begin preventive treatment. Depression biomarkers should be screened in pregnancy, just like gestational diabetes, scientists said.

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The FDA has proposed to change the way it regulates the devices that doctors use to deliver ECT treatment for mental illness. Public commenting ends 3/28. A top ECT physician explains why the current proposal could lead to reduced access to potentially life-saving treatment.

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Widely referred to as the “love” hormone, oxytocin is an indispensable part of childbirth and emotional mother-child bonding. Psychologists are looking at how breast feeding, oxytocin and face-to-face interactions between a mother and her baby are impacted by depression and the mother’s oxytocin levels.

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Even with higher education, women with a body mass index (BMI) of 30-34.9 (obese I) have double the risk of depression compared with women of normal weight and same educational attainment, according to a new study conducted by a sociologist at Rice University.

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Gay, lesbian and bisexual Canadians experience more mood and anxiety disorders than other Canadians, and they are more likely to turn to heavy drinking.

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An ongoing culture of secrecy, poor access to specialist mental health services and a lack of high quality independent investigations has contributed to hundreds of non-natural deaths in detention, according to a new report by the Equality and Human Rights Commission.

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UNC researchers uncovered a cellular mechanism by which kappa opioid receptors drive anxiety. These proteins inhibit the release of the neurotransmitter glutamate in a part of the brain that regulates emotion. KORs are targets for the treatment of addiction and anxiety disorders.

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Using optogenetics to study long-range communication across the brain, Dr. Ofer Yizhar and his Weizmann Institute of Science team temporarily silenced long-range axons so as to determine their role in the brain’s conversation. As mental and neurological diseases are thought to be related to disrupted long-range connectivity, the team’s findings could lead to better understanding and treatment of such disorders.

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Residents of Baltimore’s low-income neighborhoods who believe rats are a big problem where they live are significantly more likely to suffer from depressive symptoms such as sadness and anxiety, new Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health research suggests.

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Adults living with congenital heart disease may have a significantly higher risk of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) than people in the general population. Clinicians and caregivers may need to be aware of possible PTSD symptoms, such as anxiety and depression, in their patients.

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The need to non-invasively see and track cells in living persons is indisputable. Emerging treatments using stem cells and immune cells are poised to most benefit from cell tracking, which would visualize their behavior in the body after delivery. Clinicians require such data to speed these cell treatments to patients. Researchers at University of California, San Diego School of Medicine describe a new highly sensitive chemical probe that tags cells for detection by MRI.

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Medical students are more prone to alcohol abuse than their peers not attending medical school, especially if they are young, single and under a high debt load. That’s according to a study on medical student burnout by researchers at Mayo Clinic. The findings appear in the journal Academic Medicine.

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Light therapy decreased depressive symptoms and normalized circadian rhythms among cancer survivors, according to new research from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai presented at the American Psychosomatic Society in Denver, CO

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“Until now, several theoretical studies proposed that the oxytocinergic system functions abnormally among patients with PTSD and that intranasal OT may potentially serve as an effective pharmacological intervention for ameliorating symptoms of PTSD, but very few studies have examined the effects of OT administration among these patients, and to the best of our knowledge the effects of OT on empathy and compassion among patients with PTSD have never been assessed. For this reason, the findings of the present study are both significant and innovative”, the researchers concluded

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People newly diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS) may often have other chronic health conditions as well, according to a study published in the March 9, 2016 online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

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UNC-Chapel Hill explores the potential benefits of yoga for people who experience mental health problems related to trauma.

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Why are some people so much more anxious than others? New research from the Weizmann Institute of Science shows that there are fundamental differences in the way anxious persons perceive the world. In a process called overgeneralization, even neutral stimuli can remind them of emotionally charged stimuli, triggering anxiety.