Feature Channels: Mental Health

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Cognitive function improves with aerobic exercise, but not for people exposed to high levels of mercury before birth, according to research funded by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), part of the National Institutes of Health. Adults with high prenatal exposure to methylmercury, which mainly comes from maternal consumption of fish with high mercury levels, did not experience the faster cognitive processing and better short term memory benefits of exercise that were seen in those with low prenatal methylmercury exposures.

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Loyola Medicine has launched a multidisciplinary Concussion Program to diagnose and treat concussions in athletes and other patients.

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University of California, Irvine and SUNY Downstate Medical Center researchers have created a model illustrating how economic globalization may create stressful employment factors in high-income countries contributing to the worldwide epidemic of cardiovascular disease.

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Incorporating laughter into a physical activity program that is focused on strength, balance and flexibility could improve older adults’ mental health, aerobic endurance and confidence in their ability to exercise, according to a study led by Georgia State University.

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Children differ substantially in their mathematical abilities. In fact, some children cannot routinely add or subtract, even after extensive schooling. This new paper proposes that math disability arises from abnormalities in brain areas supporting procedural memory. Procedural memory is a learning and memory system that is crucial for the automatization of non-conscious skills, such as driving or grammar.

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Columbia University researchers found that a mood-stabilizing drug prescribed to many patients with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder may decrease negative symptoms for people with a certain variant of the COMT gene.

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First systematic study of genetic, clinical profiles of pregnant women on antidepressant

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Working with animals, a team of scientists reports it has delivered stem cells to the brain with unprecedented precision by threading a catheter through an artery and infusing the cells under real-time MRI guidance.

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Medicinal chemist and pharmacologist Daniel Martin Watterson, PhD, has been named the second annual winner of the Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation’s (ADDF) Melvin R. Goodes Prize for Excellence in Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery. The prize is the first to specifically recognize researchers working in promising areas of drug discovery for Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias. Dr. Watterson is the John G. Searle Professor of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry and Professor of Pharmacology at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine. He also serves in an advisory role to pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies.

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Relying on clinical symptoms of memory loss to diagnose Alzheimer’s disease may miss other forms of dementia caused by Alzheimer’s that don’t initially affect memory, reports a new study.

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UofL epidemiologist Kira Taylor, Ph.D., found that women who reported feeling more stressed during their ovulatory window were approximately 40-percent less likely to conceive during that month than other less stressful months.

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Researchers at Stony Brook University have discovered that dystroglycan, a muscle cell receptor whose dysfunction causes muscular dystrophy, actually has a critical role in brain development.

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Suicide was the tenth leading cause of death in the United States in 2013. There is clear evidence that intoxication and chronic, heavy drinking are often associated with suicide. While alcohol policies are known to be effective in reducing excessive drinking, this review undertakes a critical look at the literature on the relationship between alcohol policies and suicide.

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While a prior history of suicide attempt is one of the strongest predictors of completed suicide, a Mayo Clinic study finds it is more lethal than previously known.

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As researchers seek cognitively normal people on the way to Alzheimer’s to fill clinical prevention trials, they face the delicate task of disclosing a highly elevated, but not certain, risk of developing the disease to thousands of people. Scientists look to cancer research for cues as they recruit for the first of such trials.

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Community characteristics play an important role in perpetuating teen suicide clusters and thwarting prevention efforts, according to a new study by sociologists who examined clusters in a single town.

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Amounts of a microRNA are significantly elevated in the brains of experimental rats with induced depression, in the post-death brains of humans diagnosed with major depressive disorder and in peripheral blood serum from living patients with MDD.

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Researchers from the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, in collaboration with the National Institute of Mental Health, have developed the first-of-its-kind biomarker test to help identify autoimmune-induced neuropsychiatric disorders.

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From infancy, we learn by watching other people, then use those memories to help us predict outcomes and make decisions in the future. Now a UCLA–Caltech study has pinpointed the individual neurons in the brain that support observational learning.

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Several national surveys have found that approximately 15 to 20 percent of adults in the U.S. will report high levels of stress. A new study by Mayo Clinic researchers identified stress and burnout as a major problem employees face within the medical industry, leading to negative health behaviors. With rising stress levels in the workplace for employees, many companies are looking to integrate, engage and enroll employees into wellness programs.

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Even as researchers gain new insights into the neurobiology of borderline personality disorder (BPD), there's a pressing need to improve diagnosis and management of this devastating psychiatric condition. A scientific and clinical research update on BPD is presented in the September/October special issue of the Harvard Review of Psychiatry, published by Wolters Kluwer.

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An international group of researchers has for the first time identified a set of 30 inherited recessive genes that play a role in intellectual disability, a neurodevelopmental disorder that affects as many as 213 million people around the world.

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The Brain Health Summit will be the first meeting of medical experts, government agencies and other interested non-profit groups convening to discuss delayed cognitive recovery and postoperative delirium in elderly patients after surgery and anesthesia. The Brain Health Summit will explore the assessment and identification of at-risk patients, evaluate the need for educational materials for patients and their health care providers to increase patient safety, and promote advocacy efforts to fund research regarding these complications.

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MINNEAPOLIS – According to new research, women who are overweight or obese may have an increased risk of the most common kind of stroke, called ischemic stroke, but a decreased risk of a more often deadly stroke, called hemorrhagic stroke. The study is published in the September 7, 2016, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

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Cutbacks in capacity at state and county mental hospitals have forced more and more psychiatric patients to seek treatment in Emergency Rooms. But a new study led by the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, found that people who visit emergency rooms for mental health care were transferred to another facility at six times the rate of people who visit ERs for non-psychiatric conditions, and could wait almost two hours longer. The study is published today in Health Affairs and highlights a persisting shortfall in emergency psychiatric services in the country.

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A new study – the first to look at social media’s effect on memory – suggests posting personal experiences on social media makes those events much easier to recall.

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Imagine if playing a new video game or riding a rollercoaster could help you prepare for an exam or remember other critical information. A new study in mice shows this link may be possible.

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On September 9th, millions of people across the United States and Canada are expected to tune into the fifth biennial Stand Up to Cancer broadcast raising money for cancer research. Since 2008, SU2C has raised more than $370 million and dedicates 100% of funds raised to support collaborative research via its multi-institutional, multidisciplinary Dream Teams. Researchers with UCSF’s Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center have been involved in four Dream Teams and awarded a grant for innovative research.

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Surprising findings specific brain cells as the key target

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In a recent analysis of patient charts from eight different emergency departments, documented screening for self-harm, suicide ideation, or suicide attempts declined with age, from approximately 81 percent in younger age groups to a low of 68 percent among those aged ≥85 years.

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René S. Kahn, MD, PhD, has been appointed Chair of the Department of Psychiatry at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai (ISMMS). Dr. Kahn, an internationally renowned expert on the neurobiology of schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders, will join the School on January 1, 2017.

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New Jersey suicide prevention hotline clinician says knowing the warning signs and what to say could save lives

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Wearable sensing device tracks movements, ambient environment, bio-signals and more.

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A Saint Louis University commentary urges taking a multipronged approach to improve the mental health of medical school students, which ultimately impacts physician burnout and the care patients receive.

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Missouri S&T researchers create chair that detects daily behavior and mental state of elderly patients or those subject to dementia.

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A number of common conditions are mistaken for multiple sclerosis (MS), a disabling central nervous system disease, say researchers at four academic medical centers across the U.S. in a study published online today in the journal Neurology.

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New study results provide insight into a long-observed, but little-understood connection between chronic pain and anxiety and offer a potential target for treatment. Researchers found that increased expression of PACAP -- a peptide neurotransmitter the body releases in response to stress -- is also increased in response to neuropathic pain and contributes to these symptoms.

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Partnership of government, academics and industry will develop new ways of studying and screening drugs for major psychiatric illnesses.

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A study by psychological researchers at Indiana University shows that people are more likely to undermine their performance at stressful tasks when they're operating at "peak capacity" based on their preferred time of the day. The seemingly counterintuitive results were recently reported in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.

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In today's wars, Americans who die or are wounded in battle are disproportionately coming from poorer parts of the country, according to a new study released this week.

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Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) is a mysterious and maddening condition, with no cure or known cause. But researchers at the University of California San Diego School of Medicine, using a variety of techniques to identify and assess targeted metabolites in blood plasma, have identified a characteristic chemical signature for the debilitating ailment and an unexpected underlying biology: It is similar to the state of dauer, and other hypometabolic syndromes like caloric restriction, diapause and hibernation.

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To remember events in the order they occur, the brain’s neurons function in a coordinated way that is akin to a symphony, a team of NYU scientists has found. Their findings offer new insights into how we recall information and point to factors that may disrupt certain types of memories.

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New findings suggest that most Americans with depression receive no treatment, while raising the possibility that overtreatment of depression is also widespread.

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A major new study in the Journal of the American Medical Association shows that delivering integrated mental and physical healthcare in team-based primary care settings at Intermountain Healthcare results in better clinical outcomes for patients, lower rates of healthcare utilization, and lower costs.

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UCLA experts are available for interviews about marijuana-related topics

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Results from a new study suggest that small molecules known as microRNAs may be part of the pathway connecting inflammation with increased heart disease risk in obese people. The new findings will be presented at the American Physiological Society’s Inflammation, Immunity and Cardiovascular Disease conference.

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The Center for Healthy Minds at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and the Madison Police Department are launching a pilot study to better understand the impact of mindfulness-based practices on police officers’ physical and mental well-being.

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Physical activity can help reduce cardiovascular disease and premature mortality in people with psychological problems. However, there is limited data on exercise in people with serious mental disorders, especially from low- and middle-income countries. This study explored whether complying with the World Health Organization recommendations of 150 minutes of moderate-vigorous exercise per week is related to psychotic symptoms or the diagnosis of a psychosis.

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With millions of motorists set to hit the road for the bank holiday weekend, drivers have been urged to close windows and turn off fans while in traffic jams to avoid breathing in dangerously high levels of air pollution. Latest research from the University of Surrey has shown that simple adjustment to your car's ventilation system while sitting in traffic jams can greatly affect your exposure to toxic fumes by up to 76%.