


Archive for January 22nd, 2011
 
ScienceDaily (Oct. 18, 2010) — Yale University researchers have found a gene that seems to be a key contributor to the onset of depression and is a promising target for a new class of antidepressants, they report Oct. 17 in the journal Nature Medicine.
“This could be a primary cause, or at least a major contributing factor, to the signaling abnormalities that lead to depression,” said Ronald S. Duman, professor of psychiatry and pharmacology at Yale and senior author of the study.
Scientists have had a difficult time pinning down the cause of depression, which afflicts almost 16 percent of Americans in any given year and carries an annual economic burden of $100 billion.
Symptoms of depression vary widely among individuals. Most now believe that multiple physiological processes are involved in major depressive disorder. That explains why people respond differently to most commonly prescribed antidepressants, which work by manipulating the uptake of the neurotransmitter serotonin. However, as many as 40 percent of depressed patients do not respond to currently available medications, which take weeks to months to produce a therapeutic response.
Read in Full:Â http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/10/101017133639.htm
 
Average wait time from calling a mental health treatment organization for help and actually engaging in treatment with a professional can take a month. A lot of consumers cancel their appointment or just don’t show up.
From what I’ve seen, physical health has that beat.
David Lloyd of MTM Consulting shared this statistic recently in a talk on the web focused on improving quality; I found that an amazing amount of time to wait for help…Who would wait that long? According to Lloyd’s research, not many folks, and I agree, it’s a long time to wait for health, and I know a lot goes on in my mind in a month.
Regardless of whether the consumers who end up not consuming mental health services are classified as No-Shows or cancellations, or somehow justified as exempt from statistics, the fact is that a bundle of folks aren’t getting help. A key to getting the folks who are now not showing up for appointments is simple business logic. If we serve them quicker, with high quality service, for a reasonable price, they’re more likely to make their appointments. Plus, under these conditions, people improve and tell their friends how great the results of treatment at this particular facility were.
Read in Full:Â http://www.mentalhelp.net/poc/view_doc.php?type=doc&id=40329&cn=145
 
Article Date: 19 Oct 2010 – 0:00 PDT
Alcohol is one of the most commonly abused substances, and men are up to twice as likely to develop alcoholism as women. Until now, the underlying biology contributing to this difference in vulnerability has remained unclear.
A new study published in Biological Psychiatry reveals that dopamine may be an important factor.
Researchers from Columbia and Yale studied male and female college-age social drinkers in a laboratory test of alcohol consumption. After consuming an alcoholic or non-alcoholic drink, each participant underwent a specialized positron emission tomography (PET) scan, an imaging technique that can measure the amount of alcohol-induced dopamine release.
Dopamine has multiple functions in the brain, but is important in this context because of its pleasurable effects when it is released by rewarding experiences, such as sex or drugs.
Despite similar consumptions of alcohol, the men had greater dopamine release than women. This increase was found in the ventral striatum, an area in the brain strongly associated with pleasure, reinforcement and addiction formation.
“In men, increased dopamine release also had a stronger association with subjective positive effects of alcohol intoxication,” explained Dr. Nina Urban, corresponding author for this study. “This may contribute to the initial reinforcing properties of alcohol and the risk for habit formation.”
Read in Full:Â http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/204955.php
 
I’ve discovered H.G. Wells’ amazing short story The Moth about a scientific feud between two leading entymologists that ends with one’s premature death and the other being driven insane by an hallucinated moth.
It’s a deftly written piece because it captures the method of scientific grudge matches – devastating and savage critiques in scholarly journals – and is peppered with references to illusory scientific papers.
Pawkins, the target of the academic demolition job dies shortly after, only for Hapley, the scientific aggressor, to see a moth that is completely new to science but which seems strangely difficult to capture.
Read in Full:Â http://mindhacks.com/2010/10/19/a-previously-unseen-species-of-hallucinated-moth/

ScienceDaily (Oct. 19, 2010) — John O’Sullivan had struggled with bipolar depression since he was a teen. He has tried numerous types of psychotherapy and medication but nothing seemed to help for long.
A salesman whose profession required the constant projection of a positive, upbeat image to be successful, O’Sullivan found that his condition frequently left him feeling listless and restless. He switched jobs often and had difficulties in his family life.
“When you’re in a maniacal state with bipolar, it’s not like you’re often happy. You’re irritable and hard to live with,” said O’Sullivan, a husband and father of five. “That’s been tough on the family.”
At age 50 and desperate, O’Sullivan was cautiously intrigued when his Loyola University Medical Center psychiatrist, Dr. Murali S. Rao, told him about a new high-tech, non-invasive therapy that uses magnetic waves to treat his condition.
“My first thought was, ‘What is this?'” said O’Sullivan, a resident of Downers Grove, Ill. “But, really, I was open-minded to it because I was desperate for anything that would work quicker and more effectively.”
Known as transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), the treatment delivers a series of electrical pulses to the part of the brain associated with depression and other mood disorders. The pulses generate an electric current in the brain that stimulates neurons to increase the release of more mood-enhancing chemicals like serotonin, dopamine and norepinephrine.
“The electrical pulses target the nerve cells in the region of the brain called the left prefrontal cortex, the region of the brain that regulates our moods,” said Rao, chairman of Loyola’s Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neuroscience Services.
Read in Full:Â http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/10/101018165836.htm
Local entrepreneur Curtis Graves stands with his daughter Tammy VanDell, who is bipolar and has experienced severe depression. Since she began NeuroStar TMS therapy, her medicine dosage has been cut in half. Graves, who has served on the Advisory Board of the Psychiatric Department of Johns Hopkins for seven years, is working with West Tennessee Healthcare Foundation to bring this equipment to Jackson to Pathways. (Submitted photo)
Therapy relieves depression without medication
BY JACQUE HILLMAN
JHILLMAN@JACKSONSUN.COM
— Jacque Hillman, 425-9679
October 17, 2010Â
What would you do if your child was severely depressed? If she was bipolar? And you had the knowledge to bring breakthrough technology to West Tennessee?
Jackson entrepreneur Curtis Graves, who has served on the Advisory Board of the Psychiatric Department of Johns Hopkins for seven years, is starting a fund to raise the money to purchase NeuroStar equipment for patients in West Tennessee. The equipment would be used at Pathways in Jackson.
His daughter Tammy VanDell is bipolar and suffers from severe depression.
“Her medicine for depression has been cut in half — in half — since she began treatment with NeuroStar TMS,” Graves said. “When I first heard of this technology and my daughter participated in it and had success, I knew that we had to get more of this technology available faster. I’m going to start right here in Jackson.”
NeuroStar is an alternative to medication to treat depression in some cases. It is transcranial magnetic stimulation, which is approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for treatment of patients with major depression who have not benefited from prior antidepressant treatment. It does not involve surgery or anesthesia, is not taken by mouth and doesn’t circulate in the bloodstream.
TMS sends MRI-strength magnetic field pulses into the cortex of the brain, which creates electric currents in the brain. This stimulates the firing of nerve cells and the release of neurotransmitters.
“The problem with all medications is that they all have side effects,” Graves said. “And some are very severe. This is the answer to that — and it works. It has worked in my daughter.”
More than 373,000 people in the state of Tennessee have severe and persistent mental illness diagnosed, such as manic depressive disorder, schizophrenia or depression. That number includes about 92,000 children, according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness.
Of the patients who have been treated for depression with traditional medications, 30 percent don’t need their medications after having NeuroStar treatments.
Read in Full:Â http://www.jacksonsun.com/article/20101017/NEWS01/10170323
Jan
22
 
We all live two mental lives. When we are awake it is mostly ordered, rational, linear and bounded by rules, both behavioral and physical. When we are asleep it is chaotic, nonlinear, without rules, often without sense.
According to some, dreams are nothing more than the byproduct of a brain disconnected from its normal sensory inputs, freewheeling its way through the night. To others, dreams denote night-time learning or problem-solving, even automatic sifting of the mind’s detritus – useless information to be skimmed off the surface and dumped like so much mental junk.
Amongst the general public, though, there are much stronger beliefs about the power of dreams. So strong that, according to recent research, people seem to believe that dreams can predict the future.
Freudians
To see how much meaning people ascribe to their dreams, Carey Morewedge and Michael Norton asked participants to compare four ways of thinking about dreams (Morewedge & Norton, 2009). Here are the options:
- Freudian: dreams reveal buried truths about the self.
- Problem-solving: dreams help us work through our problems while we sleep.
- Learning theory: dreams are how we process and sort out the day’s events.
- Random: dreams are vivid hallucinations that result from our brains trying to interpret random impulses.
Notice the last three theories all share the idea that, while dreaming may or may not have a psychological ‘purpose,’ the actual content of our dreams is still mental junk; sometimes entertaining, sometimes frightening, often weird, but with no real meaning in and of itself. The content only has a strong meaning in the Freudian approach.
Participants from the United States, South Korea and India were all more likely to endorse the Freudian view of dreams than the other three. In the US sample it was 56% Freudian, 8% problem-solving, 18% random and 18% learning.
Plane crash
Although 56% endorsing Freud might sound high, Morewedge and Norton thought it was still an underestimate of how much store people put by their dreams. So a second and third study asked both Freudians and non-Freudians to estimate the effect of their dreams on behavior.
Read in Full:Â http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2010/10/18/why-dreaming-is-believing/
 
Reviewed by John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on October 18, 2010Â
Emerging scientific research suggests coping with adverse life events improves our ability to adapt and handle future events.
The finding lends support to the old adage of what does not kill us, makes us stronger.
The new national multi-year longitudinal study of the effects of adverse life events on mental health discovered that the experiences appear to foster adaptability and resilience.
As such, an individual is able to handle future mental health issues and possess a strong sense of well-being.
The new study examined a national sample of people who reported their lifetime history of adverse experiences and several measures of current mental health and well-being.
Mark Seery, senior author of the study, says previous research indicates that exposure to adverse life events typically predicts negative effects on mental health and well-being, such that more adversity predicts worse outcomes.
Read in Full:Â http://psychcentral.com/news/2010/10/18/tough-times-build-mental-health-resiliency/19699.html
 
Psychiatric disorders in children and adolescents I: Prevalence and sex differences
Today is the first of a series of Brief posts about the results of the latest National Comorbidity Survey (NCS).
The NCS is a large nationally representative study of over 10,000 adolescents aged 13 to 18. The study aims to examine the prevalence of psychiatric disorders in youth across the United States by conducting a comprehensive face-to-face structured diagnostic assessment of every participant. Such diagnostic interview is currently the gold standard in diagnostic assessment, which arguably provides us with the most accurate picture of the true prevalence of these disorders in the population. The study included 4,945 boys and 5,170 girls. The racial/ethnicity breakdown was 65% non-Hispanic whites, 15.1% non-Hispanic black, 14.4% Hispanic, and 5% other.
Read in Full:Â http://www.child-psych.org/2010/10/fifty-percent-50-of-teens-have-experienced-a-psychiatric-condition-by-their-18th-birthday.html

“Tyler Tassell, nine, from Headington, has Asperger’s Syndrome, which affects the way he socialises with people and forms friendships – but that doesn’t stop him caring for his autistic brother Connor, who was also born with crippling digestion problems, and his mum, Marie Gellatly, who has a heart condition.
Mrs Gellatly, 35, said: “Tyler is a very special little boy. Having Asperger’s means he gets anxious and often feels isolated, but the care he shows me and Connor and his other brother Joshua is above and beyond what you would expect from a child his age.â€
10:40am Sunday 17th October 2010
EACH day in the county, 11,000 children leave for school or work having helped a parent or sibling in some way.
Children as young as four have made breakfast, put in a load of washing, maybe even helped bathe and dress a loved one.
Then after school the cycle begins again; preparing food and doing the shopping and housework, before they do their homework or have time for themselves.
More than 13,000 children in the UK care for over 50 hours per week, receiving no payment and often without their schools or neighbours even knowing they are carers.
Thankfully, in Oxfordshire they have a lifeline – a network of groups funded by Oxfordshire County Council. Here they can just be children, learn new skills and find someone to listen their worries.
But like all local government-funded services, the Young Carers groups’ funding is about the come under the scrutiny of the Government’s spending review.
On Wednesday, chancellor George Osborne will announce cash cuts and councils will find out in December how much they will get.
Daniel Blake, from Little Bury, Greater Leys, Oxford, is only five, but spends time every day caring for his brother Aidan, nine, who has cerebral palsy.
Daniel’s mother, Donna Blake, 42, said: “Daniel has watched his brothers and sisters caring for Aidan since he was a baby and now he just does the same. He will fetch and carry for Aidan, take off his leg splints and put them away, as well as helping around the house, and he also shares a room with Aidan, so he is always there to get what he needs.
“My husband Karl and I are amazed by our children’s bravery, care and compassion every day. Children get a bad press, but there are so many out there, like ours, who put others first.â€
The Blake’s have seven children at home – Callum, 15, twins Kyle and Jade, 14, Keisha, 11, Aidan, nine, Daniel, five and Maya, three. Their three older children, Crystal, 25, Gavin, 24 and Darren, 23, have already left home.
Jade, 14, said: “We all love Aidan and want to help him. He is getting quite big, so lifting him is difficult now, but he is our brother and we all do what we can for him.â€
Ask Riley Stokes, 12, from Witney, why he helps his sister Tillie and he’ll probably shrug and say: “Because she’s my sister.â€
But Tillie, nine, has had more than 1,000 seizures since she was 18 months old and parents, Emma, 42 and Andrew, 40, say Riley is unfazed by her need for constant care. Mrs Stokes said: “We found out Tillie had a rare genetic disorder, with no permanent diagnosis. Riley has only really known Tillie as she is now – with epilepsy, incontinence and learning difficulties.
“He is amazing with her and an amazing help to us.â€
Tyler Tassell, nine, from Headington, has Asperger’s Syndrome, which affects the way he socialises with people and forms friendships – but that doesn’t stop him caring for his autistic brother Connor, who was also born with crippling digestion problems, and his mum, Marie Gellatly, who has a heart condition.
Mrs Gellatly, 35, said: “Tyler is a very special little boy. Having Asperger’s means he gets anxious and often feels isolated, but the care he shows me and Connor and his other brother Joshua is above and beyond what you would expect from a child his age.â€
Mrs Gellatly, who is a nursery nurse, underwent major heart surgery two years ago, after doctors discovered her heart was stopping without warning.
She said: “Tyler probably does more household chores than other children his age and he is also a great help playing with Connor, and feeding and reading to Joshua while I am busy with Connor.â€
Tyler said: “I like to play with Connor and help my mummy and daddy. I get my mummy’s medicine when she is hurting and help her do housework.â€
Along with the Blake children, Tyler attends Oxford Young Carers, based at Oxford Carers Centre in Cowley Road.
Here they get to play games, learn new skills and go away on trips.
Read in Full:Â http://www.bicesteradvertiser.net/news/oxfordshire/8456590.Young_carers_need_care_too/
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Article Date: 18 Oct 2010 – 6:00 PDT
Residents at Dower House, South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust’s (SLaM) adult Self-harm service, have developed an animated short film. To watch via YouTube: click here.
Titled ‘The Perspex Human’, the short film was developed by patients and staff on the unit and in the Occupational Therapy department, under the guidance of experienced animator Assaf Hayut. The animation project asked participants the question ‘what is in a human?’ The theme provided residents with an enjoyable creative project which enabled them to explore both the literal interpretations as well as exploring deeper meanings and emotions such as anxiety and depression.
The four-and-a-half-minute animation was developed over a five-month period. Six residents from Dower House took part in the project, along with staff members from the Self-harm Service and members of Bethlem Royal Hospital’s Occupational Therapy department.
Residents were encouraged to make their own fictional or biographical stories, and to produce a storyboard. A great deal of time was devoted to the project, and residents displayed sensitivity and emotion as the animation was developed. More than 2000 images were produced over 16 sessions, and edited down into the final film.
Read in Full:Â http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/204937.php

