brain
Brain Stimulation May Be Effective Treatment for Severe Depression
A new neurosurgical procedure may prove helpful for patients with treatment-resistant depression. Bilateral epidural prefrontal cortical stimulation (EpCS) was found generally safe and provided significant improvement of depressive symptoms in a small group of patients, according to lead researcher Ziad Nahas, M.D. at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC).
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Why Anti-Depressants Don’t Work for Some
More than half of people who take antidepressants for depression never get relief. New research from Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine finds that this is because the cause of depression has been oversimplified and drugs designed to treat it are aiming at the wrong target.
Science Daily reports that a study from the laboratory of long-time depression researcher Eva Redei, presented at the Neuroscience 2009 conference in Chicago this week, appears to topple two strongly held beliefs about depression. One is that stressful life events are a major cause of depression. The other is that an imbalance in neurotransmitters in the brain triggers depressive symptoms.
Chronic Alcohol Consumption Impairs Formation of New Brain Cells
A new study found that chronic alcohol consumption reduces the number of new brain cells that form in the hippocampus of adolescent rhesus monkeys. This finding suggests that these cells are vulnerable to alcohol and their presence may be essential for preventing alcohol dependence.
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Too Much Light at Night Can Lead to Symptoms of Depression in Mice
Too much light at night can lead to symptoms of depression, according to a new study. Researchers found that mice housed in a lighted room 24 hours a day exhibited more depressive symptoms than did similar mice that had a normal light-dark cycle.
However, mice that lived in constant light but could escape into a dark, opaque tube when they wanted showed less evidence of depressive symptoms than did mice that had 24-hour light but only a clear tube in their housing.
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New Test May Be Able to Quickly Predict Accuracy of Anti-Depressants for Individuals
Treating major depression is not a quick fix—it is a long, slow journey to restoring mental health. Although many antidepressant medications are available, no single biomarker or diagnostic test exists to predict which one is right for an individual. As a result, for more than half of all patients, the first drug prescribed doesn’t work, and it can take months to figure out what does.
But now, based on the final results of a nationwide study led by UCLA, clinicians may be able to accurately predict within a week whether a particular drug will be effective by using a non-invasive test that takes less than 15 minutes to administer. The test will allow physicians to quickly switch patients to a more effective treatment, if necessary.
Functional MRI Predicts Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in Soldiers
About 20% of US soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan are psychologically damaged, according to a Washington Post study. A substantial number of them suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which carries with it a high rate of suicide.
But doctors will now be able to forecast a soldier’s risk of developing PTSD, with the chance of intervening to prevent military-related suicides. Prof. Talma Hendler of Tel Aviv University’s Department of Psychology and Psychiatry and the founding director of the Tel Aviv Functional Brain Center have developed a new predictive tool for detecting at-risk soldiers.
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Brain Defect Could Predict Onset of Schizophrenia
In the first functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study of its kind, neurologists and psychiatrists at Columbia University have identified an area of the brain involved in the earliest stages of schizophrenia and related psychotic disorders.
Activity in this specific region of the hippocampus may help predict the onset of the disease, offering opportunities for earlier diagnosis and for the development of drugs for schizophrenia prevention.
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ADHD Patients Found to Have Chemical Imbalance
New research shows the first definitive evidence that there is a chemical imbalance in the brains of those suffering from attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
The study, conducted by the US Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York State, has found that ADHD sufferers have deficiencies in the way the brain deals with dopamine, an amino acid involved in regulation of movement, thought, and behavior.
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Clinical Depression Causes Early Malfunction in Brain’s Reward Center
Clinically depressed people are less capable of finding pleasure in activities they used to enjoy, a recent study shows. Research published in the August 26 issue of the NeuroReport shows reduced brain function in the reward center of the brain in depressed individuals, when compared to healthy subjects.
To investigate the effects of depression on brain activity, Dr. Elizabeth Osuch, a researcher at the Lawson Health Research Institute, and her team asked 15 healthy subjects and 16 recently depressed subjects to provide a list of their favorite music as well as identify music that they neither liked nor disliked (neutral music).
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New Insights into Anorexia Discovered
Science Daily reports that new technology provides insights into brain abnormalities in patients with anorexia nervosa that may contribute to the symptoms found in people with the disorder.
Walter Kaye, MD, professor of psychiatry and director of the Eating Disorders Program at the University of California, San Diego, and colleagues describe dysfunction in certain neural circuits of the brain that may help explain why people develop anorexia.
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