Recovery Michigan

Nonmedical use of prescription opioids (a.k.a.: pain-killers, narcotics) such as Vicodin, Percocet, and Oxycontin has become increasingly problematic in recent years with increases nation-wide in overdoses, hospital treatment admissions, and deaths. Use also appears to be contributing to heroin initiation, which has increased in recent years, as the demographics of users are shifting. Those previously at low risk -- women, whites, and individuals of higher income -- are now using at unprecedented rates.

"12.4% of students reported lifetime nonmedical opioid use and 1.2% reported lifetime heroin use," said Dr. Palamar. "As frequency of lifetime opioid use increased, so too did the odds for reporting heroin use, with over three-quarters of heroin users reporting lifetime nonmedical opioid use. More frequent and more recent nonmedical opioid use was associated with increased odds for reporting heroin use."

The team suggests their findings support the idea that treatments for immune-related intestinal disorders - such as inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) - should not be based on generalized but on personalized medicine, because this takes into account the unique composition of the individual's gut bacteria.

The gut is a complex, ever-changing environment that gut bacteria are highly responsive to. They need to adapt and evolve quickly, for example, just to cope with changes in the food we eat every day.

Because the job of the immune system is to keep a look-out for potential disease-causing agents, it must monitor closely what is happening in the gut to make sure it does not treat friendly microbes as enemies. But how does it do this?

A new scientific model that incorporates the myriad drivers of depression could lead to more precise treatment for an illness that affects 350 million worldwide.

Developed by scientists at Michigan State University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and funded by the National Institute of Mental Health, the model provides a better understanding of depression and the foundation for creating a pioneering tool to attack the complex disorder.

A paper outlining the research team's findings is published online in the journal Psychological Medicine.

"Clinicians who treat depression tend to work on a trial-and-error basis, whereas this model could give them a more systematic and effective method for making decisions about treatment," said Andrea K. Wittenborn, associate professor in MSU's Department of Human Development and Family Studies and lead investigator on the study. "Most importantly, this model provides a method for personalizing treatment to each unique patient."

Depression is likely caused by multiple biological, psychological, social and environmental drivers, and these factors often overlap, such as cortisol hormone levels going up in response to stress from troubled relationships or economic hardship. Yet most previous research on depression focused on only one or two factors, and not how the many factors intersect and unfold over time.

Wittenborn and colleagues analyzed nearly 600 scientific articles on depression and incorporated the major drivers of depression discussed in the research into a complex model that essentially diagrams how one driver affects another. Depression drivers range from sleep problems to social isolation to inflammation of the brain.

Study co-author Hazhir Rahmandad, an MIT scholar, is an expert in a process called system dynamics that's more common to engineering and business. The team used this approach to create a comprehensive model of depression. While future research is needed to further validate the model, it's a vital first step in better understanding depression and potentially improving care for the illness.

Targeted magnetic pulses to the brain were shown to reduce craving and substance use in cocaine-addicted patients. The results of this pilot study, published in the peer-reviewed journal European Neuropsychopharmacology, suggest that this may become an effective medical treatment for patients with cocaineaddiction, although a larger trial is needed to confirm the initial findings.

Cocaine use is widespread in the Western World. Last year, 2.3 million young Europeans (aged 15 to 34) used cocaine, and the US National Institute on Drug Abuse estimates that 1.4 million Americans suffer from cocaine addiction. There is no effective drug treatment for cocaine addiction, with behavioural therapies being the main element of any treatment regime. Now a group of researchers working in Italy and the USA have shown in a preliminary clinical study that cocaine use can be reduced by treatment with rTMS (repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation).

At the end of the first 29 days of the experiment, the experimental group was given the option of continuing the treatment, whereas those in the control group were given the possibility of receiving the same rTMS treatment as the experimental group for 63 days. Results further confirmed the beneficial effects of rTMS in helping patients to maintain abstinence from cocaine.

It has previously been shown that people with PTSD have altered brain anatomy and function. A new study by researchers from the Department of Psychology at Uppsala University and Clinical Neuroscience at Karolinska Institutet shows that people with PTSD have an imbalance between two neurochemical signalling systems of the brain, serotonin and substance P. Professors Mats Fredrikson and Tomas Furmark led the study using a so-called PET scanner to measure the relationship between these systems.

The study, which has been published in the renowned scientific journal Molecular Psychiatry, shows that it is the imbalance between the two signalling systems which determines the severity of the symptoms suffered by the individual rather than the degree of change in a single system. Others have previously speculated that the biological basis of psychiatric disorders such as PTSD includes a shift in the balance between different signalling systems in the brain but none has yet proved it. The results of the study are a great leap forward in our understanding of PTSD. It will contribute new knowledge which can be used to design improved treatments for traumatised individuals.

"At present, PTSD is often treated with selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors (SSRIs) which have a direct effect on the serotonin system. SSRI drugs provide relief for many but do not help everybody. Restoring the balance between the serotonin and substance P systems could become a new treatment strategy for individuals suffering from traumatic incidents," says lead author Andreas Frick, researcher at the Department of Psychology, Uppsala University.

Ville Kansanen is a self-taught landscape and portrait photographer who fixates on loneliness and authenticity. In his “Procession of Spectres,” Ville explores his own recovery from depression, which he likens to a loss of selfhood that requires reconstruction. 

Just as the researchers predicted, the links between people's frequency of bad moods and negative outcomes (in terms of mental and physical health) varied depending on the attitudes they held toward negative emotion. Those participants who had negative attitudes toward bad moods tended to pay a price: the more negative moods they experienced, the poorer their mental and physical health, both in the moment and longer term (for example, based on their number of health complaints). However, among the participants who had a more positive attitude toward bad moods, these links were mostly reduced, or in some cases even absent completely.

We've known for quite a while that some people seem to escape cognitive decline well into their nineties and beyond. Intriguingly, the brains of these sharp older people often reveal the extensive abnormalities like the "plaques" and "tangles" seen in people with Alzheimer's. We think it's because they've built what neuroscientists call "cognitive reserve." Most systems in our bodies can sustain some level of damage before they start to malfunction, and the brain is no exception. We build cognitive reserve -- extra neurons and the connections between them -- by resisting habit and inertia and continuing to learn new things. But how does this forestall or prevent memory loss and other diseases associated with old age?

When scientists at Chicago's Rush University Medical Center in Chicago dug deeper, they uncovered another, overarching factor. They examined the brain tissues of 246 people who died during a long-term study of more than 1,400 older men and women. The autopsy results, reported inArchives of General Psychiatry, were striking. People who exhibited very different levels of cognitive decline often showed similar levels of damage from Alzheimer's. The brains that functioned better, it turned out, belonged to people who had indicated more purpose in life over the course of the study.

In other words, having a goal in life actually affects cellular activity in the brain. Plaques and tangles still form, but having a goal seems to increase the brain's protective reserve. Not only that, the stronger the purpose, the more it adds to the reserve. The results held up even after the researchers controlled for differences in exercise levels, education, and other factors. Other studies link a sense of purpose not only to slower rates of cognitive decline but to lower rates of disability and death.

Northern Michigan University has an outdated policy that discourages students who have suicidal thoughts from reaching out to other NMU students for help.

We feel this policy is outdated and will prohibit students from getting help that is needed.

"According to the American College Health Association's most recent annual national survey, 30 percent of college students reported feeling "so depressed that it was difficult to function" at some time over the past year. Nearly three fourths of respondents in a 2011 National Alliance on Mental Illness study of college students diagnosed with mental health conditions said they experienced a mental health crisis while in school (http://www.newsweek.com/2014/02/14/how-colleges-flunk-mental-health-245492.html)."

We make 10 demands to the NMU administration regarding the policy and in order to show solidarity with members of the NMU community who suffer from suicidal thoughts will write "I care" on each wrist on 11/18 to show that we would prefer to have a discussion with our fellow classmates and friends than lose them to suicide.