Recovery Michigan

http://goo.gl/R39m5J

Almost one-third of adults in Canada have experienced child abuse - physical abuse, sexual abuse or exposure to intimate partner (parents, step-parents or guardians) violence in their home. As well, child abuse is linked to mental disorders and suicidal ideation (thoughts) or suicide attempts, found an article published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal).

"From a public health standpoint, these findings highlight the urgent need to make prevention of child abuse a priority in Canada," writes Dr. Tracie Afifi, departments of Community Health Sciences and Psychiatry, University of Manitoba with coauthors.

http://goo.gl/FxAYcA

Screening revealed that 50% of male and 49% of female adolescents enter jail with a history of TBI. Incidence of TBI was assessed using patient health records, and revealed an incidence of 3,107 TBI per 100,000 person-years.

http://goo.gl/BFO4vm

Spending time online has the potential to ward off depression among retirees, particularly among those who live alone, according to research published online in The Journals of Gerontology, Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences. In the article “Internet Use and Depression Among Retired Older Adults in the United States: A Longitudinal Analysis,” the authors report that Internet use reduced the probability of a depressed state by 33 percent among their study sample.

http://goo.gl/lrvjjP

When these negative memories creep up, thinking about the context of the memories, rather than how you felt, is a relatively easy and effective way to alleviate the negative effects of these memories, a new study suggests.

Researchers at the Beckman Institute at the University of Illinois, led by psychology professor Florin Dolcos of the Cognitive Neuroscience Group, studied the behavioral and neural mechanisms of focusing away from emotion during recollection of personal emotional memories, and found that thinking about the contextual elements of the memories significantly reduced their emotional impact.

“Sometimes we dwell on how sad, embarrassed, or hurt we felt during an event, and that makes us feel worse and worse. This is what happens in clinical depression—ruminating on the negative aspects of a memory,” Dolcos said. “But we found that instead of thinking about your emotions during a negative memory, looking away from the worst emotions and thinking about the context, like a friend who was there, what the weather was like, or anything else non-emotional that was part of the memory, will rather effortlessly take your mind away from the unwanted emotions associated with that memory. Once you immerse yourself in other details, your mind will wander to something else entirely, and you won’t be focused on the negative emotions as much.”

http://goo.gl/TEHRUj

For the first time, evidence that a single dose of IV-administered ketamine was associated with the rapid reduction of symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder in patients with chronic PTSD was demonstrated in a proof-of-concept, randomized, double blind crossover study, undertaken by researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City.  These findings, according to Mount Sinai researchers, could be the first step toward developing new interventions for PTSD.

The original investigation, titled "Efficacy of Intravenous Ketamine for Treatment of Chronic Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder – A Randomized Clinical Trial," was first published online in JAMA Psychiatry on April 16.

"These findings may lead to novel approaches in the treatment of chronic PTSD – a condition that affects a broad spectrum of adults in the United States and beyond, including victims of sexual assault, war veterans, those who have witnessed catastrophic events such as the September 11 terror attacks, and others," saidAdriana Feder, MD, Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and the lead author of the study.   "However, this should be viewed as a proof of concept study.  Additionally, longer term clinical trials with ketamine will be required to determine if ketamine will be a clinically useful treatment for PTSD."

http://goo.gl/ZycCqv

Dr Ryu Takizawa, lead author of the paper from the Institute of Psychiatry at King’s College London, says: “Our study shows that the effects of bullying are still visible nearly four decades later. The impact of bullying is persistent and pervasive, with health, social and economic consequences lasting well into adulthood.”

http://goo.gl/ndaFj6

Teenagers who have suffered a traumatic brain injury such as a concussion are at “significantly greater odds” of attempting suicide, being bullied and engaging in a variety of high risk behaviours, a new study has found.

They are also more likely to become bullies themselves, to have sought counselling through a crisis help-line or to have been prescribed medication for anxiety, depression or both, said Dr. Gabriela Ilie, lead author of the study and a post-doctoral fellow at St. Michael’s Hospital.

They have higher odds of damaging property, breaking and entering, taking a car without permission, selling marijuana or hashish, running away from home, setting a fire, getting into a fight at school or carrying or being threatened by a weapon, she said in a paper published today in the journal PLOS ONE. (link to the live article will be http://dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0094936)

http://goo.gl/QYkKvM

Now, Yale University researchers have identified a single molecular mechanism in the developing brain that sheds light on how cells may go awry when exposed to a variety of different environmental insults. The findings, to be published in the May 7 issue of the journal Neuron, suggest that different types of stressors prenatally activate a single molecular trigger in brain cells that may make exposed individuals susceptible to late-onset neuropsychiatric disorders.

The researchers found that mouse embryos exposed to alcohol, methyl-mercury, or maternal seizures all activate in the developing brain cells a single gene - HSF1 or heat shock factor - which protects and enables some of the brain cells to survive prenatal insult. Mice lacking the HSF1 gene showed structural brain abnormalities and were prone to seizures after birth, even after exposure to very low levels of the toxins.

Acupuncture points are listed in the article....

http://goo.gl/fnM3Pd

Heroin abuse can damage many brain areas, including the pedunculopontine tegmental nucleus of the midbrain, the ventral tegmental area, and nucleus accumbens.

These results, published in Neural Regeneration Research (Vol. 9, No. 3, 2014), suggested that acupuncture at Baihui and Dazhui protected brain neurons against injury in rats with heroin relapse by promoting brain-derived neurotrophic factor and glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor expression.