Patients with treatment-resistant major depression saw dramatic improvement in their illness after treatment with ketamine, an anesthetic, according to the largest ketamine clinical trial to-date led by researchers from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. The antidepressant benefits of ketamine were seen within 24 hours, whereas traditional antidepressants can take days or weeks to demonstrate a reduction in depression.
"We were surprised by the strength of the association between sleep duration and suicide risk," said primary author Linden Oliver, MA, clinical research coordinator for the University of Pennsylvania Behavioral Sleep Medicine Research Program in Philadelphia, Pa. "A 72 percent decrease in the likelihood of moderate or high suicide risk with a one-hour increase in sleep is interesting given the small sample size."
Compared to non-depressed control participants, depressed individuals' goals tended to be less specific and more abstract, for example 'to be happy', rather than 'to improve my time running the local 10 km race'.. A similar reduced level of specificity was found when reasons for achieving or not reaching personal goals were analyzed. There were no significant differences in the number of goals and reasons, or the kinds of goals provided by depressed and non-depressed participants. The authors suggest that these results may help to improve psychotherapeutic approaches used to treat depression.
Results showed 21.7 percent who had ever sustained more than one traumatic brain injury reported suicidal ideation -- thoughts about or preoccupation with suicide -- at any time in the past. For patients who had received one traumatic brain injury, 6.9 percent reported having suicidal thoughts and 0 percent for those with no traumatic brain injuries.
Read more: http://www.upi.com/Health_News/2013/05/17/Mild-traumatic-brain-injuries-increase-military-suicide-risk/UPI-22701368768384/#ixzz2TXoSGvz2
Results showed a significant reduction in anxiety for the Kava group compared to the placebo group at the end of the study.
In participants diagnosed with moderate to severe GAD, Kava had an even greater effect in reducing anxiety. Following the completion of the controlled phase, 26 per cent of the Kava group were classified as in remission from their symptoms compared to six per cent of the placebo group.Participants in the Kava group were given tablets twice per day consisting of water-soluble extracted Kava (peeled rootstock) for a total dose of 120mg of kavalactones for the first three-week controlled phase. In cases of non-response this was increased to a double-dose twice per day for the second three-week controlled phase. Participants in the placebo group took matching dummy tablets in the same manner.
CB1 receptors are part of the endocannabinoid system, a diffuse network of chemicals and signaling pathways in the body that plays a role in memory formation, appetite, pain tolerance and mood. Animal studies have shown that psychoactive chemicals such as cannabis, along with certain neurotransmitters produced naturally in the body, can impair memory and reduce anxiety when they activate CB1 receptors in the brain. Lead author Alexander Neumeister, MD, director of the molecular imaging program in the Departments of Psychiatry and Radiology at NYU School of Medicine, and colleagues are the first to demonstrate through brain imaging that people with PTSD have markedly lower concentrations of at least one of these neurotransmitters - an endocannabinoid known as anandamide - than people without PTSD. Their study, which was supported by three grants from the National Institutes of Health, illuminates an important biological fingerprint of PTSD that could help improve the accuracy of PTSD diagnoses, and points the way to medications designed specifically to treat trauma.
Psychobiologists can now show that loneliness sends misleading hormonal signals, rejiggers the molecules on genes that govern behavior, and wrenches a slew of other systems out of whack. They have proved that long-lasting loneliness not only makes you sick; it can kill you. Emotional isolation is ranked as high a risk factor for mortality as smoking. A partial list of the physical diseases thought to be caused or exacerbated by loneliness would include Alzheimer’s, obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, neurodegenerative diseases, and even cancer—tumors can metastasize faster in lonely people.
Like adult post-trauma reaction, PTSD symptoms may appear immediately after the Acute Stress phase completes, or later after another triggering event or experience. Note: many of the signs of PTSD in children can look like a different issues. Common misdiagnoses include ADHD, ODD and Bi-Polar. Many PTSD victims (and this includes children) hide symptoms and do not disclose the fact of the trauma. This means a child could go struggle with symptoms for several years before PTSD is diganosed.
Nearly 20% of children and young people at risk for suicide say there's a gun in their home, new research shows.
And among these youth, 15% know how to get their hands on both the gun and bullets.
This technique has been developing for some time. As far as I know, this is the first health system to use it in a generally available way.
A treatment for depression called Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation, which uses magnetic pulses to activate key areas of the brain, is being offered in Britain for the first time. Here we explore how it works. (video)