Recovery Michigan

By using gene therapy to create a novel antibody that gobbles up nicotine before it reaches the brain in mice, scientists say they may have found a potential smoking vaccine against cigarette addiction. However, there is still a long way to go before the new therapy can be tested in humans.

In a study reported in the journal Science Translational Medicine this week, Researchers at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City show how a single dose of the vaccine protected mice, over their lifetime, against nicotine addiction.

In March 2012 a federal district court held an employer liable for disability discrimination after it terminated an employee shortly after he had requested a leave of absence to adjust to new medication for bipolar disorder. The court awarded $315,000 to the employee. This case serves as a reminder that the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) applies to both mental and physical disabilities.

There were two major findings. First, we identified several features of Internet usage that correlated with depression. In other words, we found a trend: in general, the more a participant’s score on the survey indicated depression, the more his or her Internet usage included these (rather technical-sounding) features — for instance, “p2p packets,” which indicate high levels of sharing files (like movies and music).

Our second major discovery was that there were patterns of Internet usage that were statistically high among participants with depressive symptoms compared with those without symptoms. That is, we found indicators: styles of Internet behavior that were signs of depressive people. For example, participants with depressive symptoms tended to engage in very high e-mail usage. This perhaps was to be expected: research by the psychologists Janet Morahan-Martin and Phyllis Schumacher has shown that frequent checking of e-mail may relate to high levels of anxiety, which itself correlates with depressive symptoms.

“One of the greatest and simplest tools for learning more and growing is doing more.” – Washington Irving

Addressing Mental, Emotional and Interpersonal Needs

The use of 12-step programs, such as Alcoholics Anonymous, by adolescents with a history of drug and alcohol abuse not only reduces the risk of relapse but also leads to lower health care costs, according to research by the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health.

The study, which appears in the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence, is the first to examine the cost implications of 12-step programs for adolescents.

Researchers studied 403 participants between 13 and 18 years old enrolled in Kaiser Permanente alcohol and drug treatment programs in northern California and followed their progress over seven years

Mental distractions make pain easier to take, and those pain-relieving effects aren't just in your head, according to a report published online in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication.

The findings based on high-resolution spinal fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) as people experienced painful levels of heat show that mental distractions actually inhibit the response to incoming pain signals at the earliest stage of central pain processing.

"The results demonstrate that this phenomenon is not just a psychological phenomenon, but an active neuronal mechanism reducing the amount of pain signals ascending from the spinal cord to higher-order brain regions," said Christian Sprenger of the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf.

Investigators from Boston University (BU) and the Veterans Affairs Boston Healthcare System have shown evidence of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) in brain tissue from blast-exposed military service personnel. Laboratory experiments conducted by the investigators demonstrated that exposure to a single blast equivalent to a typical improvised explosive device (IED) results in CTE and long-term brain impairments that accompany the disease. They also found that the blast wind, not the shock wave, from the IED blast leads to traumatic brain injury (TBI) and long-term consequences, including CTE.

An extract of the Chinese herb kudzu dramatically reduces drinking and may be useful in the treatment of alcoholism and curbing binge drinking, according to a new study by McLean Hospital and Harvard Medical School researchers.

"Our study is further evidence that components found in kudzu root can reduce alcohol consumption and do so without adverse side effects," said David Penetar, PhD, of the Behavioral Psychopharmacology Research Laboratory at McLean Hospital, and the lead author of the study. "Further research is needed, but this botanical medication may lead to additional methods to treat alcohol abuse and dependence."

A walk in the park may have psychological benefits for people suffering from depression.

In one of the first studies to examine the effect of nature walks on cognition and mood in people with major depression, researchers in Canada and the U.S. have found promising evidence that a walk in the park may provide some cognitive benefits.

The study was led by Marc Berman, a post-doctoral fellow at Baycrest's Rotman Research Institute in Toronto, with partners from the University of Michigan and Stanford University. It is published online this week, ahead of print publication, in the Journal of Affective Disorders.

"Our study showed that participants with clinical depression demonstrated improved memory performance after a walk in nature, compared to a walk in a busy urban environment," said Dr. Berman, who cautioned that such walks are not a replacement for existing and well-validated treatments for clinical depression, such as psychotherapy and drug treatment.

Lots of Pictures at the LSJ site.