Archive for the ‘Depression’ Category
Parents at highest risk for depression in the first year after child’s birth
More than one-third of mothers and about one-fifth of fathers in the United Kingdom appear to experience an episode of depression between their child’s birth and 12th year of age, with the highest rates in the first year after birth, according to a report posted online today that will appear in the November print issue of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
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Trigeminal nerve stimulation significantly improves depression
While antidepressants have helped many to recover and resume their lives, only 30 percent of patients will experience full remission with the first medication they use. Patients typically move on to try a series of other antidepressants. A persistent problem with such drugs has been major side effects, including obesity, sexual dysfunction, fatigue, drowsiness and nausea. Now, a unique new therapy that applies electrical stimulation to a major nerve emanating from the brain is showing promise.
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The neural basis of the depressive self
Depression is actually defined by specific clinical symptoms such as sadness, difficulty to experience pleasure, sleep problems etc., present for at least two weeks, with impairment of psychosocial functioning. These symptoms guide the physician to make a diagnosis and to select antidepressant treatment such as drugs or psychotherapy.
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Sad mothers have small babies
Clinical depression and anxiety during pregnancy results in smaller babies that are more likely to die in infancy, according to new research published in the open access journal BMC Public Health. The study, which focused on women living in rural Bangladesh, provides the first finding of its kind in a non-Western population.
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Symptoms of bipolar disorder may go undiagnosed in some adults with major depression
Nearly 40 percent of people with major depression may also have subthreshold hypomania, a form of mania that does not fully meet current diagnostic criteria for bipolar disorder, according to a new NIMH-funded study. The study was published online ahead of print August 15, 2010, in the American Journal of Psychiatry.
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Brooding Russians: Less distressed than Americans
Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy portrayed Russians as a brooding, complicated people, and ethnographers have confirmed that Russians tend to focus on dark feelings and memories more than Westerners do. But a new University of Michigan study finds that even though Russians tend to brood, they are less likely than Americans to feel as depressed as a result.
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Using Ketamine to Predict How Patients Will Respond to Antidepressants
In a study of an experimental treatment for major depression, pretreatment testing to probe the function of a specific brain center predicted how patients would respond to ketamine, a medication that can lift depression rapidly in some people. The work suggests it may be possible to develop ways to use such assessments in the future, not only to better understand depression, but to guide treatment choices for individuals.
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Effects on Personality May Be Mechanism of Antidepressant Effectiveness
Results of a study of antidepressant treatment for major depression suggest that changes in personality traits seen in patients taking the drug paroxetine (Paxil) may not be the result of the medication’s lifting of mood but may instead be a direct effect of this class of drugs and part of the mechanism by which they relieve depression.
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A Look at Psychopharmacology and Theories of Depression
We now believe that depression is in part a biochemical event. This theory did not come from nowhere – rather it comes from just 60 years of experimenting with medications that had biochemical effects. But at the same time as we have learned that depression is, indeed, in part biochemical, the limitations of medications remind us how little we ultimately know.
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Early Treatment Decisions Crucial for Teens with Treatment-resistant Depression
An early response to second-course treatment is associated with greater likelihood of remission among teens with hard-to-treat depression, according to recent data from an NIMH-funded study published online ahead of print May 17, 2010, in the American Journal of Psychiatry.
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