By Robert Martone on May 26, 2023 Credit: Sean Gladwell/Getty Images Neurological conditions can release a torrent of new creativity in a few people as if opening some mysterious floodgate. Auras of migraine and epilepsy may have influenced a long list of artists, including Pablo Picasso, Vincent van Gogh, Edvard Munch, Giorgio de Chirico, Claude Monet and Georges Seurat. Traumatic...
Kelli Whitlock Burton March 09, 2023 A once-daily oral stimulant medication for treatment of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in individuals aged 6 years or older is safe and effective after 1 year of treatment, new research shows. Results from a phase 3, multicenter dose optimization, open-label safety study of Azstarys (KemPharm, Inc) found that most treatment-emergent adverse events (TEAEs) were...
Batya Swift Yasgur, MA, LSW May 02, 2023 A large proportion of US adults who are prescribed Schedule II stimulants are simultaneously receiving other CNS agents including benzodiazepines, opioids, and antidepressants — a potentially dangerous practice. Investigators analyzed prescription drug claims for over 9.1 million US adults over a 1-year period and found that 276,223 (3%) had used...
by Elana Gotkine Cannabis use disorder (CUD) is associated with increased risk of psychotic and nonpsychotic bipolar disorder and unipolar depression, according to a study published online May 24 in JAMA Psychiatry. Oskar Hougaard Jefsen, M.D., from Aarhus University Hospital-Psychiatry in Denmark, and colleagues examined whether CUD is associated with increased risk of psychotic and nonpsychotic...
Teresa Santos (in collaboration with Ilana Polistchuck, MD) May 16, 2023 Psychotherapy is one of the two main treatments for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The other is pharmacologic therapy, and selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) are the first-line treatment. With this approach, however, response rates rarely exceed 60%, and fewer than 20% to 30% of patients achieve full remission. But...
by Mark Griffiths, The Conversation Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain Most people are familiar with psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, but some conditions are so rare that many psychiatrists won’t come across a single case in their professional lives. Here I present five of the rarest—and strangest—syndromes known to psychiatry. 1. Fregoli syndrome Fregoli syndrome is...
by Melody White and C. Michael White, The Conversation Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain Some patients can have vivid and detailed sexual hallucinations during anesthesia with sedative-hypnotic drugs like propofol, midazolam, diazepam and nitrous oxide. Some make suggestive or sexual comments or act out, such as grabbing or kissing medical professionals or touching themselves in a sexual way. Others awaken erroneously...
by American College of Physicians Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain A timely research report evaluating firearm injury survivors has found that despite medical advancements that improve survival from firearm injuries, many survivors experience long-term post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and poor physical quality of life. The report is published in Annals of Internal Medicine. Firearm injury is a public health crisis...
Megan Brooks March 01, 2023 Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are associated with increased motor and nonmotor symptoms of Parkinson’s disease (PD) and reduced quality of life (QOL), new research shows. Results of the first study to evaluate the relationship between childhood trauma and PD investigators found that the relationship appears to be dose dependent. Patients with PD who reported more than...
by David Mitchell, University of Georgia Clementz, McDowell and their teams have identified three new psychosis classifications using data captured from brain scans. Rather than grouping patients in the previous classifications of the DSM—schizophrenia, bipolar and schizoaffective disorder—they have established new groups called “biotypes.” Credit: Lindsay Bland Robinson Brett Clementz doesn’t love the term “schizophrenia.” Sure,...
