Before playing a guitar, musicians tune the strings to particular frequencies to get the pitch they want. Starting this week, a team of neuroscientists in Australia will apply a similar tuning process to human brains as part of a study to recalibrate abnormal neural patterns to a healthy state. The group, at Monash University in...
Tag: <span>Depression</span>
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Is my child depressed? Being moody isn’t a mental health issue
It is difficult to open up a magazine or newspaper today without seeing a headline trumpeting the presence of a “mental health crisis” —particularly on our college and university campuses. Indeed, if the media coverage is to be believed, we are drowning in a sea of mental illness that threatens to overwhelm post-secondary institutions. The call...
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Can Osteoarthritis Knee Pain Lead to Symptoms of Depression?
A new Japanese study finds that among non-depressed older adults with osteoarthritis knee pain, nearly 12 percent will go on to develop symptoms of depression within two years. Participants at greatest risk for depression include those who experience knee pain while lying in bed at night, while putting on socks, or while getting in or out of a car....
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Is it major depression or bipolar disorder? Ask the heart
All test subjects in the study underwent a 15-minute-long electrocardiogram People suffering from bipolar disorder swing between emotional highs (manic episodes) and severe depression. Perhaps not surprisingly, they’re often mistakenly diagnosed as simply having major depression, which actually requires a different treatment. According to a new study from Illinois’ Loyola University, however, the two...
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Sleep deprivation can rapidly reduce the symptoms of depression
A new study affirms the long observed phenomenon of sleep deprivation reducing symptoms of depression It may sound counter-intuitive, but for decades it has been known that sleep deprivation can rapidly alleviate symptoms of depression. A new meta-analysis from a team at the University of Pennsylvania has examined more than 30 years worth of...
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Depression is a physical illness which could be treated with anti-inflammatory drugs, scientists suggest
Depression could be treated using anti-inflammatory drugs, scientists now believe, after determining that it is a physical illness caused by a faulty immune system. Around one in 13 people in Britain suffers from anxiety or depression and last year the NHS issued 64.7 million prescriptions for antidepressants, double the amount given out a decade ago....
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Depression’s “Transcriptional Signatures” Differ in Men vs. Women
Divergent illness processes may point to sex-specific treatments Brain gene expression associated with depression differed markedly between men and women in a study by NIMH-funded researchers. Such divergent “transcriptional signatures” may signal divergent underlying illness processes that may require sex-specific treatments, they suggest. Experiments in chronically-stressed male and female mice that developed depression-like behaviors largely...
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Pilot study shows that neurofeedback may help treatment-resistant depression
A small pilot study has indicated that neurofeedback – where patients concentrate on modifying their own brainwave patterns – has potential to treat many of the 100m people worldwide who suffer from Treatment-Resistant Depression (TRD). This is the first time that neurofeedback has been shown to improve both individual symptoms and overall recovery in TRD....
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Will ketamine treat your depression? Check your activity monitor
During a depressive episode, people often report having reduced energy, feeling slowed down and having reduced interest in activities. As their mood lifts, energy and activity return to their usual levels. A new study in Biological Psychiatry reports altered measures of daily activity in patients whose depressive symptoms improved in response to the fast-acting antidepressant ketamine. The...
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Ketamine has ‘truly remarkable’ effect on depression and is effective in elderly patients, scientists say
Ketamine can have a “truly remarkable” effect on people with depression, researchers have said after a new study showed promising results among elderly patients. Colleen Loo, a professor at the University of New South Wales in Australia, led the world’s first randomised control trial into the drug’s effect on people over 60 with treatment-resistant depression. “This...