Curated News: National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)

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Women who use cannabis during pregnancy, potentially to relieve stress and anxiety, may inadvertently predispose their children to stress susceptibility and anxiety, according to a study conducted by researchers from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and the City University of New York published Monday, November 15, in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PNAS).

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NIH-funded researchers at Carnegie Mellon University have demonstrated the potential of a neuromodulation approach that uses low-intensity ultrasound energy, called transcranial focused ultrasound—or tFUS.

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In a Journal of the American Medical Association Psychiatry study led by Pearl Chiu and Brooks King-Casas of the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at VTC, brain imaging and mathematical modeling reveal previously unreported mechanistic features of symptoms associated with major depressive disorder.

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Researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM) launched a new online tool that could more quickly advance medical discoveries to reverse progressive hearing loss. The tool enables easy access to genetic and other molecular data from hundreds of technical research studies involving hearing function and the ear.

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Researchers successfully used a protein called parapinopsin to turn off brain circuits. This protein is found in lamprey – an ancient lineage of jawless fish similar to eel. Researchers said the ability to inhibit neurons could eventually lead to turning off mood disorders and unwanted behaviors like depression and addiction.

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Chemotherapy can induce a painful peripheral neuropathy (CIPN), a chronic condition and common adverse effect for cancer patients undergoing treatment. Researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine, with colleagues elsewhere, have used a mouse model to demonstrate the pivotal role of cholesterol in CIPN, and proposed a novel therapeutic approach to reverse it.

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UC San Diego researchers report that one kind of perceptual learning can occur in memory-impaired persons who do not actually remember what they learned.

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University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM) researchers have shown that psilocybin—the active chemical in “magic mushrooms”— still works its antidepressant-like actions, at least in mice, even when the psychedelic experience is blocked.

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Researchers from the University of Minnesota Twin Cities College of Science and Engineering and Medical School have developed a unique head-mounted mini-microscope device that allows them to image complex brain functions of freely moving mice in real time over a period of more than 300 days. The groundbreaking study provides new insight into fundamental research that could improve human brain conditions such as concussions, autism, Alzheimer’s, and Parkinson’s disease, as well as better understanding the brain’s role in addiction.

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UC San Diego scientists have taken the connection between wisdom, loneliness and biology one step further, reporting that wisdom and loneliness appear to influence — and/or be influenced by — microbial diversity of the gut.

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UC Davis Health researchers studying executive control in adolescents and young adults with autism have published new research that suggests a unique approach, rather than impairment.

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A new UCLA-led study analyzed a national sample of the views of Black men and white men found that Black men of all income levels reported experiencing higher levels of discrimination than their white counterparts.

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In a study published in the March 5, 2021 online edition of Cerebral Cortex, researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine found that specific regions of the brain respond to emotional stimuli related to loneliness and wisdom in opposing ways.

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The drug buprenorphine is an effective treatment for opioid use disorder, but many who misuse opioids also take benzodiazepines — drugs that treat anxiety and similar conditions. Many treatment centers hesitate to treat patients addicted to opioids who also take benzodiazepines. Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis studied overdose risk in people taking buprenorphine and found that the drug lowered risk, even in people taking benzodiazepines.

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Researchers from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai have identified a drug that works against depression by a completely different mechanism than existing treatments.

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In a study at Penn researchers found that Pennsylvania’s financial incentive policy encouraged hospitals to enact rapid changes to support treatment for opioid use disorder for patients visiting the ED, and evaluates the efficacy of the Opioid Hospital Quality Improvement Program.

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Feeding method and affectionate touch patterns in depressed and non-depressed mothers and babies as well as infant’s EEG activity showed that mother-infant affectionate touch differed as a function of mood and feeding method (breastfeeding and bottle-feeding). Infants in the depressed and bottle-fed group reduced touch toward their mothers while breastfeeding had a positive effect on both mother and baby. Infants of depressed and breastfeeding mothers showed neither behavioral nor brain development dysregulation previously found in infants of depressed mothers.

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For mice, the earliest social memories can form at three days old and last into adulthood, scientists report on January 26 in the journal Cell Reports.

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More than a dozen drugs are known to treat symptoms such as hallucinations, erratic behaviors, disordered thinking and emotional extremes associated with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and other severe mental illnesses. But, drug treatments specifically able to target the learning, memory and concentration problems that may accompany such disorders remain elusive.

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This research helps illuminate the neural roots of emotions, and points to the possibility that a population of arousal-related neurons might be a target of future treatments for anxiety disorders and other illnesses involving abnormal arousal responses.

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A team of researchers from Michigan State University, University of Michigan and tech-training company SIMmersion received a $3 million grant from the National Institute of Mental Health to develop a virtual reality training tool for youth with autism spectrum disorder, or ASD, to improve their social skills as they transition from high school to the workforce.

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Research shows that collaborative care programs in which primary-care providers work with a depression care manager and a designated psychiatric consultant can more than double the likelihood of improving depression outcomes. But a new study published in Health Affairs shows that not all care is equal.

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New findings from scientists at Stanley Manne Children’s Research Institute at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago have revealed previously unknown information about the genetic basis for Armfield XLID syndrome, a rare intellectual disability linked to genetic defects in the X chromosome.

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Scientists at Wake Forest School of Medicine have recorded real time changes in dopamine and serotonin levels in the human brain that are involved with perception and decision-making. These same neurochemicals also are critical to movement disorders and psychiatric conditions, including substance abuse and depression.

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Researchers at University of Illinois Chicago are studying a novel approach to delivering care to those with moderate depression and anxiety: through artificial intelligence, or AI. The first part of the two-phase, five-year project will develop and test a voice-enabled, AI virtual agent named Lumen, trained to deliver Problem Solving Therapy (PST), for patients with moderate, untreated depressive and/or anxiety symptoms. This first phase is awarded for two years.

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A $3.6 million NIMH grant awarded to the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania will help improve the implementation of an evidence-based firearm safety program and identify the best approach for deploying this program as a suicide prevention strategy.

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New research could improve the odds that people with obsessive-compulsive disorder will receive a therapy that really works for them – something that eludes more than a third of those who currently get OCD treatment. The study suggests the possibility of predicting which of two types of therapy will help people with OCD: One that exposes them to the subject of their obsessive thoughts and behaviors, or one that focuses on stress reduction and problem-solving.

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Men at particular risk for HIV are very likely to consistently take prevention medication during vacations when their odds of contracting the virus are higher, according to a new study.

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A team led by UT Southwestern researchers has identified brain circuitry that plays a key role in the dysfunctional social, repetitive, and inflexible behavioral differences that characterize autism spectrum disorders (ASD). The findings, published online this week in Nature Neuroscience, could lead to new therapies for these relatively prevalent disorders.

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Chronic stress is associated with the pathogenesis of psychological disorders such as depression. A study is the first to identify the role of a neuronal receptor that straddles the intersection between social stress, inflammation, and anxiety in rodent models of stress. Findings suggest the possibility of developing better medications to treat the consequences of chronic stress by limiting inflammatory signaling not just generally, which may not be beneficial in the long run, but to specific brain circuits.

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How does the brain form "fear memory" that links a traumatic event to a particular situation? A pair of researchers at the University of California, Riverside, may have found an answer

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Machine learning is helping Penn Medicine researchers identify the size and shape of brain networks in individual children, which may be useful for understanding psychiatric disorders. In a new study published in Neuron, a multidisciplinary team showed how brain networks unique to each child can predict cognition. The study is the first to show that functional neuroanatomy can vary greatly among kids, and is refined during development.

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Led by Dr. Adams Greenwood-Ericksen, Associate Professor of Game Studies and User Experience, Dr. Tamara Peyton, Social Computing and HCI Professor, and Anthony Ortega, Production Coordinator for HU’s Center for Advanced Entertainment and Learning Technologies, and corporate faculty for their Interactive Media Program, the project is titled “Investigating the use of tabletop role-playing games as a potential therapeutic intervention for at-risk youth.”

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“Bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, and many other types of mental illness, are diseases of the brain and should be treated and studied as such,” say Johns Hopkins researchers.

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A University of Washington-led clinical trial involving more than 600 children in Kenya and Tanzania, in which community members were trained to deliver mental health treatment, showed improvement in participants’ trauma-related symptoms up to a year after receiving therapy.

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Researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine found the main characteristics of loneliness in a senior housing community and the strategies residents use to overcome it.

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Researchers combined eye gaze research with brain scans to discover that in a common subtype of autism, in which ASD toddlers prefer images of geometric shapes over those of children playing, brain areas responsible for vision and attention are not controlled by social brain networks, and so social stimuli are ignored.

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Spending an hour in talk therapy with a trained counselor costs much more, and takes more time, than swallowing an inexpensive antidepressant pill. But for people with a new diagnosis of major depression, the costs and benefits of the two approaches end up being equal after five years, a new study shows.

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Findings reveal how auditory hallucinations may arise in patients with schizophrenia and provide potential new targets for early detection and treatment

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Evidence suggests that religious and spiritual states and behaviors are related to certain structures and processes in the brain, concludes a research review in the September/October issue of Harvard Review of Psychiatry. The journal is published in the Lippincott portfolio by Wolters Kluwer.