Warning that patients could be at risk, an interdisciplinary group of multinational investigators is calling on the U.S. Congress and federal regulators to tighten a law that permits use of brain devices to treat rare neuropsychiatric disorders without supporting clinical trials or stringent patient oversight. The commentary's contributing authors, from the U.S. and Europe, have expertise in psychiatry, neu ...

A warning issued by the Food and Drug Administration regarding the use of atypical antipsychotics for the treatment of dementia was associated with a significant decline in the use of these medications for treating dementia symptoms in elderly patients, according to a report in the February issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. ...

Patients with schizophrenia who take antipsychotic medications appear to lose a small but measurable amount of brain tissue over time, according to a report in the February issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. Schizophrenia affects 1 percent of the worldwide population and remains a leading cause of chronic disability among young adults, according to background informa ...

The use of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) therapies experienced a significant growth in the United States in the last decade, and a new analysis finds that CAM use becomes more likely when access to conventional care has been restricted. The findings are published in the peer reviewed journal, Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved. ...

A new study highlights inconsistencies in black box warnings - medication-related safety warnings on a drug's label - and argues for a more transparent and systematic approach to ensure these warnings are consistent across all drugs within a same category, and any additions to warnings (for example, on the back of a drug that details withdrawal) are done within a reasonable and uniform time period. The work ...

Nearly ten percent of all cases of depression are so severe that the patients do not respond to any established treatment method. Targeted stimulation of areas in the brain using a type of "brain pacemaker" has recently raised hopes: According to initial studies, half of patients with the most severe depression treated in this manner see a significant improvement in mood. ...

After a spinal cord injury a number of factors impede the regeneration of nerve cells. Two of the most important of these factors are the destabilization of the cytoskeleton and the development of scar tissue. While the former prevents regrowth of cells, the latter creates a barrier for severed nerve cells. Scientists of the Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology in Martinsried and their colleagues from the K ...

Following the results of a study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine showing that cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) produces a 41% reduction in fatal and non-fatal first recurrent cardiovascular disease (CVD) events, the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) believes stress management programs should be made more widely available across Europe for patients with coronary artery disease. Further st ...

What sounds like science fiction is actually now possible: thanks to magnetic stimulation, the activity of certain brain nerve cells can be deliberately influenced. What happens in the brain in this context has been unclear up to now. Medical experts from Bochum under the leadership of Prof. Dr. Klaus Funke (Department of Neurophysiology) have shown that various stimulus patterns changed the activity of dis ...

Researchers from the University of Gothenburg and Sahlgrenska University Hospital are the first in the world to show that an operation can help patients with dementia caused by white matter changes and hydrocephalus (see definition below for more information). Presented in the American Journal of Neurosurgery, the results are based on the world’s first study to demonstrate the effects of a shunt operation u ...