Girls at high risk for depression but without current or past clinically significant symptoms showed abnormal brain function related to anticipating and receiving either a reward or loss, according to a study funded by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). According to the researchers, this abnormal brain function may be useful for predicting future […]
Adults who have both diabetes and major depression are more than twice as likely to develop dementia, compared to adults with diabetes only, according to a study published in the recent Journal of General Internal Medicine. Dementia is the progressive decline of thinking and reasoning abilities. These can include memory loss, difficulty with basic math, […]
Many clinicians believe that depression goes hand in hand with cognitive difficulties such as memory problems or difficulties concentrating and paying attention, but a recent review of nearly 20 years of literature conducted by researchers from UT Southwestern Medical Center has found that depression does not always lead to such impairments. (read the full story)
Antidepressants are effective against depression in patients suffering from physical illnesses, according to a new systematic review by Cochrane researchers at King’s Health Partners Academic Health Sciences Centre in the UK. The researchers found the drugs were more effective than placebos at treating depression in these patients. (read the full story)
Research suggests that religious belief can help protect against symptoms of depression, but a study at Rush University Medical Center goes one step further. In patients diagnosed with clinical depression, belief in a concerned God can improve response to medical treatment, according to a paper in the Journal of Clinical Psychology. (read the full story)
Conventional antidepressant treatments generally require three to four weeks to become effective, thus the discovery of treatments with a more rapid onset is a major goal of biological psychiatry. The first drug found to produce rapid improvement in mood was the NMDA glutamate receptor antagonist, ketamine. In a new issue of Biological Psychiatry, published by […]
The next advance in treating major depression may relate to a group of brain chemicals that are involved in virtually all our brain activity, according to a study published today in Biological Psychiatry. The study is co-authored by Drs. Andrea J. Levinson and Zafiris J. Daskalakis of the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH). […]
Obesity appears to be associated with an increased risk of depression, and depression also appears associated with an increased risk of developing obesity, according to a meta-analysis of previously published studies in the March issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. “Both depression and obesity are widely spread problems with major […]
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