WASHINGTON—A drug that has been shown to prevent HIV infection in a significant number of cases must be combined with behavioral approaches if the U.S. health care establishment is to succeed in reducing the spread of the virus, according to the American Psychological Association. “Exclusive reliance on a drug to prevent HIV or any sexually [...]
WASHINGTON—In the eyes of young college men, it’s more unethical to use steroids to get an edge in sports than it is to use prescription stimulants to enhance one’s grades, according to new research published by the American Psychological Association. And students who had themselves used stimulants without a prescription were more inclined to see [...]
Nursing-home patients are typically excluded from randomized clinical trials, but a cohort study of antipsychotics in this population reveals frightening results. Do elderly residents who receive antipsychotic drugs in nursing homes have a greater risk of dying than their nonmedicated neighbors? Yes, and the severity of the risk depends on which drug they are taking. [...]
Leslie Sinclair Clinicians must weigh the risks of untreated depression during pregnancy and possible adverse effects of SSRIs. Do the risks of antidepressant therapy during pregnancy outweigh the advantages? Does a pregnant woman’s use of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) do harm to her baby? Those are questions researchers based at the Department of Psychiatry [...]
Awake mental replay of past experiences is essential for making informed choices, suggests a study in rats. Without it, the animals’ memory-based decision-making faltered, say scientists funded by the National Institutes of Health. The researchers blocked learning from, and acting on, past experience by selectively suppressing replay – encoded as split-second bursts of neuronal activity [...]
National Institutes of Health researchers have reversed behaviors in mice resembling two of the three core symptoms of autism spectrum disorders (ASD). An experimental compound, called GRN-529, increased social interactions and lessened repetitive self-grooming behavior in a strain of mice that normally display such autism-like behaviors, the researchers say. GRN-529 is a member of a [...]
Researchers have turned up a new clue to the workings of a possible environmental factor in autism spectrum disorders (ASDs): fathers were four times more likely than mothers to transmit tiny, spontaneous mutations to their children with the disorders. Moreover, the number of such transmitted genetic glitches increased with paternal age. The discovery may help [...]
A technique combining computer-based pattern recognition and brain imaging data accurately distinguished teens at risk for mental disorders from those with low risk and may someday be useful in predicting risk in individuals, according to an NIMH-funded study published February 15, 2012, in the journal PLoS One. Background Research on risk for mental disorders generally [...]
ARLINGTON, Va. (March 27, 2012)—The number of U.S. medical students choosing psychiatry as a specialty has been declining for the past six years, according to a report from the National Resident Matching Program. The American Psychiatric Association expressed concern that this trend is occurring as the nation faces a shortage of psychiatrists. The association encourages [...]
The brain appears to be wired more like the checkerboard streets of New York City than the curvy lanes of Columbia, Md., suggests a new brain imaging study. The most detailed images, to date, reveal a pervasive 3D grid structure with no diagonals, say scientists funded by the National Institutes of Health. “Far from being [...]
A personality profile marked by overly gregarious yet anxious behavior is rooted in abnormal development of a circuit hub buried deep in the front center of the brain, say scientists at the National Institutes of Health. They used three different types of brain imaging to pinpoint the suspect brain area in people with Williams syndrome, [...]
Criteria for a broadened syndrome of acute onset obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) have been proposed by a National Institutes of Health scientist and her colleagues. The syndrome, Pediatric Acute-onset Neuropsychiatric Syndrome (PANS), includes children and teens that suddenly develop on-again/off-again OCD symptoms or abnormal eating behaviors, along with other psychiatric symptoms – without any known [...]