psychiatry
j7uy5 | June 25, 2009PhysioProf commented about this back in 2006 after Alex Palazzo 's
post,
href="http://scienceblogs.com/transcript/2006/12/silent_mutations_inactivates_p.php">A
silent mutation affects pain perception? That post discussed
mutations that affect pain perception. Now, there is a bit
more information available about potential commercial developments
stemming from this line of genetic research.
href="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=aC2haw8NOHW0">Firewalker's
Faulty Gene May Shake Up Market for Painkillers
By Dermot Doherty
June 25 (Bloomberg)
A Pakistani…
ddobbs | June 17, 2009Big psych news of the day is that a big JAMA study debunked the "depression gene" -- that is, this big new study (by Risch et alia, in JAMA, today) found that, contrary to a famous earlier big study (Caspi et alia, in Science, 2003), the short ("bad") form of a particular gene called 5-HTT does NOT make a person more vulnerable to depression. Or, to flip it:: Caspi 2003 had found that having a short version of 5-HTT, which affects processing of serotonin, put someone at more risk of depression if they experienced (as adults) repeated stressful life events. Risch 2009, crunching data from a…
ddobbs | June 16, 2009Neuroskeptic offers an elegant unpeeling of a study seeming specifically designed to find a marketing-friendly distinction for a drug -- Abilify -- otherwise undistinguished.
Suppose you were a drug company, and you've invented a new drug. It's OK, but it's no better than the competition. How do you convince people to buy it?
You need a selling point - something that sets your product apart. Fortunately, with drugs, you have plenty of options. You could look into the pharmacology - the chemistry of how your drug works in the body - and find something unique there. Then, all you need to do is…
ddobbs | June 16, 2009SciAm ponders evidence that fish hatcheries are watering down the trout and salmon gene pool.
Matt Yglesias looks at one of many lies being told by those opposing health-care reform â confirming Salon's prediction that the opponents of reform are not going to play nice. See also The American Prospect on How Big Pharma Intends to Kill the Public Option. I should add this campaign is having an effect: On the radio this morning I heard NPR Steve Insky Inskeep vigorously press the "public plan as trojan horse" attack on Kathleen Sibelius; I can only hope he'll as vigorously ask people such as…
j7uy5 | June 16, 2009This is one of those "interesting, wonder if it'll ever pan out"
studies. So far it has been presented at a meeting, but not
published. The study was summarized in an article on
Medpage Today (free registration):
href="http://www.medpagetoday.com/MeetingCoverage/APSS/14689#ayk">APSS:
Depression and Insomnia May Be Genetically Linked
SEATTLE, June 12 -- Insomnia and mood disorders may share a
common genetic pathway, which could explain both depression and
wakefulness observed in teens, researchers here said.
In a study of more than 1,400 twin pairs, about a third of those who
were…
ddobbs | June 15, 2009
Photo: Tyler Hicks, via Scientific American
What if you could predict which troops are most likely to get PTSD from combat exposure -- and takes steps to either bolster them mentally or keep them out of combat situations? A new study suggests we could make a start on that right now -- and cut combat PTSD rates in half by simply keeping the least mentally and physically fit soldiers away from combat zones.
The study was part of the Millenium Study, huge, prospective study in which US Department of Defense researchers have been tracking the physical and mental health of nearly 100,000 service…
ddobbs | June 3, 2009Forgive my recent blogopause. i was fishing, and then traveling, and then writing rather head-down intensely -- all activities I have trouble mixing with blogging and social media such as Twitter, which I've also left idle these last days.
So what gives with all that? I often find it awkward to switch between blogging or twittering and engaging deeply immersive physical activities. This hiatus, for instance, started when I went fishing last Tuesday on Lake Champlain for salmon -- a piscatorial retreat before a highly engaging work trip to NY, DC, and environs to talk to scientists and see my…
grrlscientist | June 2, 2009tags: Post-Traumatic Embitterment Disorder, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Adaptation disorder, stress reaction, Adjustment disorder, Negative life events, psychology, behavior, psychiatry, peer-reviewed paper
[larger view]
In this economy, nearly everyone has experienced unemployment, bankruptcy, foreclosure, divorce, or some combination thereof. But roughly 1-2% of these people become so stressed out by these losses that "they can barely function other than to ruminate about their circumstances," according to Dr. Michael Linden, the German psychiatrist who described and named Post-…
j7uy5 | June 1, 2009Some may recall Brodmann
Area 25
(a part of the brain also known as the subgenual area or area
subgenualis). It was mentioned by Orli Van Mourik (
id="a028464"
href="http://scienceblogs.com/neurontic/2006/08/much_ado_about_area_25.php">Much
Ado About Area 25) in 2006, and by me in 2008 (
href="http://scienceblogs.com/corpuscallosum/2008/09/update_on_deep_brain_stimulati.php">Update
on Deep Brain Stimulation). David Dobbs profiled one of the
key researchers, Helen Mayberg, (
href="http://scienceblogs.com/smoothpebbles/2006/08/neurologist_helen_mayberg_in_s.php">Neurologist
Helen…
bioephemera | May 30, 2009In the June Atlantic Monthly, Joshua Wolf Shenk has a long, moving article about what may be the longitudinal study of all longitudinal studies - the Harvard Study of Adult Development (Grant Study), begun in 1937. Its creator Arlie Beck planned to track 268 "healthy, well-adjusted" men from their sophomore year at Harvard through careers, marriage, families, retirement and eventually death - and somehow, from this glut of longitudinal data, to glean the secrets of "successful living."
But the portrait Shenk paints is as full of pathos as it is of success.
Delving into the case files, now…
ddobbs | April 29, 2009Amid my flu frenzy I missed Vaughn Bell's excellent consideration of CIA psychology through the declassified memos:
I've been reading the recently released CIA memos on the interrogation of 'war on terror' detainees. The memos make clear that the psychological impact of the process is the most important aim of interrogation, from the moment the detainee is captured through the various phases of interrogation.
Although disturbing, they're interesting for what they reveal about the CIA's psychologists and their approach to interrogation.
As Vaughn notes,
A couple of the memos note that the…
ddobbs | April 23, 2009Reading the Mindreading Studies - Science Progress seeks a handle on fMRI hype, hope, and horizons
The evolving Swine Flu story [Effect Measure] The skinny on a scary run of deadly swine flu, from people who've been doing this a while.
Green Issues Fade Is green losing its lustre?
Eli Lilly Tops List of Drug-Company Pay to Vermont Docs Altogether, 78 drug companies spent just shy of $3 million dollars in payments to health professionals in Vermont last year. This is a state of about 600,000 people, and only a few thousand doctors. Payments to psychiatrists, for instance, totaled $479,306.19…
ddobbs | April 23, 2009In Predicting the determined self-castrator Vaughn Bell links and looks at
a surprising study looking at psychological attributes that predict which castration enthusiasts who will actually go on to remove their own testicles, in contrast to those who just fantasise about it.
That's as far as I got; I couldn't summon the strength to read further, but maybe you can.
Those interested will definitely want to check out the essay with which David Foster Wallace opened his essay collection Consider the Lobster "Big Red Son" opens
The American Academy All emergency medicine confirms it: each year…
ddobbs | April 20, 2009Who stands most at risk of PTSD? A new study of PTSD in US veterans of the current Iraq and Afghanistan wars suggests that you can identify the most vulnerable -- soldiers who stand 2 to 3 times the risk of their peers -- with fairly simple measures of mental and physical health.
The study, conducted by the U.S. Navy's Tyler Smith and collegues, is part of an ongoing longitudinal study of over 150,000 U.S. soldiers. The Millennium Cohort Study began collected comprehensive health data on U.S. soldiers in 2001. This study draws on that data to compare health status before deployment to Iraq…
ddobbs | April 18, 2009Vaughn Bell, looking at the recent reports on torture, finds unsettling information about the participation of psychologists and physicians:
The Washington Post has an article exploring recently released 'war on terror' interrogation memos, showing that "psychologists, physicians and other health officials" played a key part in interrogations widely condemned as torture.
It's an interesting revelation because during the long debates, and some say heal-dragging, over whether the American Psychological Association should ban its members from participation, one of their main arguments was that…
ddobbs | April 13, 2009One hopes there's a good explanation for this somewhere: According to this AP story, the number of people collecting VA benefits for being POWs exceeds -- by hundreds -- the number of actual POWs ever held (much less still alive). From the AP:
Prisoners of war suffer in ways most veterans don't, enduring humiliating forced marches, torture or other trauma that may haunt them long afterward. In partial recompense, the government extends them special benefits, from free parking and tax breaks to priority in medical treatment.
Trouble is, some of the much-admired recipients of these benefits…
j7uy5 | April 9, 2009This obviously is the second part of the part I put up a couple of days
ago:
href="http://scienceblogs.com/corpuscallosum/2009/04/reset_button_for_dsm_diagnosis.php">Reset
Button for DSM Diagnosis? (Part 1). It may not make much
sense unless you read the first part.
In order to understand the idea behind the use of the FFM, instead of
the current diagnostic criteria, it helps to look at an
illustration. Although the original journal article is viewable
by registration only, it appears that the pop-up illustration can be
viewed by anyone who has the URL. I think
href="http://ajp.…
ddobbs | April 8, 2009When you propose that we are overdiagnosing PTSD in vets, you run into not only a lot of flak but many offerings of evidence suggesting that we're missing a lot of cases. Since publishing my article on PTSD, I've received those arguments directly in comments, and on Wednesday, April 8, Salon published an article, "I am under a lot of pressure to not diagnose PTSD," by Michael de Yoanna and Mark Benjamin, that offers unsettling evidence that at least some doctors working for the VA are being pressed to not diagnose PTSD in combat vets.
So which is it? Are we under- or overdiagnosing PTSD in…
ddobbs | April 7, 2009I've got a story about Helen Mayberg's work on depression circuits in the new Scientific American Mind. I first wrote about Mayberg in the Times Magazine three years ago, in an article about her experimental use of deep brain stimulation to treat depression, and I later profiled her for SciAm Mind. This new article looks at her effort to further refine the neurocircuitry associated with major depression.
Working with fellow imaging experts Heidi Johansen-Berg and Tim Behrens of the University of Oxford and others, Mayberg used DTI to produce detailed images of area 25's "tractography," the…
j7uy5 | April 7, 2009The American Psychiatric Association is considering whether to
href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/05/magazine/05wwln-safire-t.html">reboot
their diagnosis machine. In 1952, the Diagnostic and Statistical
Manual (DSM) was published. In 1980, the third edition was
published. The third edition was important, because for the first
time, it required the use of specific criteria for establishing a
diagnosis. (See
href="http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/01/03/050103fa_fact">this
New Yorker article for a description of the history of DSM and the
development of the descriptive…