By Health Center: Mental%20Health
Mental Decline Thwarted in Aging Rats
Scientists have discovered a compound that restores the capacity to form new memories in aging rats, likely by improving the survival of newborn neurons in the brain's memory hub. The research, funded in part by the National Institutes of Health, has turned up clues to a neuroprotective mechanism that could lead to a treatment for Alzheimer's disease.
Magnetic Stimulation Scores Modest Success as Antidepressant
Some depressed patients who don't respond to or tolerate antidepressant medications may benefit from a non-invasive treatment that stimulates the brain with a pulsing electromagnet, a study suggests. This first industry-independent, multi-site, randomized, tightly controlled trial of repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) found that it produced significant antidepressant effects in a subgroup of patients, with few side effects.
Impaired Brain Connections Traced to Schizophrenia Mutation
The strongest known recurrent genetic cause of schizophrenia impairs communications between the brain's decision-making and memory hubs, resulting in working memory deficits, according to a study in mice. "For the first time, we have a powerful animal model that shows us how genetics affects brain circuitry, at the level of single neurons, to produce a learning and memory deficit linked to schizophrenia," explained Thomas R. Insel, M.D., director of the National Institute of Mental Health (NI...
Drug Abuse and Obesity Thought to Share Common Mechanisms
Some of the same brain mechanisms that fuel drug addiction in humans accompany the emergence of compulsive eating behaviors and the development of obesity in animals, according to research funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), a component of the National Institutes of Health.
FDA Approves Saphris to Treat Schizophrenia and Bipolar Disorder
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved Saphris tablets (asenapine) to treat adults with schizophrenia, a chronic, severe and disabling brain disorder, and to treat bipolar I disorder in adults, a serious psychiatric disorder that causes shifts in a person's mood, energy, and ability to function.
FDA: Boxed Warning on Serious Mental Health Events to be Required for Chantix and Zyban
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today announced that it is requiring manufacturers to put a Boxed Warning on the prescribing information for the smoking cessation drugs Chantix (varenicline) and Zyban (buproprion). The warning will highlight the risk of serious mental health events including changes in behavior, depressed mood, hostility, and suicidal thoughts when taking these drugs.
Schizophrenia Related to Flow of Potassium Into Cells
A study on schizophrenia has implicated machinery that maintains the flow of potassium in cells and revealed a potential molecular target for new treatments. Expression of a previously unknown form of a key such potassium channel was found to be 2.5 fold higher than normal in the brain memory hub of people with the chronic mental illness and linked to a hotspot of genetic variation.
FDA Issues Public Health Advisory on Chantix (varenicline)
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today issued a Public Health Advisory to alert health care providers, patients, and caregivers to new safety warnings concerning Chantix (varenicline), a prescription medication used to help patients stop smoking. On Nov. 20, 2007, FDA issued an Early Communication to the public and health care providers that the agency was evaluating postmarketing adverse event reports on Chantix related to changes in behavior, agitation, depressed mood, suicidal i...
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