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One in four caregivers for ill or elderly relatives and friends said in a survey released on Tuesday that they suffer from depression, a figure far higher than for the U.S. population in general.
By comparison, 9 percent of all Americans are estimated to suffer from depression, according to a study released last year by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. [continue reading…]
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New University of Otago, Christchurch, Research has identified common factors in the far-reaching childhood behavioural conditions, Conduct Disorder (CD) and Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD), including maternal smoking during pregnancy and exposure to family violence.
Data for the study was drawn from the long-running Christchurch Health and Development Study and results were published in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.
Lead researcher Dr Joe Boden says the study examined the influence of a number of common childhood social and environmental factors which contribute to the development of CD and ODD.
Boden says the disorders frequently co-occur, so individuals with symptoms of one disorder have a strong likelihood of having symptoms of the other. [continue reading…]
Depressive patients carrying the risk allele show volume reduction in certain regions of the hippocampus. Photo: MPI for Psychiatry
Max Planck scientists uncover surprising genetic links. Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Psychiatry in Munich have compared the genomes of a total of 4,088 patients and 11,001 healthy control subjects from all over the world and identified a new risk gene variant for depression.
They were able to show for the first time that physiologically measurable changes can be observed in the brains of healthy carriers of this risk allele. Those changes affect a transporter protein involved in the production of an important neuronal transmitter. Given that traditional drugs interact with similar transporter molecules, the researchers are pinning great hopes on this factor as the target structure of future antidepressant medication. Scientists throughout the world have been trying to identify the genetic causes of depression for many years. [continue reading…]
Source: Alzheimer’s Association
The Alzheimer’s Association Facts and Figures report details the growing prevalence and escalating impact of Alzheimer’s and dementia on individuals, caregivers, families, government and the nation’s healthcare system.
