Published: January 21, 2008
Researchers at the Montreal Neurological Institute of McGill University have identified the neurological basis of depression in male athletes with persisting post-concussion symptoms. The study, published in this week’s issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, has important clinical implications for the treatment of individuals who have suffered a cerebral concussion.
Depression is one of a number of persisting symptoms experienced by athletes following sports concussion. The prevalence of depression in the general population is around 5%, whilst the prevalence of depression in head trauma patients can reach an astounding 40 %. [continue reading…]
Published: January 18, 2008
Matters of the mind can affect matters of the heart. A new study from Université de Montréal and McGill University researchers has found that major anxiety and/or depression, can double a coronary artery disease patient’s chances of repeated heart ailments. This is one of the first studies to focus on patients with stable coronary artery disease – not those who were hospitalized for events such as a heart attack.
“We found that both major depression and generalized anxiety disorder were more common in cardiac patients than in the general community,” said principal investigator Nancy Frasure-Smith, a professor at McGill’s Department of Psychiatry and a researcher at the Centre hospitalier de l’Université de Montréal (CHUM) and Montreal Heart Institute. “On average, cardiac patients without these disorders had about a 13 percent chance of a repeated cardiac event over two years, compared to 26 percent of those with either major depression or anxiety.” [continue reading…]
Published: January 18, 2008
In a study that may significantly advance the understanding of how cognitive-behavioral therapy affects the brain, researchers have shown that significant changes in activity in certain regions of the brain can be produced with as little as four weeks of daily therapy in patients with obsessive-
compulsive disorder (OCD). The discovery could have important clinical implications, according to principal investigator Sanjaya Saxena, M.D., Director of the Obsessive-Compulsive Disorders Program at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) School of Medicine, whose findings are published on line this week in the journal Molecular Psychiatry.
“The study is exciting because it tells us more about how cognitive-behavioral therapy works for OCD and shows that both robust clinical improvements and changes in brain activity occur after only four weeks of intensive treatment,” said Saxena. [continue reading…]
Published: January 17, 2008
AÂ new device developed by the Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University may allow patients to take a brief, inexpensive test that could be administered as part of a routine yearly checkup at a doctor’s office to detect mild cognitive impairment (MCI) — often the earliest stage of Alzheimer’s. The device is expected to be commercialized later this year.
Click here to see a video about Detect
[continue reading…]
