Category: Mental Health

Categories : Mental HealthTags :

Depression Genes Result in More Physical Symptoms

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People who have a higher genetic risk of clinical depression are more likely to experience physical symptoms such as chronic pain, fatigue and migraine, researchers have found.

Depression is a serious disorder with lifetime risks of poor health, according to Dr Enda Byrne from UQ’s Institute for Molecular Bioscience.

“A large proportion of people with clinically-diagnosed depression present initially to doctors with physical symptoms that cause distress and can severely impact on people’s quality of life,” Dr Byrne said.

“Our research aimed to better understand the biological basis of depression and found that assessing a broad range of symptoms was important.

“Ultimately, our research aimed to better understand the genetic risks and generate more accurate risk scores for use in research and healthcare.”

Despite recent breakthroughs, Dr Byrne said it was difficult to find more genetic risk factors because of the range of patient ages, their symptoms, responses to treatment and additional mental and physical disorders.

“Previous genetic studies have included participants who report having seen a doctor for worries or tension – but who may not meet the ‘official’ criteria for a diagnosis of depression,” Dr Byrne said

Published in JAMA Psychiatry, the study analysed data from more than 15 000 volunteers who provided details of their mental health history, depression symptoms and a DNA sample using a saliva kit.

“We wanted to see how genetic risk factors based on clinical definitions of depression differed – from those based on a single question to those based on a doctor’s consultation about mental health problems,” Dr Byrne said.

The study found that participants with higher genetic risk for clinical depression are more likely to experience physical symptoms such as chronic pain, fatigue and migraine.

 “It is also linked to higher rates of somatic symptoms – that is, physical symptoms that cause distress and can severely impact on people’s quality of life,” Dr Byrne said.

“Our results highlight the need for larger studies investigating the broad range of symptoms experienced by people with depression.”

Source: University of Queensland

Categories : Mental HealthTags :

Simple Talking Therapy Relieves Loneliness in Elderly

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A simple form of talking therapy, delivered telephonically by trained support workers, successfully reduced loneliness in older people left isolated during the pandemic, according to initial results from a new study.

The intervention lasted for eight weeks and was designed in partnership with older people. People were contacted weekly and were encouraged to maintain their social contacts and to stick to a daily schedule, which included both routine and enjoyable activities.

The intervention developed in the BASIL-C19 (Behavioural Activation in Social Isolation) study lasted for eight weeks and was designed in partnership with older people who had direct experience of social isolation, loneliness and depression during the pandemic.  

The importance of social connection was highlighted by the COVID pandemic and its restrictions. Pre-pandemic research identified 1.4 million older adults in England as experiencing significant loneliness with impacts on their mental health.  Research since the pandemic shows that rates of loneliness and depression have increased, particularly for those who were self-isolating.

A team of leading researchers and clinicians anticipated the impacts of the pandemic on mental health and re-focussed their research expertise to examine the psychological impact of enforced isolation, disruption to daily routines, loss of social contact and loneliness.

They designed a very brief telephone delivered intervention to combat depression and loneliness.  Older people appreciated the offer of telephone contact and they found the intervention to be helpful in maintaining daily routines and social contact.

In the preliminary results, published in PLOS Medicine, the research team found evidence of improved mental health, and a strong indication that loneliness rates were substantially reduced in the first three months. A much larger trial follow-on trial is now currently recruiting over 600 older people and is the largest study ever undertaken to tackle loneliness and depression in this way.  

Source: University of York

Categories : Mental HealthTags :

A Daily Dose of Sunshine Improves Mood and Sleep Quality

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Getting a daily dose of sunlight can improve a person’s mood and sleep quality, a new study has found.

A research team led by Monash University PhD student Angus Burns and Associate Professor Sean Cain conducted a study published in the upcoming December issue of the Journal of Affective Disorders.

The study examined 400 000 participants in the UK Biobank programme, and found that a lack of daytime light exposure was a risk factor for depressive symptoms, poor mood, and insomnia.

Burns said that most light and health-related messaging focusses on avoiding light at night, as it disrupts the circadian rhythm, but this study highlights the importance of getting enough daylight to ensure our bodies function optimally.

“In this study, we observed that the greater time spent in outdoor light during the day was associated with fewer depressive symptoms, lower odds of using antidepressant medication, better sleep and fewer symptoms of insomnia,” Burns said.

“These results may be explained by the impacts of light on the circadian system and the direct effects of light on mood centres in the brain.”

Associate Professor Cain said a few small changes to a person’s daily routine could help improve their mood, sleep, and energy levels.

“People now spend most waking hours in intermediate, artificial lighting conditions, due to reduced sunlight exposure and relatively bright night-time light exposure,” he said.

“In this study, we observed that greater time spent in outdoor light was associated with better mood outcomes, better quality sleep, and ease of wakening.

“Insufficient exposure to daytime light could be a key factor contributing to poor mood and sleep outcomes in depressive disorders. My general advice for everyone is simple: when the sun is out, get as much light as you can, but after it sets, keep it dark. Your body will thank you.”

Source: Monash University

Categories : Mental HealthTags :

Sleep Deprivation Affects Emotional Control but not Processing

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While sleep deprivation really messes with mood, a new study in PlosOne shows it does not interfere with their ability to evaluate emotional situations.

Researchers found that, contrary to the assumption that feeling more negative affects people’s experiences of their environment, 24 hours without sleep did not affect participants’ ability to process emotional words and images.

“People do become less happy through sleep deprivation, but it’s not affecting how they are processing emotional stimuli in their environment,” said lead author Anthony Stenson, WSU psychology doctoral student.

The researchers found that sleep deprivation does not numb people to emotional situations, but it reduces their ability to control their own emotional responses, with implications for healthcare workers and other professions who must deal with sleep loss.

For the study, about 60 adult participants spent four consecutive days in a sleep centre at the WSU Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine. They were allowed to sleep normally the first night and then given a set of baseline tests to judge their mood as well as their emotional regulation and processing ability. Then, they were divided into one group of 40 people staying awake the second night, and a control group of 20 allowed a normal sleep period. The tests were then re-administered at different intervals.

The emotional regulation and processing tests both involved viewing a series of images with positive and negative emotional connotations. In the emotional regulation tests, participants were given a prompt to help them recontextualise negative images before seeing them and asked to control their feelings. The sleep-deprived group had greater difficulty reducing the emotion they felt when instructed to do so.

The processing tests involved responding to words and images with emotional content, for example rating the emotions conveyed by a smiling family, a growling dog or a crying child. All participants performed similarly on these tests whether they were sleep deprived or not.

The ability to process emotional content and the ability to control one’s emotions are distinct and important, especially for some professions, said co-author Paul Whitney, a WSU professor of psychology.
“I don’t think we want our first responders being numb to the emotional nature of the situations they encounter, and it looks like they are not,” he said. “On the other hand, reacting normally to emotional situations, but not being able to control your own emotions, could be one reason sleep loss sometimes produces catastrophic errors in stressful situations.”

Previous studies have largely focused on the impacts of sleep deprivation on ‘cold’ cognitive tasks, which are supposedly emotionally neutral tasks like recalling facts. These studies have also found that regulation, considered a ‘top-down’ cognitive process, is a major problem with cold cognitive tasks. Mental flexibility, for example, is compromised by sleep deprivation, an ability emergency room doctors use in dealing with unexpected situations.

The current study shows that top-down regulation is a problem as well with ‘hot’ or emotional cognitive processes. Future research is needed to understand whether the effects of sleep loss on the two top-down processes are linked.

Source: Washington State University

Categories : Allergies Mental HealthTags :

A Link Between Mental Health and Allergies

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Researchers have reported finding a link between allergic diseases and mental health conditions, but one which was likely not causal.

The analysis of data from the UK Biobank was published in Clinical and Experimental Allergy. The researchers used a genetic instrument derived from associated variants for a broad allergic disease phenotype to test for causal relationships with various mental health outcomes. They also investigated whether these relationships were specific to atopic dermatitis (AD), asthma or hayfever.

The researchers found that people with asthma, atopic dermatitis, and hay fever also had a higher likelihood of having depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, or neuroticism. However neither category appeared to play a role in causing the other. Nevertheless, future studies should investigate whether interventions that aim to improve allergic diseases might also have an effect on mental health (and vice versa).

“Our research does not rule out a potential causal effect upon the progression of disease, which is yet to be investigated and could help uncover novel treatment strategies for allergic disease or mental health traits,” said lead author Ashley Budu-Aggrey, PhD, of the University of Bristol.

Senior author Hannah Sallis, MSc, PhD, added that the research used a combination of approaches and data from several studies. “This helps to strengthen our confidence in the findings,” she said. “Establishing whether allergic disease causes mental health problems, or vice versa, is important to ensure that resources and treatment strategies are targeted appropriately.”

Source: Wiley

Categories : Implants and Prostheses Mental HealthTags :

A Novel Brain Implant Relieves Treatment-resistant Depression

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A proof-of-principle trial has shown that an electrical implant wired into the brain can detect and treat depression, thanks to positive results for the first patient to be fitted with the device.

The patient, Sarah (36), says the matchbox-sized implant in her skull has turned her life around since it was fitted a year ago. Her depression persisted despite anti-depressants and electroconvulsive therapy.

Sarah said that “any kind of relief” was better than her suffering. “My daily life had become so restricted. I felt tortured each day. I barely moved or did anything.”

The device, including its battery, was inserted into her skull beneath the scalp and holes were drilled for wires into her brain.

 Recalling how the implant changed her life, she said: “When the implant was first turned on, my life took an immediate upward turn. My life was pleasant again.

“Within a few weeks, the suicidal thoughts disappeared. When I was in the depths of depression all I saw is what was ugly.”

After 15 months, she has so far experienced no side effects from the device.

“In the early few months, the lessening of the depression was so abrupt, and I wasn’t sure if it would last,” she said. “But it has lasted. And I’ve come to realise that the device really augments the therapy and self-care I’ve learned while being a patient here at UCSF.”

The treatment however has to be personalised to the individual and their unique brain circuitry. Researcher Dr Katherine Scangos, a psychiatrist at University of California, San Francisco, said locating the ‘depression circuits’ in Sarah’s brain was what made the innovation possible.
“We found one location, which is an area called the ventral striatum, where stimulation consistently eliminated her feelings of depression.

“And we also found a brain activity area in the amygdala that could predict when her symptoms were most severe.”

Dr Scangos, who has enrolled two other patients in the trial and hopes to recruit nine more, said they need to repeat the work, looking for any changes in biomarkers or brain circuits. 
She said, “We didn’t know if we were going to be able to treat her depression at all because it was so severe. So in that sense we are really excited about this. It’s so needed in the field right now.”

However, the researchers stress that much more research is needed to see if this novel treatment is effective in other patients, and if it can be applied to other disorders.

The study is reported in Nature Medicine.

Source: BBC News

Categories : Mental HealthTags :

Ketamine Holds Promise as a Treatment for Depression

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New research with low doses of the anaesthetic ketamine, recently approved by the FDA for use as an antidepressant, shows the drug could provide longer-lasting relief.

Depression is often treated with selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, or SSRIs, but they can take six weeks before symptom relief begins, and in up to 30% of people they are ineffective.

For the past two decades, however, psychiatrists have been using low doses of ketamine, normally a veterinary anaesthetic, to treat patients whose depression has not responded to other treatments. It also has hallucinogenic effects and is sometimes abused as a street drug. Its use in psychiatry was long considered “off label,” but in 2019 the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved a nasal spray version for use as an antidepressant, followed in 2020 by expanding the approval to include patients with depression who are having suicidal thoughts or have recently tried to take their own lives or otherwise harm themselves.

The approval opened up new possibilities as well as new lines of research that may change the way psychiatrists think about depression. Dr Benjamin Brody, an assistant professor of clinical psychiatry at Cornell University is heading a programme exploring ketamine to treat the condition. “What’s so exciting about ketamine is not only that it works for people whose symptoms are not responding to traditional treatments, but it also works much more rapidly — in days or even hours,” says Dr. Brody, who developed the protocol before the spray was approved, and still prefers infusions because they allow him to tailor each dose to a patient’s weight (while the spray only comes in two pre-set doses). “For some people, ketamine really does provide almost immediate relief. That’s wonderful and very gratifying to see.”

One problem with ketamine, however, is that its positive effects wear off within weeks or months. “Another major issue,” says Dr. Brody, “is that we have so little information on the long-term effects, or what type of treatment patients will need to remain well.”

Dr Conor Liston, associate professor of neuroscience in the Feil Family Brain and Mind Research Institute, is exploring the question of how ketamine works in the long term to create more synapses in a region of the brain called the medial prefrontal cortex. The new connections seem temporary, but if they could be augmented with another treatment, a person might be permanently cured of depression.

For a study published last year in Science, Dr. Liston and his team worked with mice that exhibited depression-like behavior, as determined by their reaction to a stressful situation. A mouse that freezes more than it attempts to wriggle free, known as “motivated escape behaviour”, displays an important feature of depression. “Mice are not people, and many symptoms that we think of as core to depression — sadness, hopelessness — are hard or probably even impossible to imagine modelling in a mouse,” said Dr Liston. “But there are some things we can measure.”

Dr Liston examined the mice’s brains before administering ketamine. As predicted, lacking motivated escape behaviour was correlated with lost synapses in the medial prefrontal cortex. Just hours after one dose, the mice no longer exhibited that ‘depressed’ behaviour and their brains showed that synapses had regrown. But just like humans, depressive symptoms returned days later and the new synapses had disappeared.

Interestingly, the reduction in depressive behaviour occurred before the new synapses appeared, meaning they could not have caused the immediate relief. However, the new synapses were apparently necessary for maintaining the antidepressant effects long after the ketamine dose. If those synapses were eliminated, the mice quickly became depressed again. “We think that some kind of intervention aimed at boosting the restoration of those synapses or enhancing their survival over time could be useful for augmenting ketamine’s antidepressant effects,” said Dr. Liston, adding that it could be another drug or an intervention as simple as exercise or improved sleep, two known factors in synapse survival.

Dr Liston noted that his team’s work is just a first step and more basic science needs to be done before work involving human subjects. 

Source: Weill Cornell Medical College

Categories : Mental HealthTags :

Cannabis Use Linked to Increased Mental Health Risk

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Individuals with a history of using cannabis have a much greater risk of developing mental health problems including anxiety and depression, as well as more severe mental illnesses, according to new research.

The findings indicate the need to emphasise the importance of general practitioners to continue enquiring about recreational drug use.

While there is extensive research linking cannabis use to severe mental illnesses such as schizophrenia and psychosis, associations are less clear between cannabis use as described in patient’s GP records and mental health problems such as anxiety.

In a new study, published in Psychological Medicine, researchers reported a strong link between general practice recorded cannabis use and mental ill health in one of the largest cohorts ever studied.

Senior author Dr Clara Humpston said: “Cannabis is often considered to be one of the ‘safer’ drugs and has also shown promise in medical therapies, leading to calls for it be legalised globally. Although we are unable to establish a direct causal relationship, our findings suggest we should continue to exercise caution since the notion of cannabis being a safe drug may well be mistaken.”

Dr Joht Singh Chandan said: “The research reaffirms the need to ensure a public health approach to recreational drug use continues to be adopted across the UK. We must continue to progress measures to improve the prevention and detection of drug use as well as implement the appropriate supportive measures in an equitable manner to prevent the secondary negative health consequences.”

Drawing on primary care data from the IQVIA Medical Research Database (IMRD-UK), analysis showed that following the first recorded use of cannabis, patients were three times more likely to develop common mental health problems such as depression and anxiety. In addition, they were almost 7 times more likely to develop severe mental illnesses such as psychosis or schizophrenia.

The dataset included records from 787 GP practices gathered between 1995 and 2018. The researchers were able to include data from 28 218 patients with a recorded exposure to cannabis. These were matched to 56 208 patients who had not been using cannabis and controlled for factors such as sex and age.

The cannabis users also had much higher rates of having a recorded history of using other drugs such as heroin, cocaine and amphetamines. The next steps will be to investigate levels of cannabis use or the potency of ingredients.

Source: University of Birmingham

Categories : Diet and Nutrition Mental HealthTags :

Fruit and Vegetable Consumption Directly Increases Happiness

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Fruit and vegetable consumption and exercise can directly increase levels of self-reported happiness, according to findings from a new study.

Public health campaigns encourage healthier diets and exercise by virtue of the well-studied link between lifestyle and wellbeing, and will benefit from new findings published by the Journal of Happiness Studies showing that there is also a positive causation from lifestyle to life satisfaction.

This research is the first to identify the causation of happiness, the consumption of fruit and vegetables and exercising are related, rather than generalising a correlation. The researchers, Dr Adelina Gschwandtner (Kent’s School of Economics), Dr Sarah Jewell and Professor Uma Kambhampati (both from the University of Reading’s School of Economics), used an instrumental variable approach to filter out any effect from happiness to lifestyle. This approach revealed that it is the effect of fruit and vegetables and exercising that makes people happy and not the other way round.

The findings show individuals’ ability to delay gratification and apply self-control plays a major role in influencing lifestyle decisions, which in turn has a positive impact on wellbeing. The research also shows that men appear to exercise more, and women eat more fruit and vegetables.

Dr Gschwandtner said: ‘Behavioural nudges that help the planning self to reinforce long-term objectives are likely to be especially helpful in maintaining a healthy lifestyle. If a better lifestyle not only makes us healthier but also happier, then it is a clear win-win situation.’

Professor Kambhampati said: ‘There has been a bigger shift in recent years for healthier lifestyle choices. To establish that eating more fruit and vegetables and exercising can increase happiness as well as offer health benefits is a major development. This may also prove useful for policy campaigns around environment and sustainability.’

Source: University of Kent

Categories : Mental HealthTags :

Impacts of Sleep Deprivation Linger a Week Later

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A Polish study found that, after a week-long recovery from sleep deprivation, only reaction speed is restored to baseline levels while other functions are still lacking.

The negative impacts of sleep deficiency are well known, and include deficits in attention and memory, increased risk of car accidents, heart problems, and other medical issues. However, while some research has addressed recovery after chronic sleep deprivation, it has been unclear how much time is needed to fully recover from prolonged periods of deficient sleep.

To shed more light on this topic, Jeremi Ochab of the Jagiellonian University in Kraków and colleagues conducted a small study, published in PLOS ONE, with several healthy adults who underwent 10 days of purposeful sleep restriction followed by seven recovery days with unrestricted sleep. Participants completed the study in their normal day-to-day environments, wearing wrist sensors to track sleep and activity. Daily electroencephalography (EEG) monitored their brain activity, and they answered daily questions (Stroop tasks) to measure reaction times and accuracy.

After 7 days of recovery, the participants had not yet returned to their baseline performance on most measures of functioning. These included several EEG measures of brain activity, rest-versus-activity patterns captured by wrist sensors, and accuracy on Stroop tasks. Only their reaction times had recovered to baseline levels.

While the researchers note that it is difficult to compare these results with other studies that employed different methods, the findings contribute new insights into recovery from chronic sleep loss. Future research could include more participants, investigate longer recovery periods, and determine in what order different functions return to normal.

The authors added: “The investigation of the recovery process following an extended period of sleep restriction reveal that the differences in behavioural, motor, and neurophysiological responses to both sleep loss and recovery.”

Source: SciTech Daily