"Naturally the common people don't want war: Neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country." - Hermann Wilhelm Göring
Results from a clinical trial show that patients with treatment-resistant depression who underwent deep brain stimulation (DBS) report significant improvements as early as one month after treatment.
The patients also experienced continued and sustained improvement over time.
The data are reported in the online issue of Biological Psychiatry by scientists from the University of Toronto and Emory Emory University School of Medicine.
The study began at the University of Toronto in 2002, led by Helen S. Mayberg, MD, and collaborators Andres Lozano, MD, PhD, neurosurgeon, and psychiatrist Sidney Kennedy, MD.
This clinical trial is the culmination of Mayberg’s 20 years of research using brain imaging technology that has worked to characterize functional brain abnormalities in major depression and to identify the mechanisms of various antidepressant treatments.
A report on the first six patients in the study was published in the Journal Neuron in 2005. The new paper reports on an expanded sample of patients and an extended period of clinical follow-up.
DBS uses high-frequency electrical stimulation targeted to the specific areas of the brain involved in neuropsychiatric disease. Twenty patients received SCG DBS for 12 months.
Twelve of 20 patients experienced a significant decrease in depressive symptoms (defined by a 50 percent decrease in the Hamilton Depression rating scale) by six months, with seven patients essentially well with few remaining symptoms (remission, defined as a Hamilton Depression Rating Scale score <8). Benefits were largely maintained at 12 months with continued stimulation. No long-term side effects were reported.
Each study patient was implanted with two thin wire electrodes (one on each side of the brain) in the white matter adjacent to SCG. The other end of each wire was connected under the skin of the neck to a pulse generator implanted in the chest — similar to a pacemaker — that directs the electrical current.
The researchers regulated the intensity of the current according to the response of the patient. Only patients who were unable to get better with most other types of antidepressant treatment — including medication, psychotherapy and electroconvulsive therapy — were included in the study.
“In previous studies using brain imaging, we found the subcallosal cingulate region was a key region in an emerging emotion regulation circuit implicated in major depression,” explains Mayberg.
“We postulated that if stimulation worked for the treatment of other neurological disorders where abnormal function of specific circuits was well established, such as Parkinson’s disease, then stimulation of the Cg25 region within this apparent depression circuit might provide significant benefit for patients with treatment-resistant depression.”
The researchers were able to track the clinical response of the patients over a 12-month period using standard depression rating scales as well as various quantitative measures of behavior and general functioning, neuropsychological testing and scanning of both regional brain blood flow and glucose metabolism using positron emission tomography (PET).
PET imaging of these patients demonstrated that metabolic activity changed locally at the site of stimulation but also throughout the previously identified depression network, providing evidence that modulating the circuit and not just a single region was likely responsible for the antidepressant effects.
“We see depression as a complex disturbance of the specific circuits in the brain responsible for regulating mood and emotions,” Mayberg says.
“We hypothesized that if DBS could locally modulate a critical central location within this mood circuit, such modulation would result in clinical improvement — and it appears it does.”
Mayberg initiated an expanded version of her Toronto study at Emory in 2007 with psychiatrist Paul Holtzheimer, MD, and neurosurgeon Robert Gross, MD, PhD, and with grant support from the Woodruff Fund, The Stanley Medical Research Institute and the Dana Foundation.
The new Emory clinical trial is tackling a number of unanswered issues including the testing of patients with bipolar II depression and refinement of the targeting and selection of the electrodes using new imaging techniques. The Emory study will enroll 20 patients and will be conducted over a period of at least three years.
Need a biodegradeable pipe in a hurry? that’s right, don’t be jabbing holes in a beer can like some frat-boy, do it the old fashioned organic way! Play with your veggies, kids!
These videos have been broken up into over 30 video segments, all of which can be watched on YouTube or from SAI.
The first videos start with the person telling about their experiences when they had social anxiety and what life was like. As they progress, they begin to tell you what they did to overcome social anxiety and how they did it, and what progress against social anxiety means.
Significant modifications of an important gene suggests depression may play a role in changing the very makeup of the brain.
Researchers at the Robarts Research Institute at The University of Western Ontario compared the brains of people who committed suicide with those who died suddenly of natural causes, such as a heart attack. They found that the genome in suicidal, depressed people was chemically modified by a process that is normally involved in regulating the essential characteristics of all cells in the body.
The brain tissue was collected during autopsies and may eventually help explain an underlying cause of major depression and suicide.
This is apparently the first study to show that proteins that modify DNA directly are more highly expressed in the brains of people who commit suicide. These proteins are involved in chemically modifying DNA in a process called epigenomic regulation.
Michael O. Poulter, the lead researcher explains, “We have about 40,000 genes in every cell and the main reason a brain cell is a brain cell is because only a small fraction of the genes are turned on. The remaining genes that are not expressed are shut down by an epigenetic process called DNA methylation.”
The rate of methylation in the suicide brains was found to be much greater than that of the control group. Importantly, one of the genes they studied was shown to be heavily chemically modified and its expression was reduced. This particular gene plays a major role in regulating brain activity. “Interestingly, the nature of this chemical modification is long term and hard to reverse, and this fits with depression,” says Poulter.
“The whole idea that the genome is so malleable in the brain is surprising. Finding that epigenetic mechanisms continue to influence gene expression is pretty unusual,” says Poulter.
Depression is often lurking in the shadows. When you are depressed, most often you think that you are worthless. The worse the depression, the more you feel this way. Fortunately, you are not alone!
A survey by Dr. Aaron Beck revealed that over 80 percent of depressed people expressed dislike for themselves. According to Dr. Beck, when you are depressed, you feel “The Four Ds”:
* Defeated,
* Defective,
* Deserted, and
* Deprived.
Also, most counselors find that depressed individuals see themselves as deficient in those qualities of life they most highly value: intelligence, achievement, popularity, attractiveness, health and strength. And almost all negative emotional reactions cause damage by contributing to feelings of low self-esteem. The way a therapist handles these feelings of inadequacy is crucial to the treatment, as your sense of worthlessness is a key to your depression.
How can you increase your sense of “worth”? You cannot earn it through what you do. Happiness is not obtained solely by your achievements. Self-worth based on accomplishments is “pseudo-esteem”; it’s simply not the real thing.
Cognitive therapy, as taught by Dr. Beck, refuses to buy into an individual’s sense of worthlessness. Instead, his techniques help people to understand and address those factors that contribute to low self-esteem.
The spiritual effects of a substance in “sacred mushrooms” can last more than a year, Johns Hopkins researchers claim.
The scientists said their investigations may lead to new ways to help people with conditions such as cancer, depression and drug dependence.
In a previous study, the researchers gave psilocybin to 36 healthy, well-educated volunteers with active spiritual lives. After taking the substance under controlled conditions, 60 percent of the participants reported have a “full mystical experience.”
When the researchers checked with the volunteers 14 months later, the same percentage said taking psilocybin increased their sense of well-being or life satisfaction.
“Most of the volunteers looked back on their experience up to 14 months later and rated it as the most, or one of the five most, personally meaningful and spiritually significant of their lives,” lead investigator Roland Griffiths, a professor in the departments of psychiatry and behavioral sciences and neuroscience, said in a prepared statement.
The study was published in the current issue of the Journal of Psychopharmacology.
“This is truly remarkable finding, “Griffiths said. “Rarely in psychological research do we see such persistently positive reports from a single event in the laboratory. This gives credence to claims that the mystical-type experiences some people have during hallucinogen sessions may help patients suffering from cancer-related anxiety or depression, and may serve as a potential treatment for drug dependence. We’re eager to move ahead with that research.”
He noted that while some of the volunteers “reported strong fear or anxiety for a portion of their day-long psilocybin sessions, none reported any lingering harmful effects, and we didn’t observe any clinical evidence of harm.”
However, if hallucinogens are used in poorly supervised settings, the possible fear or anxiety responses could lead to harmful behaviors, Griffiths warned.
Scrubbing the tub and other forms of housework may clean your house and boost your mood.
In fact, as little as 20 minutes of any kind of physical activity a week helped mental health, although the more vigorous the activity, the greater the benefit, said the authors of a study published online Thursday in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.
“There’s such a pervasive feeling in this country that, if there’s a problem, there’s always a pill to fix it,” said Dr. Suzanne Steinbaum, director of Women and Heart Disease at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City. “This study is just reminding us that it doesn’t take much to actually have an effect even on your mood.”
The physical benefits of exercise are well known: It reduces the risk of heart disease, type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure and even some cancers, among other things.
The mental benefits are less clear, although exercise is thought to improve blood flow and reduce inflammation, which have been related to depression and dementia. Exercise might also improve mood by reducing stress levels.
“It’s pretty clear that physical activity does have some kind of positive relationship to good mental health,” said Dr. Jane Ripperger-Suhler, assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral science at Texas A&M Health Science Center College of Medicine and a psychiatrist with Scott & White Mental Health Center in Temple. “They [the study authors] are trying to figure out how much you need to do.”
For the new study, almost 20,000 men and women participating in the 1995, 1998 and 2003 Scottish Health Surveys answered questionnaires about physical activity and “psychological distress.”
Daily physical activity of any kind — including housework, gardening, walking, and sports — was associated with a 41 percent lower risk of psychological distress. But sports reduced the risk of mood lows the most — by 33 percent.
And just in case women are thinking this study is a ploy to engage in more housework, think again. The study showed that more sports and overall activity increased your mood even more, but extra mopping and scrubbing didn’t.
“The message is do a little bit of housework and a lot of sports,” Ripperger-Suhler said.
According to the study authors, from University College London, this appears to be the first research to look at different specific activities in relation to mental health. The study wasn’t designed to look at a cause-and-effect relationship, only that a relationship exists.
Certain variations in a gene that helps regulate stress response offer protection against depression in adults who suffered abuse when they were children, a new study says.
Adults who were abused as children and didn’t have the protective variations of the CRHR1 gene had twice the symptoms of moderate to severe depression, compared to those with the variations.
The researchers interviewed more than 400 adults and tested their DNA. About one-third of them had the protective variations in the gene that produces CRHR1, a receptor for the stress hormone corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH). Read the rest of this entry »
Just as neurotransmitters help ferry signals along nerve pathways, other complex chemicals called hormones carry messages to organs or groups of cells throughout the body. These chemicals trigger or regulate certain activities, such as the release of an egg from a woman’s ovary and the delicate control of blood sugar levels.
The hypothalamus in your brain, the pituitary gland below your brain, and the adrenal glands atop your kidneys form a trio known as the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis. Together these structures govern a multitude of hormonal activities in the body and may play a role in depression as well. Read the rest of this entry »
