mental health

There is a great article today on Slate about why the pretty ridiculous idea that vaccinations containing trace amounts of mercury cause autism will never go away. Here's the first little part of the article: At the recent 12-day hearing into theories that vaccines cause autism, the link between the disorder and the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine came across as shaky at best. As for the mercury-containing preservative thimerosal, which was used in other vaccines, witnesses showed that in all known cases of actual mercury poisoning (none of which caused autism), the dose was hundreds or…
There has been a whole lot crap floating around the press in the last couple weeks since the trial started that is seeking to link vaccination with higher incidence of autism. Now a survey funded by one of these anti-vaccination groups is correlating, through a random telephone survey, more mental health issues like ADHD with vaccination. So why do you think this correlation exists? Is there a simple way of simply explaining away this correlation (think less pirates = more global warming). Here's some of the info from medical news today: The survey, commissioned by Generation Rescue,…
Ahh... some great research from Spain. You know when you get home from vacation you really need another vacation to get ready to go back to work. Well... it's called Post-Holiday Syndrome. Here's the whole mess from Eurekalerts: Millions of people will leave their working places and start their holidays in the next weeks. The daily routine will be part of the past and resting days, pictures at the seashore and summer memories will be back to stay - at least for some weeks. Experts estimate that 35 per cent of Spanish workers between the ages of 25 and 40 will have to face the "post-holiday…
Yes yes... I know cancer isn't funny and I also seem to be obsessed with Family Guy in the last day or two. So without further ado.... Here's a Peter Tumor!
A great article in the NYTimes about the debate over a sensory integration disorder: The problem, these therapists say, is in the brain, which is not properly integrating the onslaught of information coming through the senses, often causing anxiety, tantrums and problems in the classroom. Such difficulties, while common in children with developmental disorders like autism, also occur on their own in many otherwise healthy youngsters, they say. No one has a standard diagnostic test for these sensory integration problems, nor any idea of what might be happening in the brain. Indeed, a diagnosis…
Growing up I used to read Omni magazine and would always see all sorts of devices that supposedly could induce lucid dreams or tapes that had subliminal messages recorded along with Bach to create special brain states where you'd be particularly receptive to messages like - "you will be psychic... you can lift objects with your mind...you will be rich and successful... you will quit smoking crack...etc etc etc" Let me tell you - I'm not psychic or rich! Although...I never did take up smoking crack so maybe the tapes did work! I eventually forgot about these tapes and devices for many years…
tags: suicide, mental health, bipolar disorder, depression, anxiety, college, university Approximately 1,300 college students will commit suicide this year, according to experts. Yet even though university students are less likely than other age and occupational groups to take their own lives, suicide has increased recently on campuses and it is the second-leading cause of death among college students. Why? "We have had an increasing number of students with serious mental health problems while services are lacking," observed UC Santa Barbara Vice Chancellor Michael Young, co-chairman of the…
tags: mental health, bipolar disorder, manic depression, depression, blog carnivals The Mental Health Blog Carnival is now available. They include a piece that I wrote, so be sure to check it out. Incidentally, they are seeking people to host this blog carnival, so if you might be interested, be sure to contact them. After I get all this law suit stuff solved, I think I will host one of their blog carnivals, and hopefully I can give it a bit of a boost in traffic.
tags: bipolar disorder, manic-depressive illness, mental health, molecular biology Bipolar disorder depends upon small, combined effects from variations in many different brain genes, none of which is powerful enough by itself to cause the disease, according to a new genome-wide study. Despite this revelation, this new study shows that targeting one enzyme produced by one of these altered genes could lead to development of new and more effective medications. The research, conducted by Amber E. Baum, Francis J. McMahon, and their colleagues, is the first study to genetically scan thousands of…
tags: mental health, verbal abuse, sexual abuse, children How many of you are survivors of childhood verbal abuse? I am not talking about an occasional parental outburst, but rather, consistent full-scale verbal assaults by your parents? According to a recent study by Harvard University psychiatrists, these so-called verbal beatings are as hurtful to an individual as sexual abuse and may also have long-lasting effects on the brain and behavior. "Exposure to verbal aggression has received little attention as a specific form of abuse," notes Martin Teicher, associate professor of psychiatry at…
tags: dogs, pets, antidepressant, SSRI, Reconcile, separation anxiety Did you hear that Eli Lilly, the company that was caught in a big kerfuffle over Zyprexa (Olanzapine), recently released an antidepressant for dogs? The product, called Reconcile (fluoxetine hydrochloride), is a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) that is prescribed for dogs that suffer separation anxiety. It is prescribed on a dose-to-weight basis for use in conjunction with behavior modification training to help ease anxiety in dogs that become stressed-out when their owners leave them behind to go to work or…
tags: disturbing essay, writing, teaching, mental health, freedom of speech In the wake of the recent Virginia Tech tragedy, it was revealed that Cho, the gunman, had written several essays in his English class that were perceived by his professor as "disturbing." Even though I am aware of the gist of Cho's writings, I haven't read them in full, so I have no way of judging what exactly qualifies as "disturbing," although, as a professor, I'd sure like to know. Apparently, I am not the only person who is confused by what this means. For example, this week, high-school senior Allen Lee wrote…
Seung-hui Cho clearly was mentally incapacitated. He clearly was a menace to society and to himself, but who could have predicted that he would respond to his situation in the way he did? Even Cho's roommate was shocked and surprised by what transpired. So how do we decide who to haul away in handcuffs? And who should make those decisions? In view of the recent Virginia Tech massacre, it is easy to say that a mentally ill person should simply be locked up until his or her symptoms abate, but the fact is that treating mental illnesses rarely resolves a person's problems quickly. Instead, this…
The murders at Virginia Tech are horrible and tragic, but they have also spawned a lot of hysterical claims. I think that is why I haven't talked about them. I have no desire to get swept up in that hysteria. Last night on NPR, they interviewed Dr. Russ Federman, director of counseling at the University of Virginia, about what universities can do to prevent such incidents in the future. (Listen to the whole thing. It is short and worth it.) I am paraphrasing here, but he basically said: When horrible things like this happen, we like to believe that we can make them never happen again…
Wow, a new study by a group of Australian scientists has found that the national suicide rate increases when political conservatives are in power. They found that middle-aged and older people were most at risk, and that when Conservatives ruled both state and federal governments, men were 17% more likely to commit suicide and women were 40% more likely to kill themselves. Why is there such a powerful and significant effect? "There is a strong relationship between socio-economic status and suicide," said lead researcher Professor Richard Taylor, of the University of Sydney, Australia. "We…
tags: bipolar disorder, mania, manic mouse, psychiatric research Some of you, like me, suffer from bipolar disorder or might know someone who does, so I thought I'd take this opportunity to write a little about the creation of a mouse model to study the genetics that are thought to underlie the manic phase of bipolar disorder -- a phase that has not been well understood so far. Bipolar disorder, or manic-depressive illness, is a psychiatric condition that affects a person's moods. Typically, a person who suffers from a classical bipolar disorder (Also known as bipolar affective disorder,…
A recent study by Dutch scientists has found that people with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) may be less sensitive to physical pain than those who don't suffer from the condition. PTSD patients experience panic attacks, flashbacks, anxiety and depression following a traumatic event. Scans reveals that the PTSD subjects' brains were less active than those of their unaffected counterparts. While other studies have suggested that patients with PTSD may have differences in the structure of certain parts of their brain compared with healthy people, the research team did not suggest a…
I found this entertaining snipit on some random website. I never realized that Tony Robbins (whose whole sctick revolves around firewalking) was such a fraud. It seems that you can delete a single memory (this time without that crazy drug) by visualizing it, making it black and white and then 'sending' it away from you. Here check it out: With this exercise you can actually 'delete' anything at all. I learned this memory-delete exercise from Tony Robbins, and it's based on the mental visualization principles from Neuro Linguistic Programming. Here's what you do. 1. Make a picture in your…
It was one year ago today that I made the first post to Omni Brain. I never imagined we would do this well. In the last year Omni Brain has undergone many many changes, the biggest of which have been Sandra of Neurofuture fame joining the blog, and moving to ScienceBlogs. We started with not-even 3000 page views in our first full month and now receive tens of thousands of page views and visitors - which is pretty great for a smart ass little science blog! Our Technorati ranking has also grown by leaps and bounds; near 14,000 today. Thanks everyone, for reading and for all your lively…
Tamiflu (Oseltamivir), the world's first line of defense against avian influenza, is correlated with teen suicides. This expensive and difficult-to-find drug has been linked to 64 cases of psychological disorders and two teenage suicides in Japan, according to media reports there. In February 2004, according to an online edition of Japan Times, a 17-year-old high school boy under treatment with Tamiflu died after he jumped in front of a truck. A year later, a 14-year-old junior high student, also taking the drug for influenza, jumped to his death from the ninth floor of his condominium. In…