Category: Psychiatry

Certain combinations of psychiatric medication may be more effective than others in treating patients with schizophrenia, a new study suggests. Combining medications is often referred to as polypharmacy. Antipsychotic drugs are usually the first line of treatment for individuals with schizophrenia. But because these drugs often fail to control symptoms adequately on their own, doctors…

Particular genetic variants in the human genome that are important for the development of the brain early in the life of the fetus are frequently found in psychiatric disorders, recent work from Denmark shows. Researchers studied a total of 8 million genetic variants and found that some of them occur particularly often in people who…

People with schizophrenia also have higher levels of antibodies against the Epstein-Barr virus, according to new research from Johns Hopkins Medicine and Sheppard Pratt Health System. Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), is a herpes virus that causes infectious mononucleosis, so-called mono. Researchers proposed two explanations for the association of heightened immune responses in patients with schizophrenia and…

Epigenetic differences between the brains of individuals with schizophrenia and those of unaffected study participants have been identified in a study using a PET scan tracer developed at the Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH). The study details differences in the expression of histone deacetylase (HDAC) enzymes, important regulators of gene…

A lone gene mutation that causes an inherited form of frontotemporal dementia makes it harder for neurons in the brain to communicate with one another, leading to neurodegeneration, an international team of researchers, led by Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, has found. Unlike the more common Alzheimer’s disease, frontotemporal dementia tends to…

Newborns with vitamin D deficiency have an increased risk of schizophrenia later in life, a team of Australian and Danish researchers has reported. The finding may help prevent some cases of the disease by treating vitamin D deficiency during the earliest stages of life. The study, led by Professor John McGrath from The University of…

Using cultured cells from patients with psychotic disorders, such as schizophrenia, to investigate abnormalities in nerve connections in the brain could lead to new treatments, a recent study shows. Strong correlations were observed between the findings in the cells in culture — grown outside the body in a controlled environment — and findings from brain…

The brains of obsessive-compulsive disorder patients get stuck in a loop of “wrongness”, that patients can’t stop even if they know they should, new research suggests. This new analysis of brain scans from hundreds of people with OCD, and people without the condition, was larger than any previous study. It pinpoints the specific brain areas…

Schizophrenia, a brain disorder that produces hallucinations, delusions, and cognitive impairments, usually strikes during adolescence or young adulthood. While some signs can suggest that a person is at high risk for developing the disorder, there is no way to definitively diagnose it until the first psychotic episode occurs. MIT neuroscientists working with researchers at Beth…