Psychiatric classifications catalogue the many forms of mental ill-health. They define what counts as a disorder and who counts as disordered, drawing the boundary between psychological normality and abnormality. In the past century that boundary has shifted radically. Successive classifications have added new disorders and revised old ones. Diagnoses have increased rapidly as new forms…
Category: Psychiatry
Many people will be familiar with electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) as a historical treatment for “mental illness”, in which an electrical current is passed through the brain to trigger seizures, with the aim of somehow treating the illness. In fact, ECT is still being administered to about a million people each year to treat severe depression,…
Cannabis use results in an average depression symptom improvement of nearly four points on a 0-10 scale just moments after consumption, researchers at The University of New Mexico report. A recent study[1] showed that the vast majority of patients that use cannabis experience antidepressant effects, although the magnitude of the effect and extent of side…
Everyone has had fleeting concerns that others might be against them at some point in their lives. Sometimes these concerns can escalate into paranoia and become debilitating. Paranoia is a common symptom in serious mental illnesses like schizophrenia. It can cause extreme distress and is linked with an increased risk of violence towards oneself or…
One of the hallmarks of obsessive-compulsive disorder is contamination fears and excessive hand-washing. Years ago, a patient with severe OCD came to my office wearing gloves and a mask and refused to sit on any of the “contaminated” chairs. Now, these same behaviors are accepted and even encouraged to keep everyone healthy. This new normal…
The anaesthetic drug ketamine has been shown, in low doses, to have a rapid effect on difficult-to-treat depression. Researchers at Karolinska Institutet report that they have identified a key target for the drug: specific serotonin receptors in the brain. The findings give hope for new, effective antidepressants. “In this, the largest PET study of its…
Taking antidepressants during pregnancy does not appear to increase the child’s risk of autism, according to a new meta-analysis. The review[1] examines 14 studies, many of which identified a connection between antidepressant use during pregnancy and autism. However, that research failed to account for ascertainment bias, which occurs when one group of patients or subjects…
The mood-stabilizing drug lithium eases repetitive behaviors seen in mice missing SHANK3, an autism gene, according to a new study. The findings[1] suggest lithium merits further study as a treatment for some people with autism, even though the drug has troublesome side effects, including tremors and impaired memory. “Lithium is, of course, a rather difficult,…
New research combines genetics and functional brain imaging to find that both genetic and neural factors influence attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) diagnosis. Genetic studies of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) show that it takes many common genetic variations combining together in one individual to increase risk substantially. At the same time, neuroimaging experts have found differences in how…