Children With Bipolar Respond To Facial Expressions Differently

“This study suggests a neural basis for mania in children, which typically involves unusually irritable or excessively happy moods, and raises questions about whether treatments, therapy or medication could address these brain changes,” Dickstein said.

It is good to see that hard science and money are being put into psychiatric research.

Psychotic depression

This is an article written by Dr. James Potash that appears on abcnews.com. This article describes psychotic depression and a study conducted by Johns Hopkins that involves 4,700 people with a mood disorder. The study found that people with bipolar disorder had five times the rate of psychotic depression.

Psychotherapy, or talk therapy, tends to have little impact in helping to treat madness, or psychosis, as these patients typically do not have the reasoning power with which to unlock the doors to the prison of false belief in which they are locked up.

We are just scratching the surface

British scientist announced that they have discovered genetic links to seven common conditions.  These conditions include type 1 diabetes, Crohn’s disease, hypertension and bipolar disease.  Without getting to complicated, some of these genetic links, well, are linked.  Read the article at the International Herald Tribune to get the full skinny!

Bipolar disorder

Looking into the brain is yielding vital clues to understanding,
diagnosing and treating bipolar disorder, according to findings being
presented today at the Seventh International Conference on Bipolar
Disorder. Two studies, featured in a press briefing held at 12:15 p.m.,
Thursday, June 7, have helped to identify novel pathways and markers
for diagnosis and treatment of the disease.

The changing psychiatrists office

The psychiatrists couch may soon be gone?? Well, not that soon. Technology is going to change psychiatry for sure. last week I wrote a post that uses magnetic waves to stimulate neurotransmitters in the synapse. Continuing on that theme, is this article from TechReview.com. The article touches on a few new technologies that will someday (in the not so distant future) help psychiatrists and patients.

Follow this link th the Tech Review article.

“Psychiatrists don’t do procedures; they do talk therapy and write scripts,” says Mark Bausinger, chief financial officer of Neuronetics, a medical-device company based in Malvern, PA, that is developing a noninvasive treatment device. “So this is really going to change the way they work.”

“Lifeshirt” monitors mental illness

The University of California, San Diego School of medicine will be reporting findings from a study with the use of “Lifeshirt”.

The patented approach developed at UCSD, using a novel device called a “LifeShirt” – a computerized vest that continuously monitors the patient’s movements – shows that patterns of movements differ between patients with the two disorders. The device, manufactured by VivoMetrics©, monitors hyperactive and repetitive movements, and collects data on respiration, heart rate and other physiological measures.