Photo by Roman Bilik on Unsplash -- Endocannabinoids are neurotransmitters produced by the human body that attach to cannabinoid receptors in the brain, the same receptors that are affected by the consumption of cannabis p...

Photo by Robina Weermeijer on Unsplash -- Gliosis describes changes in glia that result from damage to the central nervous system. Researchers can use PET scans (positron emission tomography) to measure the extent of glios...

Cannabis plant. Photo by Esteban Lopez on Unsplash -- In an article in the journal Biological Psychiatry, researchers Eun-Kyung Hwang and Carl R. Lupica reported that in rats, long-term use of THC (tetrahydrocannabinol) we...

In a symposium at the 2019 meeting of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, researcher Melissa P. Delbello reported that six weeks of treatment with either lithium or quetiapine was effective in childhoo...

In a 2018 article in the journal Molecular Psychiatry, researcher Derrek P. Hibar reported findings from the largest study to date of cortical gray matter thickness. Researchers in the ENIGMA Bipolar Disorder Working Group...

Multiple groups of researchers have reported the presence of white matter tract abnormalities in patients with bipolar disorder. Some of these abnormalities correlate with the degree of cognitive dysfunction in these patie...

Researcher Sophia Attwells and colleagues reported at a 2018 scientific meeting that the longer the time that a patient went without treatment for depression, the more inflammation they exhibited on positron emission tomog...

At a recent scientific meeting, researcher Kristin Bigos and colleagues described the effects of nimodipine, a treatment for brain hemorrhage, on the brain during working memory tasks. Nimodipine is a dihydropyridine L-typ...

Researcher Ramiro Reckziegel and colleagues reported at a recent scientific meeting that white matter is abnormal in obese adults with bipolar disorder. In a 2018 article in the journal Schizophrenia Bulletin, Reckziegel r...

At a 2018 scientific meeting, researcher Julia Linke of the National Institute of Mental Health reported that there were white matter tract abnormalities in young people who had irritability associated with either bipolar ...

A recent study suggests that chemicals called phthalates that are used to make plastic flexible and to improve the texture of lotions, creams, and powders have effects on human sperm. Phthalates have become common in our e...

A 2017 article by Sophie E. Holmes and colleagues in the journal Biological Psychiatry reports that people with major unipolar depression, especially those with suicidal thoughts, have higher levels of the inflammatory mar...

In a 2017 article in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology, researcher Michael S. Breen and colleagues analyzed five separate studies of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and found that sex and type of trauma affected th...

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) has been associated with decreased volume of gray matter in the cortex. Research by Linghui Meng and colleagues has revealed that the specific types of trauma that precede PTSD affect ...

People with bipolar disorder are at high risk for suicidal behavior beginning in adolescence and young adulthood. A 2017 study by Jennifer A. Y. Johnston and colleagues in the American Journal of Psychiatry uses several br...

Telomeres are bits of genetic material at the end of each strand of DNA that protect chromosomes as they replicate. Short telomeres have been linked to aging and a variety of medical and psychiatric diseases. Stress and de...

A 2016 study published in the Journal of Neuroscience reported that the rhythm of breathing changes electrical activity in the brain and can improve emotional judgments and recall. Breathing in through the nose seemed to p...

A protein released into the blood in response to heart failure may be able to predict brain deterioration before clinical symptoms appear. The protein, N-terminal pro-B-type natriuretic peptide (NT-proBNP), is released whe...

In a 2016 article, researcher Catherine L. Clelland and colleagues reported that a patient’s levels of the amino acid proline interact with their genetic profile to influence the seriousness of their negative symptoms. Neg...

The hippocampus -- It has been clear for some time that the volume of the hippocampus, a brain region implicated in mood and memory processing, plays a role in bipolar disorder. A 2017 article by researcher Bo Cao and coll...

In research presented at the 2016 meeting of the Society of Biological Psychiatry, Jonathan P. Godbout described how an immune reaction to repeated stressors may lead to anxious behaviors in mice. -- Mice were repeatedly d...

Astrocytes usually play a helpful role in the brain. These glial cells facilitate neural connections and prune unnecessary ones. However, new research details how infection or trauma can render astrocytes toxic, leading to...

At the 2017 meeting of the American College of Psychiatrists, researchers Charles L. Raison and Vladimir Maletic gave a plenary lecture on the role of inflammation in depression. Meta-analyses have confirmed that inflammat...

Depression and bipolar disorder are associated with increases in markers of inflammation that can be found in the brain and blood. It is increasingly clear that the mechanisms that cause depression are not just in the brai...

Meta-analyses have found links between elevated levels of inflammatory markers and many neuropsychiatric disorders, including depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and traumatic...