Risk Factors
Risk Factors
May 29, 2024
Adolescent Cannabis Use is Associated with Regional Decreases in Cortical Volume and Greater Decreases in Males than Females
Mona Darvishi of The Ohio State University reported that adolescent cannabis use is associated with regional decreases in cortical volume in 10 of 42 brain regions. -- In two of these regions, the superior frontal gyrus an...
Risk Factors
January 11, 2024
Smoking Pot While Pregnant is a No-No
Mom, Don’t Think Smoking Pot When Pregnant is Harmless for your Child -- In a new article in Science, Jasmine Hurd reports on a large sample of mothers who smoked pot while pregnant. Their offspring were more anxious, hype...
Risk Factors
August 23, 2023
Cannabis Contributes to 15% of Case of Schizophrenia
A study in Psychological Medicine (May 2, 2023) reported on ” Danish registry data spanning five decades and representing more than 6.9 million people in Denmark to estimate the population-level percentage of schizophrenia...
Risk Factors
July 12, 2023
Long COVID ‘Brain Fog’ Confounds Doctors, but New Research Offers Hope
James C. Jackson, PsyD, a licensed psychologist specializing in neuropsychology and rehabilitation, at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine and author of a new book, Clearing the Fog: From Surviving to Thriving With Lo...
Risk Factors
July 8, 2023
Childhood Bullying and Maltreatment Yield A Worse Course of Bipolar Illness
Highlights from the International Society for Bipolar Disorders Conference Posters and Presentations, Chicago, June 22-25, 2023 -- Georgina Hosang of Bart’s & The London, Queen Mary’s School of Medicine reported that bully...
Risk Factors
July 3, 2023
Early Antidepressant Use is Associated with Rapid Cycling Bipolar Disorder
Highlights from Posters Presented at the Society of Biological Psychiatry Meeting, April 27-29, 2023 in San Diego -- A.C. Courtes and Jair Soares reported that “Antidepressants were prescribed as the first psychiatry medic...
Risk Factors
June 16, 2023
Risk of Attempted or Completed Suicide in Borderline Personality Disorder: Reduced with ADHD meds; Increased with Benzodiazepines
Johannes Lieslehto et al 2023 reported in JAMA New. Open on the comparative effectiveness in 22,601 individuals with BPD that “ADHD medication was the only pharmacological treatment associated with reduced risk of suicidal...
Risk Factors
May 10, 2023
Young Men at Highest Schizophrenia Risk From Cannabis Abuse
Roughly 15% of schizophrenia cases among young males may be preventable by avoiding cannabis use disorder (CUD). Not only does cannabis abuse markedly increase the risk of schizophrenia, its use has transgenerational effec...
Risk Factors
January 13, 2023
Chronic Fatigue, Depression and Anxiety Symptoms in Long COVID Are Strongly Predicted by Neuroimmune and Neuro- Oxidative Pathways Which Are Caused by the Inflammation during Acute Infection
HK Al-Hakeim et al in Michael Maes’ lab report in J. Clinical Medicine (2023) on very important findings about immune and oxidative changes in long COVID with “physio- somatic (chronic fatigue syndrome and somatic symptoms...
Risk Factors
December 7, 2022
Cannabidiol (CBD) does not make cannabis safer
Amir Englund et al reported in Neuropsychopharmacology in A randomised, double-blind, cross-over trial of cannabis with four different CBD:THC ratios that CBD did not protect against the adverse effect of THC. These includ...
Risk Factors
May 19, 2021
Psychiatric Disorders Linked to More Physical Disease
In an article in the journal JAMA Network Open, Leah S. Richmond-Rakerd and colleagues found that people with mental disorders had more physical disease at younger ages, they had more and longer hospitalizations and associ...
Risk Factors
May 11, 2021
ADHD Common in People with Mood Disorders
In a meta-analysis published in the journal Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica in 2021, researcher Andrea Sandstrom and colleagues reported that people with mood disorders had a three times higher incidence of attention-defici...
Risk Factors
May 5, 2021
Study Examines Comorbidity of ADHD and Bipolar Disorder
In a 2021 review and meta-analysis in the journal Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews, researcher Carmen Schiweck and colleagues described the comorbidity of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and bipolar d...
Risk Factors
October 5, 2020
Characteristics of Youth with Bipolar Spectrum Disorders
Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash -- In a 2020 article in the Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychopharmacology, researcher Gonzalo Salazar de Pablo and colleagues described characteristics of youth with three different...
Risk Factors
July 14, 2020
Increased Risk for Dementia in Bipolar Disorder
Photo by Micheile Henderson on Unsplash -- At the 2020 meeting of the International Society for Bipolar Disorders, researcher Flavio Kapczinski described a recent meta-analysis of 10 studies that found that bipolar disorde...
Risk Factors
April 24, 2020
Cannabis Use in Adolescence Linked to Depression and Suicidality in Young Adulthood
Photo by Louis Hansel @shotsoflouis on Unsplash -- In a meta-analysis published in the journal JAMA Psychiatry in 2019, researcher Gabriella Gobbi and colleagues analyzed findings from 11 studies including a total of 23,31...
Risk Factors
March 16, 2020
7-Year-Olds At Risk for Schizophrenia, But Not Bipolar Disorder, Show Specific Types of Cognitive Dysfunction
A large Danish study investigated whether children at risk for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder would show signs of cognitive problems. The study by researcher Nicoline Hemager and colleagues was published in the journal...
Risk Factors
October 21, 2019
Comorbid Psychiatric Disorders Impair Response to Psychosocial Treatment in Adolescents with Bipolar Disorder
At the 2019 meeting of the International Society for Bipolar Disorders, researcher Marc J. Weintraub and colleagues followed 145 adolescents with bipolar disorder over a period of two years. The adolescents with comorbid d...
Risk Factors
October 17, 2019
More Than 70% of People with Bipolar Disorder Have Additional Psychiatric Illness
At the 2019 meeting of the International Society for Bipolar Disorders, researcher Kathleen R. Merikangas reviewed large scale community studies of people with bipolar disorder in multiple countries. She reported that more...
Risk Factors
February 8, 2019
Risk Gene for Bipolar Disorder Implicated in Depressed Behaviors and Abnormal Firing of GABA Neurons
At a 2018 scientific meeting and in a 2017 article in the journal PNAS, researcher Shanshan Zhu and colleagues reported that mice genetically engineered to lack the protein Ankyrin-G in certain neurons showed increases in ...
Risk Factors
February 12, 2018
Link Clarified Between Gut Microbes and Emotions
A 2017 article in the journal Microbiome suggests that gene-regulating molecules called microRNAs in the brain may be the link between microbes in the gut and emotions. -- The research by Alan E. Hoban and colleagues looke...
Risk Factors
January 10, 2018
Adipokines May Be the Link Between Mood Disorders and Obesity
Researchers David J. Bond and Lakshmi Yatham think they may have identified why bipolar disorder and obesity occur so often together. In North America, more than 60% of people with bipolar disorder are overweight or obese,...
Risk Factors
September 8, 2017
Methylphenidate Does Not Cause Mania When Taken with a Mood Stabilizer
Methylphenidate is an effective treatment for attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Ritalin may be the most commonly recognized trade name for methylphenidate, but it is also sold under the names Concerta, Daytr...
Risk Factors
July 18, 2017
In Case Control Study, Two-Thirds of Patients With Severe Depression Had Underlying Metabolic Abnormalities
A recent study suggests that potentially treatable metabolic abnormalities in the central nervous system may underlie a large proportion of cases of severe, treatment-resistant depression. These abnormalities, such as fola...
Risk Factors
July 14, 2017
Teens with Bipolar Disorder at Increased Risk for Cardiovascular Disease
A scientific statement from the American Heart Association reported in 2015 that youth with major depressive disorder and bipolar disorder are at moderate (Tier II level) increased risk for cardiovascular disorders. The co...