Journey Towards Better Mental Health

New Therapies Likely Following New Discoveries Relating To Depression

2012-03-05T05:40:00.003-05:00

During depression, the brain becomes less plastic and adaptable, and thus less able to perform certain tasks, like storing memories. Researchers at Karolinska Institutet have now traced the brain's lower plasticity to reduced functionality in its support cells, and believe that learning more about these cells can pave the way for radical new radical new therapies for depression.

"We were able to cure memory dysfunction in 'depressed' rats by giving them doses of D-serine," says Mia Lindskog, biologist and Assistant Professor at Karolinska Institutet's Department of Neuroscience.

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Fish Oil May Help Prevent Psychiatric Disorders

2012-02-16T16:01:00.000-05:00

Researchers at Zucker Hillside Hospital's Recognition and Prevention (RAP) Program who have worked with teenagers at risk for serious mental illness for the past decade are now studying the effectiveness of Omega 3 fatty acids (fish oil) for treating psychiatric symptoms. This new study is a National Institute of Mental Health-funded randomized double-blind trial that was designed to test whether Omega-3 fatty acids improve clinical symptoms, and help adolescents and young adults (ages 12 to 25) who are at elevated risk for severe psychiatric disorders function better in school, work and other social environments.

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The Treatment of Depression with T3

2012-02-14T16:00:00.002-05:00

Psychiatry is one of the few specialties where we are "allowed" to use T3 (the active thyroid hormone, instead of the safer prohormone T4) for treatment of resistant depression. The literature for its use is extensive but old. Much of it was done before there were very reliable lab tests for thryoid function, so symptoms such as pulse, insomnia, anxiety, palpitations and reflexes were measured to judge whether someone was made "hyperthyroid" with the treatment or not. I suppose that made them bolder, back in the day (also, there were very few options, medication-speaking, so all the people studying resistant depression did a little study on T3. For the same reason there is a ton of data on lithium for bipolar disorder. It was the only game in town for decades.)

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