News Flash
The Medications that Change Who We Are
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[The] most unsettling discovery isn’t so much the impact that ordinary drugs can have on who we are – it’s the lack of interest in uncovering it. “There’s much more of an emphasis on things that doctors can easily measure,” she says, explaining that, for a long time, research into the side-effects of statins was all focused on the muscles and liver, because any problems in these organs can be detected using standard blood tests. This is something that Dominik Mischkowski, a pain researcher from Ohio University, has also noticed. “There is a remarkable gap in the research actually, when it comes to the effects of medication on personality and behaviour,” he says. “We know a lot about the physiological effects of these drugs – whether they have physical side effects or not, you know. But we don't understand how they influence human behaviour.” Mischkowski’s own research has uncovered a sinister side-effect of paracetamol. For a long time, scientists have known that the drug blunts physical pain by reducing activity in certain brain areas, such as the insular cortex, which plays an important role in our emotions. These areas are involved in our experience of social pain, too – and intriguingly, paracetamol can make us feel better after a rejection. Mischkowski wondered whether painkillers might be making it harder to experience empathy And recent research has revealed that this patch of cerebral real-estate is more crowded than anyone previously thought, because it turns out the brain’s pain centres also share their home with empathy. For example, fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) scans have shown that the same areas of our brain become active when we’re experiencing “positive empathy” –pleasure on other people’s behalf – as when we’re experiencing pain. Given these facts, Mischkowski wondered whether painkillers might be making it harder to experience empathy. |
TedxTalk 2013: Caltech Neuroscientist David Anderson on the problem with current psychiatric medication: they impact the brain globally -- not specific neural circuits.
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Finding suicide risk in blood clues. Michigan patients to be tested.
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[I]n a state where suicide is the second leading cause of death for those age 15 to 34, a team of Michigan researchers asks: Could there be a way to detect a person’s vulnerability to suicidal impulses before they are acted on?
That’s the groundbreaking aim of a collaborative clinical study involving Pine Rest, the Van Andel Institute in Grand Rapids and the Columbia University Department of Psychiatry. It is supported by a five-year, $3.6 million grant from the National Institute of Mental Health of the National Institutes of Health. The goal: Identify agents in the blood that could be markers for suicide. “The ultimate idea is that we may be able to provide an additional data point for who is at highest risk of suicide,” said Dr. Eric Achtyes of Pine Rest, the study’s lead physician researcher. “That may help us be better able to treat them." |
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NYC Jails Fail to Identify Prisoners With Cognitive Problems
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Many advocates and people familiar with the care available at Rikers believe that the jail complex is simply the wrong place for people with cognitive impairments, and that -- [N]o changes to the treatment or facilities on the island will be able to make it an appropriate environment for people with intellectual or developmental disabilities. |
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From depression to dementia, inflammation is medicine’s new frontier
Mental illness: Special form of RNA in brain
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(Less) Circular RNA may play a role in schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Feb. 12, 2020 "University of New Mexico scientists have shown that reduced levels of a type of circular RNA found in the brain with the ungainly name of circHomer1a are associated with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Lower levels of the molecule in the human frontal cortex were also seen to be correlated with earlier onset of schizophrenia symptoms. "In a paper newly published in the journal Molecular Psychiatry, the researchers report that lowering levels of circHomer1a in the mouse brain's frontal cortex results in impaired gene expression related to the function of the synapses -- junctions at the ends of neurons that enable them to "talk" to their neighbors." |
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Build Build Build Build Build Build
When California’s housing crisis slammed into a suburb, one public servant became a convert to a radically simple doctrine.
Battling The Mental Health Crisis
Among The Underserved Through State Medicaid Reforms
Disability rights and healthcare: Olmstead at 20
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"So what is the legacy of Olmstead as we look back over the past two decades? The answer may be that incentives created by healthcare funding structures turned a “qualified yes” into a functional no for many people. And as more people age and come to depend on the protections in place for people with disabilities, the limitations of this holding may only become more pronounced." |
We Need Olmstead Enforcement and that is going to entail National and Large Law Firms, the Protection and Advocacy System and other Legal Advocates. We don't think it is healthy to contenance blatant disregard for the law -- especially when such disregard comes at such at toll in human suffering.
Could Norway’s mental health focus reduce incarceration in Michigan?
ADVOCATES SAY NORWAY SHOWS HOW STATES COULD BETTER BALANCE GOVERNMENT SPENDING BETWEEN CRIMINAL JUSTICE AND MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES
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“It’s not clear that just putting them in jail and sending them back out is good for public safety.” MICHIGAN SUPREME COURT CHIEF JUSTICE BRIDGET MCCORMACK |
montana Plans $80 Million Investment
In Community-Based Mental Health Programs
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"Right now we are spending enormous amounts of money dealing with either people not getting their needs met, or inappropriately met; such as within our corrections budget.
"We spend an enormous amount of money putting people into our state correctional facilities who fundamentally have a mental health problem. That’s not a smart way to spend our money," Sands says. [Many prisoners have other cognitive disabilities as well such as brain injury] |
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