New Theory on the Action of Antidepressants News Round-Up February 2014 1st Edition

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Scientific American elaborates on a recent theory about the action of antidepressants. The theory states that antidepressants enhance the processing of positive emotions while dampening the processing of negative emotions. Furthermore the theory states that this action occurs quickly. A cumulative effect results in the changes seen in the medium term. This theory should generate an interesting debate.

via @vaughanbell, the Dana Foundation has a piece on memory research in the last few decades.

Humans express four basic emotions according to this study.

Chris Chambers looks at the changes happening in Psychology research and how this might impact on other branches of the life sciences.

International Psychoanalysis have an interesting piece contrasting the two main proponents of the philsophy of science – Thomas Kuhn and Karl Popper.

Appendix

News Round-Up 2008-2011

News Round-Up 2012

Index: There are indices for the TAWOP site here and here Twitter: You can follow ‘The Amazing World of Psychiatry’ Twitter by clicking on this link. Podcast: You can listen to this post on Odiogo by clicking on this link (there may be a small delay between publishing of the blog article and the availability of the podcast). It is available for a limited period. TAWOP Channel: You can follow the TAWOP Channel on YouTube by clicking on this link. Responses: If you have any comments, you can leave them below or alternatively e-mail justinmarley17@yahoo.co.uk. Disclaimer: The comments made here represent the opinions of the author and do not represent the profession or any body/organisation. The comments made here are not meant as a source of medical advice and those seeking medical advice are advised to consult with their own doctor. The author is not responsible for the contents of any external sites that are linked to in this blog. Conflicts of Interest: For potential conflicts of interest please see the About section.

Research Productivity in Mental Health Mapped in NHS News Roundup January 2014 4th Edition

Dr Alex Mitchell and medical student John Gill have published a paper on the research productivity in NHS mental health services. The paper is published in the open-access journal ‘The Psychiatric Bulletin’ TPB *.

This open-access TPB paper looks at the effects of using national and European guidelines on neuroimaging in memory services on the practice in one service.

Can librarians be integrated into mental health services? This open-access TPB paper summarises a pilot study into the integration of a clinical librarian into 4 mental health teams. Benefits identified included the rapid assembly of evidence to answer specific clinical questions.

This open-access TPB paper on an audit of the management of Wernicke’s Encepalopathy also looks at the evidence base.

Researchers in two studies have mapped the neuroanatomical and temporal progression of the spread of the misfolded protein TDP-43 through the brain in Dementia In Alzheimer’s Disease and Frontotemporal Dementia.

Appendix

News Round-Up 2008-2011

News Round-Up 2012

News Round-Up 2013

Index: There are indices for the TAWOP site here and here Twitter: You can follow ‘The Amazing World of Psychiatry’ Twitter by clicking on this link. Podcast: You can listen to this post on Odiogo by clicking on this link (there may be a small delay between publishing of the blog article and the availability of the podcast). It is available for a limited period. TAWOP Channel: You can follow the TAWOP Channel on YouTube by clicking on this link. Responses: If you have any comments, you can leave them below or alternatively e-mail justinmarley17@yahoo.co.uk. Disclaimer: The comments made here represent the opinions of the author and do not represent the profession or any body/organisation. The comments made here are not meant as a source of medical advice and those seeking medical advice are advised to consult with their own doctor. The author is not responsible for the contents of any external sites that are linked to in this blog. Conflicts of Interest*: For potential conflicts of interest please see the About section.

‘The Psychiatrist’ Becomes ‘The Psychiatric Bulletin and Goes Open Access News Round-Up January 2014 3rd Edition

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One of the main UK Psychiatry journals, ‘The Psychiatrist’ has reverted back to the original name of ‘The Psychiatric Bulletin’ and now features open-access articles*. Here are the 5 current open-access articles available online

• A look at Community Treatment Orders (CTO’s) in an editorial which recognises the role of public debate.
• An editorial looking at the evidence on CTO’s from the OCTET (Oxford Community Treatment Order Evaluation Trial).
• A special article looking at the significance of the OCTET from another perspective
• A study looking at the effects of additional conditions on CTO’s.
• A study looking at the effects of CTO’s on management in an assertive outreach team in London.

All of the above articles feature a Creative Commons 3.0 License which means they can be reused within the conditions of the license.

Elsewhere in the news.

An interesting PLOS One study looked at coverage of clinical trials in the media. The authors concluded that Randomised Controlled Trials were less likely to be reported than Observational studies. The latter would feature lower on the hierarchy of evidence than RCT’s. In essence the study implies that the more methodologically robust studies are less likely to be reported on.

A reduction in right Parietal Cortex grey matter volume may be linked to the subtle memory impairment that can be seen in Parkinson’s Disease according to this study.

Appendix

News Round-Up 2008-2011

News Round-Up 2012

Index: There are indices for the TAWOP site here and here Twitter: You can follow ‘The Amazing World of Psychiatry’ Twitter by clicking on this link. Podcast: You can listen to this post on Odiogo by clicking on this link (there may be a small delay between publishing of the blog article and the availability of the podcast). It is available for a limited period. TAWOP Channel: You can follow the TAWOP Channel on YouTube by clicking on this link. Responses: If you have any comments, you can leave them below or alternatively e-mail justinmarley17@yahoo.co.uk. Disclaimer: The comments made here represent the opinions of the author and do not represent the profession or any body/organisation. The comments made here are not meant as a source of medical advice and those seeking medical advice are advised to consult with their own doctor. The author is not responsible for the contents of any external sites that are linked to in this blog. Conflicts of Interest*: For potential conflicts of interest please see the About section.

Framingham Heart Study Data Suggests Link Between Cardiovascular Health and Dementia Risk News Round-Up January 2014 3rd Edition

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Two features of Dementia in Alzheimer’s Disease are basal forebrain atrophy and a build up of Amyloid plaque. Neuropathology studies have found a link between the two. Now a recent study (n=225) used a combination of PET and structural MRI to investigate this relationship. The results in this study again supported this relationship.

Researchers in this study (n=138) used biomarker data from the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative to investigate amnestic Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI). The researchers were able to stratify people with amnestic MCI.

Biomarkers for Dementia in Alzheimer’s Disease (DAT) were investigated in this study. Researchers followed up 340 people over 10 years. They found medial Temporal lobe atrophy was associated with incipient DAT up to 5 years in advance. They also found that Tempoparietal Cortex involvement was associated with the preclinical phase of DAT.

The Framingham Heart study is a long term study looking at cardiovascular health. A recent analysis of the data was published. The researchers found 777 cases of incipient Dementia in 7901 people. Researchers found that the lifetime risk at age 45 was

1:5 for women

1:10 for men

The researchers also found that cardiovascular mortality in adult men decreased with age. Essentially these findings suggest that men surviving into older adulthood in the study have better cardiovascular health than men at a younger age in the study. As cardiovascular health is linked to Dementia risk this may explain the difference in findings in men and women.

New Scientist have an interesting article on musical hallucinations.

Evolution/Evolutionary Psychiatry/Culture

John Hawks has an interesting article on self-medication in H.Neanderthalensis.

Appendix

News Round-Up 2008-2011

News Round-Up 2012

Index: There are indices for the TAWOP site here and here Twitter: You can follow ‘The Amazing World of Psychiatry’ Twitter by clicking on this link. Podcast: You can listen to this post on Odiogo by clicking on this link (there may be a small delay between publishing of the blog article and the availability of the podcast). It is available for a limited period. TAWOP Channel: You can follow the TAWOP Channel on YouTube by clicking on this link. Responses: If you have any comments, you can leave them below or alternatively e-mail justinmarley17@yahoo.co.uk. Disclaimer: The comments made here represent the opinions of the author and do not represent the profession or any body/organisation. The comments made here are not meant as a source of medical advice and those seeking medical advice are advised to consult with their own doctor. The author is not responsible for the contents of any external sites that are linked to in this blog. Conflicts of Interest: For potential conflicts of interest please see the About section.

SHY Theory on Sleep Elaborated News Round-Up January 2014 2nd Edition

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Microglia may play a role in Depression according to this study, however more data is needed in humans to provide a stronger evidence base for this hypothesis.

There is an interesting editorial on the broadening of topics in the Schizophrenia Bulletin to cover related conditions with psychosis.

BMC Medicine celebrated 10 years of open-access medical publishing including the CONSORT statement on standards for reporting trials.

Researchers have utilised data from the World Health Organisation and published studies to create a data repository. The repository can be used to compare incidence rates globally.

Traumatic brain injury led to Amyloid build up in some cases in this study.

Miscellaneous

New Scientist has an interesting piece on the phenomenon of lifelogging whereby we use technology to record many aspects of our life. Lifelogging may lead to an enhancement of our life including health and this is discussed.

Neuroscience

Researchers have found evidence of a protein that may be involved in pathways leading to obesity. The protein alpha-2/delta-1 was found to influence the function of Brain Derived Neurotrophic Factor. As well as a role in exercise associated synaptic growth, BDNF is linked to appetite suppression.

In an elaboration of the hypothesis the authors of the SHY hypothesis suggest that we sleep because we learn. Sleep enables us to reset synapses in the brain which in turn promotes new learning on waking and reduces energy demands in the brain.

Evolutionary Psychiatry/Evolution/Culture

Researchers at Oxford have looked at the dietary habits of Baboons to infer the likely diet of Paranthropus Bosei, one of our distant relatives that lived between 1.4 and 2.4 million years ago. P.Bosei had large teeth which would have been well suited to chewing and the researchers hypothesise that they would have fed on grass bulbs (tiger nuts) that are seen in modern diets.

Appendix

News Round-Up 2008-2011

News Round-Up 2012

Index: There are indices for the TAWOP site here and here Twitter: You can follow ‘The Amazing World of Psychiatry’ Twitter by clicking on this link. Podcast: You can listen to this post on Odiogo by clicking on this link (there may be a small delay between publishing of the blog article and the availability of the podcast). It is available for a limited period. TAWOP Channel: You can follow the TAWOP Channel on YouTube by clicking on this link. Responses: If you have any comments, you can leave them below or alternatively e-mail justinmarley17@yahoo.co.uk. Disclaimer: The comments made here represent the opinions of the author and do not represent the profession or any body/organisation. The comments made here are not meant as a source of medical advice and those seeking medical advice are advised to consult with their own doctor. The author is not responsible for the contents of any external sites that are linked to in this blog. Conflicts of Interest: For potential conflicts of interest please see the About section.

Big Data: Emerging Narratives?

In a recent TEDx talk at Macquarie University in Australia, Jodie Sangster talks about big data. Mobile data and user generated data on social media are two important sources of big data. Sangster’s message here is simple – big data has a tremendous potential to benefit society. Sangster’s cites a project which investigates the use of social media data to look at outbreaks of Dengue fever.

Big data is not a phenomenon that is restricted to large commercial enterprises. Instead big data is a phenomenon that is transforming society. This transformation is impacting on all areas of life including healthcare. There are two challenges to understanding big data. The first is to recognise where and how this is happening (e.g social media and health related devices). The second challenge is to understand the breadth and depth of change that this will herald.

Index: There are indices for the TAWOP site here and here Twitter: You can follow ‘The Amazing World of Psychiatry’ Twitter by clicking on this link. Podcast: You can listen to this post on Odiogo by clicking on this link (there may be a small delay between publishing of the blog article and the availability of the podcast). It is available for a limited period. TAWOP Channel: You can follow the TAWOP Channel on YouTube by clicking on this link. Responses: If you have any comments, you can leave them below or alternatively e-mail justinmarley17@yahoo.co.uk. Disclaimer: The comments made here represent the opinions of the author and do not represent the profession or any body/organisation. The comments made here are not meant as a source of medical advice and those seeking medical advice are advised to consult with their own doctor. The author is not responsible for the contents of any external sites that are linked to in this blog. Conflicts of Interest: For potential conflicts of interest please see the About section.

The Epidemiology of Delirium: A Paper from 2013

There is an interesting paper on Delirium from 2013 by Davis et al titled ‘The Epidemiology of Delirium: Challenges and Opportunities for Population Studies’. In the first section of the paper the authors look at the problems faced in epidemiological research. The issues here are particularly relevant to epidemiological researchers but also hold some interest in the interpretation of epidemiological studies or meta-analyses/systematic reviews. A key point in the discussion looked at how results were interpreted – were subjects with complete data included only (with associated bias) or was there an attempt to anticipate data for missing subjects (e.g using random effects modelling).

What I found quite interesting about the paper is the later section which reviews some of the epidemiological studies. The Gerontological Database research study revealed some very useful data about prevalence in people over the age of 85. Age was strongly linked to the prevalence of Delirium in this study which used DSM-IV criteria. The prevalence of Delirium in the 85-89 year age group was 19% compared to 39% in the 95+ age group. The only drawback was that the confidence interval data was missing and it wasn’t clear if this was point or 1-month period prevalence as reported for other data from the study. Regardless, the original study would merit further attention as if this pattern is replicated there is likely to be an important biological link (e.g blood-brain barrier integrity etc) that could be further investigated. The other point is whether there is comorbid Dementia. Nevertheless this does not escape the fact that there is Delirium regardless of whether it is a comorbidity.

The final section looks at the issue of improving epidemiological studies and the methodology here has some overlap with approaches with the potential to improve clinical practice.

Index: There are indices for the TAWOP site here and here Twitter: You can follow ‘The Amazing World of Psychiatry’ Twitter by clicking on this link. Podcast: You can listen to this post on Odiogo by clicking on this link (there may be a small delay between publishing of the blog article and the availability of the podcast). It is available for a limited period. TAWOP Channel: You can follow the TAWOP Channel on YouTube by clicking on this link. Responses: If you have any comments, you can leave them below or alternatively e-mail justinmarley17@yahoo.co.uk. Disclaimer: The comments made here represent the opinions of the author and do not represent the profession or any body/organisation. The comments made here are not meant as a source of medical advice and those seeking medical advice are advised to consult with their own doctor. The author is not responsible for the contents of any external sites that are linked to in this blog. Conflicts of Interest: For potential conflicts of interest please see the About section.