LinkBlog
The top 10 drugs prescribed by American psychiatrists in 2006 (pdf)
Crying Shame - a Priory Group survey about stigma and mental illness in Britain (pdf)
6 Golden Rules for Conquering Performance Anxiety by David Leisner
Freedom from Fear's On Target Summer/Fall 2007 newsletter - an anxiety & depression resource (PDF)
blog roll
- Agoraphobia
- Anxiety 2 Calm
-
Anxious Living : An Exploration
into Social Anxiety - Dare to Dream
- Dear Tobacco
-
Dr. Deborah Serani's:
Psychological Perspectives - Fast Weight Loss?
- Finding the Confidence
- GNIF Brain Blogger
- Legacy of War
- Mental Health Minutes
- My Brain: My Friend, My Enemy
- My Wife Has Agoraphobia!
- Neurophilosophy
- Out of the silence - site for young people with mental illness
- PTSD Combat
- The Happiness Guy
- The Last Psychiatrist
- The Trouble With Spikol
-
WebMD: Anxiety and
Stress Management - We Worry: A Blog for the Anxious
recommended links
Depression Is Real Coalition
-
ABIL: Agoraphobics Building
Independant Lives -
Agoraphobia and Panic
Disorder Foundation -
Anxiety Disorders Association
of America - Anxiety Network Australia
- Anxiety-Panic.Com
- AnxietyZone
- Army Behavioral Health
- BrainPhysics - OCD
-
Canadian Network for Mood
and Anxiety Treatments - Children of Hoarders
- Choices in Mental Health (UK)
-
Dart Foundation: Gateway to PTSD
information -
David Baldwin's
Trauma Information Pages - EMDR Institute, Inc.
- EMDR Network Japan
- Fear of Flying course (free)
- Healthy Minds
- Information for People with Anxiety Disorders
- Internet Guide to REBT, CBT
- Living with a Brain Disorder
- Morita Therapy
- Mayo Clinic : Depression
- Mayo Clinic : GAD
- Mayo Clinic : OCD
- Mayo Clinic : Panic Attacks
- Mayo Clinic : PTSD
- Mayo Clinic : Social Anxiety
-
Medicines.org.uk - Anxiety &
Depression guides - Mind-Your-Mind Canada
- National Center for PTSD
-
National Institute of Mental
Health (NIMH) - No Such Thing As Crazy
- OCD Action, UK
- OCD Ireland
- Obsessive Compulsive Foundation
- Open Minds, Open Doors
- Out of the silence - site for young people with mental illness
- Paniccure.com
- Partners With PTSD
- Prescription Drug Information
- Psychiatric Service Dog Society
- PsychNews
-
Rational Emotive Behavior
Therapy (REBT) - Sane Australia
-
Shyness & Social Anxiety
Service of Australia -
Social Phobia/Social Anxiety
Association - Social Anxiety Support board
-
South African Depression &
Anxiety Group - Suicide Prevention Help
-
tAPir - the Anxiety Panic
internet resource -
The Panic Center (Free
CBT based programs) - The School of OCD
- UN-WHO Drug Trials Database
- U.S. Army Behavioral Health - PTSD
"just don't smoke"
Yul Brynner
- Menthol cigarettes harder to quit
- Secondhand smoke in cars serious threat to kid's health
- Starting smoking young increases addiction risk
-
Smoking doesn't slim girls;
stunts boys' growth - 40 reasons why you should quit smoking
- Pregnant smokers 'prime' their kids to smoke
- Smoking related coronary artery disease quickly reversed if young smokers quit
- Not ready to quit? Try cutting back
- Half smoking again within year of lung cancer surgery
- Cutting back 'compensation' increases toxin load per cigarette
- Tobacco companies upped nicotine level 11% since 1998
- Workplace passive smoke increases lung cancer risk
- Hooked by genes: The DNA sequences cigarette companies love
- Smoking causes long lasting changes to brain's bio chemistry
- Nicotine receptor stimulant trebles the odds of stopping smoking
- Bupropion, nortriptyline double chances of quitting
- Nicotine's powerful role in reinforcing smoking
- Pregnant smokers raise child's risk of stroke, heart attack
- Smoking linked to pancreatic cancer
- Neurobiology of Smokers' Cravings
- 'Low cancer risk' cigarettes as deadly as regular kind
- Quitting reduces lung cancer death risk by 70%
- Fetal nicotine exposure linked to teen attention problems
- Outdoor second-hand smoke exposure can harm
- Response to day's first cigarette predicts ease of quitting
- 'Healthy' children of smoking parents aren't really so healthy
- Children of smokers have up to five times higher levels of a nicotine toxin
- Smoking increases risk of dementia
- Smoking kills even after quitting
- Antenatal second hand smoke exposure increases child's psychological problems
- Smoking could kill 1 billion this century: WHO
- Just 1 cigarette can lead to nicotine addiction
- Smokers less likely to survive early stage lung cancer
- Smokeless tobacco delivers carcinogens more efficiently than cigarettes!
- Smoking permanently turns on genes that increase lung cancer susceptibility
- Secondhand smoke a health hazard for pets too
anti torture campaign
- Torture experts write APA policy
- [APA] still rocked by torture debate
- Petition for psychologists
- AMA president says APA "did not accurately represent our ethical guidelines"
- Psychologists Aiding Torturers
-
Annual conference endorses
APA's torture policy :( - Physicians for Human Rights call on Congress to vote No on Military Commissions Bill
-
Torture is a Form of Trauma;
Trauma Causes PTSD - Psychoanalysts' association condemns torture use
- Humiliating, inhumane or degrading treatment IS torture
- Two American psychologists accused of war crimes. U.S. DoD investigating.
- DoD report proves psychologists central to POW/detainee abuse (pdf)
- 40 psychologists demand APA change policy on torture (pdf)
- Did the American Psychological Association turn a blind eye to torture for medicine precribing rights?
- Will psychologists still abet torture?
- Psychologist, Author Mary Pipher Returns APA Award Over Interrogation Policy
- Guantanamo Medical Role Likened to South Africa Under Apartheid
Deputy Army Chief of Staff for Intelligence, Lt. General John (Jeff) Kimmons, has stated that no actionable intelligence had been obtained through abusive interrogation methods in the last 5 years.
monument, Monmouth County
New Jersey.
Mood disorders/schizophrenia-linked gene controls neurogenesis
A gene linked to mood disorders and schizophrenia plays a broader role in the brain than scientists had previously suspected, according to a new study published online in the journal Cell.
The study reveals that the gene, known as Disrupted-In-Schizophrenia 1 (DISC1), directs the incorporation of new neurons into the adult brain and keeps the process under control. The gene's newly discovered roles might help to explain why symptoms of these disorders generally first become apparent in adolescence or early adulthood, the researchers suggested.
The research team found that mice with reduced DISC1 levels in just a few new brain cells showed accelerated integration of those neurons into the existing brain circuitry. The abnormally shaped neurons that resulted from the excited activity also wound up positioning themselves improperly. What's more, the DISC1-deficient newborn neurons were increasingly excitable and developed a greater number of junctions, or synapses, with other brain cells.
"Everything is happening faster than it's supposed to happen," said Guo-li Ming of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
"Normally, new neurons migrate within certain ranges, but cells with reduced DISC1 overshoot and end up in the wrong place," added Hongjun Song, also of Johns Hopkins. "They also grow a lot more dendritic processes and fire at a faster rate. Synapse formation is much faster. A series of things go wrong, and everything is sped up. It appears that they just can't stop somehow." Dendritic processes are the branches found at neurons' receiving ends.
"This study reveals two unexpected functions of DISC1 [in the adult brain]: regulation of synapse formation and neuronal firing," said study collaborator Bai Lu of the National Institute of Mental Health, adding that abnormalities of those neural functions have been implicated in the pathogenesis of schizophrenia.
The exact consequences of the new brain cells' fast-paced behavior aren't yet clear, the researchers said. Indeed, the functional role of neurons that are born during adulthood, a process known as adult neurogenesis, remains open to question. However, some studies have suggested that the newborn neurons are important for learning and memory-playing. Adult neurogenesis has also been implicated in mood disorders such as depression, Lu said.
Mutations in the gene encoding DISC1 had been linked to schizophrenia and other mood disorders, including depression and bipolar disorder, in multiple family pedigrees, the researchers said. Yet, the neurobiology of the DISC1 protein in the normal developing and adult brain and its roles in these mental illnesses haven't been well understood.
DISC1 was known to be active in many brain regions during embryonic development. But in the adult brain, the gene is active only in a few restricted areas, including certain cells of the hippocampus. That brain region is important for learning and memory and mood control. Studies in cell culture and in embryonic brain tissue have also provided evidence that neurons with reduced amounts of the protein display impaired growth of neuronal processes and stunted migration.
To find out what the gene does in live animals in the current study, the researchers used a unique strategy they developed to manipulate the gene's activity in individual adult neural stem cells within the hippocampi of adult mice.
"In vivo, DISC1 does more than expected, regulating many processes essential for establishing a network for brain function. We were also surprised to find that the gene does something different in the adult brain than what it seems to do in embryonic stages," Song said.
"It appears that you need tight regulation of DISC1 levels for new neurons to integrate into the brain circuitry properly," Lu said. A decrease in DISC1 levels during development may result in earlier and abnormal formation of neuronal circuitry, leading to abnormal brain function in the adult, he added.
Just what the new findings in mice will mean for people with mood disorders and schizophrenia linked to the gene remains unknown, but they do point to some tantalizing possibilities, according to the researchers.
"It's been an intriguing question why a developmental disease like schizophrenia would have an adult onset," Song said, noting that the condition normally strikes people at the age of 20 or older. "Our findings raise the possibility that a defect in the generation of new neurons specifically in the adult brain might contribute. We don't have the answer yet, but we do now have the suggestion."
Related articles: DISC1 | Neurogenesis
Duan X, Chang JH, Ge S, FaulknerRL, et al. Disrupted-In-Schizophrenia 1 Regulates Integration of Newly Generated Neurons in the Adult Brain Cell 2007; doi:10.1016/j.cell.2007.07.010 []
Don't you know that schizophrenia has been cured since 1952? Abram Hoffer did 6 double-blind studies on adults, and 3 with children. All show that 3 grams of niacin in divided doses and vitamin C cured it. His definition of cure, is that the person is at work and paying taxes. Two of the schizophrenics when on to become psychiatrists themselves!