Mental Disorders


Hemoglobin Levels and Liver Function Markers Linked to AD

Two observational cohort studies revealed that altered levels of hemoglobin and liver function markers were associated with Alzheimer disease (AD). The first study included 12,305 participants without dementia of the population-based Dutch cohort (mean age 64.6 years, 57.7% women). During a mean follow-up of 12.1 years, 1,520 individuals developed dementia, […]


A Healthy Lifestyle Linked to Lower Dementia Risk

A UK retrospective cohort study suggested that a favorable lifestyle was associated with a lower dementia risk among participants with high genetic risk. The study included a total of 196 383 individuals (mean 64.1 years; 52.7% women) from 2006 to 2010, and followed up for 1 545 433 person-years (median follow-up, 8.0 years). […]


Supplements Useless for Brain

The Global Council on Brain Health (GCBH), an independent collaborative of scientists, health professionals, scholars and policy experts from around the world who are working in areas of brain health related to human cognition concluded that there is no convincing evidence to recommend dietary supplements for brain health in healthy […]


BD’s Polygenic Genetic Architecture

A genome-wide study of bipolar disorder (BD) revealed an extensive polygenic genetic architecture of the disease, implicate brain calcium channels and neurotransmitter function in BD etiology, and confirmed that BD is part of a spectrum of highly correlated psychiatric and mood disorders. The study included 20,352 cases and 31,358 controls […]


Warnings Added to Common Sleep Pills

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is requiring a Boxed Warning, the most prominent warning, to be added to certain common prescription insomnia medicines because of sleep behaviors, including sleepwalking, sleep driving, and engaging in other activities while not fully awake. These complex sleep behaviors have also resulted in deaths. […]


Complex Genetic Roots of Depression

A meta-analysis of genome-wide association studies of depression identified 102 independent variants, 269 genes, and 15 genesets associated with depression, including both genes and gene pathways associated with synaptic structure and neurotransmission. The analysis included 807,553 individuals (246,363 cases and 561,190 controls). An enrichment analysis provided further evidence of the […]


Blood Neurofilament Light Chain, a Biomarker of Neurodegeneration

A cohort study revealed that blood neurofilament light chain (NfL) changes predict disease progression and brain neurodegeneration more than a decade before the onset of familial Alzheimer’s disease (AD). The study included 243 participants with an early-onset genetic variant known to cause dominantly inherited AD and 162 unaffected relatives as […]


Hypnotherapy Relieved IBS

A multicenter randomized controlled trial in the Netherlands showed that both individual and group hypnotherapy were effective in irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). Between May 31, 2011, and April 6, 2016, 354 patients with IBS (aged 18–65 years) were randomly allocated (3:3:1) to three groups to receive six sessions of individual […]


Prolonged Functional Connections in Autism

An US cohort study showed that prolonged temporal synchrony of functional brain connections is reproducibly observed in autism. The study included male autism (n = 52, mean age 27.73 years) and typically developing individuals (n = 38, 27.09 years) between December 2016 and April 2018. Increases in both sustained and functional brain connectivity at […]


Cannabis Use May Cause Cognitive Impairments

A longitudinal randomized controlled trial in Canada revealed that concurrent and lasting effects of adolescent cannabis use can be observed on important cognitive function and appear to be more pronounced than those observed for alcohol. The study included a population-based sample of 3,826 seventh-grade students from 31 schools consisting of […]