Earlier today, we reported that NIMH-funded researchers at three different genetic research institutes from around the world collaborated and published three new studies yesterday in the journal, Nature, that suggested a true breakthrough in our understanding of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. And to think that just earlier this week, I was dismissing the largely inconclusive findings of genetics research in mental illness.

One of the researchers commented on the findings: “There was substantial overlap in the genetic risk for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder that was specific to mental disorders. We saw no association between the suspect gene variants and half a dozen common non-psychiatric disorders.” This is an important discovery — that some of the roots of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder may be very similar. This may also begin to partially explain why drugs — atypical antipsychotics — developed for schizophrenia also appear to work for bipolar disorder.

Furthermore, all three studies implicated an area of Chromosome 6, which is known to include genes involved in immunity. This area also has genes that seem to control how and when genes turn on and off. As the NIMH notes, this hotspot of association might help to explain how environmental factors affect risk for schizophrenia.

The other important finding from these studies was the huge impact of pooling data and resources in genetic research. Without large data sample sizes, genetics research often ends up at a dead-end. By being able to analyze over 30,000 genetic variants in over 3,000 people with …

Independence Day in the U.S. is the day that America declared its independence from a tyrannical government, but real independence took many longer, hard years of war. The sacrifice of tens of thousands of people was needed first, before our declaration of independence had any real effect.

And so it is with any change in our lives. We can make the declaration, “Today, I’m going to start losing weight,” or “Today, I’m going to try and reply to every cognitive distortion by examining the evidence and answering it back.” But declarations are only starting points — they represent the beginning of our journey, not the end.

But declarations serve an important purpose — they place us (and others) on notice. Something is going to change. It may not change today, it may not change tomorrow, but I’m now committing myself to this course of action.

I suggest a declaration of independence from fear this Independence Day.

Fear is such a sneaky and invasive emotion. It prevents us from taking action in our lives when action is needed. It holds us down from trying something new, usually for little good reason other than not quite knowing what will happen (usually what actually happens is enjoyment, fun, or learning something new). It is the darkness behind the door that we’re so afraid to open, we just turn and walk away.

Fear is baffling. Psychologists refer to the “fight or flight” response to fearful situations, that we’ve …

Ever wonder why kids behave the way they do? Satellite radio Sirius XM and a team of medical experts from NYU Langone Medical Center have the answer with a special on the Doctor Radio channel on July 4th. Doctor Radio is heard on SIRIUS channel 114 and XM channel 119.

24 Hours About Our Kids is a July 4th weekend marathon of Doctor Radio’s weekly child psychiatry and psychology show, exploring important topics that all parents and kids face today including ADHD, mood disorders, the effects of online social networking, issues related to coming out of the closet, Autism, depression and more.

About Our Kids is hosted by leading doctors from NYU Langone Medical Center, including Dr. Jess Shatkin, Dr. Lori Evans, and Dr. Alexandra Barzvi. Dr. Harold Koplewicz, Director of The Child Study Center, is a regular contributor to Doctor Radio. Dr. Shatkin will host this special.

On 24 Hours About Our Kids: Why Kids Behave the Way They Do, the doctors tackle many of the most important issues kids and parents are facing today, and provides expert insight and advice. Issues explored on this special include:

• Depression, anxiety and mood disorders: Dr. Harold Koplewicz tells parents how to spot the signs of a depressed teenager and what your immediate response should be. He will also explore kids’ attitudes - when are they just being moody and just being teens, and when are they seriously depressed? How to know the difference and spot and treat depression in kids.

• Using the internet for social networking, Facebook, MySpace -

…

We’ve already talked about how moms and daughters can help boost each other’s body image. However, moms aren’t the only influential ones. Dads, too, play a pivotal role in shaping their daughter’s body image. And parents today have a lot to contend with; our society isn’t getting any easier on girls (or boys). It’s tough enough on full-grown women to navigate the treacherous world of women’s magazines, double-zero clothing and weight-loss ads. Add to that peer teasing and cyberbullying, and it’s understandable why some dads are voicing their concern. Paul Nyhan in The Seattle Post-Intelligencer described his fears of raising his daughter in our appearance-conscious society:

“Girls as young as 7 are now treated for anorexia, more than 40 percent of girls in first, second and third grade wish they were thinner, and the number of reported cases of anorexia and bulimia is rising, according to the Seattle-based National Association of Eating Disorders.”

Like Nyhan — who’s “worried because in a few years this toddler will stand at the edge of the nation’s body-image vortex, swirling with size 00 jeans, underfed celebrities glorified in gossip magazines, the latest “America’s Next Top Model” and an unrelenting marketing drumbeat that skinnier is better” — many dads aren’t sure how to approach their daughters. They’re typically more comfortable coaching their sons on their baseball game and catching up with their boys on the latest sports stats.

That might be because dads don’t see …

Out of fairness I couldn’t put us in the top ten list, but PsychCentral tweeps have some great Twitter accounts.

• @docjohng (our fearless leader)
• @aliciasparks (glamorous author, Celebrity Psychings editor, World of Psychology contributor)
• @dr_aletta (therapist/life coach, World of Psychology contributor)
• @summerberetsky (mental health writer, World of Psychology contributor)
• @channelNvideo (me, editor of Channel N, features extra neuro/psych videos and new media talk)
• @unsuicide (me again, a suicide prevention peer resource with positive, practical info and support)
• @psychcentral (feeds posts from all the blogs)

Therese Borchard and everyone else who makes this site so valuable, I hope you’ll get accounts too.

Midweek Mental Greening

If you’re interested in the connection between the environment and your mental health - and you enjoy writing or creating art - here’s a treat for you:

The Mental Health Association in Tompkins County, New York, is seeking submissions for its Summer 2009 issue of States of Mind, “Nature as Nurture: Mental Health and the Environment,” and if you don’t live in New York, don’t fret - I was fortunate enough to email with with States of Mind Editor Celia Smith who assured me the call for submissions is open to all interested parties; however, available slots are filling up fast and inclusion will be highly selective.

Plus, the deadline is…

….tomorrow! July 1, 2009!

Sounds like a challenge!

Acceptable entries include artwork (in a reproducible format that will translate well into a black-and-white format) and poems, stories, and personal accounts (between 700-1,000 words long) and you can submit them in one of three ways:

1. Via email to info@mhaedu.org. Note that you can either paste your poem, story, or personal account directly into the email or attach it as a .doc or .rtf format only.
2. Mail your entry to: Mental Health Association, Attn: Editor, States of Mind, 614 W. State Street, Ithaca, NY 14850.
3. Hand deliver your entry to the same address (which Ms. Smith points out is the best method for artwork).

If this deadline’s too soon for you, or you aren’t into writing or art, you can still benefit from others’ work. The completed issues should be printed in August and you …

Today I have the honor of interviewing Irish author Patrick Tracey, who penned an amazing book, “Stalking Irish Madness Searching for the Roots of My Family’s Schizophrenia,” for which he has won the Ken Book Award from the National Alliance on Mental Illness for “outstanding literary contribution to the understanding of mental illness,” a Slate best book of 2008, and the prestigious PEN New England/L.L. Winship Award for Nonfiction. “Stalking Irish Madness” is a dynamite, compelling read. It’s intriguing, informative, poetic, and captivating.

1) Correct me if I’m wrong. You began this search because you have been so devastated by the emotional toll that schizophrenia has already had in your family, which includes two of your sisters, your uncle, your grandmother, your great-great-great grandmother who came over from Ireland. And also because you are afraid to pass the mental illness on to the next generation. I know you are close with your nephew, that he is like a son to you, but have you made a decision not to have children because of the risk of passing the illness on?

Patrick: Yes, I made a point of not having children. And then I kept meeting women who were mad to have them. Or women who were running out of eggs and desperately wanted children. Given my family history, I was not the man.

Not that I would have made a bad father - I think I could be great one - but because I lived with the burden of believing

…

For decades, scientists have been making claims about the genetic roots of mental illness, ranging from schizophrenia and depression, to bipolar disorder and attention deficit disorder (ADHD). And for decades, they’ve largely been chasing ghosts.

Eric Kandel, writing for Newsweek, makes the at-least-annual appeal that scientists are making “certain advances in genetics” which give “us new reasons for optimism” in understanding the biological basis for mental illness. As someone who’s been tracking the progress of such genetic advances over the past two decades, I have to say, I remain squarely skeptical.

It doesn’t help that Kandel’s own arguments are exercises in circular logic:

One major advance has been the discovery that there is much more variability in the genome than had been anticipated, and that this takes the form of copy number variation (CNV). These are duplications or deletions of segments of a chromosome, often involving several or tens of genes, that enhance or depress the actions of specific genes. A well-known example of a CNV is the extra copy of chromosome 21 resulting in Down syndrome. It has recently been discovered that this type of variation is extremely common in everyone’s genome.

If there’s “much more variability in the genome,” guess what? That means finding specific meaningful, predictable variations is all the more challenging. If the extra copy of chromosome 21 is “extremely common,” how come Down syndrome isn’t so much more common?

We’ve highlighted previously altered genes that may increase the risk of schizophrenia, for example. But not a year …

Microblogging service Twitter is maximizing in popularity. Though there are naysayers who don’t understand the medium and dismiss it as shallow and narcissistic (just like early blog critics did), Twitter is used in many vital ways. For every snarkster who writes about her lunch, there’s an account like Brainline sharing serious medical info. Musicians set up impromptu concerts while professors analyze journalism, and people organize flash mobs for celebrity tributes or political protests. There are job postings, science fiction flashforward zines… I could go on, but the point is: there are many, many “tweeps” with useful, revealing and cool accounts. Plenty are about psychology and mental health. It was very difficult to narrow this list to just ten, so I used these criteria:

• NO marketing (including “free” e-books, how-to guides, etc.)
• not just “broadcasting” or re-feeding, follows others and reads their feeds
• interacts with friends and followers, replies to people
• shares more than just factoids, quotes, or pop psych aphorisms
• active but not overactive
• not too off-topic, talks mostly about psychology, psychotherapy and/or mental health
• humour, taste, talent, good writing and personality
• poise, swimsuit competition, and how they’ll bring about world peace

Kidding about that last one, but — here are the psych tweep pageant winners:

10. @mtabraham “Professional Counselor - my goal is to help people be more successful through mindful awareness and self acceptance.” Terri Abraham is a very active tweep sharing positive thoughts and info on mindfulness therapy and spirituality. Chatty and responsive even with …

I’m, right now and right here, sitting on the peak of that so-called hill we always talk about. Things could go swell for another 40 years, at which time I’ll be buried by any remaining friends. Or they could blow up in my face and trim my life back by a few decades. My body is no longer resilient to careless experiments. That’s for sure. At almost 40, I do indeed suffer the consequences of an extra shot of espresso, two nights of interrupted sleep, or a chocolate binge.

The forgiveness and flexibility of my youth has officially gone bye-bye.

So I’ve begun to ask myself what the energetic 80-year-olds that swim at the Naval Academy with me are doing differently than the lifeless elderly folks at the senior center I occasionally visit. And, yes, I’ll occasionally pretend to be Barbara Walters and ask nosy questions about what they are doing right (or wrong, but I don’t quite word it like that).

Here are a few observations from my unscientific study, three characteristics or things in common the winners have:

1. They like to laugh.

Yep, nearly all of them have a marvelous sense of humor. And this is consistent with a Norwegian study that suggests folks who can laugh at life’s ups and downs live longer. For example, the study, which was presented at a meeting of the American Psychosomatic Society and reported by USA Today, followed a subgroup of 2,015 cancer patients for seven years, and found that the people who could laugh more easily and had

…

It’s been a rough week in the entertainment world, with the loss of three stars in music, Hollywood and television. With the passing of Michael Jackson (music, mostly in the 1980s), Farrah Fawcett (movies), and Ed McMahon (The Tonight Show and Star Search), the world has lost some significant talent. Each, in their own way, contributed something special and unique to their field.

You couldn’t have grown up in the 1980s and not been affected by Michael Jackson’s music (regardless of whether you liked him or not, doubtless one of your friends or girlfriend/boyfriend did). The later recriminations against Michael Jackson and his alleged interest in young boys no doubt will tarnish his otherwise popular rock career. Farrah Fawcett was, for better or worse, an icon of female sexuality in the 1970s and carrying over a little into the 1980s. And Ed McMahon was the perfect sidekick to Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show, but was in the news more recently for being broke despite his lucrative career. He also hosted the popular-at-the-time TV talent show, Star Search.

Our own Alicia Sparks has the coverage over at Celebrity Psychings: Jackson, Fawcett, McMahon: Coping With The Loss Of American Icons.

A few days ago a friend forwarded me a post on DailyOM.com called “Boredom: Fanning the Creative Flames.” It says:

The human mind thrives on novelty. What was once a source of pleasure can become tedious after a time. Though our lives are full, boredom lurks around every corner because we innately long for new experiences. Yet boredom by its very nature is passive. In this idle state of mind, we may feel frustrated at our inability to channel our mental energy into productive or engaging tasks. We may even attempt to lose ourselves in purposeless or self-destructive pursuits. While this can be a sign of depression, it can also be an invitation issued from your mind, asking you to challenge yourself. Boredom can become the motivation that drives you to learn, explore the exotic, experiment, and harness the boundless creative energy within. 



In Hindu and Buddhist traditions, boredom is perceived as a pathway to self-awareness. Boredom itself is not detrimental to the soul–it is the manner in which we respond to it that determines whether it becomes a positive or a negative influence in our lives.

A bored mind can be the canvas upon which innovation is painted and the womb in which novelty is nourished. When you identify boredom as a signal that you need to test your boundaries, it can be the force that presses you to strive for opportunities you thought were beyond your reach and to indulge your desire for adventure.

The wisdom in these words is especially important …