Adults with restless legs syndrome (RLS), a common debilitating condition, may be affected physically, mentally, and socially by their disease. In a new study presented at CHEST 2005, the 71st annual international scientific assembly of the American College of Chest Physicians (ACCP), adults at risk for RLS were more likely than those without risk of […]

On-Campus Suicide a Hidden Killer
[…] Approximately 1,100 U.S. college students take their own lives each year. Nobody’s sure if that number is rising or falling — according to Gibori, a steep increase in on-campus suicides has been charted over the past 40 years, but that could simply reflect a more honest reporting of an event […]

When it comes to focusing on a task amid distractions, some folks more than 60 years old are as mentally sharp as 22-year-olds. Others struggle. Researchers at the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have shed some light on why that is.
Reporting in the current issue (September) […]

Does the act of being ’superwoman’ at work and around the home leave you feeling stressed and unable to cope? Do you identify with the TV character Lynette from ‘Desperate Housewives’? University of Western Sydney researchers are looking at domestic irritability and depression in women, and whether women are risking their mental health by taking […]

Positive Thinking the Key to a Longer Life?
The short answer is, yes, of course! Research has already tied positive thinking with more positive surgical outcomes, so it’s not such a leap to imagine that thinking positively in general could also more generally help us out in life.
Of course the challenge is how to keep […]

A former star NFL running back, a Texas state representative, and HBO will be recognized by Eli Lilly for their contributions in the fight against mental illness on Nov. 4 in Washington.
Calvin Hill, the former Dallas Cowboys and Washington Redskins great, will be honored for helping the Dallas Cowboys set up a program that […]

Liver problems with Abbott Laboratories Inc.’s discontinued attention deficit drug Cylert and other generic versions are too dangerous for the U.S. market, the Food and Drug Administration said on Monday.
“The agency has concluded that the overall risk of liver toxicity from Cylert and generic pemoline products outweighs the benefits of this drug,” the FDA said […]

Family caregivers lack mental health help
Caring for a family member with advanced cancer can take a heavy mental health toll, but many caregivers may fail to get any psychiatric help, a new study suggests.
Researchers found that among 200 caregivers of patients with advanced cancer, 13 percent met the criteria for a significant psychiatric disorder –including […]

MIT explains why bad habits are hard to break
Apparently, habits may form familiar neural pathways which makes it more difficult to break the pattern of behavior. This makes a lot of sense, given people’s difficulties with trying to break a habit they want to be rid of.

Habitual activity–smoking, eating fatty foods, gambling–changes neural activity patterns […]

Can Brain Scans See Depression? - New York Times (free reg. req’d.)
They seem almost alive: snapshots of the living human brain.
Not long ago, scientists predicted that these images, produced by sophisticated brain-scanning techniques, would help cut through the mystery of mental illness, revealing clear brain abnormalities and allowing doctors to better diagnose and treat a […]

The emotional responses that guide much of human behavior have a tremendous impact on public policy and international affairs, prompting government officials to make decisions in response to a crisis–such as the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks–with little regard to the long-term consequences, according to a study by scholars at Carnegie Mellon University and the University […]

Researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago used functional brain imaging to establish a link between emotional impairment and poor cognition in children with bipolar disorder.
“This study is very exciting because it shows that negative emotions affect cognition differently than positive emotions in these kids,” said Dr. Mani Pavuluri, associate professor of psychiatry at […]