This statistic is not something that is brand new, and most professionals are aware that having a close friend or family members that has even attempted suicide can increase the risk for someone, particularly if they are struggling with a serious mental illness. Hopefully this type of study will educate people about this fact and increases the likelihood of people seeking treatment or emergency services if they have this type of pattern in their family.

This is a nice representation of the oldest debate in all of psychology: nature v. nurture. Based on what we are learning about evolution, my view is that our biology allows us to have the skills to learn social behavior as early as these ages, and that the life experience of the child up to that point would be a large reason for their choosing the helpful other.

I always think it is interesting to see these types of reports since job stress can certainly contribute to depression. However, I think the results give more indication about the types of people that go into those jobs than those jobs actually creating people who experience depression. Meaning, that people choose certain areas of work for reason that may be reflective of their already formed personality, and that these traits are what makes the difference in depression levels rather than job stress or income levels.

If any of this is interesting to you, then take a look at this recent piece from CBS news on the advances in aging research. If some sort of procedure ever actually makes living indefinitely possible, it will be quite interesting to see how people make decisions regarding it.

According to a recent report on teenagers and domestic violence, approximately 1/3 of teenagers report fearing for their safety in romantic relationships, and 20% have actually experienced abuse. Experts note that some teenagers mistake possessiveness as a sign of love, when in fact it can be an element leading to abuse. If you’re a parent, it may be important to check in with your teen on how their love life is going and ensuring they are making safe decisions.

Overall, it is great to have parents interested in their children’s education and college life. However, the shadow side of this is that many kids will over-rely on their parents to solve problems and will struggle to ever become autonomous adults. It is left to be seen what other effects this may have culturally.

It would be expected that in an organization as large as the military that this level of people have been identified and discharged with these problems, but the rest of the issue does seem questionable. I hope that somehow there is not an abuse of mental health diagnoses for some secondary gain, and possible avoidance of paying for continued health care for these personnel.

Many of the students have nightmares, are hyper-vigilant, easily startled, irritable, depressed or want to avoid things that remind them of the trauma, which can include the loss of family, pets and their homes, the study reported in the Psychiatric Services.

“Mental health responses were good during the early part of the crisis, but most schools were not able to sustain their efforts,” Jaycox said in a statement.

Although it is great to see that the initial push of services for kids affected by the hurricane was successful at getting people back to their lives, it is troubling to think that a generation of children will have lingering psychological problems due to the disaster. Perhaps some of that is inevitable, and the same could be said for the staff burnout and difficulty accessing services, but there must be some solutions. Any ideas out there?

At the three sites studied, officials had arrested 900 suspected illegal immigrants resulting in 500 children abruptly losing contact with their mother, father or both parents. That left them with a combination of unstable supervision, stress, emotional trauma and material needs that can lead to mental health disorders, researchers found.

This raises all sorts of issues that can complicate how to proceed with these affairs. The big question is whether deporting someone is worth the cost of the harm it can do to their children.

Some people report having a mood boost by smoking marijuana, which is what led the researchers to study the effects of the drug on the brain, and hopefully the research can lead to more understanding of the brain and depression. Psychologically, smoking marijuana (or taking another substance) might have some positive chemical effect, and the experience is a temporary relief from feeling depressed, but I would imagine that virtually no one would ever recommend developing a dependence on a substance for relief.

Postpartum literally means “after birth,” and this period is a time when women, who suffer from depression at twice the rate that men do, are especially vulnerable.

A study in this month’s American Journal of Psychiatry of more than 4,000 pregnant women showed that more than 10 percent of them suffered from major depression after giving birth. This study, from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, also found substantial, though lower, rates of depression in women just before and during pregnancy.

The article itself is a fabulous overview about what is and is not yet known about postpartum depression, and gives some insight into what the funding could be used for. Anyone who is an expecting mom or knows someone that struggled with this should definitely give it a read.

“The hope that we can fight cancer by influencing emotional states appears to have been misplaced,” Coyne said in a statement.

“If cancer patients want psychotherapy or to be in a support group, they should be given the opportunity to do so. There can be lots of emotional and social benefits. But they should not seek such experiences solely on the expectation that they are extending their lives.”

The intersection mental and physical health continues to receive a lot of funding and attention, and I am pretty confident we have not heard the end of this growing debate.

The thing I have begun wondering about more with neuropsych research is whether the evolutionary advantage of something like this is also considered. In most commonly thought of ways, being vulnerable to stress is quite a disadvantage. However, there can also be some advantages of this (e.g. a person vulnerability to strong stress reaction may avoid dangerous situations thus preserving their being). Any other ideas?

Additionally, for those of you who have ever considered taking music lessons or becoming a musician is some form, know that even one year of training will change your brain to the point that it can be seen as different at autopsy, something that is not true for most other things you can become involved in.

The study, led by Dr. Lucy Cooke of the department of epidemiology and public health at University College London, was published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition in August. Dr. Cooke and others in the field believe it is the first to use a standard scale to investigate the contribution of genetics and environment to childhood neophobia.

According to the report, 78 percent is genetic and the other 22 percent environmental.

“People have really dismissed this as an idea because they have been looking at the social associations between parents and their children,” Dr. Cooke said. “I came from a position of not wanting to blame parents.”

The remainder of the article is worth reading, since it explores some about the culture of food and family, that makes up some of the rest of the picture. As much as this data will resonate with some parents, I find the language from the main author notable, particularly use of the word “blame”. Genetics aside, does it mean parents are to be “blamed” if kids are doing something undesirable? Or are they “responsible”. I see a significant difference.