About a decade ago NIH held a series of workshops to develop a Roadmap for Biomedical Research. We brought experts to Bethesda to suggest new directions for technology development, training, and a range of other areas. In one such meeting, on re-engineering clinical research, many of the nation’s leading clinical scientists debated how to improve our approach to research on diseases. Well into the two-day workshop, Dr. Eugene Braunwald stopped the discussion when he suggested he could solve the nation’s problems with clinical research in a single word. Dr. Braunwald, then in his mid-70’s, was one of America’s most respected cardiologists and thought leaders, so his pronouncement was met with awe and anticipation. After a carefully timed, dramatic pause, Dr. Braunwald said simply, “Sweden.”

I remembered this moment recently reading a new report on co-morbidity and mortality in persons with schizophrenia in Sweden.¹ What Dr. Braunwald was thinking about was the Swedish universal health care system and population registries, making Sweden the ideal setting for epidemiology, the study of patterns and determinants of disease in populations. For a disorder like schizophrenia, virtually every affected person is identified and the predictive value (accuracy) of diagnosis is over 94 percent. Unlike in this country, there are few barriers to care based on insurance, access, or geography.

Which is why you should look at these new data on mortality. Crump and colleagues followed a Swedish national cohort of over 6 million adults between 2003 and 2009 to detect mortality and illness based on the results of every outpatient or inpatient visit nationwide. Among the 8,277 people with schizophrenia, men died 15 years earlier and women died 13 years earlier than the rest of the population. This early mortality was not due to suicide, but to cardiovascular disease, cancer, and pulmonary disease. The adjusted hazard ratio (increased risk) for mortality from ischemic heart disease in women with schizophrenia was a stunning 3.3—in other words, women with schizophrenia have over 3 times the risk of dying from heart disease compared with women in the general population—and for men with schizophrenia it was 2.2. Importantly, heart disease and cancer were not more common in people with schizophrenia, but mortality from these diseases was increased markedly.

These numbers might not be so surprising in the United States, where recent studies report early mortality in people with serious mental illness ranging from 8 years² to 27 years.³ But in a country with a far more effective health care system, one might have expected much better health outcomes. In fact, in the Swedish study, people with schizophrenia were seen nearly twice as often for medical care as the general population. Yet even with these extra visits, heart disease and cancer went undetected: only 26.3 percent of people with schizophrenia who died of heart disease and 73.9 percent who died of cancer had been diagnosed previously. Another surprise—treatment with antipsychotic medications, which might have been considered a risk factor for cardiovascular disease, actually lowered the risk. The highest risk was among those not treated with antipsychotic medication.

What’s the lesson for the United States? The authors end this new report with this reflection: “Underdetection of important causes of mortality in schizophrenia patients in Sweden, despite universal health care, raises the question of whether it may be an even larger problem in countries without universal health care.” Indeed. While we are hopeful that the implementation of mental health parity and new, integrative care approaches such as medical homesExternal Link: Please review our disclaimer. will close the gap on early mortality and under-treated co-morbid conditions in the United States, the Swedish data suggest this may not be so easy.

Recent reports in the United States have documented the success of smoking cessation and weight loss programs tailored for people with serious mental illness.^4,5 These are important signs of progress in an area that has been woefully neglected for too long. But the Swedish report suggests the problem, at least for heart disease and cancer, is more a lack of detection than a lack of treatment. Indeed, those with schizophrenia who had been diagnosed with ischemic heart disease had only a slightly higher mortality risk and those diagnosed with cancer had no higher mortality risk than people without schizophrenia who had been diagnosed with these diseases.

The lesson is that systemic changes in health care are necessary but may not be sufficient to reduce mortality from co-morbid diseases in people with serious mental illness. We will also need to build in better detection of heart disease, cancer, and pulmonary disease as well as better management of diabetes. To this end, recent initiatives by NIMH will support testing of both existing and newly developed innovative service interventions to reduce health risk factors and premature mortality in people with serious mental illness. We will also be issuing funding announcements to support research aimed at reducing delays in early detection and referral to services of individuals experiencing first episode psychosis. Our intention is to obtain actionable information that can be rapidly applied to change practice across the continuum from screening to detection to treatment.

These new numbers from Sweden should remind us that serious mental illness is a health disparity issue. One way to think about losing 13 – 15 years of life expectancy is to realize that people with serious mental illness have not benefitted fully from the gains in longevity over the past half century. We frequently say “no health without mental health” to stress the importance of treating mental illness as a pathway to better health outcomes in society. For those with schizophrenia, even in the most advanced health care system in the world, we are still facing early mortality from lack of diagnosis and treatment of medical illnesses.

 ¹ Crump C et al. Comorbidities and mortality in persons with schizophrenia: a Swedish national cohort study. Am J Psychiatry. 2013 Mar 1;170(3):324-33. Doi: 10.1176/appi.ajp.2012.12050599.

 ² Druss BG et al. Understanding excess mortality in persons with mental illness: 17-year follow up of a nationally representative US survey. Med Care. 2011 Jun;49(6):599-602. doi: 10.1097/MLR.0b013e31820bf86e.

 ³ Colton CW, Manderscheid RW. Congruencies in increased mortality rates, years of potential life lost, and causes of death among public mental health clients in eight states. Prev Chronic Dis. 2006 Apr;3(2):A42.

 ⁴ Compton MT, Daumit GL, Druss BG. Cigarette smoking and overweight/obesity among individuals with serious mental illnesses: a preventive perspective. Harv Rev Psychiatry. 2006 Jul-Aug;14(4):212-22.

 ⁵ Daumit GL et al. A behavioral weight-loss intervention in persons with serious mental illness. N Engl J Med. 2013 Mar 21. [Epub ahead of print]

One of the world's most prestigious laboratories is frantically trying to resolve a row over its decision to publish the genome of one of the world's most studied human cell lines – a set of cervical cancer cells.

The cells were taken in 1951 from a woman called Henrietta Lacks, without her consent. Her descendants argue that the published genome may reveal genetic traits of family members.

The HeLa cells, as they are dubbed, are exceptionally easy to grow in the lab and have become the cellular equivalent of lab rats. For decades, scientists have worked with these cells to unravel the secrets of cancer and develop new vaccines and treatments.

After publishing the HeLa genome in the online journal G3: Genes, Genomes and Genetics, researchers led by Lars Steinmetz at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg, Germany, withdrew the data following a barrage of objections.

"It shouldn't have been published without our consent… That is private family information," said Lacks' granddaughter Jeri Lacks-Whye, quoted in The New York Times in a commentary on the dispute by Rebecca Skloot, whose biography of Lacks, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, appeared in 2011.

EMBL has apologised to the family and is in talks with them to try to resolve the situation.

"As soon as we learned of this we removed our data from the internet out of respect for the family," says EMBL spokeswoman Raeka Aiyar. "We take their concerns very seriously and have reached out to them with our apologies, and to express our determination to work with them towards an appropriate course of action for handling the availability of this data. We are currently awaiting their response."

EMBL also gave the G3 journal a statement on why the researchers withdrew the data.

Chaotic genes

The paper revealed that the genome of HeLa cells is chaotic. That is as might be expected in cancer cells, which undergo abnormal genetic reorganisation.

Steinmetz found numerous regions where chromosomes are arranged in the wrong order, for example, as well as missing genes and surplus copies of others.

The aim of the paper was to show the degree to which the genomes of HeLa cells diverged from those of healthy cells, so researchers could take that into account when designing experiments and analysing results from studies using the HeLa cell line. Having the genome would also allow researchers to check whether new cell lines have been contaminated by HeLa cells, a widespread and under-reported problem.

EMBL acknowledges that the genome of the cancer cells could be used to make predictions about Henrietta Lacks's genome and those of her descendants. But it cautions that there will be significant differences between the genomes of the cancer tissue and Henrietta's healthy cells, therefore limiting what can be deciphered about her and her descendants.

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The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Health Resources and Services Administration released a report titled "Changes in Prevalence of Parent-reported Autism Spectrum Disorder in School-aged U.S. Children: 2007 to 2011–2012External Link: Please review our disclaimer.". The report presents data on the prevalence of diagnosed autism spectrum disorder (ASD) as reported by parents of school-aged children ages 6–17 years in 2011–2012. Data was drawn from the 2007 and 2011–2012 National Survey of Children’s Health, which comprises independent, nationally representative telephone surveys of households with children.

Last year, the CDC’s Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring Network estimated that 1 in 88 children had been identified with ASD. The CDC now estimates that in 2011–2012, about 1 in 50 school-aged children, or 2 percent of children ages 6–17 years have some form of the disorder. Since the average school bus holds 50–55 children, that means, statistically speaking, on average there is one child with parent-reported ASD on every school bus in America.

The agencies conclude that the increase in prevalence of parent-reported ASD was largely due to improved diagnosis of ASD by doctors or other health professional in recent years, especially when the symptoms were mild.

Learn more about autism spectrum disorders.

Thanks to the largest ever study into the genomics of cancer, we now have the data to prevent more cancers than ever before. The work uncovered more than 80 new gene variants, or alleles, that raise the risk of breast, prostate and ovarian cancers.

This knowledge could vastly improve screening to identify and prevent cancers in those most at risk. However, it could be some time before programmes are in place to capitalise on this bumper haul of data.

Worldwide, there are 2.5 million new cases of the three cancers each year, a third of them fatal. Better identification of those at risk could help doctors prevent cancers or catch cancers early before they become incurable.

The gene trawls, coordinated at hundreds of labs by the international Collaborative Oncological Gene-environment Study, double the number of gene variants so far identified that raise the risks of developing the three cancers.

Although each variant raises the risk by only a per cent or so, the effects add up, so the more variants a person has, the greater the likelihood they'll develop cancer, says Doug Easton of the University of Cambridge and lead author of one of a series of key papers reporting the newly identified gene variants.

Reliable screening

The hope is that screening at a younger age for the variants will enable doctors to identify and monitor people with a higher-than-normal risk of developing cancers. People could receive extra scans, for example, to pick up signs of disease while it's treatable, or prophylactic treatments, such as tamoxifen for preventing breast cancer.

Including the new genes in genetic screening could make it more reliable than other forms of screening, such as mammography for detecting breast cancers and the prostate specific antigen (PSA) test for prostate cancer. Both have led to unnecessary and harmful treatments for misdiagnosed cancers.

"Mammary screening has been a sacred cow for many years, but is less so now, so I think there's more appetite to make use of genetic information," says Easton.

But setting up screening systems to apply the findings won't be easy. "The big science and the databases get all the publicity, but what we found is that this knowledge gets very difficult to apply," says Hilary Burton of the Foundation for Genomics and Population Health in Cambridge, UK.

Burton and her colleagues used computer programs to model how a refined screening system for breast cancer would work, if all the new gene variant data was included.

Their model investigated the scope for stratifying everyone in the population according to the combined risks posed by their genes and age. The aim would be to target monitoring and preventative measures at those at highest risk at a young age, and give less unnecessary attention to low-risk individuals.

Complex issues

"We found that we would pick up just as many cancers, but undertake 25 per cent less screening," says Burton. So potentially, this would save money and avoid the harm caused by treating false positives.

At present, women in the UK start being called for mammograms at age 47, when their risk of developing breast cancer over the following 10 years is rated at 2.5 per cent. Then they go on receiving the scans every three years until they are 73.

Despite the potential gains of pre-assessing people at a younger age, say 35 or 40, Burton says that introducing the system would be "complex", not least because a system is already in place for breast screening. What's more, there would be ethical, social and procedural issues to confront, such as how much genetic information to store, how much should be fed back to those screened and what conditions of consent to apply.

Easton agrees that switching to a genetic model of screening will be a challenge, adding that the new gene data itself also needs to be validated through further studies to make sure the reported risk variations hold true.

In the US, genetic screening at present is restricted only to very "high-risk" genes – such as the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes that increase the risk of breast cancer by 80 per cent. "Regardless of stratification, we need better screening assays for detecting cancer early in average and high-risk populations," says Ken Kinzler of the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center in Baltimore, Maryland. "So anything that focuses our attention on those who need extra screening is worthwhile, as currently this is applied to high-risk patients who represent only a small fraction of cancer cases."

Journal reference: Nature Genetics doi.org/kxx

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WITHIN just eight days of starting a novel gene therapy, David Aponte's "incurable" leukaemia had vanished. For four other patients, the same happened within eight weeks, although one later died from a blood clot unrelated to the treatment, and another after relapsing.

The cured trio, who were all previously diagnosed with usually fatal relapses of acute lymphoblastic leukaemia, have now been in remission for between 5 months and 2 years. Michel Sadelain of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, co-leader of the group that designed the trial, says that a second trial of 50 patients is being readied, and the team is looking into using the technique to treat other cancers.

The key to the new therapy is identifying a molecule unique to the surface of cancer cells, then genetically engineering a patient's immune cells to attack it.

In acute lymphoblastic leukaemia, immune cells called B-cells become malignant. The team were able to target a surface molecule known as CD19 that is only present on B-cells. Doctors extracted other immune cells called T-cells from the patients. These were treated with a harmless virus, which installed a new gene redirecting them to attack all cells bearing CD19. When the engineered T-cells were reinfused into the patients, they rapidly killed all B-cells, cancerous or otherwise.

"The stunning finding was that in all five patients, tumours were undetectable after the treatment," says Sadelain.

He reckons that the body should replenish the immune system with regular T-cells and healthy B-cells after a couple of months. However, the patients received donated bone marrow to ensure they could regrow a healthy immune system (Science Translational Medicine, doi.org/kwz).

The treatment is not the first to re-engineer T-cells to attack a form of leukaemia. Last year, an international company called Adaptimmune used the approach to treat 13 people with multiple myeloma – it left 10 in remission.

"Although it's early days for these trials, the approach of modifying a patient's T-cells to attack their cancer is looking increasingly like one that will, in time, have a place alongside more traditional treatments," says Paul Moss of Cancer Research UK.

Sadelain's team is now investigating the scope for attacking other cancers. Where no single surface molecule is unique to a cancer, he is seeking to target pairs of molecules that only occur together on cancer cells. In January, he demonstrated this approach by wiping out human prostate tumours implanted in mice, using T-cells engineered to target two surface molecules (Nature Biotechnology, doi.org/kw2).

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In recent months, there has been a growing global interest in brain science. The President called attention to the effort to map the human brain in his State of the UnionExternal Link: Please review our disclaimer. address, the European Union recently announced its largest scientific award (1 billion euros) for the Human Brain ProjectExternal Link: Please review our disclaimer., and private foundations such as the Allen Brain InstituteExternal Link: Please review our disclaimer. and the Kavli FoundationExternal Link: Please review our disclaimer. have announced new bold efforts to map the brain.¹

At the same time, there has been an unprecedented national conversation about what role mental illness plays in gun violence. In communities and legislatures, the debates have focused on finding the right balance on several complex issues: gun control versus gun rights, commitment laws versus protecting the rights of people with serious mental illness, and public safety versus personal freedom. A survey published in the New England Journal of Medicine this week reveals little consensus on these issues, and a deep public ambivalence about mental illness. Almost half of the respondents believed that people with serious mental illness are more dangerous than the general population.²

What’s the connection between the global interest in neuroscience and the national conversation about mental illness? One may be the key to unlock the other: brain science may ultimately answer our questions about how to eliminate untreated mental illness as a contributor to violence.

If this seems like a stretch, consider two inconvenient truths. First, while most violence has no relationship to mental illness, we must accept that some people with serious mental illness who are not treated can be violent, most often against themselves but also against others. Denial of a link between untreated serious mental illness and violence against self or others serves neither those with mental illness nor our larger society. Recognizing the link reminds us of the importance of early treatment for protecting people with illness, their families, and their communities. Second, we must recognize that although treatment is essential, for too many people, today’s treatments are not good enough. These serious mental illnesses are brain disorders requiring the kind of commitment to science-based discovery and care that we have developed for cancer and heart disease. To find better treatments for serious mental illness, we need neuroscience.

Earlier this week, the Congressional Neuroscience Caucus in the U.S. House of Representatives, chaired by members of Congress Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) and Cathy McMorris-Rodgers (R-WA) held a briefing to hear about the connection between the brain, serious mental illness, and violence. Dr. Elizabeth Childs, a child psychiatrist from Brookline, Massachusetts, gave a riveting account of two children she treated, one who later killed his parents before killing himself and another who has mostly recovered and is now in college. Exploring the difference in outcomes in adolescents afflicted with the same illness, Dr. Childs noted that persistent isolation is often the difference between tragedy and recovery. Engagement is essential for recovery.

“The best opportunity to help families access mental health services is to meet crisis with engagement. Engagement is the singular most difficult task when the patient, family, and community are in denial. We have seen success when mental health programs…assure immediate access to patients in crisis and have capacity to provide outreach and actively engage youth and families confronted with the onset of serious mental illnesses. This type of outreach can and does work, but is only happening in isolated pockets across the nation.”

Dr. Raquel Gur, a scientist and psychiatrist from the University of Pennsylvania, described what this engagement might look like in the near future based on recent research. Dr. Gur has found that adolescents who are at high risk show an altered pattern of brain and cognitive development long before the onset of psychosis. Her conclusion: the best way to reduce the risk of violent behavior by people with untreated mental illness is to detect these changes in the brain early and engage families in the process of treatment, preempting psychosis with its complications. As Dr. Gur reminds us, treating a serious mental illness after one or more psychotic episodes is like intervening only after a person has had a heart attack.

As we continue the national conversation about mental illness, we need to remember that better outcomes will require not only better engagement, better access, and better care, but also better diagnostics and better treatments. In the worlds of cancer, heart disease, and diabetes, where we have already seen greater reductions in morbidity and mortality than in the world of mental illness, there are major initiatives to improve both diagnostics and therapeutics.

For serious mental illness, neuroscience is the key to new diagnostics and new therapeutics. That is why the global surge in brain research should be a hopeful sign for individuals and families affected by mental illness. Indeed, neuroscience should change the national conversation on mental illness to focus our attention on paths to preemption and recovery and not the risk of violence and disability.

 ¹ Alivisatos AP et al. The brain activity map. Science. 2013 14 Mar;339(6125):1284-5. doi: 10.1126/science.1236939.

 ² Barry CL et al. After Newtown — public opinion on gun policy and mental illness. N Engl J Med. 2013 Mar 21;368(12):1077-81. doi: 10.1056/NEJMp1300512.

Fukushima's financial fallout is far from over. US military personnel and their families are seeking $2 billion in damages for illnesses they believe were caused by the nuclear plant's meltdown. They allege that the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), the plant's operator, misrepresented the amount of radiation present when it accepted US military assistance to deal with the crisis.

Soldiers aboard the USS Ronald Reagan, which rerouted from Korea to assist after reactors at Fukushima went into meltdown in 2011, have filed a lawsuit against TEPCO in the District Court for the Southern District of California. So far, 24 people are claiming damages, but Paul Garner, a lawyer based in San Diego, California, who is representing the plaintiffs, says that the 70,000 US military personnel and families stationed in or near Japan at the time could be party to the suit if they wish.

The plaintiffs claim that the Fukushima radiation leak caused leukaemias, testicular cancer, vision problems and gynaecological bleeding, among other illnesses.

"It seems like a pattern, a lot of cancers," says Garner. TEPCO has not responded to New Scientist's request for comment.

The Pentagon has put together an online registry to document radiation levels in Japan and surrounding areas where military staff might have been. According to the website, all the known levels are far too low to cause harm. That concurs with a recent World Health Organization assessment which found that infants in the immediate vicinity of the stricken plant may have a slightly increased risk of developing some cancers, but that the risk to adults is low.

David Brenner of Columbia University in New York says that although leukaemia can develop within a brief period after exposure to radiation, "at the doses of relevance here, one would not expect much else by way of health effects in the first two years".

TEPCO's legal issues don't end there. Earlier this month, over 1600 residents from around the Fukushima area filed a lawsuit with Fukushima District Court, demanding compensation for psychological damage and displacement.

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http://www.atomenabled.org/favicon.ico2013-03-21T20:00:47-04:00National Institute of Mental Healthnimhwebmaster@mail.nih.govhttp://www.nimh.nih.gov/tag:nimh.nih.gov,2000:1445772013-03-11T15:12:49-04:00

Meeting Announcement - Advances in Global Mental Health Research and Research Capacity Building Workshop

Jackie Obersttag:nimh.nih.gov,2000:144784$itemdate-04:00

Losing weight is challenging for everyone. It can be particularly difficult for someone with a serious mental illness. An NIMH-funded clinical study proves that a modified diet and exercise program can work for people with serious mental illnesses. Participants lost 7 pounds more than controls—and continued to lose weight.

Jackie Obersttag:nimh.nih.gov,2000:1447812013-03-21T13:28:30-04:00

Prevalence of Parent-reported Autism

Jules Ashertag:nimh.nih.gov,2000:1447622013-03-14T14:05:51-04:00

Why are rates of schizophrenia and autism higher in males? New evidence implicates an enzyme expressed in the placenta that helps protect the developing fetal brain from adverse effects of maternal stress early in pregnancy.

Jackie Obersttag:nimh.nih.gov,2000:1447632013-03-21T18:44:53-04:00

Miss the Twitter chat on the teen brain and Brain Awareness Week? Read the transcript.

Keri Chiodotag:nimh.nih.gov,2000:1445012013-03-21T18:44:53-04:00

As part of the National Museum of Health and Medicine museum’s 14th annual Brain Awareness Week celebration, several hundred curious students from the Washington, D.C., area will have a chance to learn about what goes on inside the human brain, through a series of interactive exhibits led by scientists from eight institutes of the National Institutes of Health.

Thomas Inselhttp://www.nimh.nih.gov/about/director/directors-biography.shtmltag:nimh.nih.gov,2000:1447212013-03-11T15:34:06-04:00

In a blog about Brain Awareness Month, NIMH Director Thomas Insel talks about the mysteries that remain to be solved about how the brain works.

Jackie Obersttag:nimh.nih.gov,2000:1446302013-03-21T15:34:17-04:00

An NIMH-funded research study in rats identifies a specific group of cells in the brainstem whose activation during rapid eye movement (REM) sleep helped in eradicating unwanted memories, paving the way for future therapeutics for these disorders.

Jackie OberstKathy Stovertag:nimh.nih.gov,2000:1445782013-03-07T16:27:00-04:00

An international study supported by NIMH reported today that community efforts, in comparison to standard clinical testing and counseling, yielded greater testing and lower HIV incidence in high-risk individuals.

Jules Ashertag:nimh.nih.gov,2000:1444412013-03-20T13:16:51-04:00

Five major mental disorders share some of the same genetic risk factors, the largest genome-wide study of its kind has found.

Jackie Obersttag:nimh.nih.gov,2000:1444362013-03-07T12:35:38-04:00

Largest study yet into genetics and mental health reveal that the five most common disorders—autism, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, bipolar disease, schizophrenia, and major depression—all share similar genetic components.

Thomas Inselhttp://www.nimh.nih.gov/about/director/directors-biography.shtmltag:nimh.nih.gov,2000:1443282013-03-11T13:26:36-04:00

Dr. Insel describes how different perspectives separate the communities interested in autism, and suggests the common ground that would provide an avenue to move forward.

Jackie Obersttag:nimh.nih.gov,2000:1443312013-03-21T12:52:21-04:00

A newly identified brain circuit could lead to earlier detection of psychosis in patients with schizophrenia.

Meredith Foxtag:nimh.nih.gov,2000:1441852013-02-19T11:26:22-04:00

A recent NIMH-funded study identified small regions of the genome that are uniquely regulated in human neurons, but not in primate neurons. The findings provide insight into human intellectual function and risk for human diseases, including autism and Alzheimer’s disease.

Jackie Obersttag:nimh.nih.gov,2000:1440702013-02-14T12:30:56-04:00

Want to know how the latest findings in neuroscience research go from bench to bedside? NIMH and Science/AAAS partnered to produce an informative webinar on translating neurobiological research into treatments.

Jackie Obersttag:nimh.nih.gov,2000:1440972013-02-13T13:17:53-04:00

The American Medical Association feted Thomas Insel M.D., director of the National Institute of Mental Health, with its top government service award.

Jules Ashertag:nimh.nih.gov,2000:1441032013-03-21T12:45:20-04:00

Excess attention to avoidance of threat – depending on the situation – can increase risk for PTSD, suggests a new study.

Jackie Obersttag:nimh.nih.gov,2000:1440942013-02-12T16:41:58-04:00

Long-term Course of ADHD Diagnosed in Preschool Years Can be Chronic and Severe

Jackie Obersttag:nimh.nih.gov,2000:1440912013-03-20T13:16:51-04:00

Some autism symptoms can be seen in 6-month-old infants, possibly leading to even earlier intervention for this disorder.

tag:nimh.nih.gov,2000:1447692013-03-12T17:06:33-04:00

The goal of this initiative is to support research to identify gaps and bottlenecks in the identification and referral of individuals experiencing first episode psychosis (FEP) in order to develop and test strategies for substantially reducing the duration of untreated psychosis among these individuals.

tag:nimh.nih.gov,2000:1440732013-02-07T13:53:23-04:00

The goal of this initiative is to support research to develop and test the effectiveness of services strategies to improve functional outcomes and quality of life for people with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) at three key life stages: early childhood, transition from youth to adulthood, and adulthood.

Thomas Inselhttp://www.nimh.nih.gov/about/director/directors-biography.shtmltag:nimh.nih.gov,2000:1440512013-03-19T16:31:19-04:00

Dr. Insel talks about how NIMH’s RAISE study is exploring an integrated, multi-component approach to health care for schizophrenia.

Jackie Obersttag:nimh.nih.gov,2000:1440552013-03-20T13:16:51-04:00

HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius discusses state of U.S. mental health care, commemorates JFK’s speech on the topic 50 years ago.

Jules Ashertag:nimh.nih.gov,2000:1440412013-03-20T13:16:51-04:00

A boost of activity in visual cortex at the back of the brain, triggered by the processing of emotional information, predicted depressed patients’ responses to a rapid-acting antidepressant.

tag:nimh.nih.gov,2000:1441022013-02-13T13:14:20-04:00

Dr. Maura Furey on the search for a fast acting anti-depressant.

Jackie Obersttag:nimh.nih.gov,2000:1440402013-03-20T10:30:03-04:00

Brain imaging might soon predict which treatment options would work best for patients with social phobia.

Jackie Obersttag:nimh.nih.gov,2000:1440002013-03-19T11:43:36-04:00

Fifty years ago, President John F. Kennedy addressed Congress about the state of mental health—and changed the way Americans view mental health care.

Jackie Obersttag:nimh.nih.gov,2000:1439842013-01-28T15:45:33-04:00

Renowned neurobiologist Susan Amara recently joined NIMH as scientific director of its intramural research program.

tag:nimh.nih.gov,2000:1439822013-01-17T15:08:14-04:00

NIMH on the National Dialogue on Mental Health

Thomas Inselhttp://www.nimh.nih.gov/about/director/directors-biography.shtmltag:nimh.nih.gov,2000:1439762013-01-16T14:26:36-04:00

Dr. Insel talks about the importance of developing ways to identify individuals at high risk of mental disorders before they develop symptoms, making it possible to intervene early and prevent serious illness.

On March 14, 2013, NIMH hosted a Twitter chat on the teen brain with Dr. Jay Giedd in recognition of Brain Awareness Week. NIMH’s own Jay Giedd, M.D., answered questions from the audience regarding the teen brain and other Brain Awareness Week activities.

Dr. Giedd is chief of the Unit on Brain Imaging in the Child Psychiatry Branch of the Division of Intramural Research Program

Brain Awareness Week is a week-long global campaign coordinated by The Dana Alliance for Brain Initiatives that occurs every March to increase public awareness of the progress and benefits of brain research. Partners include universities, hospitals, K-12 schools, advocacy groups, government agencies, service organizations, professional groups, and affiliates.

Read the Twitter chat transcriptExternal Link: Please review our disclaimer..

Read more about the teen brain.