Trauma During Childhood Triples Risk of a Serious Mental Disorder in Adulthood
Childhood trauma significantly increases the risk of being diagnosed with a mental health disorder later in life. For children who experienced emotional abuse, the most prevalent disorder reported was anxiety. Trauma also increased the risks for psychosis & schizophrenia, OCD, ADHD and bipolar disorder. Suffering psychological trauma during childhood significantly increases the risk of developing […]
CDP-choline add-on Therapy to Risperidone Reduces Negative Symptoms in schizophrenia
A recent double-blind and placebo-controlled study with 66 patients with stable schizophrenia were randomized to receive either 2,500 mg/day of the nutritional supplement citicoline or placebo in addition to risperidone for 8 weeks. The citicoline group demonstrated significantly greater improvement in negative scores compared with the placebo. Patients were randomly allocated to receive either 2,500 […]
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Cannabis Users Have 500% Increased Risk for Schizophrenia, Increased Risk from Alcohol and Other illegal Drugs Too
This is an important and large new study that again confirms the increased risk of psychosis for young people using cannabis, but also many other street drugs, including alcohol. (Note, we’ve included the full research paper at the end of this post). As one researcher / clinician out of Harvard has noted: Dr. Dost Öngür, […]
Why Tom Insel Ditched the NIMH to Join Google / Alphabet
There is a good article and interview in the MIT Technology review on why Tom Insel, who has been head of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) in Bethesda, Maryland, since 2002, quit the NIMH and joined Google / Alphabet. In the article it says that one of the key reasons is that it […]
Sarcosine Improves Negative and Cognitive Symptoms in Schizophrenia, May Reverse Damage to Brain
A new study out of Poland’s Medical University of Lodz has found that 6 months of use of a nutritional supplement called sarcosine (N-Methylglycine) seems to reverse the damage to the brain’s glutamate system and improves the negative and cognitive symptoms (memory, concentration, social activity interest, motivation, etc. ) of people who have schizophrenia. This is just the latest of […]
Gray Matter Loss in Brain Due to Psychotic Episodes / Schizophrenia, Not From Medications
Its been noted for the past decade or so that there is some (approximately 5% to 7%) shrinkage in the brains of people who have schizophrenia, most notably in the gray matter, which is an important part structures in the brain’s amygdala, hippocampus and parahippocampus, which are all involved in memory storage and retrieval memory storage and […]
Schizophrenia News Watch – August
Following is the most interesting news on schizophrenia that we’ve found in the past month or so: Voices – Documentary about Schizophrenia, Now Planning Screenings at a City Near You Check out the list of cities that are hosting screenings on the new documentary about schizophrenia. If there isn’t a screening in your city – […]
New Children’s Book
A positive and educational new book about schizophrenia has been written for children by a mother / daughter team who also have deep personal knowledge about schizophrenia. It sounds like a great way to introduce children to the topic of schizophrenia in a positive way. We look forward to getting a review copy of the […]
$650 Million Donated for Schizophrenia Research
In what has to be the biggest news in schizophrenia research in the past 3 decades, the philanthropist Ted Stanley announced that he is donating $650 Million for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder research (and related psychiatric research) to the Broad Institute. The focus of this unprecedented donation is on spurring on scientific research on the […]
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Schizophrenia – Video Series
There are few psychological therapies that have been significantly researched and shown to be effective with schizophrenia, but the leading one is called Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Psychosis / Schizophrenia. While medications can help minimize many of the “positive” symptoms – the voices, delusions, etc. that are common with schizophrenia, even with the medications many […]
Schizophrenia Special in Nature Journal
Phil Campbell, the editor-in-chief of the prestigious and high quality scientific journal “Nature,” (based in the UK) has long been interested in schizophrenia and mental health concerns. I’ve met him and discussed this interest last year when he was visiting the United States. He is one of the founding members of of an important new […]
New Research on How to Prevent Schizophrenia
Increasingly clinical researchers are telling us that they believe that many, and perhaps most, cases of schizophrenia can be prevented through higher quality prenatal care (health of the mother prior to pregnancy, and during pregnancy) as through specific targeted nutritional, stress (including avoidance of getting the Flu during pregnancy – which is an important stressor […]
The Schizophrenia Oral History Project
Schizophrenia, has long been associated with stigma. The motivation to remove this stigma is what inspired the Schizophrenia Oral History Project. The founders of this project began with a tool more commonly used among sociologists and anthropologists: oral history. Using this approach to examine schizophrenia has changed Dr. Crane’s own perspective about a disease she thought […]
New Study of Long-Acting Injectable Antipsychotics Finds Haloperidol an Effective, Less-Expensive Option
A new study done by Columbia University of long-acting injectable antipsychotics for people with schizophrenia found that the newer, second-generation, medication paliperidone palmitate (Brand name Invega Sustenna by Janssen Pharmaceuticals) was no more effective than the older, less expensive haloperidol decanoate. This was so, even though the doses of the older medication given in the […]
Risk for Schizophrenia May be Identified Through IQ, Memory & Social Intelligence Tests
A new research study has revealed that genetic variants associated with risk for schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders are also associated with performance on measures of IQ, memory and social cognition. The discovery was made by the National University of Ireland, Galway Professor of Psychology Gary Donohue, in association with colleagues from Trinity College, Dublin. […]
“Voices” A New Documentary on the Untold Stories of Schizophrenia
There is a new documentary coming out that highlights the challenges of families and individuals with schizophrenia and at the same time is targeted at reducing stigma in the people who don’t have a good understanding of psychosis. From the trailer it looks to be a very good film. You can watch the trailer now […]
