Links for Keyword: Depression

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Depression May Be Caused By 'Allergy' to Stress

By Stephanie Pappas, An over-excited immune system may explain why some people are susceptible to depression, according to new research on mice. Mice whose immune systems responded to stress by overproducing an inflammatory compound called Interleukin-6 were more likely to become the mousy versions of depressed than mice with non-overactive immune systems, the research found. This same compound is elevated in depressed humans, said study researcher Georgia Hodes, suggesting hope for new depression treatments. "There's probably a subset of people with depression who have this over-sensitive inflammatory response to stress and that this is leading to the symptoms of depression," Hodes, a postdoctoral researcher at the Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York, told LiveScience. Hodes added that stress could be thought of as an allergen, like pet dander, with the over-reactive immune system making you depressed rather than giving you runny nose. "In some ways, it is an analogy to an allergy," Hodes said. "You have something that is not really dangerous, but your body thinks it is, so you have this massive immune response. In this case, the stressor is what they're having this massive immune response to." Some of the symptoms of depression — lack of energy, loss of appetite — mirror the body's response to physical illness, Hodes noted. © 2012 Yahoo! Inc.

Related chapters from BP6e: Chapter 16: Psychopathology: Biological Basis of Behavior Disorders; Chapter 15: Emotions, Aggression, and Stress
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 12: Psychopathology: Biological Basis of Behavioral Disorders; Chapter 11: Emotions, Aggression, and Stress
Link ID: 17462 - Posted: 11.07.2012

With No One Looking, a Hurt Stays Hidden

By WILLIAM C. RHODEN We’ve seen it hundreds of times. An athlete is injured and within seconds is surrounded by an armada of medical personnel: trainers, assistant trainers, team doctors. The athlete is helped off the field, given a diagnosis, treated and sent to physical therapy, often to return miraculously in a week or two. But when that same athlete has a mental disorder, there is no armada of trainers, no team doctors. That athlete is often abandoned. For all of the current focus on traumatic brain injury as a result of concussions, mental illness, often overlooked, exists at every level of sports. Sports too often is a masking agent that hides deeply rooted mental health issues. The better the athlete, the more desperate to reach the next level, the less likely he or she will reach out for help. The gladiator mentality remains a primary barrier. “Mental health has a stigma that is tied into weakness and is absolutely the antithesis of what athletes want to portray,” said Dr. Thelma Dye Holmes, the executive director of the Northside Center for Child Development, one of New York’s oldest mental health agencies, serving more than 1,500 children and their families. “Mental health is not something that you can easily know,” Holmes said. “You feel a pain in your side, you have discomfort. Mental illness is vague and makes us uneasy. Especially when it comes to athletes, there tends to be a stigma around coming forward.” © 2012 The New York Times Company

Related chapters from BP6e: Chapter 16: Psychopathology: Biological Basis of Behavior Disorders
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 12: Psychopathology: Biological Basis of Behavioral Disorders
Link ID: 17436 - Posted: 10.30.2012

Mondays Aren’t as Blue as We Think

By ARTHUR A. STONE DESPITE the beating that Mondays have taken in pop songs — Fats Domino crooned “Blue Monday, how I hate blue Monday” — the day does not deserve its gloomy reputation. Two colleagues and I recently published an analysis of a remarkable yearlong survey by the Gallup Organization, which conducted 1,000 live interviews a day, asking people across the United States to recall their mood in the prior day. We scoured the data for evidence that Monday was bluer than Tuesday or Wednesday. We couldn’t find any. Mood was evaluated with several adjectives measuring positive or negative feelings. Spanish-only speakers were queried in Spanish. Interviewers spoke to people in every state on cellphones and land lines. The data unequivocally showed that Mondays are as pleasant to Americans as the three days that follow, and only a trifle less joyful than Fridays. Perhaps no surprise, people generally felt good on the weekend — though for retirees, the distinction between weekend and weekdays was only modest. Likewise, day-of-the-week mood was gender-blind. Over all, women assessed their daily moods more negatively than men did, but relative changes from day to day were similar for both sexes. And yet still, the belief in blue Mondays persists. Several years ago, in another study, I examined expectations about mood and day of the week: two-thirds of the sample nominated Monday as the “worst” day of the week. Other research has confirmed that this sentiment is widespread, despite the fact that, well, we don’t really feel any gloomier on that day. © 2012 The New York Times Company

Recalibrating Therapy for Our Wired World

By RICHARD A. FRIEDMAN, M.D. Speed, instant gratification, accessibility — these are a few of the appealing hallmarks of digital technology. It’s no coincidence that we love our smart wireless devices: Humans are a notoriously impatient species, born with a preference for immediate rewards. But the virtues of the digital age are not always aligned with those of psychotherapy. It takes time to change behavior and alleviate emotional pain, and for many patients constant access is more harmful than helpful. These days, as never before, therapists are struggling to recalibrate their approach to patients living in a wired world. For some, the new technology is clearly a boon. Let’s say you have the common anxiety disorder social phobia. You avoid speaking up in class or at work, fearful you’ll embarrass yourself, and the prospect of going to a party inspires dread. You will do anything to avoid social interactions. You see a therapist who sensibly recommends cognitive-behavioral therapy, which will challenge your dysfunctional thoughts about how people see you and as a result lower your social anxiety. You find that this treatment involves a fair amount of homework: You typically have to keep a written log of your thoughts and feelings to examine them. And since you see your therapist weekly, most of the work is done solo. As it turns out, there is a smartphone app that will prompt you at various times during the day to record these social interactions and your emotional response to them. You can take the record to your therapist, and you are off and running. © 2012 The New York Times Company

Botox Fights Depression

By Tori Rodriguez A common complaint about wrinkle-masking Botox is that recipients have difficulty displaying emotions on their faces. That side effect might be a good thing, however, for people with treatment-resistant depression. In the first randomized, controlled study on the effect of botulinum toxin—known commercially as Botox—on depression, researchers investigated whether it might aid patients with major depressive disorder who had not responded to antidepressant medications. Participants in the treatment group were given a single dose (consisting of five injections) of botulinum toxin in the area of the face between and just above the eyebrows, whereas the control group was given placebo injections. Depressive symptoms in the treatment group decreased 47 percent after six weeks, an improvement that remained through the 16-week study period. The placebo group had a 9 percent reduction in symptoms. The findings appeared in May in the Journal of Psychiatric Research. Study author M. Axel Wollmer, a psychiatrist at the University of Basel in Switzerland, believes the treatment “interrupts feedback from the facial musculature to the brain, which may be involved in the development and maintenance of negative emotions.” Past studies have shown that Botox impairs people's ability to identify others' feelings, and the new finding adds more evidence: the muscles of the face are instrumental for identifying and experiencing emotions, not just communicating them. © 2012 Scientific American

Related chapters from BP6e: Chapter 16: Psychopathology: Biological Basis of Behavior Disorders; Chapter 15: Emotions, Aggression, and Stress
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 1: An Introduction to Brain and Behavior
Link ID: 17315 - Posted: 10.02.2012

Depressed moms might have shorter kids, new study suggests

Moms suffering the blues in the months after giving birth may be more likely to end up with kids who are shorter than their peers, a new study shows. Researchers who followed more than 6,000 mothers and babies found that when moms reported moderate to severe symptoms of depression in the nine months following delivery, their children were more likely to be shorter than others as kindergarteners, according to the report published in the journal Pediatrics. In fact, 5-year-olds with moms who’d suffered symptoms of postpartum depression were almost 50 percent more likely than their peers to be in the shortest 10 percent of kids that age. The new research doesn’t explain how kids with depressed moms end up shorter. That’s something the researchers are looking into right now, said the study’s lead author Pamela J. Surkan, an assistant professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Surkan suspects, however, that depression might get in the way of nurturing. “We think that mothers who are depressed or blue might have a hard time following through with caregiving tasks,” Surkan said. “We know that children of depressed mothers often suffer from poor attachment and the depression seems to have effects on other developmental outcomes. It makes sense that mothers who have depressive symptoms might have reduced ability to take care of infants, that they might not always pick up cues from their kids.” © 2012 NBCNews.com

Related chapters from BP6e: Chapter 16: Psychopathology: Biological Basis of Behavior Disorders; Chapter 7: Life-Span Development of the Brain and Behavior
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 12: Psychopathology: Biological Basis of Behavioral Disorders; Chapter 13: Memory, Learning, and Development
Link ID: 17244 - Posted: 09.11.2012

Depression Linked with Hyperconnected Brain Areas

By Carrie Arnold Like an overwhelmed traffic cop, the depressed brain may transmit signals among regions in a dysfunctional way. Recent brain-imaging studies suggest that areas of the brain involved in mood, concentration and conscious thought are hyperconnected, which scientists believe could lead to the problems with focus, anxiety and memory frequently seen in depression. Using functional MRI and electroencephalography (EEG), psychiatrist Andrew Leuchter of the University of California, Los Angeles, and his colleagues measured the activity of depressed patients' brains at rest. They found that the limbic and cortical areas, which together produce and process our emotions, sent a barrage of neural messages back and forth to one another—much more than in the brains of healthy patients. These signals, Leuchter says, can amplify depressed people's negative thoughts and act like white noise, drowning out the other neural messages telling them to move on. A separate study by psychiatrist Shuqiao Yao of Central South University in Hunan, China, produced a more nuanced view of these two areas' hyperconnectivity. In work published in Biological Psychiatry in April, Yao and his colleagues reported that stronger links among certain corticolimbic circuits are seen in patients more prone to rumination, the act of continuously replaying negative thoughts. Less connectivity in other corticolimbic circuits corresponded to autobiographical memory impairments, which is another common feature that appears in depression. © 2012 Scientific American

Magnetic stimulation helps some people with treatment-resistant depression

By Julie Appleby, An increasing number of psychiatrists and hospitals — as well as entrepreneurs opening rTMS centers around the country — are betting that there are millions of people like Curtis, discouraged by depression treatments that have proved unsuccessful and willing to pony up thousands of dollars for the possibility of relief. The treatment, which has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration, is covered by Medicare in five states, but few private insurers pay for it routinely. While rTMS has ardent supporters, its effectiveness is still debated, and there is little evidence showing how long the results last. The technique has been shown to work better than a placebo, but the proportion of patients who show complete relief ranges widely, from as few as 10 percent to as many as 57 percent, according to various studies. The debate has huge implications, not just for many of the 14 million Americans who suffer from major depression every year but also for businesses eyeing a potentially lucrative market and insurers weighing whether to cover it. About half of those 14 million Americans seek relief through psychotherapy and prescription drug treatment, according to an evaluation by the federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. But studies show that antidepressants provide complete cessation of symptoms only about a third of the time. Magnetic stimulation is aimed at patients with such “treatment-resistant depression.” Supporters say rTMS is worth the cost — between $6,000 and $12,000 for the four-to-six-week treatment — because it enables people such as Curtis to resume productive lives. Skeptics question the price tag in light of uncertain benefits. © 1996-2012 The Washington Post

Chronic fatigue syndrome: Brain training is most cost-effective treatment

Exercise and behavioural therapies are the most cost-effective and successful ways to treat Chronic fatigue syndrome, also known as ME, an analysis shows. A study of 640 patients showed these treatments had the potential to save the economy millions of pounds if they were widely adopted. The findings were published in the journal PLoS ONE. However, another treatment favoured by patients' groups was shown to offer little value. Nobody knows what causes the condition, yet a quarter of a million people in the UK are thought to have it. The symptoms include severe tiredness, poor concentration and memory as well as muscle and joint pain and disturbed sleep. An earlier version of this research, published last year, showed that cognitive behavioural therapy (changing how people think about their symptoms) and graded exercise therapy (gradually increasing the amount of exercise) were the most effective treatments. However, the study provoked anger from many patients' groups which argued that pacing therapies (learning to live within limits) were both better and safer for patients. Using data from the same set of patients, researchers compared improvements in levels of fatigue and activity with the cost to the NHS of providing the treatments. It concluded that only cognitive behavioural therapy and graded exercise therapy could be considered cost-effective. BBC © 2012

Brain signal ID’s responders to fast-acting antidepressant

Scientists have discovered a biological marker that may help to identify which depressed patients will respond to an experimental, rapid-acting antidepressant. The brain signal, detectable by noninvasive imaging, also holds clues to the agent’s underlying mechanism, which are vital for drug development, say National Institutes of Health researchers. The signal is among the latest of several such markers, including factors detectable in blood, genetic markers, and a sleep-specific brain wave, recently uncovered by the NIH team and grantee collaborators. They illuminate the workings of the agent, called ketamine, and may hold promise for more personalized treatment. "These clues help focus the search for the molecular targets of a future generation of medications that will lift depression within hours instead of weeks," explained Carlos Zarate, M.D., of the NIH’s National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). "The more precisely we understand how this mechanism works, the more narrowly treatment can be targeted to achieve rapid antidepressant effects and avoid undesirable side effects." Previous research had shown that ketamine can lift symptoms of depression within hours in many patients. But side effects hamper its use as a first-line medication. So researchers are studying its mechanism of action in hopes of developing a safer agent that works similarly. Ketamine works through a different brain chemical system than conventional antidepressants. It initially blocks a protein on brain neurons, called the NMDA receptor, to which the chemical messenger glutamate binds.

Mild mental illness 'raises risk of premature death'

By Emily Selvadurai Health reporter, BBC News online People with mild mental illnesses such as anxiety or depression are more likely to die early, say researchers. They looked at the premature deaths from conditions such as heart disease and cancer of 68,000 people in England. The research suggested low level distress raised the risk by 16%, once lifestyle factors such as drinking and smoking were taken into account. More serious problems increased it by 67%, the University College London and Edinburgh University team said. The risk among those with severe mental health problems is already well documented. But researchers said the finding among those with milder cases - thought to be one in every four people - was concerning, as many would be undiagnosed. The Wellcome Trust-funded study, published in the British Medical Journal, looked at data over 10 years and matched it to information on death certificates. This is the largest study so far to show an association between psychological distress and death, according to scientists. Lead author Dr Tom Russ said: "The fact that an increased risk of mortality was evident, even at low levels of psychological distress, should prompt research into whether treatment of these very common, minor symptoms can modify this increased risk of death." BBC © 2012

Exercise May Ease Depression in Heart Failure Patients

By ANAHAD O'CONNOR Heart failure can take a heavy psychological toll, with many patients developing symptoms of depression. But a new study suggests that an exercise plan can ease the melancholy, creating improvements in mood that are comparable to the effects seen with medication. For roughly a year, researchers followed more than 2,000 people treated for congestive heart failure at 82 medical centers in the United States, France and Canada. Those who were assigned to a moderate aerobic exercise program — about 90 to 120 minutes a week — saw greater reductions in symptoms of depression than those who were not enrolled in such a program. “I think this shows that for patients who have heart failure, exercise is certainly an excellent treatment,” said Dr. James A. Blumenthal, a professor of medical psychology at Duke University Medical Center and the lead author of the study, which was published in The Journal of the American Medical Association. “It’s something that most patients can engage in. It results in improved cardiorespiratory fitness, they have more stamina, and now we see that not only do they derive these physical benefits, but they also derive psychological benefits as well.” An estimated five million Americans are living with heart failure, with more than half a million new cases diagnosed each year. Patients often experience a drastic decline in their physical abilities, and with it a blow to their mental health. Up to 75 percent of patients develop some symptoms of depression, with about 40 percent suffering from full-blown clinical depression, which can worsen their overall prognosis. Copyright 2012 The New York Times Company

More Older People Treated for Depression

By PAULA SPAN Anna Hill’s mother-in-law had suffered from depression for years, it was clear in hindsight, and had denied it for years, too. Only 73, she’d lost interest in doing much of anything. In chronic pain after an earlier accident, she was taking high doses of methadone. Last November, she stunned her family by declining, at the eleventh hour, to come to Thanksgiving dinner. “I’d only seen her in a nightgown for a year straight,” said Ms. Hill, 42, an accountant in Atlanta. “She was just rotting away in bed, watching TV and taking methadone.” Depression in the elderly is a mixed picture these days. For years, mental health specialists lamented that depression was seriously underdiagnosed and undertreated in the elderly. Laypeople saw it not as a disease but as an inevitable part of aging. Doctors missed it because depression didn’t always look the way it did in younger patients — less sadness and weepiness, more physical symptoms and disengagement. Older people themselves often rejected help because mental illness carried a stigma. In primary care practices, Dr. Jürgen Unützer and colleagues found in a large study published in 2000, only 12 to 25 percent of older people with probable depression were getting a diagnosis and being treated. Not anymore. Over the past decade, “we’ve seen a really big increase in the recognition of depression and the initiation of treatment,” said Dr. Unützer, a geriatric psychiatrist now at the University of Washington. © 2012 The New York Times Company

Night lights may foster depression

By Janet Raloff Psychiatrists sometimes prescribe light therapy to treat a form of depression in people who get too little morning sun. But too much light at other times may actually trigger such mood disorders. Chronic exposure to light at night unleashes depression, a new study finds — at least in animals. The new data confirm observations from studies of people who work night shifts, says Richard Stevens of the University of Connecticut Health Center in Farmington. Mood disorders join a growing list of problems — including cancer, obesity and diabetes — that can occur when light throws life out of balance by disrupting the biological clock and its timing of daily rhythms. In the new study, appearing online July 24 in Molecular Psychiatry, Tracy Bedrosian, Zachary Weil and Randy Nelson of Ohio State University exposed Siberian hamsters to normal light and dark cycles for four weeks. For the next four weeks, half of the animals remained on this schedule, and the rest received chronic dim light throughout their night. Compared with animals exposed to normal nighttime darkness, those getting dim light at night lost their intense preference for sweet drinks, “a sign they no longer get pleasure out of activities they once enjoyed,” Bedrosian says. In a second test, animals were clocked on how long they actively tried to escape a pool of water. Hamsters exposed to night lights stopped struggling and just floated in the water — a sign of “behavioral despair” — 10 times as long as animals that had experienced normal nighttime darkness, Bedrosian reports. © Society for Science & the Public 2000 - 2012

Related chapters from BP6e: Chapter 16: Psychopathology: Biological Basis of Behavior Disorders; Chapter 14: Biological Rhythms, Sleep, and Dreaming
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 12: Psychopathology: Biological Basis of Behavioral Disorders; Chapter 10: Biological Rhythms and Sleep
Link ID: 17089 - Posted: 07.25.2012

Good News for Mental Illness in Health Law

By RICHARD A. FRIEDMAN, M.D. Americans with mental illness had good reason to celebrate when the Supreme Court upheld President Obama’s Affordable Care Act. The law promises to give them something they have never had before: near-universal health insurance, not just for their medical problems but for psychiatric disorders as well. Until now, people with mental illness and substance disorders have faced stingy annual and lifetime caps on coverage, higher deductibles or simply no coverage at all. This was supposed to be fixed in part by the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008, which mandated that psychiatric illness be covered just the same as other medical illnesses. But the law applied only to larger employers (50 or more workers) that offered a health plan with benefits for mental health and substance abuse. Since it did not mandate universal psychiatric benefits, it had a limited effect on the disparity between the treatment of psychiatric and nonpsychiatric medical diseases. Now comes the Affordable Care Act combining parity with the individual mandate for health insurance. As Dr. Dilip V. Jeste, president of the American Psychiatric Association, told me, “This law has the potential to change the course of life for psychiatric patients for the better, and in that sense it is both humane and right.” To get a sense of the magnitude of the potential benefit, consider that about half of Americans will experience a major psychiatric or substance disorder at some point, according to an authoritative 2005 survey. Yet because of the stigma surrounding mental illness, poor access to care and inadequate insurance coverage, only a fraction of those with mental illness receive treatment. © 2012 The New York Times Company

Cat parasite linked to women's suicide attempts

Stephanie Pappas Women infected with the cat parasite Toxoplasma gondii are more likely to attempt suicide than non-infected women, new research finds. The reason for this connection, however, remains mysterious. T. gondii is a protozoa that prefers to infect cats, but can make its home in any warm-blooded animal. Humans can pick up the parasite from contact with cat feces, or by eating undercooked meat or unwashed vegetables. Once ingested, T. gondii can make a home for itself inside the brain and muscle tissues, protected inside cysts that are resistant to attacks by the host's immune system. Some studies have linked infection by this parasite with a variety of mental health and brain problems, including schizophrenia, neurosis and brain cancer. But scientists aren't clear on whether the parasite contributes to these problems or is a mere side effect. Someone with schizophrenia, for example, might struggle to keep up good hygiene, meaning the mental disorder could increase the risk for infection. The new study linking suicide and T. gondii has the same limitation. Researchers can't say for sure whether the parasite somehow drives people to suicide. But in women with infections, they found, the risk of an attempt is 1.5 times greater than in women without. "We can't say with certainty that T. gondii caused the women to try to kill themselves, but we did find a predictive association between the infection and suicide attempts later in life that warrants additional studies," lead researcher Teodor Postolache, a psychiatrist at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, said in a statement. "We plan to continue our research into this possible connection." © 2012 msnbc.com

Holy sacred cow! Why reactions to the exercise and depression trial go to the heart of scientific co

By Hilda Bastian What do you believe about the effects of exercise and depression – and why do you believe it? Are you personally unenthusiastic about exercising, or are you closer to religious fervor about it? These are critical questions. Because it doesn’t matter how much you believe in the importance of science. If you have a very strong prior existing belief, chances are it’s going to exert a strong bias on how you select and react to evidence on the subject. In the ideal rational world with loads of expertise and time on your hands, that wouldn’t matter when you came across research. If you were interested in the issue, you would carefully assess the biases and strengths of new research, with an equally careful assessment of the existing body of research. You wouldn’t make up your mind about the current state of knowledge till after this systematic assessment was done. But that’s not what it’s like, is it? In the real world, what we already believe often determines whether we even read something at all. And if it reinforces our belief – “Ha! See? I knew it! More proof!” – we might whizz off an email or a tweet without more than a brief skim of the abstract (or even less). But if research challenges beliefs we hold dear, we might tear the challenging article to pieces. We tend to look for methodological weaknesses in a way that we don’t do if we agree with conclusions. © 2012 Scientific American

Related chapters from BP6e: Chapter 16: Psychopathology: Biological Basis of Behavior Disorders; Chapter 11: Motor Control and Plasticity
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 12: Psychopathology: Biological Basis of Behavioral Disorders; Chapter 5: The Sensorimotor System
Link ID: 16910 - Posted: 06.14.2012

Statins Are Linked with Fatigue

By Katherine Harmon Cholesterol-lowering statins have been credited with preventing countless heart attacks among at-risk adults. More than 20 million U.S. adults now take statins daily, making them some of the top-selling drugs of all time. Recent research, however, has indicated that they might sometimes contribute to cognitive problems, such as confusion and memory loss. And new findings suggest that they might also be to blame for additional fatigue. The new study followed 1,016 healthy adults, who were randomly assigned to take 20 milligrams of Zocor (simvastatin), 40 milligrams of Pravachol (pravastatin)—both relatively low doses—or a placebo every evening before bed for six months. At the end of the study period, they were asked to rate their energy levels and how they felt after exercising. Those who were taking the statins were more likely to report lower overall energy and more fatigue with exertion than those who had been randomized to the placebo. The findings were reported online June 11 in Archives of Internal Medicine. “Occurrence of this problem was not rare—even at these doses,” Beatrice Golomb, of the Department of Medicine at University of California, San Diego, and co-author of the study, said in a prepared statement. Subjects taking the Zocor ended up with the lowest cholesterol but were more likely to report decreased energy. The effect was more common in women, she noted, with 40 percent of women reporting either this lower energy or more fatigue with exertion while taking the daily Zocor dose. © 2012 Scientific American

Exercise doesn’t help depression? Let’s take a real look at that study.

By Scicurious When I first saw the coverage of the article appear on Jezebel saying that exercise doesn’t help depression, I didn’t believe it. I read the press release, and really didn’t believe it. And then, I read the article. Do I believe the article? Yes, I believe that the data are as they say they are. But do I believe that exercise doesn’t help depression? Nope. Not a chance. Because that’s not what this study says. And in a truly massive failure” of press release and media coverage (some of which was elegantly skewered by Martin Robbins and Tom Chivers), everyone is going to get the wrong idea. Contrary to some of the statements in the introduction of the paper, there are several meta-analyses which support the effects of exercise in treating symptoms of depression. However, they authors are right, many of the studies have small numbers of people and have extensive exercise interventions. The authors of this study were interested in a milder intervention in a larger group of people: could moderate increases in physical activity buttress depression treatment? To look at this, they recruited around 360 people who were experiencing a new episode of depression. They assigned half of them to an exercise intervention, and half to control. ALL of them got “normal” treatment, meaning some additionally got talk therapy, some additionally got antidepressants of various types, etc. In the exercise intervention, the group received three meetings with a trained facilitator and 10 phone calls during the year, encouraging them to exercise for 150 minutes per week of moderate to vigorous physical activity in bouts of at least 10 minutes. © 2012 Scientific American

Brain training 'helps treat depression'

A brain training technique which helps people control activity in a specific part of the brain could help treat depression, a study suggests. Cardiff University researchers used MRI scanners to show eight people how their brains reacted to positive imagery. After four sessions of the therapy the participants had seen significant improvements in their depression. Another eight who were asked to think positively but did not see brain images as they did so showed no change. The researchers said they believed the MRI scans allowed participants to work out, through trial and error, which sort of positive emotional imagery was most effective. The technique - known as neurofeedback - has already had some success in helping people with Parkinson's disease. But the team acknowledge that further research, involving a larger number of people, is needed to ascertain how effective the therapy is, particularly in the long term. Prof David Linden, who led the study which was published in the PLoS One journal, said it had the potential to become part of the "treatment package" for depression. About a fifth of people will develop depression at some point in their lives and a third of those will not respond to standard treatments. BBC © 2012

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