Hot on the heels of my post about the neurobiological evidence for major depressive disorder comes this: the first blood-based diagnostic aid for schizophrenia.
Um, what’s that again?
Read MoreI have spent quite a bit of time in the last week looking at a paper: Pathophysiology of Depression: Do We Have Any Solid Evidence of Interest to Clinicians? By Gregor Hasler.
This paper discusses seven research areas relating to the neurobiology of major depressive disorder (MDD). In other words, it talks about the biological evidence of depression, mental illness. It discusses the strengths and weaknesses of biological theories of depression via evidence and aims to point out some of the reasons our current treatment isn’t as successful as it should be. The paper cites 88 other studies and was published in the Journal of World Psychiatry in 2010. It’s pretty educational.
Read MoreIt would be nice to know ahead of time, if a treatment would work. Unfortunately, no one cal tell the future: not for cancer treatment and not for mental illness treatment like electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) either.
But very smart people try to figure out what might predict the outcome of treatments. Especially treatments like ECT, a hotly debated, and much maligned treatment. That’s the good news. And the bad news.
In a retrospective chart review of depressive and bipolar patients in a Netherlands hospital, of those who received ECT, 65.8% met the standards for remission. The only predictor of response found was duration of index series.
Read MoreAs you might have noticed, I’ve been writing about bipolar and mental illness for a really long time. Seven years in internet time is a lifetime or so.
And in all that time, in addition to the writing, I’ve been reading, or more commonly, researching mental illness. I’ve been looking up information on mental disorders, psychiatric medications, mental illness treatments, supplements and everything else of which you can think. This is because I like to be educated about my bipolar disorder and my healthcare and treatments. I often share that researched information because I think others should be educated about mental illness too. I strive to make anything I write accurate and provide links to reputable sources.
But what information should you trust? Who should you trust for mental health information? Should you trust me, a random blogger? People on discussion groups? Information sites? Drug company sites? Doctor sites?
Pretty much, almost always, no.
Read MoreThis is a paper I wrote for a psychology course I am taking so the level of discourse is quite high, sorry about that. I promise though, it is comprehensible. What I’m basically talking about is calcium-channel blockers and other calcium antagonists (they turn calcium down). This refers to calcium in your brain and not calcium in your blood.
Because inadequate response, poor compliance, chronic recurring symptoms, and functional disability are constant challenges is the treatment of bipolar disorder, (Gitlin, 2006) efforts have been made to search out new mood stabilizing medication and determine new methods of action. There has been an effort to treat bipolar disorder with a class of medication termed “mood stabilizers”, most notably consisting of some anticonvulsants (also known as antiepileptics) in addition to the traditional lithium.[1] While anticonvulsants are widely used in the treatment of mood disorders, their method of action in mood stabilization is mostly unknown.[2] Recent research has indicated that disrupted calcium homeostasis is present in bipolar disorder, and that anticonvulsants and lithium effect calcium channels and concentration in the brain (Amann, 2005). The mood-stabilizing effects of calcium channel blockers like Nimodipine (Levy, 2000) further add to the evidence that calcium antagonism is useful in the treatment of bipolar disorder. I will show that these “mood stabilizers”, anticonvulsants, stabilize mood in bipolar disorder, at least partially, through their ability to act as calcium antagonists.
Read More
Subscribe to my monthly newsletter to get the latest from Bipolar Burble, Breaking Bipolar, my vlogs at bpHope, my masterclasses, and other useful tidbits -- plus get a FREE eBook on coping skills.
Recent Comments