‘Psychiatry’ at Psychology, Philosophy and Real Life, Page 10

New research sheds further light on the role of brain chemistry in anorexia nervosa, indicating that disturbances in the way the brain uses serotonin may persist long after recovery from one type of anorexia.

Vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) therapy, a treatment recently approved by the Food and Drug Administration for treatment-resistant depression, produced a positive response in more than 25 percent of patients in a national, yearlong study led by UT Southwestern Medical Center psychiatrists.

Test your personality type, see how well you can identify emotions from facial expressions, and evaluate your tendency to take risks, with a series of fun internet-based tests provided at a new depression research website. If you’d like to participate even more, you can sign up as a volunteer and help depression researchers to explore the genetics and brain functions behind depression.

Increased chemical activity in a part of the brain involved in reward and reinforcement may help shed light on the question of why anorexia sufferers feel driven to lose weight but don’t get any pleasure from it. New research with anorexia sufferers using brain-imaging technology found overactivity of dopamine receptors in a part of the brain known as the basal ganglia. Around 1 percent of women in the US suffer from anorexia, a disorder that can also affect men.

As a treatment for severe depression, electroconvulsive therapy (electro-shock treatment) has long been considered a last hope — a treatment which works, but which also brings significant side-effects, especially for memory. New research on a less aggressive alternative, transcranial magnetic stimulation, promises similar effectiveness but without memory impairment.