Wednesday, February 25, 2015

Different Mental Disorders Show Similar Gray Matter Loss

That is the title of this article I am writing about. "Researchers have discovered a common pattern of gray matter loss in a spectrum of psychiatric disorders, ranging from schizophrenia to depression to addiction, according to a new meta-analysis of brain-imaging studies by Stanford University School of Medicine.
'The idea that these disorders share some common brain architecture and that some functions could be abnormal across so many of them is intriguing,' said Thomas Insel, M.D., director of the National Institute of Mental Health.
Previously, brain imaging studies tended to focus on one psychiatric disorder in isolation, whereas the Stanford researchers “have stepped back from the trees to look at the forest and see a pattern in that forest that wasn’t apparent when you just look at the trees,” Insel said.  The analysis of 193 peer-reviewed papers shows a loss of gray matter in three brain structures that, although physically separate, participate in a network associated with high-level functions, including planning and decision-making. The findings call into question the common practice of distinguishing psychiatric disorders by their symptoms rather than their underlying brain pathology."  This is very important to the people that lose some high-level functions.  We have come far in research now we have to find ways to use it to help people.
The article goes on to say:"'In many of these published studies we reviewed, researchers have tended to interpret their biological findings in terms of the one disorder they’re focusing on,' said Amit Etkin, M.D., Ph.D., an assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford and the study’s senior author.
'We tried to ask a basic question that hasn’t been asked: Is there any common biological basis for mental illness?'
To find out, he and his research team gathered data from 193 separate studies containing, in all, magnetic-resonance images of the brains of 7,381 patients falling into six diagnostic categories: schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, major depression, addiction, obsessive-compulsive disorder and a cluster of related anxiety disorders.
They compared the images with those from 8,511 healthy control subjects, and identified three separate brain structures, several centimeters apart from one another, with a diminished volume of gray matter, the brain tissue that serves to process information. Gray matter loss in the three brain structures was similar across patients with different mental disorders, the researchers found." if they can find out why these people with mental illness lose that gray matter it would be great.  Especially if they can stop it from happening.
The article ends with:"These structures can be viewed as the alarm bell of the brain, Etkin said. “They work together, signaling to other brain regions when reality deviates from expectations — that something important and unpredicted has happened, or something important has failed to happen.”
Further analysis showed that gray-matter shrinkage in the three implicated brain structures was independent of any medication effects or overlapping psychiatric conditions.
In addition to the gray-matter loss in those three key areas, people with major depression also had gray-matter loss in other structures, including the hippocampus and amygdala, two important regions involved in storing memories and processing emotion, respectively.
Schizophrenia also featured reduced gray matter in several other structures, as well as an increase in gray matter in a region called the striatum, which Etkin suggested may be due more to the antipsychotic medications than the disease itself." Well the medication is not making this happen.  We have to find a way to stop it from happening than people can lead healthier and better lives.

Tuesday, February 17, 2015

Eight Different Types of Schizophrenia

That is the title of this article I am writing about. "A group of researchers from Spain and the U.S. have found that schizophrenia is actually a group of eight genetically different types of diseases, each of which presents its own set of symptoms.
Scientists from the universities of Granada (Spain) and Washington in St. Louis have published their research in the American Journal of Psychiatry.
Experts believe this could be an important first step towards a better diagnosis and treatment of this disease, which affects approximately one percent of the world’s population.
Researchers were aware that approximately 80 percent of the risk of suffering from schizophrenia was hereditary, although scientists have struggled for years to identify which specific genes lead to it.
The new study included 4196 patients diagnosed with schizophrenia and 3200 healthy patients. Experts were, for the first time, able to identify the different genes networks that contribute to the existence of eight different types of schizophrenia.
'Genes do not operate on their own, in an isolated manner,' said Igor Zwir, Ph.D., a researcher at the university of Granada and co-author of his article, pointed out, “they rather work with each other as an orchestra. To understand how they work, we must not just know what each member of this orchestra is like, but also how they interact with each other.'" I always knew that paranoid schizophrenia and regular schizophrenia were different.  I am glad they are getting somewhere and announcing it.  Although about it being hereditary I don't know about that no one in my family has it except a cousin.  Although now that my brother is studying our past relatives it would be nice to find out.
The article goes on to say: "This genetic analysis leads to 95 percent certainty in predicting the onset of schizophrenia.
In another group, they found that incongruent speech and disorganized behavior are specifically associated with a DNA variations network that leads to a 100 percent risk of suffering schizophrenia.
Researchers divided the patients according to the type and seriousness of positive symptoms (such as different types of hallucinations or deliriums), or negative symptoms (such as lack of initiative, troubles in organizing thoughts, or lack of connection between emotion and thought).
Scientists also classified the profiles of these symptoms into eight qualitative types of different diseases according to the underlying genetic conditions.
'In the past, scientists had searched for associations between individual genes and schizophrenia — researchers point out. What was lacking was the idea that these genes do not act independently, but that they work as a group instead, to disturb the structure and the functions of the brain, thus causing the disease.'" My positive symptoms were bad.  I do know that I never want to suffer that again.  That is why I always take my medicine.
The article ends:"Although individual genes only present weak, inconsistent associations with schizophrenia, the interaction networks of gene groups pose a high risk of suffering from the disease, between 70 and 100 percent, 'which makes it almost impossible that individuals with those genetic variation networks will avoid schizophrenia'
Researchers found a total of 42 genes groups that influenced in a variety of ways the risk of suffering schizophrenia.
They also replicated their finds in two independent samples of individuals with schizophrenia, an index that these networks are a valid path for the exploration and improvement of the diagnosis and treatment of this disease.
'The identification of gene networks and their related symptoms in individual patients may allow clinicians to develop localized treatment for the specific paths that cause schizophrenia,' Zwir said."If it can improve diagnosis that would be great.  A group of genes cause schizophrenia.  As long as I take my medication I really have nothing to worry about now.  Although I do worry about the future as I get older and what I will lose like especially my memory which I continue to work on.  When I was in school I had a hard time with math and I use to be good at that.

Tuesday, February 10, 2015

Schizophrenia, depression, addiction: Different mental disorders cause same brain-matter loss

That is the title of this article I am writing about today.  "  A meta-analysis of 193 brain-imaging studies shows similar gray-matter loss in the brains of people with diagnoses as different as schizophrenia, depression and addiction.  In a study analyzing whole-brain images from nearly 16,000 people, researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine identified a common pattern across a spectrum of psychiatric disorders that are widely perceived to be quite distinct.
The meta-analysis of 193 peer-reviewed papers, published Feb. 4 in JAMA Psychiatry, reports a loss of gray matter in three brain structures that, although physically separate, participate in a network associated with high-level functions, including planning and decision-making.
The findings call into question a longstanding tendency to distinguish psychiatric disorders chiefly by their symptoms rather than their underlying brain pathology.
In any given year, nearly one in five Americans meets the criteria for a diagnosis of psychiatric illness. 'The idea that these disorders share some common brain architecture and that some functions could be abnormal across so many of them is intriguing,' said Thomas Insel, MD, director of the National Institute of Mental Health, who wasn't involved in the study but is familiar with its contents.
The researchers drew on component studies that have been around for some time, said Insel. But these studies tended to focus on one or another psychiatric disorder in isolation, whereas the Stanford investigators 'have stepped back from the trees to look at the forest and see a pattern in that forest that wasn't apparent when you just look at the trees,' Insel said.
'In many of these published studies we reviewed, researchers have tended to interpret their biological findings in terms of the one disorder they're focusing on,' said Amit Etkin, MD, PhD, an assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford and the study's senior author. Lead authorship is shared by Madeleine Goodkind, PhD, a postdoctoral scholar in Etkin's group, and Simon Eickhoff, DrMed, a professor of clinical neuroscience and medical psychology at Heinrich-Heine University Dusseldorf." This looks like a good study about how different the gray matter is in people with different symptoms.  I would like to know more how studying this can help diagnosis different schizophrenia people.
The article goes on to say: "Similar gray-matter loss
Despite experienced clinicians' intuitive grasp of the blurred lines separating diverse psychiatric conditions, there's nonetheless often an assumption that these disorders, traditionally classified on the basis of predominant symptoms, are discrete in reality, noted Etkin, who is also an investigator at the Sierra-Pacific Mental Illness Research and Clinical Center at the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System. "We tried to ask a basic question that hasn't been asked: Is there any common biological basis for mental illness?"
We tried to ask a basic question that hasn't been asked: Is there any common biological basis for mental illness?
To address that question, he and his colleagues pooled data from 193 separate studies containing, in all, magnetic-resonance images of the brains of 7,381 patients falling into six diagnostic categories: schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, major depression, addiction, obsessive-compulsive disorder and a cluster of related anxiety disorders. Comparing the images with those from 8,511 healthy control subjects, the research team identified three separate brain structures, several centimeters apart from one another, with a diminished volume of gray matter, the brain tissue that serves to process information. These structures -- the left and right anterior insula and the dorsal anterior cingulate -- are known to be parts of a larger network in the brain whose component parts tend to fire in synchrony. This network is associated with higher-level executive functions such as concentrating in the face of distractions, multitasking or task-switching, planning and decision-making, and inhibition of counterproductive impulses.
Gray matter loss in the three brain structures was similar across patients with different psychiatric conditions, the researchers found.
These structures can be viewed as the alarm bell of the brain, Etkin said. "They work together, signaling to other brain regions when reality deviates from expectations -- that something important and unpredicted has happened, or something important has failed to happen." That signaling guides future behavior in directions more likely to obtain desired results."  It still does not answer the question why some people with schizophrenia keep all these skills even when they have it.  Some people lose all three of these skills.
The article ends with: "Some incongruities
In addition to gray-matter loss in these three structures, people diagnosed with major depression also had gray-matter loss in other structures, including the hippocampus and amygdala, two key areas involved in storing memories and processing emotion, respectively. Schizophrenia was marked by reduced gray matter in several other structures, as well as an increase in gray matter in a region called the striatum, which Etkin suggested may be due more to the antipsychotic medications prescribed for schizophrenia than to the disease process itself.
Further analysis showed that gray-matter shrinkage in the three implicated brain structures was independent of any medication effects or overlapping psychiatric conditions.
Next, Etkin and his colleagues turned to three large databases containing both structural and functional MRI scans of healthy subjects. Among healthy people, gray-matter volume in the right and left anterior insula and the dorsal anterior cingulate correlated with performance on classic tests of executive function. Such a test might involve, for example, asking the test-taker to note the color of the word "blue," displayed in a color other than blue, after seeing it briefly flashed on a screen. This finding strengthens evidence that among psychiatric patients, the generally observed gray-matter loss in brain structures associated with executive function is behaviorally significant.
The discovery that psychiatric disorders typically studied in isolation from one another turn out to share a common structural deficit mirrors, in some respects, a genetic analysis conducted in 2013 by researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital that showed shared genetic glitches among several categories of mental illness, said Insel. But this is the first imaging study to do so, he said.
'I wouldn't have expected these results. I've been working under the assumption that we can use neuroimaging to help classify the different forms of mental illness,' Insel said. 'This makes it harder.'
Other Stanford study co-authors are Desmond Oathes, PhD, a psychiatry and behavioral sciences instructor; postdoctoral scholar Ying Jiang, MD; graduate student Andrew Chang; and research assistants Laura Jones-Hagata, Brissa Ortega, Yevgeniya Zaiko and Erika Roach."Well they cannot tell different forms of schizophrenia although this is still a very good study, now if they can figure out how to stop people with the three mental illness from losing that gray matter.  People with major depression from losing memories and emotions.

Tuesday, February 3, 2015

Diet, nutrition essential for mental health

That is the title of the article I am writing about. "Evidence is rapidly growing showing vital relationships between both diet quality and potential nutritional deficiencies and mental health, a new international collaboration led by the University of Melbourne and Deakin University has revealed. Lead author, Dr. Jerome Sarris from the university of Melbourne and a member of the International Society for Nutritional Psychiatry Research (ISNPR), said psychiatry is at a critical stage, with the current medically-focused model having achieved only modest benefits in addressing the global burden of poor health.  'While the determinants of mental health are complex, the emerging and compelling evidence for nutrition as a key factor in the high prevalence and incidence of mental disorders suggests that nutrition is as important to psychiatry as it is to cardiology, endocrinology and gastroenterology,' Dr Sarris said.  'In the last few years, significant links have been established between nutritional quality and mental health. Scientifically rigorous studies have made important contributions to our understanding of the role of nutrition in mental health,' he said. No one wants to die younger from a mental illness.  Nutrition is very important to health.
The article goes on to say:"Findings of the review revealed that in addition to dietary improvement, evidence now supports the contention that nutrient-based prescription has the potential to assist in the management of mental disorders at the individual and population level.
Studies show that many of these nutrients have a clear link to brain health, including omega-3s, B vitamins (particularly folate and B12), choline, iron, zinc, magnesium, S-adenosyl methionine (SAMe), vitamin D, and amino acids.  'While we advocate for these to be consumed in the diet where possible, additional select prescription of these as nutraceuticals (nutrient supplements) may also be justified,' Dr Sarris said.  Associate Professor Felice Jacka, a Principal Research Fellow from Deakin University and president of the ISNPR noted that many studies have shown associations between healthy dietary patterns and a reduced prevalence of and risk for depression and suicide across cultures and age groups." It works for the better of mental health.  I do not eat much fish so I take fish oil. Also take a multi-vitamin.
The article ends:"'Maternal and early-life nutrition is also emerging as a factor in mental health outcomes in children, while severe deficiencies in some essential nutrients during critical developmental periods have long been implicated in the development of both depressive and psychotic disorders,' she said.  A systematic review published in late 2014 has also confirmed a relationship between 'unhealthy' dietary patterns and poorer mental health in children and adolescents. Given the early age of onset for depression and anxiety, these data point to dietary improvement as a way of preventing the initial incidence of common mental disorders.
Dr Sarris, an executive member of the ISNPR, believes that it is time to advocate for a more integrative approach to psychiatry, with diet and nutrition as key elements.  'It is time for clinicians to consider diet and additional nutrients as part of the treating package to manage the enormous burden of mental ill health,' he said."  We all have to eat right. I know I do not have high cholesterol so I must be doing something right. I just wish I could lose more weight than I have so far.