Science News

New Details in Schizophrenia Treatment Trial Emerge

March 1, 2007 • Press Release
Two new studies from the Clinical Antipsychotic Trials for Intervention Effectiveness (CATIE) provide more insights into comparing treatment options, and to what extent antipsychotic medications help people with schizophrenia learn social, interpersonal and community living skills.

Virtual-Reality Video Game Helps Link Depression to Specific Brain Area

March 1, 2007 • Science Update
Scientists are using a virtual-reality, three-dimensional video game that challenges spatial memory as a new tool for assessing the link between depression and the hippocampus, the brain’s memory hub.

Weight Gain From Antipsychotics Traced to Appetite-Regulating Enzyme, Receptor

February 28, 2007 • Science Update
A likely mechanism by which antipsychotic medications trigger weight gain — with its attendant risks of heart disease, diabetes and treatment non-adherence — has been unraveled in mice by NIMH-funded scientists.

Largest-Ever Search for Autism Genes Reveals New Clues

February 18, 2007 • Press Release
The largest search for autism genes to date, funded in part by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), has implicated components of the brain’s glutamate chemical messenger system and a previously overlooked site on chromosome 11.

Common Gene Version Optimizes Thinking — but With a Possible Downside

February 9, 2007 • Press Release
Most people inherit a version of a gene that optimizes their brain’s thinking circuitry, yet also appears to increase risk for schizophrenia, a severe mental illness marked by impaired thinking, scientists at the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) have discovered.

Study Tracks Prevalence of Eating Disorders

February 9, 2007 • Science Update
Results from a large-scale national survey suggest that binge-eating disorder is more prevalent than both anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa.

Half of Adults With Anxiety Disorders Had Psychiatric Diagnoses in Youth

February 7, 2007 • Science Update
About half of adults with an anxiety disorder had symptoms of some type of psychiatric illness by age 15, a NIMH-funded study shows.

Autism Research Efforts Highlighted in Biological Psychiatry Special Issue

February 6, 2007 • Science Update
The February 15, 2007 special issue of Biological Psychiatry is dedicated to recent advances in autism research, including many studies funded by the Institute.

Brain’s Reward Circuit Activity Ebbs and Flows with a Woman’s Hormonal Cycle

February 2, 2007 • Press Release
Fluctuations in sex hormone levels during women’s menstrual cycles affect the responsiveness of their brains’ reward circuitry, an imaging study at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) has revealed.

Extreme Irritability: Is It Childhood Bipolar Disorder?

February 1, 2007 • Press Release
Results of a new study may help improve the diagnosis and treatment of two debilitating childhood mental disorders — pediatric bipolar disorder (BD) and a syndrome called severe mood dysregulation (SMD).

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The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) is part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.