If you smoke, vape, or ingest cannabis, your anesthesiologist should know before you undergo a surgical procedure, according to new medical guidelines. All patients who undergo procedures that require regional or general anesthesia should be asked if, how often, and in what forms they use the drug, according to recommendations from the American Society of … Read more
Dr. Marc Tessier-Lavigne Stanford University has launched a formal investigation into its own president, neuroscientist Marc Tessier-Lavigne, PhD, for alleged research misconduct pertaining to five scientific articles on which he was lead or coauthor. Stanford’s Board of Trustees is leading the investigation. The university’s student newspaper, the Stanford Dailybroke the news of the investigation on … Read more
Halloween Ends? Yeah, sure. Like that’ll happen. The market for horror remains robust 44 years after the original Halloween movie premiered. Part of the reason (besides Michael Myers’s charm) is that we humans appear to be hard-wired to enjoy getting scared. Whatever happens in Halloween Ends, the latest entry in the long-running film series, you’ll … Read more
Suicide notes left by elderly people provide a unique opportunity to better understand and prevent suicide in this often vulnerable population. A new analysis of notes penned by seniors who died by suicide reveals several common themes. These include feeling as if they were a burden, feelings of guilt, experiencing mental illness, loneliness, or isolation, … Read more
A new report shines a light on the toll the pandemic and other stressors have taken on the mental health of US children and adolescents over the last 6 years. The report shows a dramatic increase in use of acute care services for depression, anxiety, and other mental health conditions, especially among teens and preteens. … Read more
At the risk of losing a digit or two I am going to dip my toes into the murky waters of gender-affirming care, sometimes referred to as trans care. Recently, Moira Szilagyi, MD, PhD, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, released two statements, one in the Aug. 22, 2022, Wall Street Journal, the other … Read more
Mothers who have a family history of any psychiatric disorder have almost two times the risk of postpartum depression as do mothers without such history, according to a new study. Mette-Marie Zacher Kjeldsen, MSc, with the National Center for Register-based Research at Aarhus (Denmark) University, led the study, a meta-analysis that included 26 studies with … Read more
Dee McClure works with many older people who don’t think they’re depressed. They may be down in the dumps. They may be blue. But they aren’t depressed — because they aren’t crazy. Dee McClure McClure, coordinator of the Community Based and Peer Counseling Program at North Range Behavioral Health , in Greeley, Colorado, doesn’t judge … Read more
The investigational agent xanomeline-trospium (KarXT, Karuna Therapeutics), which combines a muscarinic receptor agonist with an anticholinergic agent, helps improve psychosis symptoms, and is not associated with weight gain or sedation in adults with schizophrenia, new research shows. Top-line results from the phase 3 EMERGENT-2 trial showed a significantly greater reduction from baseline on Positive and … Read more
A journal has issued an expression of concern for a federally-funded paper on Alzheimer’s disease after a sleuth on PubPeer noted potentially duplicated figures in the article. We shouldn’t forget to mention, as the paper did, that one of the authors – a prominent scientist who also happens to be a co-editor in chief of … Read more