An American contractor in Iraq suffering from the after effects of a violent attack needs help to prevent him from developing acute post-traumatic stress disorder. A young man who has been in the throes of an acute psychotic mania and who is now living with his father in remote Humboldt County is trying to rebuild his life. An older woman …
Oxytocin and Spirituality
Oxytocin is a fascinating neurohormone which has been linked to parent-child bonding as well as romantic love, and to darker emotions such as the rejection of “foreigners”. A recent article suggests that it may also be an important factor in the development of spirituality. Joel Yager, writing in the NEJM Journal Watch Psychiatry, summarizes the study this way: Investigators enrolled …
Welcome Gina Gregory – New Staff Member
We are very pleased to welcome Gina Gregory to Gateway Psychiatric. Gina will be working full time in our San Francisco office. Gina is a licensed clinical social worker (LCSW) (#73689) who specializes in trauma-related concerns, mood disorders, anxiety disorders and co-occurring substance use disorders. She uses evidence-based approaches, such as cognitive-behavioral therapy and motivational interviewing. She earned a Master’s in …
Neurocognitive Testing Online
Neurocognitive Testing Online Now Available Problems with memory, inattention, distractibility and cognitive function are common symptoms of mood and anxiety disorders. They may also be side effects of the medications used to treat those conditions. Or they may be a sign of some other condition that needs to be evaluated. How can these evaluated? A key part of a comprehensive assessment …
Where is the Outrage About Suicide?
A wonderful editorial in JAMA Psychiatry highlights the overwhelming evidence that stigma is continuing to drive underfunding for treatment and prevention of suicide deaths. Suicide and “accidental” overdose deaths are an epidemic in this country. Since 1999, the rate of suicide deaths increased by 28.2%, and this probably underestimates the increase because there is evidence that coroners are categorizing more and …
Depression, Anhedonia, Glutamate, and Inflammation
That depression may be linked to alterations in glutamate circuits is suggested by the observation that ketamine (which is an NMDA glutamate receptor antagonist) may rapidly reverse depression in some patients. Depression has also been found to be associated in some people with various markers for inflammation (c reactive protein, tumor necrosis factor, interleukin 1 beta, and interleukin 6). As …
Depression and Inflammation: Treatment Options
A host of conditions have been associated with mild to moderate levels of inflammation in the body. Depression is one of these. Elsewhere in this blog we have discussed the relationship between depression and inflammation, evidence that treatment with an antidepressant (escitalopram) reduces inflammation in depression, and talked about how exercise prevents depression. We have also noted that elevated levels of inflammation (simple …
Naltrexone for Alcohol Use
Naltrexone is one of several new medications (the others are topirimate and acamprosate) that has been shown to reduce the risk of relapse in people with alcohol use disorders. But naltrexone is used relatively rarely for this purpose. A new study suggests that it may be possible to predict which patients are especially likely to respond to naltrexone treatment. The …
B Vitamins and Depression and Cognition
We ran across a Q&A from Consumer Lab on the role of B vitamins in depression which sparked us to update and expand this section of our page on nutritional supplements. ConsumerLab.com Answers Question: I’ve heard that having low B-12 or B-6 can cause depression. Is that true? Answer: Yes, being deficient in vitamin B-12 or B-6 can cause …
Depression Therapeutics and Mechanisms
The September 15, 2016 edition of Biological Psychiatry is devoted to updates in the area of psychobiology that relate to depression and its treatment. In this blog post I will summarize some of those studies to give you a sense of what is going on in the field. Some of these studies may not be replicated in follow-up research, but some …