Basic Science Archives - Gateway Psychiatric

Microdosing Psilocybin and Psilocybin Assisted Psychotherapy – Safe and Effective?

admin — Sun, 28 Aug 2022 16:54:51 +0000

Recently there has been a lot of interest in using psilocybin as a treatment for depression, anxiety and alcohol use disorder. We certainly need more safe and effective treatments. It may be worth considering where we are in the evaluation of these agents. Right now there is a growing literature supporting the potential value of these agents, but there is ...

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Breathing, Hyperventilation, Carbon Dioxide and Panic

admin — Fri, 07 Jan 2022 19:29:59 +0000

How does a panic attack relate to how we are breathing and the level of carbon dioxide and oxygen in our blood, and what is the fundamental flaw in brain programming that makes some of us so vulnerable to panic attacks? I was debriefing with a young woman who took too much of a new medication and ended up in ...

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Inflammation and Depression – Specific Symptom Cluster

admin — Tue, 07 Dec 2021 22:42:36 +0000

A study of 15 population-based cohorts, totalling 56,351 individuals, suggests that there is a correlation between inflammation as measured by elevated C-reactive protein (CRP) and interleukin-6 (IL-6) and a specific sub-group of symptoms of depression. The inflammation cluster consisted of four physical symptoms: changes in appetite, felt everything was an effort, loss of energy, sleep problems; and one cognitive symptom: little ...

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February 2022: COVID-19 or Coronavirus and GPS

Peter Forster — Tue, 16 Feb 2021 18:23:00 +0000

The current projections for COVID-19 coronavirus infections in California look hopeful. We track this using the IHME model. As of mid-February 2022, it appears that infections are likely to be back to the levels seen in the fall of 2021 by mid to late March 2022. Other sources of information mirror this prediction. For example, Covid in sewage tends to ...

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Limbic and Prefrontal Connectivity and Treatment Selection for Depression

Peter Forster — Thu, 27 Aug 2020 02:00:00 +0000

Boadie Dunlop, M.D., M.S., and Helen Mayberg, M.D., both of Emory University School of Medicine, and colleagues assessed resting-state functional connectivity between the subcallosal cingulate cortex (SCC) and three other brain regions—the dorsal midbrain, the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex and anterior insula, and the ventromedial prefrontal cortex—in 122 patients with depression. The patients were then randomized to 12 weeks of cognitive-behavioral ...

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New Biomarker for Treatment Response in Depression – GPR56/ADGRG1

Peter Forster — Tue, 28 Apr 2020 19:18:25 +0000

What happens in the body when antidepressants work. An international group of researchers, led by Professor Gustavo Turecki of McGill University and the Douglas Mental Health University Institute, examined changes in the activity of genes (measured using mRNA) in the blood in over 400 patients who were being treated with antidepressants. They identified one gene that was significantly more active ...

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Depression Resilience and Neural Connectivity

Peter Forster — Sun, 25 Mar 2018 18:00:53 +0000

Much has been written about risk factors for depression but we know less about depression resilience factors. Why do some people at high risk develop depression, while others do not. A study conducted at Stanford by Adina S. Fischer, MD PhD, and colleagues, suggests that increased regulation of limbic areas (the parts of the brain that are most directly involved in ...

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State and Trait Brain Function in Depression

Peter Forster — Sun, 08 Oct 2017 20:15:44 +0000

Understanding the neurobiology of depression involves more than just knowing about serotonin, we need to know how state and trait brain function in depression is different from brain functioning in those who have never had a major depression. State and trait are key concepts in understanding psychiatric conditions: state refers to those alterations in functioning that occur when someone is ...

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Transmission of Distress Across Generations

Peter Forster — Sat, 02 Sep 2017 16:55:39 +0000

Transmission of Distress Across Generations Based on Epigenetic Changes Researchers looking at victims of severe trauma, such as concentration camp survivors, have long known that the effects of these events are transmitted in some fashion to the children and even the children’s children. The mechanism of this transmission has usually been assumed to be based on changes in parenting behavior ...

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Reduced Gene Expression in Reward Center is Linked to Depression

Peter Forster — Sat, 22 Jul 2017 14:15:49 +0000

Researchers from the University of Maryland have conducted a series of experiments in mice and humans leading them to conclude that reduced gene expression in the reward center is linked to depression. Specifically, the researchers found that there was reduced expression of the Slc6a15 gene in the brains of people with major depression who committed suicide, and that expression of this ...

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