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(Great Neck, N.Y. - January 11, 2010) — Johns Hopkins researchers have uncovered new findings that suggest that manipulations of the DISC1 gene during prenatal periods, postnatal periods or both ...

Gene Mutations Before and After Birth Make a Difference in Diagnosis

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Researchers recently broke new ground in finding the genetic causes of mental illness, identifying a specific region in the genome associated with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and ...

Researchers Discover Genetic Mutations Associated with Schizophrenia, Bipolar Disorder and Autism

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While scientists have long known autism is highly hereditary, their challenge has been identifying the genetic factors associated with it. In a recent study, researchers took an important step ...

Broad Genome Study Increases Understanding of Autism

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The reason you can speak these words aloud - and chimpanzees can't - may be clearer, thanks to the findings of a new study. The story starts in 2001, when scientists identified a critical gene ...

Behavior of Gene in Chimps, Humans Sheds Light On Range of Brain Mysteries

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Although great strides have been made in treating depression, those who suffer from treatment-resistant depression have continued to present a serious challenge to doctors seeking a way to help ...

Stimulation Device Offers Relief from Hard-to-Treat Depression

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For someone who's depressed, the wait for relief can seem endless. In more than half of all patients, the first antidepressant drug that's prescribed simply doesn't work. And it can take months ...

Brainwave Measurements May Guide Treatments for Faster Depression Relief

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California Institute of Technology researchers have uncovered the area of the brain responsible for perception of personal space. The findings, to be reported August 30 in the journal ...

Findings on Personal Space Have New Implications for Autism Treatment

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A voluntary recall has been issued by generic drug maker Barr Laboratories for the following medications which are typically used to treat symptoms of attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder ...

ADHD Drug Recall Issued by FDA

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(Great Neck, N.Y. - July 23, 2009) — NARSAD Scientific Council member and Distinguished Investigator J. John Mann, M.D., of Columbia University, is one of four leading experts in suicide research ...

Team to Conduct Largest Ever Study of Suicide in the Military

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(Great Neck, N.Y. - July 16, 2009) — Jill A. Morris, Ph.D., the recipient of a 2005 NARSAD Young Investigator Award, is the lead author of two recent studies providing new insight into the role ...

Two Studies Helping to Decipher Role of Schizophrenia-Associated Gene

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(Great Neck, N.Y. - July 15, 2009) — NARSAD Scientific Council member and four-time NARSAD grant recipient James L. Kennedy, M.D., is co-directing a program called neuroIMAGENE, launched this ...

New Program Aims to Combine Genetics With Brain Imaging to Personalize Treatment For Mental Illness and Addictions

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(Great Neck, N.Y. - July 10, 2009) — NARSAD Scientific Council member Edwin Cook, M.D., is participating in a large-scale, federally funded program to investigate the genetic, neurobiological and ...

NARSAD Scientific Council Member Helps Launch National Effort to Better Understand and Treat Autism

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(Great Neck, N.Y. - June 15, 2009) — Levels of a substance called kynurenic acid (KYNA) are elevated in the brain and cerebrospinal fluid of people with schizophrenia and Alzheimer’s disease, and ...

Study Helps Confirm Role of Kynurenic Acid in Schizophrenia and Why Smoking Relieves Symptoms

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(Great Neck, N.Y. - June 16, 2009) — Researchers seeking to understand the causes of Sanfilippo syndrome type B, a rare genetic lysosomal storage disease, were surprised to find protein aggregates ...

NARSAD Researcher Discovers Similar Cell Dysfunction in Sanfilippo Syndrome and Alzheimer’s

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(New York, NY - June 09, 2009) — Preschool children whose mothers had post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression, as a result of exposure to the World Trade Center (WTC) attacks, were ...

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and Depression in Mothers Post-9/11 Linked to Increased Behavioral Problems in Children

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(Great Neck, N.Y. - June 12, 2009) — A drug commonly given to children with autism to reduce repetitive behaviors is ineffective compared to placebo, and in some children may actually increase ...

Citalopram Ineffective As Drug For Autism, Causing Significant Side Effects

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(Great Neck, N.Y. - June 24, 2009) — A study published in the June 17 issue of JAMA, the Journal of the American Medical Association, contradicts the findings of a much-celebrated 2003 report, ...

New Study Challenges Association Between Serotonin Transporter Gene and Depression

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(Great Neck, N.Y. - May 29, 2009) — A team of Mayo Clinic researchers that included NARSAD 2006 Independent Investigator Mark Frye, M.D., has found that providing care for patients with bipolar ...

Care Costs for Bipolar Disorder Higher Than for Diabetes and Other Chronic Diseases

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(Great Neck, N.Y. - May 26, 2009) — While it is known that hereditary factors enhance the risk for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, how this occurs has remained largely obscure. Now researchers ...

Genetic Variant Implicated in Schizophrenia and Bipolar Disorder Appears to Impair Communication in the Brain

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(Great Neck, N.Y. - May 26, 2009) — NARSAD Investigator Edward S. Boyden, Ph.D., and colleagues at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, have demonstrated that optical methods can be used to ...

Using Light to Alter Neural Activity

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(Great Neck, N.Y. - May 26, 2009) — Research led by NARSAD Investigator Karl Deisseroth, M.D., Ph.D., of Stanford University Medical Center, suggests that brain cells need to follow specific ...

For Proper Brain Function, Cells Need to Keep the Beat

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(Great Neck, N.Y. - May 26, 2009) — A brain protein involved in fear behavior and anxiety may represent a new target for depression therapies, according to a report in the April 29th Journal of ...

Disrupting Brain Protein Produces Antidepressant Effect in Mice

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(Great Neck, N.Y. - May 26, 2009) — Stanley F. Nelson, M.D., whose early research was supported by a NARSAD Young Investigator Award in 1994, and his team at the University of California, Los ...

Scientists Identify New Gene Linked to Autism Risk

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(Great Neck, N.Y. - May 13, 2009) — For half a century, scientists have believed that high-frequency brain waves, known as gamma oscillations, were crucial to consciousness, attention, learning ...

Lasers Induce Gamma Brain Waves in Mice

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(Great Neck, N.Y. - May 14, 2009) — The long-held view that levels of the neurotransmitter serotonin are low in people with depression has now been challenged by NARSAD Distinguished Investigator ...

Research Challenges View of How Antidepressants Work

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(Great Neck, N.Y. - May 12, 2009) — NARSAD Young Investigator Tracie Paine, Ph.D., was the lead author of a study by Harvard neuroscientists that identified a new link between a brain enzyme and ...

Link Identified Between Brain Enzyme and Symptoms of ADHD

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(Great Neck, N.Y. - May 08, 2009) — In people who suffer from conditions such as schizophrenia and post-traumatic stress disorder, emotional experiences can become distorted. NARSAD Young ...

Controlling the Brain’s Perception of Emotional Events

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(Great Neck, N.Y. - May 07, 2009) — Distinguished investigator David Valle, M.D., of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, has been studying the genetic make-up of a well-characterized ...

Study of Ashkenazi Jewish Population Uncovers Genetic Marker with Delusions in Schizophrenia

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NARSAD Investigator Linda Brzustowicz, M.D., and colleagues at Rutgers University have identified a specific DNA change -- a functional change that increases gene expression -- that appears to ...

DNA Change Identified as Schizophrenia Risk

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How to manage adolescent depression is a problem that has vexed clinicians and parents ever since the Food and Drug Administration issued a “black-box” warning several years ago that adolescents ...

Predictors of Suicide and Self-Harm Risks in Adolescents

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A compound that occurs naturally in the brain and other areas of the body may be a promising new treatment for the most severe and disruptive symptoms of schizophrenia. A pilot study at the ...

Naturally-Occurring Drug May Relieve Previously Untreatable Symptoms of Schizophrenia

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A receptor for glutamate, the most prominent neurotransmitter in the brain, plays a key role in the process of "unlearning," according to researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. ...

“Unlearning” Findings Might Lead to Treatments for Anxiety, PTSD

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The helpless behavior commonly linked to depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is preceded by stress-related loss of synapses -- the mechanism of communication between neurons -- in ...

Restoring Lost Synapses May Speed Up Response in Treating Depression and PTSD

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An international team of scientists led by NARSAD Investigator Jin-Hee Han, Ph.D., of the University of Toronto, has succeeded in erasing a fear memory in laboratory mice, according to a report ...

Scientists Erase Fear Memory

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Researchers at the Picower Institute for Learning and Memory at the Massachusetts Institute for Technology, including NARSAD Investigator Yingwei Mao, Ph.D., have found that inhibiting a key brain ...

Blocked Enzyme Reverses Schizophrenia-like Symptoms

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Investigator Mani N. Pavuluri, M.D., Ph.D., and colleagues at the University of Chicago used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to probe the brain-circuit dysfunctions underlying ...

Neuroimaging Study Reveals Heightened Emotional Reactivity in Children with Bipolar Disorder

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Applying a major advance in genetic research called DNA micoarray technology, NARSAD Investigator Jose de Leon, M.D., and his team at the University of Kentucky, screened 4,532 psychiatric ...

DNA Testing Pinpoints Metabolic Differences That Cause Adverse Drug Reactions

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Investigators Yvette I. Sheline, M.D., and Deanna M. Barch, Ph.D., and a team at Washington University in St. Louis have identified a key difference in the way the brain functions in people who ...

Brain Network Functions Differently in People with Depression

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Social anxiety disorder is thought to involve emotional hyperactivity, cognitive distortions and ineffective emotion regulation. NARSAD Investigator Turhan Canli of Stony Brook University ...

Study Examines Neural Bases of Social Anxiety Disorder

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A broad-based study of data from more than two million nuclear families in Sweden has provided evidence of possible common genetic determinants of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Reporting ...

Large Study Points to Common Genetic Determinants Linking Schizophrenia and Bipolar Disorder

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Investigator Lynette C. Daws, Ph.D., and colleagues at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, have found a mechanism that may explain why antidepressant treatments fail to ...

Team Finds Potential New Antidepressant Target

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Childhood separation anxiety disorder can heighten the risk for panic disorder in early adulthood, and both separation anxiety disorder and panic disorder are associated with heightened ...

Study Explores Connection of Childhood Separation Anxiety to Adult Panic Disorder

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Rachel Marsh, Ph.D., a 2007 NARSAD Young Investigator, and colleagues at Columbia University and the New York State Psychiatric Institute, have found that women with bulimia nervosa appear to ...

Brain Circuit Abnormalities May Underlie Bulimia in Women

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How is it that when you see someone you met 10 years ago, you still recognize them? How do these transient events become long lasting in the brain, and what potential role does the birth of new ...

How The Birth of New Brain Cells Triggers Memory