Neuroimaging Abnormalities Across Substance Use Disorders Map to a Common Brain Network

Researchers have found that multiple substance use disorders (SUDs) map to their own common brain network, a finding that has therapeutic implications of its own.

Read More...

Ketamine Is Noninferior to ECT for Nonpsychotic Treatment-resistant Major Depression

Amit Anand, MD, director of Psychiatry Translational Clinical Trials at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, conducted ELEKT-D, a pragmatic comparative-effectiveness trial of ketamine and ECT for nonpsychotic treatment-resistant major depression.

Read More...

Physical, Cognitive Decline Accelerated in People With Late-Life Depression

Johanna Seitz-Holland, MD, instructor in the Department of Psychiatry at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and colleagues report that the senescence-associated secretory phenotype (SASP) index of 22 proteins suggests people with late-life depression are vulnerable to accelerated physical and cognitive decline.

Read More...

Common Brain Network Identified for Multiple Psychiatric Disorders May Improve Neuromodulation

Researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital recently addressed neuroimaging research limitations. By coupling morphometric and brain lesion datasets with a “wiring” diagram of the brain, they derived a common brain network for psychiatric illness that is sensitive, specific, and robust.

Read More...

Novel Localization of MS-related Depression May Allow Therapeutic Brain Stimulation

Researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital recently demonstrated that lesions causing depression in patients with stroke or penetrating head trauma were functionally connected to a common brain circuit.

Read More...

Neurological Soft Signs in Adolescents Linked to Brain Structure Alterations

MRI images of child's brain on the computer monitor with MRI machine blurred in the background

Researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital are using neuroimaging to explore the structure–function relationship of neurological soft signs (NSS). They report that NSS in typically developing adolescents are associated with distinct alterations in brain structure that can be objectively quantified using neuroimaging.

Read More...

Anxiety Among Perinatal Women During COVID-19 More Likely for Those Without Prior GAD

A pregnant woman in deep thought looking out a window, anxiety during COVID-19 concept

Researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital investigated whether pre-existing anxiety exacerbated COVID-19–related health concerns among women who entered perinatal status early in the pandemic. They found the opposite: levels of COVID-19–related worry were greater among women without a pre-existing anxiety diagnosis.

Read More...

Sleep Discontinuity in Perimenopausal Women Linked to Female Reproductive Hormone Patterns

Woman in bed covering face, unable to sleep. Alarm clock on bed reads 3:41

The Brigham’s Jamie Coborn, PhD, Hadine Joffe, MD, and colleagues have published empirical evidence that changing hormone dynamics underlie awakenings in perimenopausal women, independent of vasomotor symptoms.

Read More...

Cognitive Deficits Present Across Domains in Schizophrenia and Relate to Positive Symptoms

Young woman on couch, emotional, talking with female researcher or doctor who holds a clipboard

Johanna Seitz-Holland, PhD, Marek Kubicki, MD, PhD, of the Department of Psychiatry at the Brigham, and colleagues recently became the first to investigate cognitive deficits in schizophrenia in a large-scale, thoroughly harmonized sample.

Read More...

Response to Electroconvulsive Therapy for Major Depressive Disorder May Be Mediated by IL-8, White Matter Alterations

Diffusion MRI of a human brain. Brain fibers are highlighted in blue, green, yellow and pink

Researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital have related acute neuroinflammatory response and changes in white matter structure after electroconvulsive therapy to each other and treatment outcomes.

Read More...