Treatment of Depression/Anxiety in Osteoarthritis Linked to Better Psychological Health But Not Improved Physical Symptoms

Brigham and Women’s Hospital researchers present evidence that pharmacologic treatment of depression/anxiety is associated with improved mental well-being in patients with hip or knee osteoarthritis but doesn’t seem to improve physical function or pain levels.

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Review: Mental Health Over the Menopause Transition

Hadine Joffe, MD, of Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and colleagues recently undertook a rigorous scientific review of whether the menopause is associated with anxiety, schizophrenic psychosis, suicidality and other mental health disorders, as has been claimed.

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Effects of Modafinil on Cognition and Sleep Quality in Affectively Stable Patients With Bipolar Disorder

Brigham researchers suggest modafinil may have a positive impact on neurocognitive functioning and possibly daytime sleepiness, but it may also have a negative effect on sleep quality.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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