Update: Repetitive negative thinking may increase (or perhaps be caused by) Alzheimer’s pathology

By SharpBrains | June 25, 2020

Time for a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing this month 13 research find­ings, resources and brain teasers for life­long brain and men­tal health. #1. “We found that peo­ple who exhib­it­ed high­er repet­i­tive neg­a­tive think­ing pat­terns expe­ri­enced more cog­ni­tive decline over a four-year peri­od. They also had spe­cif­ic declines in mem­o­ry (which is an ear­ly sign…

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Study finds psychiatric diagnoses to be ‘scientifically meaningless’

By SharpBrains | August 15, 2019

__________ Psy­chi­atric diag­no­sis ‘sci­en­tif­i­cal­ly mean­ing­less’ (Sci­ence Dai­ly): “A new study, pub­lished in Psy­chi­a­try Research, has con­clud­ed that psy­chi­atric diag­noses are sci­en­tif­i­cal­ly worth­less as tools to iden­ti­fy dis­crete men­tal health dis­or­ders. The study, led by researchers from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Liv­er­pool, involved a detailed analy­sis of five key chap­ters of the lat­est edi­tion of the wide­ly used…

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5 Must-Read Articles, and an Online Course, to Help Children with ADHD

By SharpBrains | June 21, 2017 |

—– Giv­en the ongo­ing changes and con­tro­ver­sies sur­round­ing ADHD diag­no­sis and treat­ment, let us high­light 5 key arti­cles writ­ten by Duke Uni­ver­si­ty’s Dr. David Rabin­er to sum­ma­rize recent sci­en­tif­ic find­ings and their impli­ca­tions, plus a very rel­e­vant online course to help par­ents and pro­fes­sion­als help chil­dren with ADHD. 1. Study finds large gaps between research and practice…

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Study: Fewer than 19% of ADHD treatment plans monitor treatment response according to guidelines

By SharpBrains | February 24, 2015

What did they find (at a recent study, pub­lished in the jour­nal Pedi­atrics, sur­vey­ing com­­mu­ni­­ty-based ADHD diag­noses and treat­ments)? For around 30 per­cent of chil­dren diag­nosed with ADHD, the evi­dence that DSM cri­te­ria were met was miss­ing. ADHD rat­ing scales were col­lect­ed from par­ents and teach­ers for only 56 per­cent of youth with an ADHD diagnosis.

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Update: Harness Neuroplasticity with Enthusiasm, Exercise & Personalized Medicine

By Alvaro Fernandez | February 28, 2012

Time for Sharp­Brains’ Feb­ru­ary 2012 eNewslet­ter, fea­tur­ing in this occa­sion mul­ti­ple and com­ple­men­tary per­spec­tives on how to har­ness neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty: with enthu­si­asm, BOTH phys­i­cal AND cog­ni­tive exer­cise, and (once tools become bet­ter stan­dard­ized and wide­ly avail­able) brain-based per­son­al­ized med­i­cine. Fea­tured Per­spec­tives: To Har­ness Neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty, Start with Enthu­si­asm, by Dr. Hele­na Popovic Q&A with Dr. Yaakov Stern on Brain Reserve,…

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Personalized Medicine in Psychiatry: from DSM to brain-based RDoC, iSPOT‑D and biomarkers

By Dr. Evian Gordon | February 20, 2012

(Edi­tor’s Note: this is Part 2 of the new 3‑part series writ­ten by Dr. Evian Gor­don draw­ing from his par­tic­i­pa­tion at the Per­son­al­ized Med­i­cine World Con­gress on Jan­u­ary, 23, 2012 at Stan­ford Uni­ver­si­ty.) Most Per­son­al­ized Med­i­cine research in Psy­chi­a­try using mol­e­c­u­lar mea­sures alone have failed to repli­cate. Whilst dis­ap­point­ing, this is not sur­pris­ing, since 80%…

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