psychiatry

Reading Our Minds: New book issues strong call to action to modernize psychiatry

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The Rise of Big Data Psy­chi­a­try (The Wall Street Journal):

As a physi­cian, I need to fig­ure out three things when a new patient walks into my office: what their life is typ­i­cal­ly like, what has changed that made them seek treat­ment and what I can do to help them. It’s a com­plex prob­lem, and most fields of med­i­cine approach it by tak­ing mea­sure­ments. If I were a car­di­ol­o­gist eval­u­at­ing a patient’s chest pain, for instance, I would speak with the patient, but then I would lis­ten to their heart and mea­sure their pulse and blood pres­sure. I might order an elec­tro­car­dio­gram or a car­diac stress test, tools that weren’t avail­able a cen­tu­ry ago.

Because I’m a psy­chi­a­trist, how­ev­er, I eval­u­ate patients in pre­cise­ly the same way that my pre­de­ces­sors did in 1920: I ask them to tell me what’s wrong, and while they’re talk­ing I care­ful­ly observe their speech and behav­ior. But psy­chi­a­try has remained large­ly immune to mea­sure­ment. At no point in the exam­i­na­tion do I gath­er numer­i­cal data about the patient’s life or behav­ior, even though tools for tak­ing such mea­sure­ments already exist. In fact, you like­ly are car­ry­ing one around in your pock­et right now. Keep read­ing essay HERE, adapt­ed from the new book Read­ing Our Minds: The Rise of Big Data Psy­chi­a­try by psy­chi­a­trist Daniel Bar­ron. [Read more…] about Read­ing Our Minds: New book issues strong call to action to mod­ern­ize psychiatry

Study: Depression affects visual perception … making it more accurate

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The bright­ness of Fig­ures A and B is exact­ly the same, but they are per­ceived dif­fer­ent­ly due to a dif­fer­ence in the back­ground. This illu­sion was per­ceived sim­i­lar­ly by the patients and healthy con­trol sub­jects. The con­trast of Fig­ures C and D is exact­ly the same as well, but the per­cep­tion of this illu­sion was weak­er among the depressed patients than the con­trol sub­jects. (Salmela et al, J. Psy­chi­a­try Neu­rosci, 2021)

Depres­sion affects visu­al per­cep­tion (press release by Uni­ver­si­ty of Helsinki):

Researchers spe­cialised in psy­chi­a­try and psy­chol­o­gy at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Helsin­ki inves­ti­gat­ed the effects of depres­sion on visu­al per­cep­tion. The study con­firmed that the pro­cess­ing of visu­al infor­ma­tion is altered in depressed peo­ple, a phe­nom­e­non most like­ly linked with the pro­cess­ing of infor­ma­tion in the cere­bral cor­tex. [Read more…] about Study: Depres­sion affects visu­al per­cep­tion … mak­ing it more accurate

Neuroimaging, big data and mental health: A survey of the land

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This fig­ure shows how dif­fer­ent brain net­works func­tion togeth­er; the lines mea­sur­ing the strength of com­mu­ni­ca­tion among var­i­ous net­works. By using such dis­plays, we can eval­u­ate what is called the human func­tion­al connectome—and also how men­tal ill­ness is dis­rupt­ed. [Fig­ure cour­tesy of Vince Calhoun]

Men­tal and degen­er­a­tive dis­or­ders are among the most cost­ly and com­mon caus­es of dis­abil­i­ty in soci­ety today. Because the brain is the most com­plex organ in the human body, diag­nos­ing and treat­ing prob­lems when things go wrong pos­es enor­mous chal­lenges. Even before the 1990s was des­ig­nat­ed the Decade of the Brain, the poten­tial of neuroimaging—the tech­nol­o­gy that makes it pos­si­ble to see inside the work­ing brain—was a major focus in [Read more…] about Neu­roimag­ing, big data and men­tal health: A sur­vey of the land

On becoming a psychotherapy pioneer and bestselling writer: A fantastic memoir by, and window into, the unique mind of Irvin D. Yalom

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If you’re inter­est­ed in the life of the mind, here you have an awe­some win­dow into a unique mind — a pro­found mem­oir by best­selling writer and psy­chother­a­py pio­neer Irvin D. Yalom. It was pub­lished back in 2017 but, like good wine, it has aged well and is more rel­e­vant today than ever.

Irvin D. Yalom, MD, is an emer­i­tus pro­fes­sor of psy­chi­a­try at Stan­ford Uni­ver­si­ty and a psy­chi­a­trist in pri­vate prac­tice in San Fran­cis­co. He is the author of many books, includ­ing Love’s Exe­cu­tion­er, The The­o­ry and Prac­tice in Group Psy­chother­a­py, and When Niet­zsche Wept. He lives with his wife in Palo Alto, California.

Descrip­tion: Irvin D. Yalom has made a career of inves­ti­gat­ing the lives of oth­ers. In this pro­found mem­oir, he turns his writ­ing and his ther­a­peu­tic eye on him­self. He opens his sto­ry with a night­mare: He is twelve, and is rid­ing his bike past the home of an acne-scarred girl. Like every morn­ing, he calls out, hop­ing to befriend her, “Hel­lo Measles!” But in his dream, the girl’s father makes Yalom under­stand that his dai­ly greet­ing had hurt her. For Yalom, this was the birth of empa­thy; he would not for­get the les­son. [Read more…] about On becom­ing a psy­chother­a­py pio­neer and best­selling writer: A fan­tas­tic mem­oir by, and win­dow into, the unique mind of Irvin D. Yalom

Kernel launches Neuroscience as a Service (NaaS) built on non-invasive brain recording technology

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Ker­nel Sound ID is designed to help decode and visu­al­ize what a per­son is hearing

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A Neuroscientist’s Thoughts On Ker­nel’s Announce­ment:

“Ker­nel, the neu­rotech com­pa­ny found­ed by Bryan John­son, just released a wave of new infor­ma­tion about the tech­nol­o­gy they have been build­ing over the past half-decade. With this announce­ment, we final­ly get a glimpse into the secre­tive company’s plans. We knew that they had ditched their inten­tions of pur­su­ing inva­sive brain record­ing tech­niques, leav­ing that all to Neu­ralink, a sim­i­lar­ly mind­ed effort launched by ser­i­al entre­pre­neur Elon Musk. There were rumours of a NIRS (near-infrared spec­troscopy) based sys­tem, but noth­ing con­crete [Read more…] about Ker­nel launch­es Neu­ro­science as a Ser­vice (NaaS) built on non-inva­sive brain record­ing technology

Reinventing depression treatment via transcranial magnetic brain stimulation (TMS)

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Deirdre Lehman with Nolan Williams, who over­saw this clin­i­cal tri­al of a poten­tial treat­ment that uses tran­scra­nial mag­net­ic stim­u­la­tion. In the pho­to, Williams and Lehman demon­strate how a patient is posi­tioned and the equip­ment is used. Cred­it: Steve Fisch.

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Stan­ford researchers devise treat­ment that relieved depres­sion in 90% of par­tic­i­pants in small study (press release):

“A new form of mag­net­ic brain stim­u­la­tion rapid­ly relieved symp­toms of severe depres­sion in 90% of par­tic­i­pants in a small study con­duct­ed by researchers at the Stan­ford Uni­ver­si­ty School of Med­i­cine … In tran­scra­nial mag­net­ic stim­u­la­tion, elec­tric cur­rents from a mag­net­ic coil placed on the scalp excite a region of the brain impli­cat­ed in depres­sion. The treat­ment, as approved by the FDA, requires [Read more…] about Rein­vent­ing depres­sion treat­ment via tran­scra­nial mag­net­ic brain stim­u­la­tion (TMS)