Verily and LivaNova accelerate efforts to detect and treat depression

__ Heads-up about a cou­ple fas­ci­nat­ing devel­op­ments over the last few weeks. 1) Verily’s Bold New Project Aims to Pre­dict Depres­sion Using Your Phone (Sin­gu­lar­i­ty­Hub): “Depres­sion is a shift­ing, amor­phous beast that silent­ly haunts mil­lions. It’s also dif­fi­cult to pin­point. Psy­chi­a­try has for­mu­lat­ed well-test­ed ques­tion­naires to diag­nose depres­sion. But these tests require patients to reach out…

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UCSF to open innovative neurology clinic to address “diagnostic odyssey”

_____ UCSF to Launch Unique Neu­rol­o­gy Clin­ic Spe­cial­iz­ing in Dif­­fi­cult-to-Diag­nose Cas­es (press release): “A pro­posed neu­rol­o­gy clin­ic at UCSF Med­ical Cen­ter at Mis­sion Bay aims to short­cut the “diag­nos­tic odyssey” faced by many patients with baf­fling brain symp­toms that do not meet the stan­dard cri­te­ria for any spe­cif­ic con­di­tion. Patients with ambigu­ous neu­ro­log­i­cal symp­toms, but…

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Study: To treat depression, therapy alone works better than therapy combined with antidepressants

___ Should Com­bined CBT, Phar­ma­cother­a­py Be Recon­sid­ered in MDD? (Psy­chi­a­try Advi­sor): “Cog­ni­tive behav­ioral ther­a­py (CBT) alone proved to be supe­ri­or to the com­bi­na­tion of psy­chother­a­py and anti­de­pres­sant med­ica­tion in the treat­ment of major depres­sive dis­or­der (MDD) in a sys­tem­at­ic review and meta-ana­ly­­sis pub­lished in Psy­cho­log­i­cal Med­i­cine. Anti­de­pres­sant med­ica­tion is asso­ci­at­ed with side effects and withdrawal…

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Large study with twins highlights the limited role of genetics in mental health and the importance of effective early interventions for ADHD

___ Mul­ti­ple stud­ies have indi­cat­ed that, on aver­age, youth with ADHD have poor­er out­comes in young adult­hood in mul­ti­ple areas com­pared to their unaf­fect­ed peers. A lim­i­ta­tion of these stud­ies, how­ev­er, is that they have not typ­i­cal­ly dis­tin­guished between indi­vid­u­als whose ADHD per­sists into adult­hood from those where the con­di­tion remits.

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With pharma exiting Alzheimer’s research, new hope (and urgency) seen in the combination of brain training and transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS)

___ What does the future hold for the war on Alzheimer’s? (The Globe and Mail): “After spend­ing huge sums on clin­i­cal trails in recent years, the phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal indus­try has failed to find a drug that can halt the mind-rob­bing dis­ease. And this month, Pfiz­er announced it is end­ing its Alzheimer’s research, although oth­er com­pa­nies haven’t thrown…

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Ethical issues raised around deep brain stimulation (DBS) research

Researchers grap­ple with the ethics of test­ing brain implants (Sci­ence): “In 2003, neu­rol­o­gist Helen May­berg of Emory Uni­ver­si­ty in Atlanta began to test a bold, exper­i­men­tal treat­ment for peo­ple with severe depres­sion, which involved implant­i­ng met­al elec­trodes deep in the brain in a region called area 25. The ini­tial data were promis­ing; even­tu­al­ly, they convinced…

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