A novel mania rating scales allows non-professionals in regular contact with a patient to diagnose a manic/mixed episode, say researchers who suggest the scale will complement current rating scales. (Source: MedWire News - Psychiatry)MedWorm Message: Get the very latest Swine Flu news via the MedWorm Swine Flu RSS news feed - updated hourly from thousands of authoritative health and news sources.

The risk for attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder and subthreshold manic and depressive symptoms is increased in preschool children of parents with bipolar disorder, the results of a US study indicate. (Source: MedWire News - Psychiatry)

The same visual stimulus evokes a different pattern of neural signals each time the stimulus is presented. Because this unreliability reduces visual performance, it is important to understand how it arises from neural circuitry. We asked whether different types of ganglion cell receive excitatory signals with different reliability and frequency content and, if so, how retinal circuitry contributes to these differences. If transmitter release is governed by Poisson statistics, the SNR of the postsynaptic currents (ratio of signal power to noise power) should grow linearly with quantal rate (qr), a prediction that we confirmed experimentally. Yet ganglion cells of the same type receive quanta at different rates. Thus to obtain a measure of reliability independent of quantal rate, we calculat...

AII amacrine cells in the mammalian retina are connected via electrical synapses to on-cone bipolar cells and to other AII amacrine cells. To understand synaptic integration in these interneurons, we need information about the junctional conductance (gj), the membrane resistance (rm), the membrane capacitance (Cm), and the cytoplasmic resistivity (Ri). Due to the extensive electrical coupling, it is difficult to obtain estimates of rm, as well as the relative contribution of the junctional and nonjunctional conductances to the total input resistance of an AII amacrine cell. Here we used dual voltage-clamp recording of pairs of electrically coupled AII amacrine cells in an in vitro slice preparation from rat retina and applied meclofenamic acid (MFA) to block the electrical coupling and iso...

More and more doctors are prescribing multiple psychiatric drugs to their patients, including combinations with unknown efficacy and side effects, according to a new study. Researchers from the department of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University and New York State Psychiatric Institute studied physicians' prescribing patterns, beginning in 1996, looking at a range of medicines including antidepressants, antipsychotics, mood stabilizers and sedatives. The study authors found that antidepressants were the most commonly prescribed medications, while the most common combinations were antidepressants combined with either another antidepressant, a sedative or a mood stabilizer. During the study period, the number of office visits where two or more drugs were prescribed jumped from about 43% ...MedWorm Message: Get the very latest Swine Flu news via the MedWorm Swine Flu RSS news feed - updated hourly from thousands of authoritative health and news sources.

The Virginia Tech shootings in April 2007 brought the issue of guns and mental illness very much in the public eye. The U.S. Congress, responding, passed a measure to strengthen existing laws regarding the purchase of firearms by some people with mental illnesses. Speaking about the House bill, National Rifle Association president Wayne LaPierre used language that anyone with any form of mental illness would find extremely offensive - mentally defective. (Source: About.com Bipolar Disorder)

Patients with bipolar disorder and schizophrenia display a diminished loudness dependence of the auditory evoked potential relative to mentally healthy controls, study results show. (Source: MedWire News - Bipolar Disorder)

Patients with bipolar disorder and schizophrenia display a diminished loudness dependence of the auditory evoked potential relative to mentally healthy controls, study results show. (Source: MedWire News - Schizophrenia)

Langmuir, Volume 0, Issue 0, Articles ASAP (As Soon As Publishable). (Source: Langmuir)

Two London doctors say that in the last three years, there has been a sharp increase in the number of people seeking help because they believe they have bipolar disorder. Drs. Diana Chan and Lester Sireling, writing in The Psychiatrist, say they believe this is because of "increased media coverage, coupled with the high social status associated with celebrities such as Stephen Fry talking about their own personal experiences of mental illness." In the United States, high-profile celebrities like Maurice Benard, Carrie Fisher and Linda Hamilton have also made an effort to educate the public about bipolar disorder by sharing their own stories. The writers say that Fry's efforts are reducing the stigma attached to bipolar disorder. I hope that's true, but it's a slow process. Other research...

Working memory deficits have been identified in bipolar disorder, but there is evidence suggesting that these deficits may be markers for psychosis rather than affective disorder. The current study examined this issue by comparing two groups of individuals with bipolar disorder, one with psychotic features and one without psychotic features, with a group of normal controls. Working memory was conceptualized as a multicomponent system that includes auditory and visuospatial short-term stores, executive control processes, and an episodic buffer that allows for communication between short- and long-term memory stores (Baddeley & Logie, 1999). Results indicated that only executive control processes significantly differentiated the psychotic and nonpsychotic bipolar groups, although visuospatia...MedWorm Message: Get the very latest Swine Flu news via the MedWorm Swine Flu RSS news feed - updated hourly from thousands of authoritative health and news sources.

I gained 80 pounds on various psychiatric meds, and I know hundreds of our community members are in the same boat. And along with the weight gain came the usual problems - high blood pressure and high cholesterol, not to mention the misery of being fat for the first time in my life. And now there's another problem related to that weight gain: high blood sugar, or hyperglycemia. As we reported last year, there are many lawsuits claiming that Seroquel causes diabetes, but the courts haven't bought the argument yet. And although I'm now borderline diabetic, I can't claim that, either, since I have a strong family history of diabetes. Still, the fact remains that my blood sugar is now high enough that I have to take medication for it. And bipolar disorder itself has a possible connection to ...

Women on the Tubal Reversal Message Board share their experiences with sterilization reversal following the bi-polar method of ligation. Most techniques of bipolar cautery or coagulation allow for successful reversal of tubal ligation. The reversal experts of Chapel Hill Tubal Reversal Center have considerable experience with reversal of burned tubes and, in their hands, the chance of pregnancy after reversal of burnt tubes is approximately 70%. (Source: Tubal Ligation Reversal News)

Patients with bipolar disorder and schizophrenia display a diminished loudness dependence of the auditory evoked potential relative to mentally healthy controls, study results show. (Source: MedWire News - Psychiatry)

X. J. Lou and J. Wang We show that unipolar fatigue does occur in antiferroelectric capacitors, confirming the predictions of a previous work [Appl. Phys. Lett. 94, 072901 (2009)]. We also show that unipolar fatigue in antiferroelectrics is less severe than bipolar fatigue if the driving field is of the same magnitude. T ... [Appl. Phys. Lett. 96, 102906 (2010)] published Thu Mar 11, 2010. (Source: Applied Physics Letters)

Discussion  The research results suggest the existence of relevant differences in the amount of specialist consultation according to health insurance and other socioeconomic features. Further research could concentrate on the question of whether these inequalities in utilization levels indicate overprovision or underprovision of ambulant health care. Moreover, we recommend longitudinal research that is particularly suited to detangle age and cohort effects. Content Type Journal ArticleCategory Original ArticleDOI 10.1007/s10389-010-0321-2Authors Stefan Gruber, Institut für Arbeitsmarkt-und Berufsforschung Regensburger Str. 104, 90478 Nürnberg Nuremberg GermanyMarkus Kiesel, Bremen International Graduate School of Social Sciences, Wiener Straße/Celsiusstraße Post...MedWorm Message: Get the very latest Swine Flu news via the MedWorm Swine Flu RSS news feed - updated hourly from thousands of authoritative health and news sources.

We examined whether startle abnormalities are present in bipolar disorder (BD) patients and their unaffected siblings. Twenty-one remitted patients with BD, 19 unaffected siblings, and 42 controls were presented with 18 pleasant, 18 unpleasant, and 18 neutral pictures. Acoustic probes (104 dB) were presented during 12 of 18 pictures in each affective category at 300, 3000, and 4500 ms after picture onset, so that there were 4 pictures per valence per probe onset type. Baseline startle was assessed during blank screens and was found reduced in patients and sibling groups. We found startle inhibition with the 300 probes and a linear increase in amplitude with valence with the late probes in controls; these effects were absent in patients and their siblings. Low startle and blunted startle re...

is a drug used to treat symptoms of Parkinson's disease and secondary parkinsonism. More... (Source: About.com Bipolar Disorder)

Parkinsonian symptoms can sometimes occur as side effects of certain medications that may be prescribed for bipolar disorder. More ... (Source: About.com Bipolar Disorder)

Author and Actor Spalding Gray disappeared January 10, 2004, and his body was pulled from the East River in New York on March 7, 2004. Suffering from bipolar disorder, Gray undoubtedly committed suicide. His family has gone through a waking nightmare. Don't put your own family through this kind of hell! (Source: About.com Bipolar Disorder)