Feature Channels: Mental Health

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Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has affected not only individual lives but also the world and global systems, both natural and human-made. Besides millions of deaths and environmental challenges, the rapid spread of the infection and its very high socioeconomic impact have affected healthcare, economic status and wealth, and mental health across the globe. To better appreciate the pandemic's influence, multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary approaches are needed. In this paper, together with world-leading scientists from different backgrounds we share collectively our views about the pandemic's footprint and discuss challenges that face the international community.

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We’re living much longer than our ancestors, but is that always a good thing? With many people living well into our late 70s or beyond, more of us are also spending a greater portion of our lives—sometimes a decade or more—saddled with physical and mental health conditions that can make it challenging to accomplish the tasks of daily life.

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The National Institutes of Mental Health awarded a $2.5-million grant to UNC School of Medicine researchers to study the alarming rise of suicidal behavior in young girls.

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A new study led by UCLA Health found that a person’s sex and their unique experiences of childhood trauma can have specific consequences for their biological health and risk of developing 20 major diseases later in life.

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Over half of parents report at least one factor that makes it difficult for their child to make new friends, with about one in five saying that shyness or being socially awkward got in the way of their child’s efforts to make new friends.

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Transgender and gender diverse (TGD) youth are more than five times more likely to screen positive for suicide risk compared to cisgender females, who tend to screen positive at higher rates than cisgender males, according to a study from Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago published in the journal Academic Pediatrics.

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Mount Sinai Health System and IBM Research today announced the launch of the Phenotypes Reimagined to Define Clinical Treatment and Outcome Research (PREDiCTOR) study. The research effort aims to address the lack of objective measures in psychiatry by leveraging advances in artificial intelligence and incorporating rich behavioral data from clinical interviews, at-home data captured on smartphones, and cognitive testing.

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New research from the University of Georgia suggests the COVID-19 pandemic may have had an unexpected side effect for postpartum women: more benzodiazepine prescriptions. The new study found that the pandemic didn’t lead to increases in postpartum depression or anxiety diagnoses. But it did prompt a 15% increase in the number of privately insured new moms filling prescriptions for antianxiety medications like Valium, Xanax, Ativan and Klonopin.

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One in 5 older adults used cannabis products that include THC in the last year. Among them, 20% said they drove within 2 hours of using cannabis, and a similar percentage said they experience at least one potential signs of addiction.

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Researchers have for the first time identified degeneration-associated “molecular markers” – observable changes in cells and their gene-regulating networks – that are shared by several forms of dementia that affect different regions of the brain.

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New mental health parity rules from the federal government aim to address issues with access and insurance coverage, but multiple experts from the University of Michigan say more effort is needed.

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New research from the University of Washington found lockdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in unusually accelerated brain maturation in adolescents. This maturation was more pronounced in girls. When measured in terms of the number of years of accelerated brain development, the mean acceleration was 4.2 years in females and 1.4 years in males.

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Since the COVID-19 pandemic, rates of chronic absenteeism have nearly doubled across the nation for students in kindergarten through grade 12.This increase was tied to the mode of instruction during the early years of the pandemic.