schizophrenia

Voices in People’s Heads More Complex than Previously Thought

One of the largest and most detailed studies to date on the experience of auditory hallucinations, commonly referred to as voice hearing, found that the majority of voice-hearers hear multiple voices with distinct character-like qualities, with many also experiencing physical effects on their bodies. The study also confirmed that both people with and without psychiatric [...]

Living With Schizophrenia

Schizophrenia is a serious mental illness characterised by disturbances in a person’s thoughts, perceptions, emotions and behaviour. The illness affects around 26 million people across the world. Despite being a treatable disorder, more than 50% of people with schizophrenia cannot access adequate treatment, and 90% of people with untreated schizophrenia live in the developing world. [...]

Immune system may play crucial role in mental health

A growing body of research on conditions from bipolar disorder to schizophrenia to depression is starting to suggest a tighter link than was previously realized between ailments of the mind and body. Activation of the immune system seems to play a crucial role in both."We just didn't understand how much of a role the immune [...]

Flu in pregnancy may quadruple child’s risk for bipolar disorder

Pregnant mothers' exposure to the flu was associated with a nearly fourfold increased risk that their child would develop bipolar disorder in adulthood, in a study funded by the National Institutes of Health. The findings add to mounting evidence of possible shared underlying causes and illness processes with schizophrenia, which some studies have also linked [...]

Study Finds Genetic Risk Factors Shared by 5 Psychiatric Disorders

The psychiatric illnesses seem very different — schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, autism, major depression and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Yet they share several genetic glitches that can nudge the brain along a path to mental illness, researchers report. Which disease, if any, develops is thought to depend on other genetic or environmental factors. via Study Finds [...]

Stress and Pregnancy

The placenta of a pregnant woman absorbs more than just nutrition and oxygen, a new study has found. Researchers, from the University of Pennsylvania, found that stress is transmitted to the placenta, altering the levels of a protein that affects brain development in the foetus. The authors of the paper, published online yesterday in the [...]

Sexually abused children more likely to develop schizophrenia later

A new Australian study 'Schizophrenia and Other Psychotic Disorders in a Cohort of Sexually Abused Children' published in the Archives of General Psychiatry has found that children who are subjected to sexual abuse are more than twice as likely to suffer from schizophrenia later in life. Professor Louise Newman, director of Monash University’s Centre for Developmental Psychiatry [...]

Guest Post: Preventing the Transition to Psychosis in Youths

In this guest post, Dr Jackie Curtis, a psychiatrist who actively works with young people with mental health problems at the Prince of Wales Hospital, and Dr Georgie Paulik, a clinical psychologist, explain how the onset of psychosis may be prevented or delayed in high-risk youths and describe some of the research which is currently [...]

Fish oil may prevent schizophrenia

Researchers in Austria have found a daily dose of fish oil may greatly reduce the risk of schizophrenia in young people, with studies suggesting people who take fish oil on a regular basis may decrease the likelihood of developing psychosis by as much as seven times. In the study, 81 participants were either given a [...]

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