Psychiatry News and Research

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Psychiatry is the treatment, study and prevention of mental disorders.

Understanding the Origins of Human Disease Using the Power of Evolutionary Genomics

Hundreds of scientific studies have been conducted over the years to find the genes underlying common human traits, from eye color to intelligence and physical and mental illnesses.

28 Apr 2023

Study Finds Link Between Chemical "Marks" on DNA in Father’s Sperm and Autistic Traits in Children

Among families with children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder, Johns Hopkins University researchers say they have found a link between chemical "marks" on DNA in the sperm of fathers and autistic traits in their 3-year-old children.

28 Apr 2023

New Insights on How Developmental Processes Unfold Across the Human Brain

Brain development does not occur uniformly across the brain, but follows a newly identified developmental sequence, according to a new Penn Medicine study.

11 Apr 2023

Microbial Composition of the Gut may Affect a Child's Susceptibility to ADHD

New research published in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry suggests that the microbial composition of the gut may affect a child's susceptibility to attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

6 Apr 2023

T cell-driven changes in the gut may affect brain function associated with depression

In experiments with mice and humans, a team led by Johns Hopkins Medicine researchers says it has identified a particular intestinal immune cell that impacts the gut microbiome, which in turn may affect brain functions linked to stress-induced disorders such as depression.

21 Mar 2023

Study may help identify new sex-specific treatments for depression

Depression is widely reported to be more common in women than in men, with women twice as likely to receive a diagnosis than men.

20 Mar 2023

Study investigates schizophrenia risk across African ancestry

Researchers have identified two previously unknown genes linked to schizophrenia and newly implicated a third gene as carrying risk for both schizophrenia and autism. Led by the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, the multi-center study further demonstrated that the schizophrenia risk conferred by these rare damaging variants is conserved across ethnicities. The study may also point to new therapeutics.

14 Mar 2023

COVID-19 has taken a limited toll on the mental health, finds study

COVID-19 has taken a relatively limited toll on the mental health of most people around the globe, according to a paper published today in the BMJ by a McGill University-led research team involving collaborators from McMaster University, the University of Toronto, and other institutions.

10 Mar 2023

Exploring the benefits of urban sheep grazing

Bicycles whirr by, students rush to class, staff and faculty are grabbing lunch or coffee on the go -; and sheep graze the grassy knolls among the traffic, bleating every now and then. The grazing is their job.

22 Feb 2023

Genetic variants that increase the risk of ADHD identified

Why are some people diagnosed with ADHD while others are not? And when is the seed of ADHD sown, in life or the womb?

10 Feb 2023

Large-scale differentiation of iPSC-derived motor neurons from ALS patients

A new Cedars-Sinai study in collaboration with the University of California, Irvine (UCI) and the Answer ALS consortium has examined the expression of thousands of genes in stem cell generated motor neurons that are known to die in patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a fatal neurological disorder known as ALS or Lou Gehrig's disease.

10 Feb 2023

Long-term deep meditation may have a beneficial effect on gut microbiota, study suggests

Regular deep meditation, practised for several years, may help to regulate the gut microbiome and potentially lower the risks of physical and mental ill health, finds a small comparative study published in the open access journal General Psychiatry.

30 Jan 2023

The 12-hour cyclic gene activity abnormalities in schizophrenic brains

The first proof of 12-hour cycles of gene activity in the human brain is presented by researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine in the United States.

From University of Pittsburgh 26 Jan 2023

Using CRISPR technology to reduce the symptoms of Huntington’s disease

A neurological condition called Huntington's disease (HD) results in a progressive decline in movement, coordination, and mental ability. It is brought on by a mutation in the huntingtin, or HTT, gene.

From UC San Diego 14 Dec 2022

The link between tandem repeats and development of Schizophrenia

Each human cell is distinct because it is written in the DNA language.

1 Dec 2022

Highlighting the potential of new techniques to study mental disorders

Researchers investigating the fundamental brain mechanics of autism spectrum disorder have discovered that a gene mutation known to be connected with the illness causes considerably more overstimulation of brain cells than in neuronal cells without the mutation.

23 Nov 2022

Exploring behavioral variation in a non-captive animal population

For the first time, researchers demonstrate that monkeys with a more social nature—those that groom or are groomed more frequently and with more grooming partners—have a better gut microbiome.

15 Nov 2022

RNA-edited regions in brain shed light on neurodevelopment and disease

Numerous sites in the brain where RNA is altered over the course of a person’s lifespan through a process known as adenosine-to-inosine (A-to-I) editing have been identified by Mount Sinai researchers.

3 Nov 2022

Urban Mind app shows direct link between seeing or hearing birds and positive mood

New research from King's College London has found that seeing or hearing birds is associated with an improvement in mental wellbeing that can last up to eight hours.

28 Oct 2022

Harsh parenting leads to depression later in life

Strict parenting can influence how the body reads the children’s DNA. These modifications can become “hard-wired” into the DNA of kids who consider their parents to be harsh, enhancing their biological risk for depression in adolescence and later life.

20 Oct 2022