Highly variable sleep schedules predict an elevated risk for suicide independent of depression in actively suicidal young adults, according to a research abstract presented Tuesday, June 8, 2010, in San Antonio, Texas, at SLEEP 2010, the 24th annual meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies LLC. Results indicate that a sample of actively suicidal undergraduate students had a delayed mean bedtime of 2:08 a.m. and restricted total sleep time of 6.3 hours.

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A new study provides insight into the molecular characteristics that make a brain susceptible to anxiety and depression and less likely to respond to treatment with antidepressant medication. The research, published by Cell Press in the journal Neuron, may lead to more effective strategies for treating depression. Although brain mechanisms associated with depression are not completely clear, recent research has implicated a combination of stressful life events and predisposing biological factors.

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Magnetic stimulation therapy can beat depression when medication and therapy haven’t worked, according to the December issue of Mayo Clinic Health Letter. The therapy, called transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), involves using brief powerful electromagnetic pulses to alter brain activity. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved the therapy for patients whose depression hasn’t improved with medications — estimated to be from 10 to 20 percent of those with the illness.

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A new study at the University of Wisconsin-Madison suggests that depressed patients are unable to sustain activity in brain areas related to positive emotion. The study challenges previous notions that individuals with depression show less brain activity in areas associated with positive emotion. Instead, the new data suggest similar initial levels of activity, but an inability to sustain them over time. The work was reported online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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A new study, published in an editorial in the October issue of British Medical Journal, has indicated a link between mental illness and obesity in patients. “Evan Atlantis from the University of Adelaide’s School of Medicine said that several psychosocial, lifestyle and physiological factors may be involved in the complex inter-relationship between obesity and mental illness. Reduced physical activity and overeating, particularly comfort foods rich in fats and sugars, to improve mood are common among depressed and anxious patients.

Major depressive disorder affects nearly 340 million people worldwide and as many as 20% of those patients are resistant to treatment. A team of psychiatrists at the University of California, San Diego Medical Center is studying two novel approaches, one utilizing a drug and one a procedure, to better help those affected by depression. In the first study, an investigational medicine is administered by intravenous infusion, which may be more powerful than many of the oral antidepressants currently available and works on a common neurotransmitter in the brain called glutamate, instead of on serotonin or noradrenalin.

A study conducted by Doctors at Britain’s University of Bristol on nearly one-thousand moms-to-be reveals that eating Omega-Three-rich seafood may help decrease symptoms of depression in pregnant women. As compared to women who ate three or more servings of seafood a week, those who didn’t eat any were 50% more likely to feel symptoms of depression.

According to a new study reported in Stroke: Journal of the American Heart Association, psychosocial therapy combined with medication can effectively improve depression and recovery in stroke patients. The long-term study indicated that adding psychosocial therapy not only improved depression scores short term, it also sustained the improvements for long term.

A research conducted on 218 rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients by Japanese research team from Nagoya City University and Nagoya University Graduate Schools of Medicine indicated that depression had a direct impact on the severity of the pain. The research, in which levels of CRP (a plasma protein produced by the liver) were measured, indicated that the levels also rose during incidents of acute inflammation in RA. The combined effects of high CRP levels and depression predicted severe pain even more strongly. The result may help clinicians to control pain by addressing their patients’ psychological symptoms.

People suffering from depression or anxiety are more prone to be obese and to smoke, according to a study published in the journal General Hospital Psychiatry. The study, which compiled data from more than 200,000 adults, showed that those with current depression or a previous diagnosis of depression were 60% more likely to be obese and twice as likely to smoke as those who were not depressed. The research also found that people with an anxiety disorder were 30% more likely to be obese and twice as likely to smoke as those without anxiety.