Minneapolis St. Paul Mental Health Blog

We all have had a headache or two, so what if the frequency is more than what one would consider ‘normal’?  

A new study published in The Journal of Pain reports an association between a broad range of pre-existing mental disorders and subsequent onset of severe or frequent headaches...

Mental Health and Sleep | We all have had issues with sleep, very few people get exactly what they need every night, every week.  This is our reality, and we like our busy lives, so at what cost?

According to the 2015 sleep in American poll, stress and poor health are key factors in shorter sleep durations and worse sleep quality...

...the likelihood that they will develop bipolar disorder increases according to a recent study.

Mental Health goal:  Improve clinical assessment and care for these high-risk children by potentially enabling earlier identification, treatment or possible preventive measures.

Our genes are an important resource to help researchers better understand the conditions that we are faced with. 

There are many links, however these are no excuse to just accept things as they are, knowledge can only do so much.  We are accountable for our own lives, understanding links can help us develop improved methods to lead productive lives.

Genetic factors help to explain the commonly found association between low back pain and depression, suggests a large study of twins in the March issue of PAIN®, the official publication of the International Association for the Study of Pain. 

The link for Back Pain and Depression | Finding cause / effect to improve outcomes

Mental Health Help | Diagnosing a patient with clinical depression can be difficult, research is expanding to help patients and prescribers.

Depression is a complex illness that can be caused by one or a mix of many things, from environmental stressors to genetics. The search for better understanding to properly diagnosis patients is an ongoing process, here is another way that studies / research are paving the way:

Inflammation and Depression | Acute inflammation is a protective mechanism, but chronic inflammation causes simultaneous destruction and reparation of tissue that harms the body in the long term. Usually, inflammation is triggered by physical injury or infection.  This could represent a relationship between the two.

But a new study out of the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) has highlighted a link between clinical depression and brain inflammation that might be crucial in better understanding stress and depression's physical impacts on the body, as well as in developing better treatments for these mental health issues.

In the study, published in JAMA Psychiatry, the researchers found that people with clinical depression had a 30% increase in brain inflammation, also referred to as neuroinflammation - from the study:

It's uncertain whether the inflammation caused the depression or vice versa, or if it's simply a correlation. But the study makes it clear that the link should be further examined. Research has found a link between clinical depression and brain inflammation, that is a positive sign for opening up new treatments (according to studies in JAMA Psychiatry).