Minneapolis St. Paul Mental Health Blog

Mental Health | The proportion of young people in the United States experiencing mood disorders and other mental health issues has increased significantly over the past 10 years....

and researchers found no corresponding increase among older Americans. The findings appear online in the Journal of Abnormal Psychology.

Mental Health | Pregnant women who have nicotine in their systems from smoking are more likely to have children who develop attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

And the higher the level of nicotine in a pregnant woman’s blood, the greater her child’s risk of later being diagnosed with ADHD, researchers report in Pediatrics.

Mental Health | Adolescents who misused prescription opioids were, on average, 1.51 times more likely to have experienced suicidal ideation...

Mental Health | When it comes to predicting suicide in at-risk young adults....

Mental Health help | A multitude of factors contribute to a person being at risk of suicide, and clinicians need to understand those contributors in order to help prevent suicide.

Mental Health and Cannabis use | People who use cannabis every day run a significantly higher risk of developing the serious mental illness psychosis...

Sleep and Mental Health | Insomnia complicates both the course and the treatment of depression, and is more likely to emerge before depression than during or after it.

Karl Doghramji, MD, speaks about insomnia on the opening day of the third annual Elevate by Psych Congress conference.

Mental Health | Expecting mothers who smoke marijuana or use the drug in any form may be putting their children at risk...

for psychosis later in life, a new study says.

Mental Health Update | The number of cannabis-associated emergency department (ED) visits has risen sharply since marijuana was legalized in Colorado.

New data show that although inhalable cannabis use accounts for most of these visits, edible cannabis is tied to a disproportionate number of visits, and patients present with different symptoms.

Mental Health Studies | Familial aggregation of mental and neurological disorders is often observed in autism spectrum disorders (ASD),

...but reports have generally focused on single disorders and are limited to first-degree relatives.

OBJECTIVES:

To examine family history of mental and neurological disorders among first- to fourth-degree relatives and risk of ASD with and without intellectual disability.

A family history of mental and/or neurological disorders was associated with a significant increased risk for autism spectrum disorder (ASD) with and without intellectual disability (ID). The closer the relative with the family history of mental and/or neurological disorders, the higher the ASD risk.

Why this matters

The association was stronger for ASD without ID, suggesting ASD without ID may be more familial than ASD with ID.

Study design

* 567,436 index persons who were non-adopted singleton births born between 1984 and 2009 and at least 2 years of age at the end of follow-up were included.

Key results

* Having ASD without (OR, 9.0; P<.0001) or with (OR, 3.8; P<.0001) ID affected vs unaffected first-degree relatives increased odds of ASD without ID in index persons.
* Having first-degree relative with cerebral palsy (P<.01), epilepsy (P<.0001), or migraine (P<.0001) increased odds of ASD without ID in index persons.
* A first-degree relative with ASD with (OR, 14.2; P<.0001) or without (OR, 4.1; P<.0001) ID increased odds of ASD with ID in index persons.
* A first-degree relative with cerebral palsy (P<.01) or epilepsy (P<.0001) doubled odds of ASD with ID in index persons.

The more closely related the affected family member was, the higher the odds was of ASD for the index person. ASD without intellectual disability was associated with more disorders compared to ASD with intellectual disability.

ASD with intellectual disability exhibited a weaker familial association with other mental disorder diagnoses but a stronger familial association with some neurological diagnoses as compared to ASD without intellectual disability.