Minneapolis St. Paul Mental Health Blog

Mental Health Update | A new study links heavy use of alcohol and marijuana to lower grades among college students.

Substance abuse has long been tied to poor achievement, worse graduation rates and difficulties finding and keeping good jobs.

Treating Depression | With increasing off-label use of ketamine in patients with severe depression and other psychiatric disorders,

an expert group of the American Psychiatric Association (APA) has published a consensus statement to help guide safe and appropriate use of the anesthetic.

Social Media and Mental Health, be careful of SM consumption, too much is not good.

Young adults who spend more time on social media may end up feeling more isolated in their daily lives, a recent study suggests.

Mental health Minneapolise | Clinicians were urged to combine pharmacologic treatments with counseling programs when treating substance use disorders (SUDs).

Many practitioners believe in using only one type of treatment, but that is a mistake, said Charles O’Brien, MD, PhD, Kenneth E. Appel Professor of Psychiatry, University of Pennsylvania Treatment Research Center in Philadelphia.

Childhood experiences, both positive and negative, have a tremendous impact on future violence victimization and perpetration,

and lifelong health and opportunity. As such, early experiences are an important public health issue. Much of the foundational research in this area has been referred to as Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs).

ACEs include physical, emotional, and sexual abuse, living with an alcohol or drug abuser, domestic violence, and emotional and physical neglect.

Childrens Mental Health | New Children’s Crisis Response Website Launched.

MetrCCS is a public/private partnership in the 7-County Minneapolis/St. Paul metro area of mental health crisis response providers, parents, advocates, hospitals and third party payers. They have just re-launched an important website to help people find their local mental health crisis services and resources – in 8 languages. www.childcrisisresponsemn.org

Ketamine has long been used to relieve pain,

and more recently has been utilized to treat major depression.

Now doctors at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, California, are using it to help patients suffering from both conditions together.

Brain Imaging Can Help Distinguish Between Depression and Cognitive Disorders Like Alzheimer’s

A brain imaging technique called single photon emission computed tomography, or SPECT, can help clinicians differentiate between depression and a cognitive disorder such as Alzheimer’s disease, according to new research.

Womens Mental Health | UCLA researchers have found that mental sharpness in women begins to decline as early as their 50s.

For young children with a family history of celiac disease, anxiety, aggression, sleep problems and other behavioral issues might signal that it’s time to test for celiac, researchers say.

In the study of 3- and 4-year olds at high risk for celiac, mothers of 3-year-olds that had undiagnosed celiac reported more negative psychological symptoms in their children compared to mothers of toddlers with diagnosed celiac or of kids that didn’t have the disease.