A small study has indicated that anesthesia may relieve depression in some patients. This is one of many trends that Kalorama Information is noticing in the dynamic $4.1 billion market for anesthesia drugs...

Smarts vs. Sense Regarding “ Rational and Irrational Thought : The Thinking That IQ Tests Miss,” by Keith E. Stanovich: I have been teaching at the college level for more than a dozen years, and I’ve often wondered why some of my best and brightest students utterly fail in certain tasks that less “intellectual” students are able to excel in.

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State legislatures in Kansas, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Tennessee recently acted on several abortion-related measures. Summaries appear below. ~ Kansas: The state House on Tuesday voted 89-33 to give final approval to a bill (HB 2166) that would alter state law to eliminate mental health as a reason for an abortion later in pregnancy, the AP/KTKA reports...

A Web-based psychology experiment is investigating whether human beings have a daily requirement for certain kinds of emotions, in the same way that the body has a proven requirement for certain nutrients. Based on animal studies and human research, Dr...

Out of context, many of our behaviors--if limited to the mere veneer of plain description--would raise many an eyebrow. The most innocent of things can sound tawdry and bizarre when certain facts and details are omitted. Here’s a perfect example: I accidentally bit my dog Gulliver’s tongue recently.

Now you may be asking yourself what I was doing with his tongue in my mouth to begin with. But I would submit that that is perhaps a better question for Gulliver, since he’s the one that violated my busily masticating maw by inserting that long, thin, delicatessen-slice muscle of his while I was simply enjoying a bite of a very banal bagel. Shocked by the feel of human teeth chomping down on his tongue, he yelped--then scampered off. Fortunately, Gulliver showed no signs of lasting trauma and I was saved from having to explain to the vet how it came to be that I bit off my dog ’s tongue; but for days after the “incident” Gulliver kept his prized possession sealed behind the vault of his own clamped jaw. This gave my partner, Juan, and me at least a temporary reprieve from Gulliver’s normally overindulgent use of that particular organ on our faces. The story was strange enough for me to share with friends, and this particular tale of man-bites-dog unleashed the predictable onslaught of humorous bestiality innuendos. And that, ladies and gentleman, is where the real story begins.

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Of all scientific fields, neuroscience has the greatest potential for revolutionary advances, philosophical and practical. Someday, brain researchers may figure out how precisely the brain encodes thoughts like the ones I’m thinking now. Cracking the neural code could help solve the mind-body problem, ending millennia of pointless metaphysical chitchat. We may finally understand how brains work and why sometimes they don’t. We might even discover truly effective treatments for depression, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and dementia and chuck our current quasi-therapies.   [More]

Mental Health America today hailed the "Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act" signed by the President today. The legislation will greatly expand access to mental health care and addiction treatment-particularly for the 32 million previously uninsured Americans who will gain access as a result...

The Kansas House on Monday granted preliminary approval to a bill (HB 2166) that would eliminate mental health as a reason for obtaining an abortion after 22 weeks' gestation, the Wichita Eagle reports. The legislation likely will be considered for a final House vote on Tuesday, after which it would move to the Senate...

Beginning Saturday, April 10th, thousands of families throughout the United States will have a rare opportunity to learn about new breakthroughs and emerging treatments in mental health by the nation's best and brightest mental health researchers...

A new study sponsored by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) outlines the conditions that physicians around the country reported treating with psychiatric drugs such as antipsychotics, antidepressants, and anti-anxiety drugs...