Researchers, for the first time, have pinpointed a genetic hotspot that confers risk for both bipolar disorder and depression. People with either of these mood disorders were significantly more likely to have risk versions of genes at this site than healthy controls. One of the genes, which codes for part of a cell’s machinery that tells genes when to turn on and off, was also found to be over-expressed in the executive hub of bipolar patients’ brains, making it a prime suspect. The results add to mounting evidence that major mental disorders overlap at the molecular level.

NIMH is launching a long-term project aimed at ultimately improving treatment and prevention by studying classification of mental illness, based on genetics and neuroscience in addition to clinical observation. The Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) project is not intended to replace psychiatry’s existing diagnostic system for practitioners and will proceed in an independent direction, said Bruce Cuthbert, Ph.D., Director of the NIMH Division of Adult Translational Research, who is directing the effort. By taking a fresh look – without preconceived categories – the project aims to improve the validity of classification for researchers.

A study has linked panic disorder to a wayward hormone in a brain circuit that regulates vigilance. While too little of the hormone, called orexin, is known to underlie narcolepsy, the new study suggests that too much of it may lead to panic attacks that afflict 6 million American adults.

Scientists have for the first time selectively blocked a conditioned fear memory in humans with a behavioral manipulation. Participants remained free of the fear memory for at least a year. The research builds on emerging evidence from animal studies that reactivating an emotional memory opens a 6-hour window of opportunity in which a training procedure can alter it.

Researchers studying autism spectrum disorders (ASD) will soon have access to a vast range of data and research tools through the NIH National Database for Autism Research (NDAR).

For the first time, inherited disruption of gene expression in a brain system for social behavior has been implicated in autism. NIMH grantee Margaret Pericak-Vance, Ph.D., at the University of Miami and Simon Gregory, Ph.D., at Duke University, and a multinational team of researchers found evidence for such epigenetic effects on the gene for the oxytocin receptor -- part of a brain system that mediates social behaviors disturbed in autism. The findings suggest a potential genetic biomarker for the disorder.

Practice makes perfect--and it rewires the brain, as many studies have shown. But sometimes hours of practice can take these brain changes too far, as happens in musician’s dystonia, when the boundaries between muscles blur in the brain and precise movements are no longer possible. In pianists, for example, the fingers might clutch inward involuntarily every time they attempt to strike a key. This condition takes years to develop, but new research suggests a treatment that takes only 15 minutes can reorganize the brain and allow musicians to play again.

A team led by Karin Rosenkranz of University College London applied vibrations to individual hand muscles in pianists with dystonia, giving each muscle several rounds of a two-second vibration followed by a two-second rest. The 15-minute protocol immediately improved playing to match that of pianists without dystonia.

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MAY

5 German philosopher Karl Marx was born on this day in 1818. Although Marx is most famous for his political ideas, his philosophies also contributed indirectly to modern psychology. Embedded in Marx’s doctrine of historical materialism--the study of society, economics and history--is the idea that understanding the human mind relies not only on inward reflection but also on the historical and social context in which a person lives. For Marx, that meant a person’s work life. Today the study of social psychology explores in much greater depth how cultural influences, social status and other factors contribute to a person’s mind-set and behaviors.

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The Boston Globe: "A Suffolk Superior Court judge yesterday ordered two of the state's largest health insurers to submit April 2009 rates for insurance covering individuals and small businesses, the latest development in an ongoing dispute between the state and carriers over premium increases...

Researchers at The University of Nottingham have won government funding to improve the services which help people living with serious mental illness to tackle their tobacco dependence. The grant is part of a £1.2 million package of funding from the Department of Health to the UK Centre of Tobacco Control Studies which is coordinated at the University...