SAMHSA Partners with Suicide Prevention Action Network to Promote Public/Private Partnership to Curb Suicide

Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) announced the award of a contract to the Suicide Prevention Action Network (SPAN USA), a national suicide prevention organization, to join with SAMHSA to establish and administer the National Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention. The Action Alliance, a public-private partnership, is being established to move the goals and objectives of the 2001 National Strategy for Suicide Prevention from paper to practice. It will reframe the goals and objectives as measurable actions to be implemented by government, industry, general and specialty health care sectors, academia, communities, and consumers and families.

Read press release: http://www.samhsa.gov/news/newsreleases/060808_suicide.htm

NIMH: Experimental Medication Kicks Depression in Hours Instead of Weeks

People with treatment-resistant depression experienced symptom relief in as little as two hours with a single intravenous dose of ketamine, a medication usually used in higher doses as an anesthetic in humans and animals, in a preliminary study. Current antidepressants routinely take eight weeks or more to exert their effect in treatment-resistant patients and four to six weeks in more responsive patients — a major drawback of these medications. Some participants in this study, who previously had tried an average of six medications without relief, continued to show benefits over the next seven days after just a single dose of the experimental treatment, according to researchers conducting the study at the NIMH. The researchers who conducted the study now are zeroing in on other areas of the glutamate system. Specifying which components of the system are affected by compounds such as ketamine may help scientists understand how and why depression occurs, reveal biological markers that may one day aid in diagnosis, and point the way to more precise targets for new medications.  Study results were published in the August issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry.

Read press release:  http://www.nimh.nih.gov/science-news/2007/faster-acting-antidepressants-closer-to-becoming-a-reality.shtml

NIMH: Shy Temperament- More than Just Fearful

Compared to others, children with extremely shy temperament have heightened brain activity in response to any prominent event, whether the event is positive or negative, a new imaging study suggests. This kind of temperament — “behavioral inhibition” — early in life is a risk factor for subsequent development of mental disorders. The study also shows that temperamental and physiological differences found in these children persist later into childhood and adolescence, raising the possibility that the differences may be markers of risk for mental disorders as youth develop. The study results suggest that differences in temperament are reflections of stable, long-lasting, physiological differences in some brain mechanisms. The findings are reported in the June 14, 2006 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience.

Read science update: http://www.nimh.nih.gov/science-news/2006/shy-temperament-more-than-just-fearful.shtml

 
FDA Approves First Generic Venlafaxine

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the first generic version of Effexor (venlafaxine), an important step in the agency’s effort to increase the availability of lower-cost generic medications. Venlafaxine is indicated for the treatment of major depressive disorder. This product will carry the same labeling including the black box warning as the originator drug.

Read press release: http://www.fda.gov/bbs/topics/NEWS/2006/NEW01425.html

 
Bipolar disorder exacts twice depression's toll in workplace, productivity lags even after mood lifts

Bipolar disorder costs twice as much in lost productivity as major depressive disorder, a study funded by the National Institutes of Health's (NIH) National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) has found. Each U.S. worker with bipolar disorder averaged 65.5 lost workdays in a year, compared to 27.2 for major depression. Even though major depression is more than six times as prevalent, bipolar disorder costs the U.S. workplace nearly half as much - a disproportionately high $14.1 billion annually. Researchers traced the higher toll mostly to bipolar disorder's more severe depressive episodes rather than to its agitated manic periods. The study is among two on mood disorders in the workplace published in the September 2006 issue of the "American Journal of Psychiatry." Their study is the first to distinguish the impact of depressive episodes due to bipolar disorder from those due to major depressive disorder on the workplace.

In a related NIMH-funded study in the same issue of the "American Journal of Psychiatry," researchers found that many aspects of job performance are impaired by depression and that the effects linger even after symptoms have improved. The researchers tracked the job performance and productivity of 286 employed patients with depression and dysthymia, 93 with rheumatoid arthritis and 193 healthy controls recruited from primary care physician practices for 18 months. While job performance improved as depression symptoms waned, even "clinically improved" depressed patients performed worse than healthy controls on mental, interpersonal, time management, output and physical tasks. The arthritis patients showed greater impairment, compared to healthy controls, only for physical job demands.

The full press release is available at: http://www.nimh.nih.gov/science-news/2006/bipolar-disorder-exacts-twice-depressions-toll-in-workplace-productivity-lags-even-after-mood-lifts.shtml

Subsequent treatment strategies for persistent depression yield modest results

Patients with treatment-resistant depression had a modest chance of becoming symptom-free when they tried different treatment strategies after two or three failed treatments, according to results from the nation's largest real-world study of depression. These results from Levels 3 and 4 of the NIMH-funded Sequenced Treatment Alternatives to Relieve Depression (STAR*D) Study were reported in the "American Journal of Psychiatry" on September 1 and July 1, 2006.

 The full press release is available at: http://www.nimh.nih.gov/science-news/2006/subsequent-treatment-strategies-for-persistent-depression-yield-modest-results.shtml

Learn more about the STAR*D study at: http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/trials/practical/stard/index.shtml