MD Edge ObGyn (9/1, Craven) reports Dr. Dolores Malaspina of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai spoke about the role of epigenetics in the development of psychiatric conditions at a virtual meeting presented by Current Psychiatry, the American Academy of Clinical Psychiatrists, and other groups. Dr. Malaspina said there are not enough genes to account for all human diversity, so more research needs to be done into the role of gene expression in developing psychiatric conditions. Dr. Malaspina said, “The fetus does not simply develop from a genetic blueprint of the genes from its father and mother. Instead, signals are received throughout the pregnancy as to the health of the mother and signals about the environment.”

Related Links:

— “More research needed on how fetal exposure affects later development “Jeff Craven, MD Edge ObGyn, September 1, 2020

Healio (9/1, Gramigna) reports, “Anhedonia severity differed across various disorders,” investigators concluded after analyzing “168 articles featuring 16,494 participants.” Researchers then “found that those with current major depressive disorder, schizophrenia, substance use disorder, Parkinson’s disease and chronic pain exhibited higher scores on the” Snaith-Hamilton Pleasure Scale, “which is a widely used questionnaire for assessing anhedonia,” than “healthy participants.” The findings of the systematic review and meta-analysis were published online in JAMA Network Open.

Related Links:

— “Inability to experience pleasure varies across psychiatric disorders, “Joe Gramigna, Healio, September 01, 2020

Healio (8/31, Gramigna) reports, “Mental health during childhood and adolescence was linked to adolescent health behaviors,” investigators concluded after analyzing “data collected in 2008 and 2015 of 9,369 young people born between 2000 and 2001 who were included in the U.K. population-representative longitudinal Millennium Cohort Study.” The findings of the “cohort study” were published online in JAMA Network Open.

Related Links:

— “Sleep, fruit/vegetable consumption, social media use influence adolescent mental health, “Joe Gramigna, Healio, August 31, 2020

MedPage Today (8/31, George) reports, “Fear of being out of mobile phone contact – known as nomophobia (no mobile phone phobia) – was extremely common among college students and was tied to poor sleep health,” investigators concluded in a study that “recruited 327 university students.” The study revealed that “nine out of 10 university students had moderate or severe nomophobia, which was linked to greater daytime sleepiness, avolition, and poorer sleep hygiene.” The findings were presented at the virtual SLEEP 2020, a joint meeting of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and the Sleep Research Society.

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— MedPage Today (requires login and subscription)

MedPage Today (8/30, George) reports that research indicated “nightmares that occurred twice a week or more were linked with cardiovascular disease in relatively young military veterans, even after controlling for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).” Investigators found, in the study of 3,468 US military veterans, that “frequent distressing dreams were associated with hypertension,…heart problems,…and myocardial infarction…after adjusting for age, race, and sex.” The findings were presented “at virtual SLEEP 2020, a joint meeting of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM) and the Sleep Research Society.”

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— MedPage Today (requires login and subscription)

MedPage Today (8/30, George) reports, “More than half the people surveyed in an online population study experienced serious sleep difficulties during the COVID-19 pandemic, but certain individuals reported better sleep.” Speaking at the virtual SLEEP 2020, Rebecca Robillard, PhD, of the University of Ottawa, described “three distinct profiles of sleep-related behaviors…during the pandemic.”

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— MedPage Today (requires login and subscription)

CNN (8/28, Thomas) reported experts wrote a letter published in the American Journal of Psychiatry arguing that the coronavirus pandemic has had a disproportionately large impact on people with developmental and intellectual disabilities, and that this population needs special support during the pandemic. The letter’s authors wrote, “People with intellectual and developmental disabilities were disproportionately isolated prior to the pandemic, and the intensification of that isolation stands only to weaken the community for all citizens.”

Related Links:

— “Covid-19 has disproportionately impacted those living with developmental disabilities, “Naomi Thomas, CNN, August 30, 2020

HealthDay (8/30, Preidt) reports researchers found that older Americans with depression have shown “resilience to the stress of physical distancing and isolation.” The findings were published in the American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry.

Related Links:

— “Seniors With Depression Show Resilience in Face of Pandemic, “Robert Preidt, HealthDay, August 30, 2020

Healio (8/26, Ernst) reports, “Patients with psychogenic nonepileptic seizures have a standardized mortality ratio 2.5 times greater than the general population and die at a rate similar to patients with drug-resistant epilepsy,” investigators concluded after examining “mortality rates among patients with psychogenic nonepileptic seizures who were admitted for video-EEG monitoring.” The findings of the 5,508-patient study were published online in the journal Neurology.

Related Links:

— “Diagnosis of psychogenic nonepileptic seizures has ‘implications for future mortality’, “Julia Ernst, Healio, August 26, 2020

Healio (8/27, Miller) reports, “Almost 20% of young men in the United States are perpetrators of intimate partner violence, or IPV, and more than a quarter are victims of it,” investigators concluded after examining “responses from a cross-sectional, nationally representative online survey of 916 men aged 18 to 35 years.” What’s more, the survey revealed that just “13% of the survey’s respondents said a physician had asked them if they had ever been a victim of IPV.” The findings were published in the July issue of the Annals of Family Medicine.

Related Links:

— “Survey: Physicians miss opportunities to discuss partner violence with men, “Janel Miller, Healio, August 27, 2020