The New York Times (10/25, A21, Goode, Subscription Publication) reports that research suggests individuals “who tell small, self-serving lies are likely to progress to bigger falsehoods, and over time, the brain appears to adapt to the dishonesty.” This “finding, the researchers said, provides evidence for the ‘slippery slope’ sometimes described by wayward politicians, corrupt financiers, unfaithful spouses and others in explaining their misconduct.”

The AP (10/24, Borenstein) reports that researchers “put 80 people in scenarios where they could repeatedly lie and get paid more based on the magnitude of their lies.” According to the AP, “They said they were the first to demonstrate empirically that people’s lies grow bolder the more they” lie. The investigators “then used brain scans to show that our mind’s emotional hot spot – the amygdala – becomes desensitized or used to the growing dishonesty.” The findings were published online in Nature Neuroscience.

TIME (10/24, Park) reports that the investigators “were even able to map out how each lie led to less amygdala activation and found that the decrease could predict how much the person’s dishonesty would escalate in the next trial.”

Related Links:

— “Why Big Liars Often Start Out as Small Ones,” ERICA GOODE, New York Times, October 24, 2016.

Medwire News (10/24, Piper) reports, “Orthostatic hypotension has been linked to an increased long-term risk of dementia,” research published Oct. 11 in PLOS Medicine indicates. Included in the study were some “6,204 individuals with no history of Alzheimer’s disease or stroke” who were followed “over a median…of 15.3 years.”

Related Links:

— “Transient blood pressure drop poses dementia risk,” Lucy Piper, MedWire News, October 24, 2016.

Healio (10/23, Tedesco) reported, “Despite receiving stable doses of stimulant medications, children and adolescents with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder [AD/HD] displayed inadequate symptom control and functional impairment related to the condition during their early morning routine before school,” researchers found after surveying 201 primary care givers of school-aged youngsters with AD/HD. The survey’s results were presented at the American Academy of Pediatrics National Conference and Exhibition.

Related Links:

— “School-aged children show signs of ADHD in early morning despite treatment,” Alaina Tedesco, Healio, October 23, 2016.

HCP Live (10/21, Lutz) reported, “Childhood symptoms of” attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (AD/HD) may “persist into adulthood in as many as 60% of patients,” researchers found. The findings of the nearly 600-patient study were published online Sept. 19 in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry.

Related Links:

— “Defining ADHD Symptoms into Adulthood,” Rachel Lutz, HCP Live, October 21, 2016.

On its front page, the New York Times (10/19, A1, Rosenberg, Southall, Subscription Publication) reports on the shooting Tuesday by a New York City police officer of 66-year-old Deborah Danner, a Bronx woman with schizophrenia, a “confrontation…condemned in swift and striking terms by Mayor Bill de Blasio and Police Commissioner James P. O’Neill.”

Both de Blasio and O’Neill “said the officer had failed to follow the Police Department’s protocol for dealing with an emotionally disturbed person.” The mayor faulted the officer for not waiting for “more specialized officers from the department’s elite Emergency Service Unit to arrive.” De Blasio “also noted that Sergeant Barry was equipped with a stun gun that he could have used to try to subdue Ms. Danner.”

Even though New York City has started “providing its rank-and-file officers with more advanced training on dealing with people with mental illness,” only “about 4,400 of the” NYPD’s “roughly 36,000 officers” have received Crisis Intervention Training.

Related Links:

— “In Quick Response, de Blasio Calls Fatal Shooting of Mentally Ill Woman ‘Unacceptable’,” ELI ROSENBERG and ASHLEY SOUTHALL, New York Times, October 19, 2016.

Healio (10/20) reports that recently, the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) “announced it will provide $21 million in funding over five years for a study on the development of mental disorders that develop following trauma.” In a press release, NIMH director Joshua A. Gordon, MD, PhD, said, “In the relatively short term, this project is expected to deliver tools for clinicians to make informed decisions about risk and follow-up care soon after trauma.”

Additionally, the “research resource to be created will fuel a new generation of analyses on the underlying causes of disorders, identify new intervention targets, and in turn give rise to mechanism-informed treatments based on individual needs.”

Related Links:

— “NIMH study will explore trauma-related mental illness,” Healio, October 20, 2016.

The Huffington Post (10/18, Almendrala) reports that researchers are developing a test to “predict how effective antidepressants will be.” Although “the test is still in early stages, a recent study…found that it was able to predict whether or not an antidepressant would restore a person’s symptoms to healthy levels with 81 percent accuracy.” The findings of the 102-patient study were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Related Links:

— “Will Antidepressants Work For You? There Will Soon Be A Test For That,” Anna Almendrala, The Huffington Post, October 18, 2016.

HCP Live (10/18) reports that “childhood adversity appears to be associated with bipolar disorder,” researchers concluded. The 19-study review “found that people with bipolar disorder were 2.63 times…more likely to have suffered emotional, physical, or sexual abuse as children than counterparts in the general population.” The findings were published online the British Journal of Psychiatry.

Related Links:

— “Bipolar Disorder Linked with Childhood Neglect and Abuse,” HCP Live, October 18, 2016.

In a 1,700-word article, The Atlantic (10/17, Goldberg) reports that “the majority of the nation’s youngest students don’t have access to mental-health resources at school.” Just “23 percent of prekindergarten programs have on-site or scheduled visits from psychiatrists or psychologists, according to the Child Mind Institute’s 2016 Children’s Mental Health Report.” Exacerbating the situation even further is “the current shortage of mental-health professionals, which is expected to continue.”

In fact, “the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration projects that 12,624 child and adolescent psychologists will be needed to meet demand by 2020, but a supply of only 8,312 is expected.” The article goes on to detail some new school-based programs designed to “make mental health a more robust part of the school day.”

Related Links:

— “The New Focus on Children’s Mental Health,” EMILY GOLDBERG, The Atlantic, October 17, 2016.

Philly (PA) (10/17, Burling) reports that on Oct. 17, the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) “said…hospital emergency departments routinely are clogged with patients who are waiting, sometimes for days, for inpatient psychiatric care.” The group “bolstered its case with data from a poll of more than 1,700 emergency physicians as well as research presented at its annual meeting this week in Las Vegas.” The situation is being blamed “on inadequate inpatient and outpatient resources for patients with serious mental illnesses.”

Related Links:

— “Emergency physicians say psych patients wait too long for care,” Stacey Burling, Philly.Com, October 18, 2016.