In the TIME (9/12) “Ideas” column, Mary Jane Rotheram-Borus, director of the UCLA Global Center for Children and Families, and Mark Tomlinson, a psychology professor at the Stellenbosch University in South Africa, wrote about the impact of fetal alcohol spectrum disorders, which are a direct result of a pregnant woman drinking alcohol during pregnancy. “According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, almost all of these children will have mental health problems as adults and 82 percent will not live independently.” In their teens years, these children will also “face an increased risk of drug and alcohol addiction.”

The pair encouraged readers to “make a personal pledge to watch out for yourself, your friends, and people you encounter casually who may be at risk of creating a child with the disorder.”

Related Links:

— “This Is Your Child’s Brain on Alcohol,” Mary Jane Rotheram-Borus and Mark Tomlinson, Time, September 12, 2014.

USA Today (9/15, Szabo) reports that according to research funded by the National Institutes of Health and published online Sept. 15 in the American Journal of Psychiatry, a publication of the American Psychiatric Association, “schizophrenia is not a single disease, but a group of eight distinct disorders, each caused by changes in clusters of genes that lead to different sets of symptoms.”

After comparing “the DNA of 4,200 people with schizophrenia to that of 3,800 healthy people,” researchers also “found that certain genetic profiles matched particular symptoms.”

Related Links:

— “Schizophrenia is eight different diseases, not one,” Lisa Szabo, USA Today, September 15, 2014.

The Today Show Online (9/12, Carroll) reports research suggests that, as we sleep our brains are “organizing and storing away memories of events,” as well as “open to other activities.” a study of 18 people published Thursday in Current Biology found “that the brain can be started on a task just as a person is dropping off to sleep and then, during slumber, take in new auditory information and then process it.”

However, Dr. Alon Avidan, a professor of neurology at the University of California, Los Angeles and director of the UCLA Sleep Disorders Center, warned that having the mind deal with additional tasks while asleep could affect its processing of memories or impair its restorative properties.

Related Links:

— “To sleep, perchance to study: New research shows how brain learns while dozing,” Linda Carroll, Today Show, September 11, 2014.

HealthDay (9/12, Dallas) reports a new study suggests brain chemistry may make “obese people…more vulnerable to environmental food cues than thin people.” The brain imaging study, published in the online edition of Molecular Psychiatry, included 43 men and women, and “found those who were obese had increased activity in the habit-forming part of their brain and reduced activity in the area that controls reward.”

Dr. Griffin Rodgers, director of the NIH’s National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, said in an institute news release, “These findings point to the complexity of obesity and contribute to our understanding of how people with varying amounts of body fat process information about food.”

Related Links:

— “Obese People May Be More Vulnerable to Food Cues,” Mary Elizabeth Dallas, HealthDay, September 11, 2014.

The AP (9/11) reports on New Yorkers who are increasingly seeking treatment for the long-term psychological problems that arose after 9/11, most of whom rely on the New York City hospital system’s World Trade Center Environmental Health Center. The article details the delayed psychological effects of many 9/11 survivors, as well as the increase in enrollment in the program in the past five years.

“Even though it’s 13 years later, we’re really appreciating that there’s a long wake and legacy of the World Trade Center disaster,” said the program’s mental health director, Dr. Nomi Levy-Carrick. The AP also notes that the program’s Federal funding through the James L. Zadroga 9/11 Compensation Act is set to expire next year, although “New York legislators said this week” that they would propose extension legislation.

Related Links:

— “Seeking Help After Years of 9/11 Survivor Guilt,” Michael R. Sisak, Associated Press, September 11, 2014.

On its website, NPR (9/10) reports in its “Health” blog that middle-aged men are the group “emerging” as the group most likely to commit suicide, surpassing older men. According to the article, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that of 39,518 suicides in 2011, people aged 45-64 years had the highest rate, and with men more likely to commit suicide than women, the CDC “points to the need for more suicide prevention efforts aimed at men.”

Related Links:

— “Suicides Rise In Middle-Aged Men, And Older Men Remain At Risk,” Alison Bruzek, National Public Radio, September 10, 2014.

TIME (9/11, Luscombe) reports that research published online in Human Reproduction “suggests that not having children only makes infertile women unhappy if they are unable to let go of the idea of having kids.” The study included approximately 7,000 who had undergone fertility treatments. The women “were sent questionnaires about how they were doing and what caused the infertility and whether they had” children. The majority “of them were doing fine, except for about 6% who still wanted children even a decade or more after their last infertility treatment.”

HealthDay (9/11, Dallas) reports that the researchers found that the “prolonged longing for children was linked to worse mental health regardless of the health issues the women faced or the type of treatment they received.”

Related Links:

— “,” Belinda Luscombe, Time, September 10, 2014.

TIME (9/11, Oaklander) reports that research published in JAMA Psychiatry “found a positive association between the number of suicides on a particular day and the hours of sunshine—meaning sunny days saw more suicides.” Investigators “compared 69,462 suicides that occurred in Austria between 1970 and 2010 to hours of sunshine during that day.”

Newsweek (9/11, Bekiempis) reports that the researchers also found that “the effects of sunlight were not limited to the day of suicide along; a string of sunny days often ended in tragedy, according to the data in Austria.”

Related Links:

— “The Link Between Sunny Days and Suicide,” Mandy Oaklander, Time, September 10, 2014.

The Los Angeles Times (9/10, Healy) reports that according to a study published online Sept. 9 in the BMJ, “older people who have relied on a class of drugs called benzodiazepines to reduce anxiety or induce sleep are at higher risk of going on to develop Alzheimer’s disease…with those whose use of the medications is most intensive almost twice as likely to develop the mind-robbing disorder.”

For the study, researchers “compared the pattern of benzodiazepine use in 1,796 people elderly people diagnosed with Alzheimer’s with that of 7,184 similar people who had no such diagnosis.” The medications “specifically considered by the researchers were the short-acting anti-anxiety medications alprazolam (Xanax), lorazepam (Ativan), oxazepam (Seresta) and diazepam (Valium), and the longer-acting anti-seizure and ‘hypnotic’ drugs frequently used to treat insomnia: clonazepam (Klonopin), flurazepam (Dalmane), midazolam (Versed), nitrazepam (Mogadon), temazepam (Restoril) and triazolam (Halcion).”

Related Links:

— “Drugs used for anxiety, sleep are linked to Alzheimer’s disease in older people,” Melissa Healy, Los Angeles Times, September 8, 2014.

The Los Angeles Times (9/10, Healy) “Science Now” blog reported that a study published in JAMA Internal Medicine found “more than half of nursing home patients” suffering from severe dementia, who are likely to die within a year or two, are being “administered medications that offer little or no benefit” by physicians and families, causing “pointless discomfort,” health risks and “inflating the cost of care.” Two kinds of medicines the study discussed are for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease and lipid-lowering medications.

The New York Times (9/9, Span) “The New Old Age” blog reported that the study findings were deeply troubling, focusing on the potential harm from such medications and the patients often being unable to communicate their discomfort from the treatments. According to study’s lead author, Dr. Jennifer Tija, the drugs with “questionable benefits” have their proponents and therefore “discontinuing them remained controversial.” Dr. Tija adds that due to set “cultures and practice patterns,” these medications are continued to be prescribed even after the little value and purpose they provide.

Related Links:

— “Dementia patients continue to get medications with little, no benefit,” Melissa Healy, Los Angeles Times, September 9, 2014.