In an opinion piece in the Boston Globe (1/24), writer Ruth Graham wrote that in 2014, “a program called Mental Health First Aid received federal funding for the first time.” In the US, approximately 300,000 individuals have been trained in Health First Aid. While “the program has the support of many mental health professionals, who say that its broad approach to a wide array of mental health emergencies is sorely needed,” Graham writes that such “programs also inadvertently illuminate the extraordinary complexity of mental illness, and the limitations of a fraying safety net.”

Related Links:

— “The promise and limits of ‘mental health first aid’,” Ruth Graham, Boston Globe, January 23, 2015.

Reuters (1/24, Kennedy) reported that according to a study published online Jan. 8 in The Lancet, a school-based program designed to prevent suicide appears to diminish the likelihood that adolescents will want to commit suicide or attempt suicide. Some 11,000 high-school students in Europe took part in the study.

Related Links:

— “School-wide prevention program lowers teen suicide risk,” Madeline Kennedy, Yahoo News, January 23, 2015.

HealthDay (1/23, Norton) reports that a study recently published online in the journal Acta Neuropathologica suggests that “the brains of some veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan who were injured by homemade bombs show an unusual pattern of damage.” After studying “autopsied brain tissue from five US combat veterans” who had survived blasts from improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and then comparing those samples with autopsied brain tissue from 24 people who died from various causes, researchers found “a distinct pattern of damage to nerve fibers in key regions of the brain – including the frontal lobes, which govern memory, reasoning and decision-making.” The study authors theorized that this damage pattern may help “explain the phenomenon of ‘shell shock.’”

Related Links:

— “‘Hidden’ Brain Damage Seen in Vets With Blast Injuries,” Amy Norton, HealthDay, January 22, 2015.

McClatchy (1/23, Wise, Subscription Publication) reports in continuing coverage that a measure aimed at reducing veteran suicides is “on the verge of final passage” now that its leading critic, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) has left the Senate. Coburn blocked the measure in December “citing cost concerns,” but supporters “say extra funds aren’t necessary to consolidate and improve the Department of Veterans Affairs’ suicide prevention programs,” and they “expect the bill to get another shot at final passage in the Senate in the coming days.”

Related Links:

— “Bill to prevent vets’ suicides raises questions about funding,” Lindsay Wise, McClatchy, January 23, 2015.

The New York Times (1/22, A14, Carey, Subscription Publication) reports that research (1/22) published online Jan. 21 in Nature suggests that “the surge of emotion that makes memories of embarrassment, triumph and disappointment so vivid can also reach back in time, strengthening recall of seemingly mundane things that happened just beforehand and that, in retrospect, are relevant.”

NBC News (1/22, Fox) reports on its website that “the findings…suggest there could be a good way to improve peoples’ memories – perhaps people who are beginning to forget things, like early Alzheimer’s patients, says” Lila Davachi, “who oversaw the experiments.”

Fox News (1/22) reports on its website that the investigators “agreed that the study’s results prove the memory system is highly adaptive and more complex than previously thought.”

Related Links:

— “How the Brain Stores Trivial Memories, Just in Case,” Benedict Carey, New York Times, January 21, 2015.