he NPR (10/16, Hamilton) “Shots” blog reports, “Researchers at the Society for Neuroscience meeting in New Orleans presented studies showing how stress caused by everything from battlefield trauma to bullying can alter brain circuitry in ways that have long-term effects on mental health.” For example, “one way traumatic events appear to cause depression is by inhibiting the brain’s so-called reward system.” Yet “another way stress affects mental health is by releasing chemicals that impair the function of the prefrontal cortex, which is where higher level thought takes place,” another study found.

Related Links:

— “Brain Scientists Uncover New Links Between Stress And Depression, “Jon Hamilton, NPR, Ocober 15, 2012.

In a special piece for the Washington Post (10/16), Paul Gionfriddo, a former Connecticut legislator who has worked for more than 30 years in the fields of health and mental health policy and the father of a son with schizophrenia, writes, “We legislators in Connecticut and many other states made a series of critical misjudgments” during the 1980s when the state emptied many of the mental hospitals. For instance, “we didn’t adequately fund community agencies to meet new demands for community mental health services — ultimately forcing our county jails to fill the void.” In addition, “we didn’t realize how important it would be to create collaborations among educators, primary-care clinicians, mental-health professionals, social-services [professionals], even members of the criminal justice system, to give people with serious mental illnesses a reasonable chance of living successfully in the community.”

Related Links:

— “My son is schizophrenic. The ‘reforms’ that I worked for have worsened his life., “Paul Gionfriddo, The Washington Post, October 15, 2012.

CQ (10/12, McGlade, Subscription Publication) reported on new laws across the country “that crack down on concussion awareness and treatment” in youth sports. The laws, passed in about 30 states and DC over the last three years, govern “what protocols must be followed when a player receives a blow to the head and what education grown ups must get to better be able to spot and prevent such injuries.” The article notes that most laws are based upon the one Washington state passed in 2009.

Poll Shows Parents Often Don’t Seek Treatment For Concussions In Children. HealthDay (10/12) reported, “only half of US adults who thought they or their children might have a concussion sought medical treatment,” according to a new survey from the American Osteopathic Association. According to the article, this finding “suggests many people do not understand the seriousness of a potential concussion.”

Study Finds Concussion Treatment Standards For College Athletics “Inconsistent.” HealthDay (10/15) reported on new research which found that “standards used to diagnose concussion in college athletes are inconsistent and require clearer definitions and better tools to make the diagnosis.” The five-year study, published Oct. 2 in the Journal of Neurosurgery, “included 450 male and female athletes who played on football and hockey teams at three major US universities: Brown University, Dartmouth College and Virginia Tech.”

Related Links:

— “Parents May Be Taking Concussion Symptoms Too Lightly: Survey, “Robert Preidt, HealthDay, October 12, 2012.

CBS’ 60 Minutes (10/14, 7:23 p.m. ET) broadcast that Veterans Affairs “tells us about 20%” of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans come home from war with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Some of those vets have gotten in trouble with the law, and this troubled Texas State District Judge Marc Carter, who is himself a veteran. Harris knew that the DeBakey VA in Houston “had plenty of empty seats in programs for PTSD and addiction.” So, in 2009, he started a veterans’ court in Harris County, Texas. The court has been successful, as have 100 similar courts in other parts of the country. As a result, 100 more such courts are in the planning stages.

On its website, KQED San Francisco (10/12) reported that the limited ability of prescription medications to treat PTSD has renewed interest in meditation, specifically “compassion meditation,” which “aims at a specific and widely held hypothesis about what is happening in the brain of someone like John Montgomery,” a Vietnam veteran. “The idea is that in combat, a switch — a fight-or-flight survival mode located in a part of the brain called the amygdala — has been turned on, and become essentially stuck. Meanwhile, another part, the frontal cortex, takes the backseat.” Studies show that repeated sessions “can increase ‘positive affect’ and ‘social connectedness,’ both of which are deficient in PTSD patients, according to a 2012 meta-analysis on the efficacy of different kinds of meditation in treating PTSD.”

Related Links:

— “Can Meditation Ease PTSD in Combat Vets?, “Amy Standen, KQED, October 12, 2012.