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.”

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— “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)