Healio (12/27, Oldt) reports post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) “was common among women receiving mindfulness therapy for depression at an urban federally qualified health center, suggesting an association between trauma and residing in a disadvantaged neighborhood,” researchers found after assessing “72 women receiving a mindfulness-based intervention for depression at an urban federally qualified health center.” The findings were published online Dec. 6 in the Journal of Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities.

Related Links:

— “Study Suggests link between violence, depression, PSTD,”Amanda Oldt, Healio, December 27, 2016.

The Boston Globe (12/27, Fernandes) reports that “the US job exodus parallels an increase in suicides,” research suggests. In fact “a one percentage point increase in unemployment correlated with an 11 percent increase in suicides, according to Peter Schott, a Yale University economist who coauthored the report with Justin Pierce, a researcher at the Federal Reserve Board.” The study authors theorize that “workers who lost their jobs may have been pushed over the edge and turned to suicide or drug addiction, lacking financial resources or community connections to get help.”

Related Links:

— “As jobs left the US, suicides rose,” Deirdre Fernandes, The Boston Globe, December 27, 2016.

Healio (12/22, Oldt) reported that two or more of certain behaviors may predict “suicide attempts in public transit stations, suggesting that observing” closed-circuit television (CCTV) “monitors may identify individuals at risk for attempting suicide.” Behaviors that may predict suicide attempts include “leaving objects on the platform, frequently looking down the tunnel, standing for long periods of time on the yellow line or continually walking on the yellow line, looking physically agitated, staring at the tracks or the tunnel for long periods of time and seeming depressed.” The findings, which pooled the results of two small studies, were published online Dec. 15 in BMC Public Health.

Related Links:

— “CCTV may identify individuals at risk suicide,”Amanda Oldt, Healio, December 22, 2016.

NPR (12/21, Hamilton) reports that a study published in Neurology suggests that “sleep quality and brain function improved in tandem” for patients “hospitalized for moderate to severe traumatic brain injuries.” According to NPR, “the results raise the possibility that patients with brain injuries might recover more quickly if hospitals took steps to restore normal sleep patterns.”

Related Links:

— “As Sleep Improves, So Does An Injured Brain,”Jon Hamilton, NPR, December 21, 2016.

The Boston Globe (12/21, Freyer) reports the “brain abnormalities that cause dyslexia may be deeper and more pervasive than previously thought,” according to a new study published in the journal Neuron. Researchers found that “neural adaptation was reduced” in people with dyslexia “even in tasks unrelated to reading, suggesting that dyslexia affects many brain regions, not just those involved with language.”

HealthDay (12/21, Norton) reports the researchers used brain imaging technology and found that adults and children with dyslexia demonstrated “less ability to ‘adapt’ to sensory information,” not just written words, compared to people without dyslexia.

Related Links:

— “Study suggests dyslexics suffer from less brain plasticity,”Felice J. Freyer, The Boston Globe, December 21, 2016.