Blood tests for mental health problems | Eiko Fried

Eiko Fried (@eikofried.bsky.social)

Professor of Mental Health & Data Science at Leiden University. Studying mental health problems as systems (http://eiko-fried.com). Building an early warning system for depression (http://WARN-D.com).

[Article] The complex lived experience of schizophrenia diagnosis: a thematic analysis of online forum posts

109K subscribers in the schizophrenia community. Welcome! This is a community meant for a discussion of schizophrenia spectrum disorders, and related…

OpenAI shares data on ChatGPT users with suicidal thoughts, psychosis

The figure could mean potentially hundreds of thousands of users show signs of mental health distress weekly.

Retraction Note: The complex lived experience of schizophrenia diagnosis: a thematic analysis of online forum posts

Current Psychology -

Madness and Enterprise: Psychiatry, Economic Reason, and the Emergence of Pathological Value

Uncovers a powerful relationship between pathology and money: beginning in the nineteenth century, the severity of mental illness was measured against a patient’s economic productivity.  Madness and Enterprise reveals the economic norms embedded within psychiatric thinking about mental illness in the North Atlantic world. Over the course of the nineteenth century, various forms of madness were subjected to a style of psychiatric reasoning that was preoccupied with money. Psychiatrists across Western Europe and the United States attributed financial and even moral value to an array of pathological conditions, such that some mental disorders were seen as financial assets and others as economic liabilities. By turning to economic conduct and asking whether potential patients appeared capable of managing their financial affairs or even generating wealth, psychiatrists could often bypass diagnostic uncertainties about a person’s mental state. Through an exploration of the intertwined histories of psychiatry and economic thought, Nima Bassiri shows how this relationship transformed the very idea of value in the modern North Atlantic, as the most common forms of social valuation—moral value, medical value, and economic value—were rendered equivalent and interchangeable. If what was good and what was healthy were increasingly conflated with what was remunerative (and vice versa), then a conceptual space opened through which madness itself could be converted into an economic form and subsequently redeemed—and even revered.

Psychiatry at the Margins | Awais Aftab | Substack

Exploring critical, philosophical, and scientific debates in psychiatric practice and the psy-sciences. Click to read Psychiatry at the Margins, by Awais Aftab, a Substack publication with tens of thousands of subscribers.

Positive and Negative Affect and Salivary Markers of Inflammation Among Young Adults

Emerging evidence suggests that higher circulating levels of inflammatory biomarkers in blood are associated with higher negative affect (NA) and lower positive affect (PA). To our knowledge, the unique associations between NA and PA in daily life and salivary biomarkers of inflammation have not been examined. This study examined these associations in young adults.

Do social media experiments prove a link with mental health: A methodological and meta-analytic review.

Methylphenidate and the risk of psychosis in adolescents and young adults: a population-based cohort study

Background There is a clinical concern that prescribing methylphenidate, the most common pharmacological treatment for attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), might increase the risk of psychotic events, particularly in young people with a history of psychosis. We aimed to determine whether the risk of psychotic events increases immediately after initiation of methylphenidate treatment or, in the longer term, 1 year after treatment initiation in adolescents and young adults with and without a previously diagnosed psychotic disorder. Methods In this cohort study, we used population-based observational data from the Swedish Prescribed Drug Register, the National Patient Register, and the Total Population Register, three population-based registers containing data on all individuals in Sweden, to attain data on sex, birth, death, migration, medication use, and psychotic events for all eligible participants. We screened individuals on these registers to identify those receiving methylphenidate treatment, and who were aged 12–30 years at the start of treatment, for their inclusion in the study. We used a within-individual design to compare the incidence of psychotic events in these individuals during the 12-week periods immediately before and after methylphenidate initiation. Longer term risk was assessed by comparing the incidence of psychotic events 12 weeks before methylphenidate initiation and during a 12-week period one calendar year before the initiation of methylphenidate with the incidence of these events during the 12-week period one calendar year after methylphenidate initiation. We estimated the incidence rate ratios (IRR) and 95% CIs of psychotic events after the initation of methylphenidate treatment, relative to the events before treatment, which were defined as any hospital visit (inpatient admission or outpatient attendance, based on data from the National Patient Register) because of psychosis, using the International Classification of Diseases version 10 definition. Analyses were stratified by whether the individual had a history of psychosis. Findings We searched the Swedish Prescribed Drug Register to find eligible individuals who had received methylphenidate between Jan 1, 2007 and June 30, 2012. 61 814 individuals were screened, of whom 23 898 (38·7%) individuals were assessed and 37 916 (61·3%) were excluded from the study because they were outside of the age criteria at the start of treatment, they had immigrated, emigrated, or died during the study period, or because they were administered other ADHD medications. The median age at methylphenidate initiation was 17 years, and a history of psychosis was reported in 479 (2·0%) participants. The IRR of psychotic events in the 12-week period after initiation of methylphenidate treatment relative to that in the 12-week period before treatment start was 1·04 (95% CI 0·80–1·34) in adolescents and young adults without a history of psychosis and 0·95 (0·69–1·30) among those with a history of psychosis. Interpretation Contrary to clinical concerns, we found no evidence that initiation of methylphenidate treatment increases the risk of psychotic events in adolescents and young adults, including in those individuals with a history of psychosis. Our study should reassure clinicians considering initiating methylphenidate treatment for ADHD in adolescents and young adults, and it challenges the widely held view in clinical practice that methylphenidate should be avoided, or its use restricted, in individuals with a history of psychosis. Funding Swedish Research Council, National Institute of Mental Health, UK National Institute of Health Research Nottingham Biomedical Research Centre.

Leading Innovation in Psychiatric Treatment | Alto Neuroscience

We leverage brain biology to develop personalized medicines, helping patients get better faster.

Who Gets to Define Human Suffering?

As psychiatry concedes long-standing criticisms of diagnosis, a deeper question emerges: What now justifies its authority over human suffering?