Bath salts, white crystals that resemble legal bathing products such as epsom salts, is the informal “street name” for a family of designer drugs often containing substituted cathinones, which have effects similar to amphetamine and cocaine.Park Hills Police Det. Mike Kurtz says Rikki Lynn Duncan Shibley was allegedly under the influence bath salts Thursday and attacked another woman with a hammer. Kurtz says Shibley told police that she had snorted bath salts and had to kill her boyfriend’s mother or she would be killed by a group of shadow people. – Published: September 15, 2012Authorities suspect the Doylestown man [Richard Cimino Jr., 20] who allegedly gnawed on a woman’s head in Hawley after stripping his clothes and jumping from a second-story window on Friday may have been
Category: mental health
Early Emotional Neglect May Predict Strokes
New research conducted by the Rush Alzheimer’s Disease Center at Rush University Medical Center suggests that emotionally neglected children are at risk of stroke as adults. “Studies have shown that children who were neglected emotionally in childhood are at an increased risk of a slew of psychiatric disorders. However, our study is one of few that looked at an association between emotional neglect and stroke,” said study author Robert S. Wilson, PhD, a neuropsychologist at Rush.Researchers’ selected 1,040 participants aged 55+ without dementia from the Memory and Aging Project were surveyed on physical and emotional abuse before the age of 18. Participants were questioned on such areas as how much love they felt from their parents or caregivers as children, whether they felt afraid or intimidated by
Drug Can Block Addiction to Morphine and Heroin
An international team of scientists from the Universityof Adelaide and the University of Coloradohave uncovered a drug that will block addiction to morphine and heroin without affecting pain relief. “Our studies have shown conclusively that we can block addiction via the immune system of the brain, without targeting the brain’s wiring,” says the lead author of the study, Dr Mark Hutchinson, ARC Research Fellow in the University of Adelaide’s School of Medical Sciences. Basically, researchers have discovered that the drug (+)-naloxone (pronounced: PLUS nal-OX-own), created by Dr. Kenner Rice in the 1970s, selectively blocks the immune-addiction response to prevent cravings. The drug is a variant of naloxone, which is an opioid inverse antagonist used to counter the effects of opiate overdose, specifically
A Simple Blood Test for Alzheimer’s Disease on the Horizon
William Hu, MD, PhD, assistant professor of neurology at Emory University School of Medicine and collaborators at the Universityof Pennsylvania and Washington University, St. Louis are getting closer to uncovering an in inexpensive and very convenient test for Alzheimer’s disease. This type of test has been studied for several years; however reliability of results and an inability to replicate the same results have prevented such a test from being discovered. Now, scientists have finally found a group of markers that hold up in statistical analyses in three independent groups of patients.Basically, they measured the levels of 190 proteins in the blood of 600 participants. The subjects studied included healthy volunteers and individuals that had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease or mild cognitive impairment (MCI). “A subset of the 190
New Scale Measures Facebook Addiction
With devices like smartphones and ipads, accessing social media sites has become increasing effortless. However, such convenience could lead to an addiction to sites like Facebook. To determine this, researchers from Norway developed the Bergen Facebook Addiction Scale, which was tested on 227 female and 196 male students in January 2011.Doctor of Psychology Cecilie Schou Andreassen, lead researcher in the “Facebook Addiction” study claims that this is the first of its kind in relation to social media.According to Andreassen, Facebook addiction “occurs more regularly among younger than older users. We have also found that people who are anxious and socially insecure use Facebook more than those with lower scores on those traits, probably because those who are anxious find it easier to communicate via social media than face-
A Few Red Potato Chips Can Trick The Mind And Reduce Snacking
Researchers of Cornell’s Food and Brand Lab may have uncovered a way to stop snacking once a serving size has been reached. Basically, a red potato chip is used as a marker and subconscious stop sign.Brian Wansink, the John Dyson Professor of Consumer Behavior and author of the best-seller “Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think,” alongside psychologists Andrew Geier of Yale University and Paul Rozin of the University of Pennsylvania studied 98 college students divided amongst 2 groups. Both groups watched video clips while snacking on Lays Stackables; however one of the groups ate from containers where a certain number of chips were dyed red. First, researchers placed a red chip at ever 7 or 14 chips to represent 1 or 2 servings respectively. On the second
Oxytocin May Effectively Treat Autism Spectrum Disorder
A research team at Yale School of Medicine, which includes postdoctoral fellow Ilanit Gordon and Kevin Pelphrey, the Harris Associate Professor of Child Psychiatry and Psychology, have discovered that oxytocin increases function in specific regions of the brain associated with processing social information in children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorders (ASD).”Our findings provide the first, critical steps toward devising more effective treatments for the core social deficits in autism, which may involve a combination of clinical interventions with an administration of oxytocin,” said Gordon. “Such a treatment approach will fundamentally improve our understanding of autism and its treatment.”Autism spectrum disorder describes a range of conditions classified as pervasive developmental disorders in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). These include autism,
Obesity During Pregnancy May Increase Risk of Autism
In recent news, it has been reported by the University of California Davis MIND (Medical Investigation of Neurodevelopmental Disorders) Institute that obese pregnant women are at higher risk of bearing children with autism than their healthy-weight counterparts.“Autism is a disorder of neural development characterized by impaired social interaction and communication, and by restricted and repetitive behavior. For a diagnosis to be made, symptoms must become apparent before a child is three years old. Autism affects information processing in the brain by altering how nerve cells and their synapses connect and organize; how this occurs is not well understood. It is one of three recognized disorders in the autism spectrum (ASDs), the other two being Asperger syndrome, which lacks delays in cognitive development and language, and
Younger Classmates More Likely To Be Diagnosed With ADHD
Scientists at the University of British Columbia have released a study, which suggests that the youngest kids in a classroom are those that are most likely to be taking medication to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.“The study of almost one million B.C. schoolchildren ages six to 12 during an 11-year period found those born in December were 39{c754d8f4a6af077a182a96e5a5e47e38ce50ff83c235579d09299c097124e52d} more likely to be diagnosed with ADHD and 48{c754d8f4a6af077a182a96e5a5e47e38ce50ff83c235579d09299c097124e52d} more likely to be medicated than those born in January.”However, researchers question whether these children have been diagnosed accurately or whether doctors may have confounded the fact that these kids are merely less mature and academically or athletically inclined due to the simple fact that they have not had those extra few months to develop as much as
Ontario Attempts To Combat Oxycontin Addiction
Ontario’s recent decision to eliminate oxycontin and delist its replacement, oxyneo, from the Ontario Drug Benefit program sends a powerful message across the province; that something needs to be done about this epidemic addiction to prescription painkillers.Oxyneo is a tablet that is purposely difficult to crush and forms into a thick gel when added to liquid to prevent oxycodone from being extracted for use by injection.Basically, oxycontin will no longer be manufactured in Canada and it will be replaced with a new formulation called oxyneo by the end of February 2012. Additionally, the Ontario Drug Benefit program will not list oxyneo in their formulary; therefore no coverage will exist for those using this program to fund their habit. Dr. Irfan Dhalla of Toronto’s St. Michael’s Hospital
Choking Game Hazardous Among Teens
The Crime Victims’ Institute at Sam Houston State University found that roughly 1 of every 7 college students surveyed at a Texas University have deliberately cut blood flow to the brain by choking themselves or by being choked by others in order to experience a brief euphoric high.“The Choking Game, also known as the Fainting Game, Pass Out, or Space Monkey, is played individually or in groups and involves manually choking oneself or others, applying a ligature around the neck or a plastic bag over the head, placing heavy objects on the chest, or hyperventilating to attain a euphoric feeling. This practice has led to several suffocation deaths in Texas and across the country.”Researchers surveyed 837 students in an attempt to find out more about the type of