Mental Health

Effects of TM practice on trait anxiety: A meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials
A new meta-analysis published today in the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine (2013;19(10):1-12)1 found the Transcendental Meditation® technique (TM) has a large effect on reducing trait anxiety for people with high anxiety. Trait anxiety is a measure of how anxious a person usually is, as opposed to state anxiety, which refers to how anxious we are at the moment. A meta-analysis is an objective means to draw conclusions from all the research in a field. Eurekalert!

Genes predispose some people to focus on the negative
The gene in question is the ADRA2b deletion variant, which influences the hormone and neurotransmitter norepinephrine. Previously found to play a role in the formation of emotional memories, the new study shows that the ADRA2b deletion variant also plays a role in real-time perception. University of British Columbia

Suicidal talk on Twitter mirrors state suicide rates
They found 37,717 genuinely troubling tweets from 28,088 unique users for whom some location information was available. As they report in the journal Crisis, each state’s ratio of suicidal tweets strongly correlated with its actual suicide rate. Brigham Young University

Depression in newly diagnosed PD patients linked to reduced striatal dopamine synthesis
One hypothesis is that depression in PD may reflect impaired striatal dopamine function, but previous investigations have produced contradictory results. By scanning the brains of newly diagnosed patients not yet taking PD medications, Finnish investigators have shown that the level of depression is inversely related to the ability to synthesize dopamine in the striatum and the effect is seen only in the left striatum. Their results are published in the latest issue of the Journal of Parkinson's Disease. Eurekalert!