Monthly Archives: January 2012

In a longitudinal study of depressed and healthy preschool children who underwent neuroimaging at school age, the authors of this paper investigated whether early maternal support predicted later hippocampal volumes. Maternal support in early childhood was associated with larger hippocampal … Continue reading →

Proinflammatory cytokines have been linked to depression and interpersonal interactions are known risk factors for inducing stress and depression. In this study Chiang and coworkers examined whether daily social interactions predict levels of proinflammatory cytokines IL-6 and tumor necrosis factor-alpha … Continue reading →

The authors of this excellent review article discuss the need for a biological approach to psychiatry based on “’neurocognitive endophenotypes’, whereby changes in behavioural or cognitive processes are associated with discrete deficits in defined neural systems”. This contrasts with DSM-IV … Continue reading →

Parkinson’s disease is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder of unknown etiology in most cases. Both inflammation and gender may affect risk for Parkinson’s disease. The current study examined the -174G>C single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) in the promoter of the interleukin-6 (IL-6) … Continue reading →