Mood Disorders

Dreaming takes the sting out of painful memories: study

They say time heals all wounds, and new research from the University of California, Berkeley, indicates that time spent in dream sleep can help.

Medical research created Nov 23, 2011 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (13) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Deep brain stimulation shows promising results for unipolar and bipolar depression

A new study shows that deep brain stimulation (DBS) is a safe and effective intervention for treatment-resistant depression in patients with either unipolar major depressive disorder (MDD) or bipolar ll disorder (BP). The ...

Psychology & Psychiatry created Jan 02, 2012 | popularity 4.5 / 5 (11) | comments 21 | with audio podcast

Depression could be evolutionary byproduct of immune system

Depression is common enough – afflicting one in ten adults in the United States – that it seems the possibility of depression must be "hard-wired" into our brains. This has led biologists to propose several theories ...

Psychology & Psychiatry created Mar 01, 2012 | popularity 4.2 / 5 (10) | comments 1 | with audio podcast

Study shows people view women as a collection of body parts

(Medical Xpress) -- A small group of researchers has found that true to stereotype, people really do tend to look at women as a collection of body parts, rather than as a whole person. What’s perhaps ...

Psychology & Psychiatry created Jul 25, 2012 | popularity 2.6 / 5 (16) | comments 16 | with audio podcast report

Childhood trauma leaves mark on DNA of some victims

Abused children are at high risk of anxiety and mood disorders, as traumatic experience induces lasting changes to their gene regulation. Scientists from the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry in Munich have ...

Neuroscience created Dec 02, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (8) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Control of fear in the brain decoded

When healthy people are faced with threatening situations, they react with a suitable behavioural response and do not descend into a state of either panic or indifference, as is the case, for example, with ...

Neuroscience created Sep 06, 2011 | popularity 4.9 / 5 (8) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Survey suggests family history of psychiatric disorders shapes intellectual interests

A hallmark of the individual is the cultivation of personal interests, but for some people, their intellectual pursuits might actually be genetically predetermined. Survey results published by Princeton University researchers ...

Autism spectrum disorders created Jan 26, 2012 | popularity 4.2 / 5 (9) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Potential target for treating schizophrenia found

(Medical Xpress) -- Scientists at the University of Glasgow have identified a potential target for the treatment of schizophrenia.

Medical research created May 11, 2011 | popularity 4.6 / 5 (8) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Women infected with Toxoplasma gondii have increased risk of attempting suicide: study

Women infected with the Toxoplasma gondii (T. gondii) parasite, which is spread through contact with cat feces or eating undercooked meat or unwashed vegetables, are at increased risk of attempting suicide, according to ...

Psychology & Psychiatry created Jul 02, 2012 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (6) | comments 7 | with audio podcast

Borderline personality disorder: The "perfect storm" of emotion dysregulation

Originally, the label "borderline personality disorder" was applied to patients who were thought to represent a middle ground between patients with neurotic and psychotic disorders. Increasingly, though, ...

Psychology & Psychiatry created Jan 15, 2013 | popularity 4.5 / 5 (6) | comments 0

Manipulating serotonin can promote healthy repair in chronic liver disease

(Medical Xpress) -- Publishing in the leading medical journal Nature Medicine, a team led by Newcastle University academics have identified serotonin receptors which can be targeted with drugs to enhance the natural healin ...

Medical research created Nov 28, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (5) | comments 1 | with audio podcast

Creativity and bipolar disorder are linked, but not by some mad genius

(Medical Xpress) -- Does some fine madness yield great artists, writers and scientists? The evidence is growing for a significant link between bipolar disorder and creative temperament and achievement.

Psychology & Psychiatry created Aug 21, 2012 | popularity 4.2 / 5 (6) | comments 1

More sophisticated wiring, not just bigger brain, helped humans evolve beyond chimps

Human and chimp brains look anatomically similar because both evolved from the same ancestor millions of years ago. But where does the chimp brain end and the human brain begin?

Neuroscience created Aug 22, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (5) | comments 1 | with audio podcast

Mouse research links adolescent stress and severe adult mental illness

Working with mice, Johns Hopkins researchers have established a link between elevated levels of a stress hormone in adolescence—a critical time for brain development—and genetic changes that, in young adulthood, cause ...

Neuroscience created Jan 17, 2013 | popularity 5 / 5 (5) | comments 3 | with audio podcast

Bipolar disorder: Mind-body connection suggests new directions for treatment, research

A new study by motor control and psychology researchers at Indiana University suggests that postural control problems may be a core feature of bipolar disorder, not just a random symptom, and can provide insights both into ...

Psychology & Psychiatry created May 24, 2011 | popularity 4.6 / 5 (5) | comments 3 | with audio podcast


Mood disorder is the term designating a group of diagnoses in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM IV TR) classification system where a disturbance in the person's mood is hypothesized to be the main underlying feature. The classification is known as mood (affective) disorders in ICD 10.

English psychiatrist Henry Maudsley proposed an overarching category of affective disorder. The term was then replaced by mood disorder, as the latter term refers to the underlying or longitudinal emotional state, whereas the former refers to the external expression observed by others.

Two groups of mood disorders are broadly recognized; the division is based on whether the person has ever had a manic or hypomanic episode. Thus, there are depressive disorders, of which the best-known and most researched is major depressive disorder (MDD) commonly called clinical depression or major depression, and bipolar disorder (BD), formerly known as manic depression and characterized by intermittent episodes of mania or hypomania, usually interlaced with depressive episodes.

This text uses material from Wikipedia and is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.

Latest Spotlight News

Researchers identify a potential new risk for sleep apnea: Asthma

Researchers at the University of Wisconsin have identified a potential new risk factor for obstructive sleep apnea: asthma. Using data from the National Institutes of Health (Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute)-funded Wisconsin ...

Study finds that sleep apnea and Alzheimer's are linked

A new study looking at sleep-disordered breathing (SDB) and markers for Alzheimer's disease (AD) risk in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) and neuroimaging adds to the growing body of research linking the two.

Computational tool translates complex data into simplified 2-dimensional images

In their quest to learn more about the variability of cells between and within tissues, biomedical scientists have devised tools capable of simultaneously measuring dozens of characteristics of individual ...

New theory on genesis of osteoarthritis comes with successful therapy in mice

Scientists at Johns Hopkins have turned their view of osteoarthritis (OA) inside out. Literally. Instead of seeing the painful degenerative disease as a problem primarily of the cartilage that cushions joints, ...

'Gap' for HIV vaccine efforts after latest setback

The hunt for an HIV vaccine has gobbled up $8 billion in the past decade, and the failure of the most recent efficacy trial has delivered yet another setback to 26 years of efforts.

Consuming coffee linked to lower risk of detrimental liver disease, study finds

Regular consumption of coffee is associated with a reduced risk of primary sclerosing cholangitis (PSC), an autoimmune liver disease, Mayo Clinic research shows. The findings were being presented at the Digestive Disease ...

Ketamine shows significant therapeutic benefit in people with treatment-resistant depression

Patients with treatment-resistant major depression saw dramatic improvement in their illness after treatment with ketamine, an anesthetic, according to the largest ketamine clinical trial to-date led by researchers from the ...

Returning genetic incidental findings without patient consent violates basic rights, experts say

Informed consent is the backbone of patient care. Genetic testing has long required patient consent and patients have had a "right not to know" the results. However, as 21st century medicine now begins to use the tools of ...

Vicious cycle: Obesity sustained by changes in brain biochemistry

With obesity reaching epidemic levels in some parts of the world, scientists have only begun to understand why it is such a persistent condition. A study in the Journal of Biological Chemistry adds substantially to the st ...

White matter imaging provides insight into human and chimpanzee aging

(Medical Xpress)—The instability of "white matter" in humans may contribute to greater cognitive decline during the aging of humans compared with chimpanzees, scientists from Yerkes National Primate Research ...