The evolution of Deep brain stimulation (DBS) for various neuropsychiatric disorders results from advances in structural and functional brain imaging, increased understanding of neurocircuitry of the brain, and improvements in neurosurgical techniques and equipment.

Ongoing advances in functional brain imaging will permit studies on postulated roles of magnetic fields, biophotons, and macroscopic highly coherent quantum field effects on normal brain functioning and mental illness.

Clinicians tell patients that we will keep their information private and then turn around and put it into an electronic health record that can do just the opposite. . . . Putting confidential information into an electronic health record can be like putting it up on a billboard.

The Neurological Devices Panel met in February to consider the Agency’s proposal to reclassify cranial electrotherapy stimulator (CES) devices to Class III with premarket approval (PMA).

It’s a pleasure—and an honor—to welcome Dr Nada Logan Stotland to our Editorial Board.

A bill banning mental health providers from engaging in sexual orientation change efforts with patients passed the California Senate just weeks after prominent psychiatrist Robert Spitzer, MD, apologized to the gay community for his 2003 study.

There is rapidly escalating interest in drugs that target the glutamatergic neurotransmitter system, especially NMDA receptor modulators. The hope is that they will fill the large unmet need for rapid-acting antidepressant medications with efficacy in treatment-resistant patients.

“If physicians cannot control what happens to them, then it’s going to be difficult for laypersons to control what happens to them.”

Cases that come to our attention as malpractice claims, ethics claims, or Board of Registration complaints raise the question: why did the treating clinician not terminate the treatment before things got so out of hand?

Gallo and colleagues reported that most physicians completed an advance directive (AD) following enactment of the Patient Self-Determination Act of 1990, which required most health care facilities to inform adult patients about their right to execute an AD.

Prejudice is a net that ensnares not only those who suffer from severe psychiatric illness, but also many of us who care for individuals with bipolar and other disorders.

Despite its occurrence in up to 3.4% of adults, hair–pulling disorder or trichotillomania (TTM) is often under-diagnosed and inappropriately treated, according to a panel of experts presenting at the recent APA meeting.

Funding for mental health services has never achieved top legislative priority, and reforms requiring parity succeeded only after years of hard-fought battles.

In a recent interview on 60 Minutes, Harvard psychologist Irving Kirsch, PhD, commented, “the difference between the effect of a placebo and the effect of an antidepressant is minimal for most people.”

Much could be gained if an agreed minimum set of appropriate and important outcomes was measured and reported in all clinical trials in a particular area.

Charles Dickens might well say of American psychiatry, “These are the best of times and the worst of times.”

Like all other sectors of government, state mental health budgets will be slow to recover and will be shaped by current policy priorities and litigation mandates imposed in multiple states.

A new study examining conventional “start low, go slow” nutrition replenishment protocols for hospitalized patients with anorexia nervosa (AN) that have been recommended by professional organizations and it's outcomes.

The evidence suggests that cannabis is associated with an increased risk of psychosis when it is used frequently.

It would seem that the fluctuating boundaries of many mental disorders will continue to be debated until we devote sufficient time and attention to developing improved, scientifically valid and reliable methods of testing and effectively treating mental disease.