The National Institute on Drug Abuse at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded a highly prestigious Career Development Award to Naomi Marmorstein, an associate professor of psychology at Rutgers-Camden, who will use the $649,503 grant to further her intensive research on how children’s anxiety and depression may be associated with substance abuse throughout adulthood.

One of the unique characteristics of humans that distinguish us from the animal kingdom is the ability to represent others’ beliefs in our own minds. This sort of intuitive mind-reading, according to experts, lays the cognitive foundations of interpersonal understanding and communication.

Aging adults may joke about memory lapses and “early Alzheimer’s.” They may worry when they can’t understand a drug plan or lose track of the characters in a novel.

Prolonged periods of deployment among Britain’s armed forces is associated with mental health problems, finds a study published on bmj.com today.

An examination of usage of publicly sponsored mental health services by Spanish-speaking Latinos in San Diego revealed significant differences from use patterns by either English-speaking Latinos or Caucasians.

A variation in a gene called GRIK4 appears to make people with depression more likely to respond to the medication citalopram (Celexa) than are people without the variation, a study by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), part of the National Institutes of Health, has found.

Scientists in Britain have produced further evidence linking cannabis use to the possible development of psychosis later in life. The research, published in the medical journal The Lancet, indicates that although the risk remains low, users of cannabis are 40 per cent more likely to develop conditions such as schizophrenia.

Obese girls are half as likely to attend college as non-obese girls, according to a new study from The University of Texas at Austin.

During APsaA's recent annual meeting held in Denver from June 20-24, the members of the association issued a positions statement, “When the War Comes Home”, regarding the mental health care needs of veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars.

Scientists are investigating whether being exposed to viruses during pregnancy could increase the risk of children developing mental illnesses as they get older.

Children with Tourette’s syndrome may have to put up with some unwanted movement and verbal tics, but neuroscientists at Georgetown University Medical Center and the Kennedy Krieger Institute have found that they are much quicker at processing certain mental grammar skills than are children without the disorder.

Health plans seldom require screening for substance abuse and mental health in primary care even though it can improve detection, according to a new Brandeis University study published in the July issue of the Journal of General Internal Medicine. This may be a missed opportunity to help people with mental illness or substance abuse problems, only a fraction of whom currently receive treatment.