Treating Bipolar Disorder Across the Lifespan: What Does the Best Available Evidence Tell Us?
Bipolar disorder presents clinicians with an unusual treatment challenge: the same diagnosis can require fundamentally different treatment strategies at different moments in a patient’s life. A medication that is effective during acute mania may not be the best treatment for…
When a Young Person With Down Syndrome Suddenly Changes: Recognizing Regression, Catatonia, and the Potential Role of ECT
For families of people with Down syndrome, a sudden loss of previously acquired abilities can be frightening and confusing. A young person who had been socially engaged and relatively independent may begin withdrawing from family and school. Speech may diminish….
Treat to Sedation: Making ECT Accessible for Patients With Autism, Intellectual Disability, and Hyperactive Catatonia
When the Treatment Is Effective, but Getting to Treatment Is the Challenge Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) can be a critical treatment for severe catatonia. But in some patients, one of the greatest challenges is not deciding whether to use ECT; it…
Depression and Epilepsy: Why the Brain Does Not Respect the Boundary Between Psychiatry and Neurology
Depression and epilepsy have traditionally been treated as conditions belonging to different areas of medicine. Epilepsy is managed primarily within neurology, while depression is generally considered the domain of psychiatry. Biology, however, does not follow the organizational boundaries of medical…
SAINT® TMS for Bipolar Depression: Can Personalized, Accelerated Neuromodulation Change the Brain and Depression?
Bipolar Depression Remains a Major Therapeutic Challenge When people think about bipolar disorder, mania often receives much of the attention. Yet for many patients, depression represents the dominant burden of the illness. People with bipolar disorder spend substantially more time…
From Dysbiosis to Metabolic Vulnerability: Rethinking the Gut-Brain Connection in Depression
The Gut-Brain Connection Is More Complicated Than We Thought Over the past decade, the gut microbiome has become one of the most intriguing areas of research on depression. Studies have repeatedly asked whether people with major depressive disorder (MDD) have…
Depression in Neurodegenerative Disease: Why Precision Psychiatry May Transform Care
Depression in Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s Disease: An Unmet Clinical Need Depression is among the most common and disabling complications of neurodegenerative disorders. Nearly 42% of patients with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and 35% of those with Parkinson’s disease (PD) experience clinically…
Can Vagus Nerve Stimulation Reduce Suicidal Thoughts in Treatment-Resistant Depression? New Evidence from the RECOVER Trial
Hope Beyond Symptom Reduction For patients living with treatment-resistant depression (TRD), the burden extends far beyond persistent sadness. Many struggle with chronic suicidal thoughts, profound functional impairment, and years of unsuccessful treatments. While several therapies—including electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) and ketamine—can…
Psychedelic Therapies for Treatment-Resistant Depression: Are We Entering a New Era?
A New Chapter in the Treatment of Depression Few areas of psychiatry have evolved as rapidly over the past decade as the treatment of treatment-resistant depression (TRD). Once limited primarily to medication switches and electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), clinicians now have…
Electroconvulsive Therapy and Precision Psychiatry: Lessons from a Rare Genetic Form of Treatment-Resistant Schizophrenia
When Precision Psychiatry Meets Electroconvulsive Therapy Precision psychiatry is often discussed in the context of biomarkers, artificial intelligence, and genomics. Yet, in daily clinical practice, we still rarely tailor psychiatric treatments based on an individual’s genetic diagnosis. A recent Lancet…