Daily Archive

This is a long overdue summary of recent psychology news items that I have found to be of interest.

Estrogen Relieves Psychotic Symptoms in Women With Schizophrenia – In a single double-blind study of the use of estrogen in women with severe schizophrenia, it was found that symptoms were significantly reduced compared to placebo.  This study was related to the observation that many women with schizophrenia experience a relapse of psychotic symptoms or increased psychosis during low-estrogen phases of the menstrual cycle.  This is interesting in that I have seen at least one patient who experienced psychosis ONLY during this phase.

Experimental Agent Safe, May “Dissolve” Amyloid Plaques in Mild to Moderate AD – If you have a parent, grandparent, or another relative with presumed Alzheimer’s disease, you probably know something about how devastating it can be.  One theory of Alzheimer’s disease involves the notion of a build up of beta amyloid plaques in the brain.  Apparently, this studied demonstrated the ability of an antibody to attack these plaques.  While interesting, the researchers have yet to demonstrate that this actually improves cognition and memory.  They hope this has to do with the short duration of the study, which was basically to test the safety of the drug.

Early Study Finds Increased Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma in Long-Term Users of Tricyclic Antidepressants – A recently published study showed an association between lymphoma and use of tricyclic antidepressant medication.  The authors were careful to point out, that this was just an association, and there was no proof that the medications caused lymphoma.  Tricyclic medications are an older generation of medication than the current SSRI medications.  They are sometimes used when there is no response to SSRIs, and sometimes can be used as a sleep aid (trazadone specifically).  The risk was higher with long-term use.

Sage Oil Supplements May Help Short-Term Memory – Short-term memory is commonly used to what’s referred to as recent memory.  A study found that Sage oil supplements helped people have better recall on a word-learning task.