Kermit Cole

Researchers from Taiwan and the United States find, in a study of 1,752 inner-city infants born between 1960 and 1965 (the Johns Hopkins Pathways to Adulthood Study), a significant association between unsupportive maternal behavior at eight months and subsequent adult mental health. Results appear in Comprehensive Psychiatry.

“Parachute NYC: an alternative approach to mental health treatment and crisis services” has been awarded $17,608,085 to fund “a need-adapted treatment model (NATM) intervention for Medicaid beneficiaries and other people with serious mental illness who have a diagnosis of psychosis … the program will use peer health navigators, nurse practitioners, mobile crisis teams, and crisis respite centers to provide early engagement, continuity of care and combined peer and professional community service thus shifting the focus of care from crisis intervention to long-term, community-integrated treatment with access to primary care, improving crisis management and reducing emergency room visits and hospital admissions.”

Canadian researchers found that childhood adversity and other environmental factors such as family instability and cannabis use was associated with the development of schizophrenia, independent of genetic risk. The results are published in the March issue of

Nature reports on U.C.S.F. emeritus professor Michael Merzenich’s bid for F.D.A. approval for computer games that aim to succeed at treating schizophrenia “where modern medicine has largely failed.” Merzenich’s project builds on his successes with interventions targeting brain neuroplasticity, and research showing the positive results of cognitive remediation in schizophrenia through computer training.

Calaveras County, CA is being honored for a novel hospital diversion program. By giving cell phones programmed to reach key supporters to repeat users of psychiatric services, the county has reduced the number of re-hospitalizations. “This little phone right here has been my lifeline,” says one user, adding that thanks to his ability to connect with people he trusts, he hasn’t been hospitalized for three years.

Although extensive research links spanking to behavior problems, parents who spank often believe it is the way to be an effective parent. Research from Southern Methodist University finds that very brief summaries of the research, significantly decreased parents’ positive attitudes toward corporal punishment. To the researchers’ surprise, the effect was the same whether the information was presented within and active learning paradigm, or presented passively. Results appeared in Child Abuse & Neglect.

Researchers in Australia and the U.K. found that a basic disruption of the sense of ownership of one’s experience and a lack of self-agency differentiated 49 patients at “ultra high risk” for psychosis from 52 matched healthy controls. This finding, the researchers say, is of both diagnostic and theoretical value, “shedding light on core phenotypic features of schizophrenia spectrum pathology.:”

Researchers at the University of Maryland investigated “the emotion paradox” in schizophrenia; the tendency of individuals with schizophrenia to report similar levels of positive emotion when reporting on current feelings, but lower levels when reporting on noncurrent feelings. Reviewing the empirical literature on anhedonia and emotional experience, they propose that anhedonia in schizophrenia should no longer be considered to represent a deficit or a diminished capacity for pleasure, but rather a set of beliefs related to pleasure that are reflected in response to questions about noncurrent feelings, and which are resistant to real-world experiences. Results will be in an upcoming

Researchers in Norway and Denmark found that in a sample of 186 first-episode psychosis patients followed for 10 years, flat affect was more “fluctuant” than indicated in the relevant literature, but was associated with poorer outcome, especially in those with “enduring” flat affect. Results appeared online May 23 in Schizophrenia Research.

Researchers in Canada, The United States, and Israel found in a retrospective study of 414 first admissions for psychosis that high baseline score of hopelessness reliably predicted attempted suicide 4 to 6 years later.