The latest data reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shows that the rate of U.S. suicide has been increasing since 2000, with 2009 marking the highest number of suicides in 15 years.
The CDC report showed that between 2008 and 2009, the suicide rate increased 2.4 percent, with 36,909 suicide deaths reported nationally. In August 2011, a report from the CDC showed that in 2008, 13.4 percent of people who committed suicide had experienced job and financial problems. The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, an emergency crisis hotline reported a 14 percent increase in call volume between 2010 and 2011. The CDC’s thus recommended increasing counseling, job placement and financial services that can help reduce the mental distress that can increase suicide risk.
“The recent increase in suicide, whether heightened by economic strain or other social triggers, signifies the need for education and training on understanding and preventing suicide,” said Dr. Lisa Firestone, Director of Research and Education at The Glendon Association and Violence and Suicide Prevention Alliance. “The suicidal state is both preventable and treatable. Services and education have been proven to save lives. Armed with the right tools to identify the warning signs and implement helper tasks, we can fight this crisis.”
Michael Gazzaniga, one of the world’s leading researchers in cognitive neuroscience, describes the mystery of free will. Whether you are a parent, a philosopher, or the CEO of Facebook, it’s a concept that you’ll inevitably have to bang your head against — the individual right to choose what one does, what one doesn’t do, what one is exposed to.
The scientists used MRI data mapped onto an existing atlas of the mouse brain to compare the effects of drinking ethanol and water on brain volume overall and region-by-region in mice with and without dopamine D2 receptors. Alcohol-drinking mice that lacked dopamine receptors had lower overall brain volume and reduced volume in the cerebral cortex (blue) and thalamus (purple) compared with D2 receptor-deficient mice drinking water. Alcohol-drinking mice with dopamine receptors did not show these deficits in response to drinking alcohol, suggesting that dopamine receptors may be protective against the brain atrophy associated with chronic drinking.
Brain scans of two strains of mice imbibing significant quantities of alcohol reveal serious shrinkage in some brain regions — but only in mice lacking a particular type of receptor for dopamine, the brain’s “reward” chemical – but only in mice lacking a particular type of receptor for dopamine, the brain’s “reward” chemical. The study, conducted at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory and published in the May 2012 issue of Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, now online, provides new evidence that these dopamine receptors, known as DRD2, may play a protective role against alcohol-induced brain damage. [continue reading…]
New research from Perth’s Telethon Institute for Child Health Research has found that children of mums who had low levels of Vitamin D during pregnancy are twice as likely to have language difficulties.
The research, published in the latest edition of the international journal Pediatrics, is the largest study of its kind into the link between a mother’s vitamin D levels and the effect on her child’s speech and behavioural development.
The study looked at Vitamin D concentrations during the pregnancies of more than 740 women, with follow up investigations of their child’s development and behaviour at regular periods up to 17 years of age. [continue reading…]
