Mood & mental health
Ketamine beat a sedative comparison by 7 points in bipolar depression that had resisted two treatments
Ketamine's antidepressant effect is established in ordinary depression and largely untested in bipolar disorder, where the fear is tipping someone into mania. A trial of 68 patients looked for both.
Sep 8, 2026
People with a common cause of brain bleeds had 16 times the odds of possible depression
Cerebral amyloid angiopathy is known for strokes and cognitive decline. Comparing 85 patients against 83 controls found a mood signal so large it reframes what the condition does.
Sep 7, 2026
Therapy animals eased depression in older adults across 20 studies, but not loneliness
A review in the Journal of the American Medical Directors Association pooled 20 studies of live and robotic animals in older adults. Depression and thinking scores improved. Anxiety and loneliness did not move.
Aug 26, 2026
Digital self-help cut anxiety and depression in chronic illness, coach or no coach
A PLoS Medicine trial randomized 825 adults with chronic conditions across 13 countries to a digital program with human support, the same program self-directed, or a waitlist. Both versions beat usual care, and they matched each other.
Aug 26, 2026
Slow yoga breathing helped anxiety on top of usual psychiatric care in 150 patients
150 people with diagnosed anxiety got routine psychiatric care, half of them plus eight weeks of slow yoga breathing. The breathing group improved on anxiety scores and cortisol. The comparison group added nothing at all.
Aug 24, 2026
PlaySmart video game nudged teen depression scores down a point over a year
Dartmouth researchers gave 532 teenagers either PlaySmart, a game about spotting depression and asking for help, or commercial games. A year on, the PlaySmart group scored a point lower for depression. Anxiety did not move.
Aug 19, 2026
Binaural beats did not calm dental anxiety in a trial
Ninety people having a wisdom tooth removed were randomized to binaural beats, isochronic tones, or silence. The anxiety scores came out the same in all three groups. Most still said they would want the audio again.
Aug 18, 2026
Acceptance skills added nothing to mindfulness training in a trial of 392 people
392 people were randomized to 14 days of online mindfulness training with acceptance skills, monitoring skills only, or a waiting list. Both training groups beat the waiting list. Neither beat the other.
Aug 18, 2026
Psilocybin beat placebo in the first NHS-funded trial
King's College London randomized 60 people with treatment-resistant depression to a single 25mg dose or a true placebo, both with psychological support. Depression scores fell further on psilocybin. The trial was built to test feasibility.
Aug 9, 2026
Self-guided therapy beat clinician sessions for chronic pain
A JAMA trial randomized 764 veterans with chronic musculoskeletal pain to a self-directed program with recorded coach feedback or to therapy with a clinician. The self-directed group did better at four months and at twelve.
Aug 8, 2026
St Johns wort: uses, evidence, dosing and safety
The one herbal with real antidepressant evidence, and the one with the most dangerous interaction profile. It can make prescription medicines stop working, including contraceptives and transplant drugs.
Aug 5, 2026
Swinging mood predicted dementia better than low mood
Following 11,951 older adults for up to 19 years, researchers found that fluctuating depressive symptoms predicted later cognitive impairment better than how depressed someone was at any single visit.
Aug 4, 2026
Thinking your smell has faded tracked depression best
Pooling 187,056 people across 23 studies, researchers in JAMA Otolaryngology found that people who felt their sense of smell had declined were more likely to be depressed, while measured smell loss showed a weaker and less stable link.
Aug 3, 2026
Likes drove more posting in people with depression
Analysing 17 million posts from 7,736 Twitter users, researchers in JAMA Psychiatry found people with depression were more strongly reinforced by likes, the opposite of what laboratory reward tests usually show.
Aug 3, 2026
The IBS hypnotherapy app lost to a human, but not to nothing
A Gut trial randomized 230 people with IBS to a therapist, an app or psychoeducation. The app failed its non-inferiority test against the therapist and still beat the control.
Jul 29, 2026
Mental illness before 35 tracked with dementia after 50
A Molecular Psychiatry study of 2.5 million Swedes compared siblings and found the dementia link runs through a general vulnerability to psychiatric illness, not any one diagnosis.
Jul 28, 2026
Babies born under sugar rationing had less depression
A Molecular Psychiatry study used the end of UK wartime sugar rationing as a natural experiment and found people exposed as infants had 17% lower depression risk decades later.
Jul 28, 2026
Severe mental illness carries 2.6 times the death rate
A Lancet Public Health study of 4.86 million people across five European countries found heart disease drives the most excess deaths in severe mental illness, but lung disease shows the widest gap.
Jul 27, 2026
Nearly 4 in 10 dementia cases tied to modifiable risk factors
A Lancet Public Health study of 1.75 million Danes put 37.8% of dementia down to 16 modifiable risk factors, with infections and depression topping the list, not the usual suspects.
Jul 26, 2026
Ultra-processed food tied to more depression in over-70s
A Molecular Psychiatry analysis of 7,220 older adults found high ultra-processed food intake tracked with more depressive symptoms, and genetic risk made no difference either way.
Jul 26, 2026
Pramipexole eased depression's loss of pleasure in a trial
In a Swedish trial, 85 adults whose depression came with a marked loss of pleasure added the Parkinson's drug pramipexole or a placebo to usual treatment. It eased that symptom for six months. The drug is used off-label here, not approved.
Jul 24, 2026