Top 5 breakthroughs in mental health research

1. We are learning more about the role of inflammation in depression

Researchers on the IDEA Flame project are working to understand the biological mechanisms behind depression. They have found that adolescent boys and girls with depression have different inflammation markers in their blood.

"We found that the severity of depressive symptoms was associated with increased levels of the cytokine interleukin-2 in boys, but interleukin-6 in girls. We know more adolescent girls develop depression than boys and that the disorder takes a different course depending on sex so we hope that our findings will enable us to better understand why there are these differences and ultimately help develop more targeted treatments for different biological sexes.” – Dr Zuzanna Zajkowska

You can read more about the IDEA projects findings here.

2.Researchers from McGill university in Canada have shown that chronic pain may contribute to increasing the risk of suicide.

Whilst this association has been long suspected, this MQ-funded study is the first to use large genetic and other data sets to find that chronic pain does play a significant role in increasing symptoms of depression and suicidal behaviour.

“If there is one thing to take away from this study, it is that chronic pain is a serious condition that could cause depression, and consequently, suicide attempt and/or death. This supports previous research and raises an alarm for governments to tailor care plans in chronic pain sufferers. Their mental health must be cared for in tandem with their physical conditions.” – Dr Massimiliano Orri

You can read the full paper here.

3.  A new treatment for anxiety has an economic benefit as well as a personal one.

Research from MQ and Pro Bono Economics found that a new treatment for anxiety, called LENS, could have an economic benefit as high as £2.9 Billion for society.

LENS is a new treatment developed by MQ research Dr Colette Hirsh, which consists of a training programme designed to embed effective strategies for reducing anxiety. It is delivered entirely online and has since been developed into an app. The report found that If the LENS treatment were rolled out to the 1.4 million people that might be both suffering from and likely to seek treatment for anxiety, the improved quality of life they might experience would be substantial: estimates express this as almost 40,000 QALYs, or as much as £2.9 billion in value.

You can read more here.

4. We are learning more about what works, and what doesn’t, for the treatment of psychosis.

The GALENOS project, which conducts living systematic reviews of existing research and data, has published its first review into a group of drugs called TAAR1 agonists which are being used to treat symptoms of psychosis.

GALENOS found that these new medications are actually less effective at treating psychosis than existing anti-psychotics. However they also found that they did have fewer side effects.

You can read more about this study, and the GALENOS project, here.

5. We are understanding more about how mental illnesses develop in autistic individuals

Autism is not a mental illness, however people with autism are more likely to develop a mental illness than the general population.

MQ Fellow Dr Mark Taylor has identified some of the factors that can increase this risk which include genetic predisposition, the likelihood of misdiagnosis (Especially in autistic women) and having additional diagnosis such as an intellectual disability or a physical condition such as chronic pain or hypermobility.

“We are starting to get an understanding of the factors that may cause mental health problems in autistic people. Some of these may be factors that increase the risk of mental illness in everyone, such as having a family history of mental illness and having physical illnesses. Others might be more specific to being autistic, such as being diagnosed late with autism and having an intellectual disability in addition to autism. We need to identify more of these factors, so we can make sure we offer support to those most at risk of developing mental health problems at an earlier stage.” – Dr Mark Taylor

It is only thanks to the dedication of researchers who are working to better understand different health conditions, improve treatments and develop new interventions and even working to one day prevent illnesses all together that breakthroughs like this are possible.