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The study, published May 3 in  Scientific Reports , also uncovered antidepressant effects for three other drugs typically used for other purposes -- Botox, the pain reliever diclofenac and the antibiotic minocycline. "Current FDA-approved treatments for depression fail for millions of people because they don't work or don't work fast enough," said senior author Ruben Abagyan, PhD, professor of pharmacy. "This study extends small-scale clinical evidence that ketamine can be used to alleviate depression, and provides needed solid statistical support for wider clinical applications and possibly larger scale clinical trials." Abagyan led the study with pharmacy students Isaac Cohen and Tigran Makunts, and Rabia Atayee, PharmD, associate professor of clinical pharmacy, all at Skaggs School of Pharmacy. The FAERS database contains more than 8 million patient records. The research team focused on patients in the database who received ketamine, narrowing the...

"Also, on days at-risk adolescents use technology more, they experience more conduct problems and higher ADHD symptoms compared to days they use technology less," said Madeleine J. George, a Duke Ph.D. candidate and the lead author of the study. However, the study also found that using technology was linked to some positive outcomes: On days when adolescents spent more time using digital technologies they were less likely to report symptoms of depression and anxiety. The research, published May 3 in a special issue of  Child Development , looks at associations between adolescents' mental health symptoms and how much time they spent each day texting, using social media and using the Internet. For the study, 151 young adolescents completed surveys on smartphones about their daily digital technology use. They were surveyed three times a day for a month and were assessed for mental health symptoms 18 months later. The youth participating were between 11 and 15 years o...

Researchers will present the abstract, "Understanding teen expression of sadness in primary care: A qualitative exploration" on Sunday, May 7, at the Moscone West Convention Center. For the study, they analyzed a sample of screening interviews with 369 teens ages 13 and 18 at risk for depression who participated in the Promoting Adolescent Health Study (PATH), a large, randomized control trial funded by the National Institutes of Mental Health . "Much of what a teen is feeling and experiencing is easy to attribute to the ups and downs of teen angst," said abstract co-author Daniela DeFrino, PhD, RN, an assistant professor of research in the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine and College of Nursing. "But, sometimes, there is so much more under the surface that can lead to depression," she said. For the PATH study, adolescents who reported feeling down irritable or hopeless during the past two weeks in private, written responses to t...