(Brain) sex matters

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Paris Lalousis reviews a recent study that looks into the differences in brain connectivity between males and females, which suggests a potential sex-based divergence in the neurobiological underpinnings of psychiatric disorders.

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“I’m always going to be tired”: fatigue in adolescent depression

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Georgia Kemp reflects on a recent qualitative paper that looks at adolescents’ personal accounts of fatigue as a symptom in depression.

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Will it hurt? Chronic pain and psychological functioning

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Kirsten Lawson examines a recent meta-analysis of psychological functioning in people living with chronic pain. She discovers that anxiety is more common than depression in people with chronic pain and that practitioners should prioritise psychological functioning when caring for patients suffering from chronic pain.

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Internet-based CBT for chronic somatic conditions: problematic meta-analysis offers an overly enthusiastic appraisal

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Ioana Cristea critically reviews a recent meta-analysis of Internet-based CBT for patients with chronic somatic conditions. She concludes that the review authors are offering an overly positive interpretation of their results, and that we need more high quality studies before we can recommend online cognitive behaviour therapy for this population.

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Mental disorders after critical illness: depression, PTSD and functional disability in survivors of intensive care

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The BRAIN-ICU prospective cohort study published in the Lancet Respiratory Medicine looks at mental health outcomes and functional disabilities in a general ICU population. It explores the hypothesis that depressive symptoms after discharge are more often somatic (i.e. bodily complaints) than cognitive-affective (i.e. thought-related and mood-related complaints).

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