From parent to child: understanding the risk of anxiety in families affected by mood disorders

Close up faces in row, diverse women smile looking at camera, little cute girl, her adult mother, mature grandmother and old great-grandmother portraits. Multi-generational family, heredity, offspring

Aslihan Baser summarises a systematic review and meta-analysis investigating the risk for developing anxiety disorders in children whose parents experience mood disorders.

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Is anxiety a gateway to other mental health problems? Comorbidities with depression and other anxiety disorders

Results from the current study largely replicated findings from the NESDA dataset in demonstrating that those with comorbid anxiety and/or depression have more severe presentations that anxiety or depression alone.

Nina Higson-Sweeney summarises a study using data from the UK-based GLAD and COPING NBR cohorts to investigate factors associated with anxiety disorder comorbidity with anxiety and depression.

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Sitting in the waiting room: what happens when anxiety disorders are left untreated?

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In her debut blog, Beth Hindhaugh summarises a systematic review and meta-analysis of 173 studies examining the untreated course of anxiety disorders, which finds that for some people, anxiety disorders can improve without treatment.

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Can brain scans tell us how successful CBT for anxiety will be? Meta-analysis of task-based fMRI studies shows promise

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Millie Lowther, Isabel Luetkenherm, Carlos Mena and Alexandra Pike summarise a recent fMRI meta-analysis, which finds that activation in brain circuits related to salience, interoception and emotional processing were found to predict a positive response to CBT in anxiety disorders.

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Youth mental health interventions: umbrella review presents efficacy and acceptability data

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In his debut blog, Nick Meader tackles a huge umbrella review of youth mental health interventions, which presents the efficacy and acceptability of 72 different approaches to help children and young people.

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Diagnostic labels: helpful or harmful?

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In her debut blog, Carla Kundert explores a systematic review which looks at how diagnostic labels affect social responses to people with mental illness.

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Understanding atypical social reward anticipation in psychopathology

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Francesca Bentivegna summarises a meta-analytic review exploring atypical social reward anticipation as a transdiagnostic characteristic of psychopathology.

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Learning to focus on smiles not frowns: challenging unhelpful attention and interpretation patterns #ActiveIngredientsMH

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Jennifer Lau summarises a recent systematic review relating to her own Wellcome Trust funded research into promoting helpful attention and interpretation patterns to reduce anxiety and depression in young people.

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Poor school attendance and anxiety: what’s the link?

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Lucinda Powell summarises a recent systematic review about the association between anxiety and poor attendance at school, which suggests links between anxiety and unexcused absences/truancy, and school refusal.

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Medical cannabis for mental illness: current use is not supported by research #MHQT

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As we prepare for our Cannabis #MHQT event on Wed 26 Sep, Luke Sheridan Rains dissects a narrative review that asks: Is cannabis treatment for anxiety, mood, and related disorders ready for prime time?

His answer is that current evidence does not support the use of medical cannabis for mental illnesses such as anxiety or depression.

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