mental health

UCLA researchers showed that shock treatment changes certain areas of the brain that play a role in how people feel, learn and respond to environmental factors.

The UCLA study offers a new approach for treating depression in older adults that could get them out of depression much faster than the standard antidepressants.

A new study by UCLA researchers found that meditation appeared to help preserve the brain’s gray matter, the tissue that contains neurons.

Genes relating to immune function and histone methylation — molecular changes that alter DNA expression — are risk factors.

Using a series of weekly 30-minute concerts held in various campus locations, Mindful Music, a community project that features some of UCLA’s most talented music students, aims to shed light on how music impacts personal stress levels.

Why do some people develop PTSD while others who suffered the same ordeal do not? A UCLA discovery may shed light on the answer.

UCLA’s BRITE Center for Science, Research and Policy has received a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to address the delivery of mental health services under the Affordable Care Act.

'Rocks in my Pockets,' the new animated film by Latvian-born artist and filmmaker Signe Baumane, at a free screening on Monday, Jan. 12, 7 p.m. at Melnitz Hall.

UCLA’s Laure Murat writes that for at least several centuries people have ascribed acts of terror to madness, often to advance political agendas.

A new report evaluating research-based programs designed to enhance the mental health and resilience of military families, has found that they help veterans and their families cope with the effects of wartime service.

When adult mice with Noonan syndrome were treated with lovastatin, their memory and ability to remember objects and navigate mazes improved dramatically.

The UCLA/Duke University National Center for Child Traumatic Stress will work with the defense department to train health specialists who work on military bases to provide assistance for military families affected by traumatic stress.

Research funded by the grant will help scientists understand how disrupted genes affect brain structure, both in healthy individuals and in those with neurologic and psychiatric diseases.

A new book by a UCLA professor shows how ailments presented in 19th century French mental hospitals held up a kind of fun-house mirror to the often horrific political dramas of the country's post-revolutionary era.

“In short, if you think a pill is going to work, it probably will,” says UCLA professor who led the study, which evaluated patients who received therapy and either real medication or a sugar pill.

Six proposals led primarily by UCLA units are vying with 261 others for grant funding by the Goldhirsh Foundation, which is hoping to jump-start projects that will make L.A. the best place to play, to connect, to live, create and learn by 2050.

Symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder can develop in adults even with no explicit memory of an early childhood trauma, UCLA psychologists report Aug. 15 in the journal Biological Psychiatry.

More than 300,000 California children ages 4 to 11 need mental health care, but only one in four is treated, according to a new policy brief from the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research.

The largest-ever genomic study published on any psychiatric disorder provides important new insights about the biological causes of schizophrenia, and it could lead to new approaches to treatment.

Taking advantage of the recent dramatic advances in neuroscience, the authors write, could lead to new and improved psychological treatments.

Men with prostate cancer who were also depressed were more likely to be diagnosed with more aggressive prostate cancer, receive less effective treatments and survive for shorter times.

From 2005 to 2007, roughly 20 percent of people who committed suicide were intoxicated at death, but that percentage was notably higher during and after the recession, according to a study led by UCLA professor Mark Kaplan.

Mentally ill mass murderers receive tons of media attention, but they're not the typical perpetrators of violent crimes, say researchers. The team recommends a new risk-based approach to reducing firearms fatalities.

Among the 65-plus age group, depression is linked with a far greater chance for early death possibly due to failure to follow their medication regime.

Job loss among single mothers has significant negative effects on the well-being of their children as young adults, according to a new study by researchers at the California Center for Population Research at UCLA.