Doctors should avoid co-prescribing benzodiazepines to opioid dependent patients who are being treated with methadone or buprenorphine, also known as opioid agonist treatment (OAT), due to a three-fold increase in risk of overdose death, according to a new study. This increase in overdose death risk was also observed in patients who had recently left OAT.…

UNLV-led research team identifies key brain protein to target for new customized drug therapies treating adverse symptoms of developmental disorder subtypes. Research led by a team of UNLV neuroscientists has shown the potential to zero in on the root-level cause of a host of adverse symptoms associated with unique subtypes of neurodevelopmental disorders, work that…

Optimistic stroke survivors had lower inflammation levels, reduced stroke severity and less initial physical disability after three months compared to less optimistic survivors, according to the findings of a small study. Previous studies have associated optimism with improved health outcomes for other medical conditions, however, no studies previously assessed if this association exists among stroke…

Malaria is one of the most common causes of death in children in Africa. When the parasite builds up in the blood vessels of the brain, it develops into one of the most dangerous forms of the disease, cerebral malaria. Though it wasn’t certain if the parasite was able to penetrate the brain tissue, now…

A study found that pregnancy intentions often change over as short as a 12-month time period, and that they specifically vary with partner status, household income, and employment status. «When we think about whether or when people would like become pregnant, people often assume that there is one big life plan,» said Claudia Geist, associate…

A drug used to treat agitation in people with dementia is no more effective than a placebo, and might even increase mortality, according to a new study. The research has shown that antidepressant mirtazapine offered no improvement in agitation for people with dementia — and was possibly more likely to be associated with mortality than…

Will a reduction in tau protein in brain neurons protect against Parkinson’s disease and Lewy body dementias? A new study suggests the answer is no. If this is borne out, that result differs from Alzheimer’s disease, where reducing endogenous tau levels in brain neurons is protective for multiple models of the disease — and thus…

Study shows how blocking cellular housekeeping system leads to buildup and spread of abnormal protein aggregates in the brain. The discovery, published in The Journal of Neuroscience in February 2022, offers a clear and testable hypothesis about the progression of Parkinson’s disease, and may lead to treatments capable of significantly slowing or even stopping it.…

A study has found that many characteristics among older adults with moderately severe dementia differ depending on whether they live at home or in residential care or nursing facilities. The study used a nationally-representative dataset of U.S. older adults and included 728 people newly identified as having moderately severe dementia between 2012 and 2016. Sixty…

Those with a family history of schizophrenia and men with lower IQ are more likely to struggle with treatment resistant schizophrenia than others with the mental disorder, according to a new study. The researchers say the findings could be important in efforts to design novel drug treatments that improve cognition. Schizophrenia is a mental illness…