Author: Jim Dryden

Nitrous oxide, or laughing gas, has shown early promise as a treatment for severe depression in patients whose symptoms don’t respond to standard therapies, according to a small pilot study led by (from left) psychiatrists Charles R. Conway, MD, and Charles F. Zorumski, MD, and anesthesiologist Peter Nagele, MD, at the School of Medicine.

Obesity and eating disorders expert Denise E. Wilfley, PhD, has been named the inaugural Scott Rudolph University Professor of Psychiatry at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

Anesthesiology researchers Robert Gereau, PhD, (left) and Michael Bruchas, PhD, (right) have received one of only 11 DECODE (Deciphering Circuit Basis of Disease) grants to be awarded. The awards were announced at a ceremony featuring Thomas Insel, MD, (center) director of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH).

Heidi Prather, DO, professor and chief of physical medicine and rehabilitation, has been named president of the North American Spine Society (NASS). She is the first woman elected to the position.

Science textbooks say we can’t see infrared light. Like X-rays and radio waves, infrared light waves are longer than the light waves in the visual spectrum. But an international team of researchers co-led by Frans Vinberg, PhD, (left) and Vladimir J. Kefalov, PhD, has found that under certain conditions, the retina can sense infrared light after all.

A research team led by Washington University endocrinologist Fumihiko Urano, MD, PhD, (right) and first author Simin Lu, PhD student, (left) has discovered that a commonly prescribed muscle relaxant may be an effective treatment for Wolfram syndrome, a rare but devastating form of diabetes.

In school-age children previously diagnosed with depression as preschoolers, a key brain region involved in emotion is smaller than in their peers who were not depressed, scientists at the School of Medicine have shown.

John N. Constantino, MD, the Blanche F. Ittelson Professor of Psychiatry and Pediatrics at the School of Medicine, has received the 2014 Irving Phillips Award for Prevention from the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry.

Turns out your mom was right: scratching an itch only makes it worse. New research from scientists at the Center for the Study of Itch at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis reveals that scratching causes the brain to release serotonin, which intensifies the itch sensation.

People at high risk for psychological distress respond positively to receiving results of personalized genetic testing, according to new research at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. More than 60 percent of subjects in the genetic study wanted information about their test results, and 95 percent said they appreciated receiving the information, regardless of whether the results were good or bad news.