You won’t get a diagnosis, or very good advice on medications. — For a few hundred dollars, or maybe less with good health insurance, genotyping might provide you with a little information about medication choices for an existing mental health condition. But what’s currently available is unlikely to reveal much that will be clinically significant. Despite the misleading ads, you certainly won’t…

AI’s Ascendance Has Transected the Path of People Getting Dumber — Has Artificial Intelligence (AI) become so powerful and smart that it has escaped human control, a point some refer to as The Singularity? AI increasingly invades our lives and consciousness. Programs now compose prose and poetry, draw pictures, and write computer code and essays with amazing proficiency. At the same…

Treatments for ADHD can inform approaches to brain fog — Brain fog refers to a host of overlapping problems involving impaired cognitive functioning. It has risen in prominence over the last few years because it is a common symptom of long COVID. While the name may conjure up fluffy, low level clouds, brain fog can be severely disabling. Many feel…

No pay for a year reveals how MediCare fails psychiatrists — MediCare exists to cover appropriate and necessary medical treatment for Americans over 65 or on permanent disability. I believe MediCare plays a vital role for both individuals and societal levels in protecting health, a service that will only continue to grow as our population ages. I’ve been reluctant to share…

Phototherapy may help ADHD and dementia, not just seasonal depression — For over forty years, bright phototherapy lights have been effectively treating depression in people who suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). Professional organizations consider it a first-line treatment for this condition and have lamented that psychiatrists don’t recommend it often enough. A recent meta-analysis reveals that phototherapy may benefit those…

Are we over hyping a rare outcome? — Every month, when tens of millions of Americans taking antidepressants, the majority of which are serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRI), head to the pharmacy, they pick up not only their prescription but scary warnings that their medication may interact with other medications to cause potentially lethal Serotonin Syndrome. But how common…

Do breathing exercises really help the brain? — For several years, the alternative health world had been breathlessly endorsing breathing exercises for depression, ADHD and other mental health conditions. Plausible pathways exist for breathing to moderate the workings of the brain, primarily through altering the activity of the parasympathetic nervous system. Actual studies testing the benefits of breathing…

Impostor Phenomenon has particular resonance for many in neurodivergent communities. — Psychologists Pauline Clance and Suzanne Imes coined the term Impostor Phenomenon in 1978 to describe high-achieving women who struggled to recognize their accomplishments and feared being exposed as frauds. Over the years the term has permeated popular culture, being stretched and distorted into Impostor “Syndrome” along the way.

Changes in our world are altering our brains — A recent CDC report documented startling increases over the last few years in the rate of filling stimulant prescriptions, and of ADHD diagnoses. During both 2020 and 2021, the first two years of the COVID pandemic, stimulant prescriptions increased 10% over the previous year’s totals. The CDC’s commentary accompanying the…