Mental health – Page 28

May 6, 2026

At-Home Blood Test Screens for Early Dementia

A simple finger-prick blood test at home combined with online cognitive tests can reveal signs of Alzheimer’s disease, providing a convenient way to screen for early dementia.

The postal blood test, outlined in Nature Communications, is used to measure levels of two blood biomarkers linked with cognitive function: phosphorylated tau at amino acid 217 (p-tau217) and Glial Fibrillary Acidic Protein (GFAP).

It could provide a way to screen for dementia at home and act as a triage resource to identify those at risk earlier and tailor treatments more effectively, particularly in remote or unsupervised settings.

“This work raises the potential for screening people for their risk without the need for clinic visits or complex clinical assessments,” said lead researcher Anne Corbett, PhD, from the University of Exeter.

“It would ensure the people at highest risk could be prioritized for monitoring and diagnosis, unlocking the best support and treatment for those that need it most.”

While blood biomarkers are increasingly being used to diagnose Alzheimer’s disease, scalable tools are needed to reach the 99% of individuals with early cognitive impairment who are not seen in specialist healthcare services.

In an attempt to develop these further, Corbett and team conducted a study involving 174 people, of whom 146 had normal cognition and 28 had dementia.

All were participants in the PROTECT study, a larger investigation of more than 30,000 adults that aims to understand how healthy brains age and why people develop dementia.

Blood samples were collected at home using self-administered capillary blood tests, which were sent for p-tau 217 and GFAP lab testing. Venous blood samples were also available for 40 patients.

p-tau217 has previously been highly accurate at detecting Alzheimer’s disease pathology and is approved by U.S. regulators for symptomatic patients undergoing investigation for cognitive complaints.

GFAP is associated with broader cognitive decline and has been shown to be associated with Aβ deposition and progression of mild cognitive impairment to Alzheimer’s disease.

Brain performance tests were found to correlate with levels of both proteins, with p-tau217 showing the strongest association.

Capillary p-tau217 was significantly higher in people with dementia compared to those without and was significantly associated with cognitive performance and function.

A combination of an 85% specificity threshold for capillary p-tau217 85% and episodic memory performance one standard deviation (SD) below benchmarked norms identified 9% of participants who were at potentially high risk, and who also showed significantly higher impairment in cognition and function.

Importantly, this threshold for impairment of episodic memory indicated a much milder level of impairment than the 1.5 SD change required to identify people with mild cognitive impairment, revealing its potential ability to spot signs at a preclinical stage.

Unexpectedly, even though ptau217 and GFAP both identified individuals with cognitive impairment, there was only a modest overlap in individuals who were positive for both GFAP and p-tau217, with GFAP identifying a different group of at-risk individuals. GFAP biomarker appeared to be associated with vascular risk, unlike p-tau217.

Researcher Clive Ballard, MD, PhD, also at Exeter, said: “Our approach of combining our robust cognitive testing with measuring proteins via a postal blood test could provide a straightforward, efficient and cost-effective method to reach large numbers of people in the community who would not otherwise be prioritized for the next steps of diagnosis or support and to optimize the clinical pathway to enable early detection of those at highest risk.”

The post At-Home Blood Test Screens for Early Dementia appeared first on Inside Precision Medicine.

May 6, 2026

“Failure to Launch” Syndrome: How to Stop Enabling Your Grown Child

When Zeke was in high school, he struggled with anxiety and substance use problems, and he left college after the first semester. Now 25, he is living at home, and his mom Carol is frustrated. While she’s pushed him to go back to school or work, he has only held one part-time job at a local smoothie shop and quit after a few months, embarrassed that high school classmates would see him working there. Another attempt at trade school to become an electrician also didn’t take — it didn’t feel like the right fit. Now he rarely leaves the house, stays up all night playing video games or scrolling online, and sleeps most of the day.

Failure to launch syndrome, highly dependent adult children, boomerang kids — there’s no standard term or definition, but if you’re a parent in this situation you recognize it. You are worried and frustrated about your adult child’s difficulty in leaving the nest, and you don’t know what to do because everything you’ve tried so far hasn’t worked.

“These aren’t kids who come back home because they finished school, and the first job they get doesn’t pay enough for them to afford rent on an apartment,” says Theresa Welles, the Shapiro Family Director of the Bubrick Center for Pediatric OCD at the Child Mind Institute. “We’re talking about young adults who functionally have hit a wall, so to speak. They’re caught in a loop of dependency.”

What is failure to launch syndrome?

It’s not uncommon for adult children to live with their parents: According to Pew Research Center, 18 percent of adults ages 25 to 34 lived in their parents’ home in 2023, with young men more likely than young women to do so (20 percent vs. 15 percent). Young adults might leave home for a period of time and then move back in with their parents because they can’t find a job. Or for religious or cultural reasons, some adult children expect to live in the family home until they get married. Living at home is not the main criterion for determining a “failure to launch.”

While there is no official clinical definition, researchers who study this group of young adults generally categorize someone as a highly dependent adult child if they are:

Not in school, working, or actively looking for work (though physically capable of doing so)
Financially dependent on their parents for housing and other necessities
Emotionally reliant on parents (i.e., needing constant reassurance that they are okay)

They usually have very limited social interactions other than online. Often, they have mental health challenges such as anxiety, depression, or OCD, which is a contributing factor, Dr. Welles says.

“They’re at the developmental stage of early adulthood, they’re figuring out who they are,” Dr. Welles says. “The fancy term in psychology is ‘individuation,’ but it’s essentially who you are, both as part of your family and separate from your family.” Highly dependent adult children haven’t made much progress in this stage for several years. Many of them want to change their life path and become more independent, but they struggle with anxiety or fear of failure and don’t follow through on the necessary steps. “Reliance on parents reduces opportunities to build autonomy, which in turn maintains that reliance,” she says. So, they remain stuck.

Dependent behaviors and parental accommodations

Young adults who are highly dependent often fall into certain patterns of behavior. They don’t do their own laundry, cook, clean, or help out around the house. They rarely leave the home and often shut themselves in their bedroom or live in the basement, avoiding talking to others in person. As a result, they rely on their parents to act as an intermediary with the outside world, such as making doctor’s appointments. They might blame their parents for their difficulties in life.

While parents may not like the situation, they struggle to get their adult child to change. So instead, they accommodate them — especially when they are concerned about their child’s mental health challenges.

“In the world of neurodiversity, accommodations are a good thing — we want accommodations for testing and sensory environments,” says Natalia Aíza, LPC, the author of the forthcoming Anxious to Launch: Parenting Strategies to Help Your Adult Child Move On. “But in the anxious-to-launch world, accommodations are actually interfering with your child becoming independent.”

Aíza gives some examples of unhelpful family accommodations: You make sure there’s food in the fridge, don’t ask them to contribute to paying bills, and may give them spending money. When they get angry or upset, you accept the behavior and feel guilty, thinking you are to blame for the situation. If they are anxious when you aren’t nearby, you don’t travel because it causes them stress. Instead of expecting them to take steps to find a therapist, you do the legwork.

“The number one behavior of the highly dependent adult child is avoidance. I cannot emphasize this enough,” Aíza says. “If your child has a full-on virtual life, that’s their social outlet. They are avoiding real-life challenges. They are avoiding working at jobs that are unpleasant. They are probably avoiding adulting tasks that should fall on them at this point. So, we swoop in and take care of those tasks for them.”

A modern version of an old problem

While adult children have lived with their parents in past generations, researchers argue that phenomenon of highly dependent adult children is on the rise, and young people today seem particularly susceptible. Adolescence is more prolonged now in many cultures, and there’s an emphasis on finding a fulfilling career, not just a job that pays the bills.

Technology contributes to the problem. Playing video games, watching videos, scrolling through social media — “these activities don’t help matters because they can do things that feel like they’re accomplishing something,” Dr. Welles says.

How to stop enabling your grown child

In Dr. Welles’s practice, she has worked with families where she initially treated the teen for anxiety or OCD, then involved the parents more deeply when the young adult had trouble launching. In one case, the son was in the habit of playing video games late at night and would sleep through class the next day. He had anxiety and depression, and his parents didn’t want to take away video games because it was the one thing he enjoyed doing. But they started turning off the Wi-Fi in the house at a certain time at night.

“It sounds so extreme, like he’s being punished,” Dr. Welles says. “But it’s about saying to him, ‘We’re going to pull back on ways we’ve accommodated that may have unintentionally made your anxiety worse.’” It was important that the parents validated his feelings, saying things like, “You feel like you’re in danger, as if you’re standing in front of a bear, and that’s really hard. But that’s the anxiety lying to you, and it won’t go away if we keep accommodating things that allow you to avoid what you need to do in order to overcome this anxiety.”

And tactics like these made a difference over time. The son is now attending college part-time and working as a server at restaurant. He has a girlfriend and has plans to save enough to move into an apartment with a friend.

Setting boundaries with your adult child

If the adult child doesn’t seem motivated to find a job, Aíza has recommended that parents take them off the family cellphone plan, giving them warning that this will happen by the next month’s bill. “This is not necessarily the most strategic financial choice” because it’s often much cheaper per person on a family plan, she acknowledges. “But it is a perfect first accommodation to remove because it is telling your adult child, ‘This is something you can handle. You can be responsible for it financially and logistically. It is something that I control, and I want to stop controlling parts of your life.’” And it’s often the motivation they need to find a job — something that can earn them $100 for the monthly cell phone bill is small enough that it feels doable.

When families take steps like these, the adult child will likely get angry or upset. “That’s hard. But think about when your kids were toddlers, and they wanted to touch a hot stove,” Dr. Welles says. “They were mad when you said, ‘No, you can’t touch that stove,’ but that didn’t mean you let them do it.”

“The good news is, generally speaking, even if there’s unhappiness in the beginning,” she continues, “pretty quickly, once they start to feel better and are doing the things that they actually care about, it can really help.”

Supporting without enabling adult children

Highly dependent adult children might accuse parents of not being supportive when they pull back on accommodations. Dr. Welles suggests communicating that you hear them and validate their feelings: “You can say things like, ‘Hey, I know this is tough or ‘I know that this makes you really nervous.’ But you combine it with the confidence that they can do it, like ‘I also know you can do it, as hard as it is.’”

Sometimes, you might think you are being supportive when you are actually enabling — like filling out a job application on behalf of the child. “Even if it works and they get an interview, you’re accommodating their anxiety,” Dr. Welles says. “But also, there’s going to be a point when you can’t do something for the child — the interview or the job itself — so the earlier that you can pull back the better.”

If your adult child has both ADHD and anxiety, you can support their executive functioning skills without accommodating the anxiety. “Maybe you sit down with them on Mondays and look at their schedule to help them determine if there’s a way you can help them organize, as opposed to you stepping in and letting them avoid things they need to do because they’re anxious about it,” Dr. Welles says.

Aíza encourages giving the adult child the minimum amount of help needed, to avoid creating another form of dependency. “It’s about noticing, ‘Am I working harder at this than they are?’” she says. “A lot of times the answer is ‘yes,’ and that’s a signal to back off and put more expectations on the child.”

Treatment for highly dependent adult children

While there is no standard treatment for highly dependent adult children, early evidence has shown a form of therapy called SPACE-FTL (Supportive Parenting for Anxious Childhood Emotions – Failure to Launch) to be promising. A variation on an effective treatment for anxiety and OCD, SPACE-FTL involves only the parents, since the adult child is often resistant to seeking help. The program helps parents reduce accommodations step by step and engage extended family and friends to help de-escalate conflict.

One tactic is to make a plan to deliver a change in accommodation in writing — for instance, explaining that you will stop paying the cellphone bill at the end of the month and why. Doing it in writing (on paper or in a text) makes the message clear and helps you remain calm and non-reactive. If you are expecting an angry or violent response, they can ask a grandparent, uncle, or family friend be in the house when you deliver the letter, since that might make the response less extreme. The relative or friend may even spend the night if the adult child is more likely to cool off when others are present.

Asking for others’ help also helps you stop blaming yourself for the situation. “A lot of parents of highly dependent adults feel shame, but this is not something happening to only one family,” Aíza says. “We need to build on our social supports and get other people on our team so that we don’t feel so isolated in this process. Your adult child may be resisting change, but you don’t have to. It might sound cruel, but our central mandate as parents is making sure our child is okay after we’re gone. We brought them on earth to survive us — that is the design.”

Frequently Asked Questions

What is “failure to launch syndrome”?

“Failure to launch” isn’t a formal diagnosis but describes young adults who are stuck in a pattern of dependence. They’re typically not working or in school, rely on parents financially and emotionally, and struggle to move forward with adult responsibilities.

How can I motivate my adult child to become independent?

Change often starts with parents gradually pulling back on accommodations while staying supportive and calm. Set clear expectations, validate their feelings, and shift responsibility back to them in manageable steps so they can build confidence and autonomy.

The post “Failure to Launch” Syndrome: How to Stop Enabling Your Grown Child appeared first on Child Mind Institute.

May 5, 2026

Anxiety and Depression Associated With the Dependent Use of Generative AI in Medical Students: Cross-Sectional Study

Background: The growing integration of artificial intelligence (AI) in higher education has transformed learning processes but also raised concerns about potential mental health risks. Medical students represent a particularly vulnerable group due to high academic stress and increasing reliance on generative AI tools for study and decision-making tasks. Despite this, the relationship between AI dependence and psychological distress remains underexplored in Latin American contexts. Objective: This study aimed to evaluate the association between generative AI dependence and levels of stress, anxiety, and depression among medical students. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted with 187 human medicine students from a Peruvian university during the first academic semester of 2025. The Dependence on Artificial Intelligence Scale and the Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale–21 were applied. Negative binomial regression models, both crude and adjusted for sex, age, income, and year of study, were used to assess associations, reporting rate ratios (RRs) and 95% CIs. Results: Participants had a median age of 22 (IQR 19‐24) years, and 58.8% (110/187) were female. The median Dependence on Artificial Intelligence Scale score was 10 (IQR 7‐14). Generative AI dependence showed significant correlations with anxiety (ρ=0.336, 95% CI 0.22‐0.44) and depression (ρ=0.316, 95% CI 0.20‐0.43) and a smaller correlation with stress (ρ=0.277, 95% CI 0.16‐0.39). In the adjusted regression models, each 1-point increase in generative AI dependence was associated with a 5% higher expected anxiety score (RR 1.05, 95% CI 1.01‐1.09; =.01) and a 4% higher depression score (RR 1.04, 95% CI 1.01‐1.08; =.03), whereas the association with stress was positive but nonsignificant (RR 1.03, 95% CI 1.00‐1.07; =.08). Fifth-year students had significantly greater anxiety levels than their sixth-year peers (RR 1.82, 95% CI 1.09‐3.01; =.02). No significant effects were observed for sex, age, or income. Conclusions: This study empirically examined generative AI dependence as a distinct behavioral construct and its association with mental health symptoms in medical students. Unlike prior research, this study evaluated psychological dependence on generative AI and modeled its relationship with anxiety and depression using appropriate count-based regression techniques. By providing early evidence from a Latin American context, it contributes to the emerging field of digital mental health and medical education research. These findings underscore the need for universities to promote balanced and responsible AI use, integrate digital literacy with mental health support strategies, and develop preventive policies that mitigate potential maladaptive reliance on generative AI tools.
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May 5, 2026

Psilocybin-Induced Brain Changes May Explain Therapeutic Effects

Researchers at University of California, San Francisco and Imperial College London have shown that a single dose of psilocybin, the psychedelic compound found in magic mushrooms, causes likely anatomical brain changes that last for up to a month after the experience.

The study, involving healthy volunteers who had never taken a psychedelic, links temporary shifts in brain “entropy”—which is the diversity of neural activity occurring in the brain—to insight. This suggests the psychedelic trip itself is important to the drug’s longer term therapeutic effects.

The researchers found that a high dose of psilocybin led to increased entropy in the minutes and hours after taking the drug. The degree of entropy predicted how much insight, or emotional self-awareness, the participants felt the next day; and this, in turn, forecasted improvements in their sense of wellbeing a month later.

The findings may help to explain psilocybin’s therapeutic effects on conditions such as depression, anxiety, and addiction. “Psychedelic means ‘psyche-revealing,’ or making the psyche visible,” said senior author Robin Carhart-Harris, PhD, the Ralph Metzner distinguished professor of neurology at UCSF. “Our data shows that such experiences of psychological insight relate to an entropic quality of brain activity and how both are involved in causing subsequent improvements in mental health. It suggests that the trip—and its correlates in the brain—is a key component of how psychedelic therapy works.”  Carhart-Harris is senior and corresponding author of the team’s published paper in Nature Communications, titled “Human brain changes after first psilocybin use.”

“Psychedelics have robust effects on acute brain function and long-term behavior but whether they also cause enduring functional and anatomical brain changes is largely unknown,” the authors wrote. Psilocybin is the precursor of the compound psilocin, a serotonin receptor agonist. “Converging evidence supports a role for serotonin 2A receptor (5-HT2AR) agonism in eliciting the characteristic brain and subjective effects of this and related psychedelics in humans,” the team continued.

For their newly reported study, Carhart-Harris and colleagues carried out an exploratory, placebo-controlled, within-patient study in 28 psychedelic-naïve participants who each received a single, high-dose (25 mg) of psilocybin. The researchers used an assortment of brain imaging and brain measurement techniques, some of which were carried out during the peak of the psychedelic experience, as well as before and one-month after drug administration. “This was an exploratory, hypothesis-generating mechanistic study in healthy volunteers,” the authors noted. None of the 28 people in the study had a diagnosed mental health condition, which gave the scientists greater freedom to do more testing.

In the first part of the experiment the subjects were given a 1 mg dose of psilocybin, which the researchers regarded as a placebo, and were then monitored with EEG, which records brain activity from electrodes on the scalp.  Over the next few weeks, the researchers measured their subjects’ psychological insight, wellbeing, and cognitive ability. They examined brain activity with functional MRI (fMRI) and brain connectivity with diffusion tensor imaging (DTI).

One month after the placebo, the subjects were given 25 mg of psilocybin, a dose capable of eliciting a strong psychedelic trip. During the experience, researchers again measured the subjects’ brain activity with EEG, and in the following weeks they repeated the same tests they had given after the 1 mg dose.

This enabled the scientists to compare the effects of the psychedelic trip on the brain and mind to the effects of the placebo. “The multimodal neuroimaging design allowed us to observe changes in brain function and (potential) anatomy from 1-h (EEG) to 1-month (DTI) after high-dose psilocybin,” they explained.

The investigators found that within 60 minutes of taking the 25 mg dose of psilocybin, EEG revealed higher entropy, suggesting that the brain was processing a richer body of information under the psychedelic. A month later, the researchers looked at their subjects’ brains using DTI, which measures the diffusion of water along neural tracts in the brain, and found that they were denser and had more integrity. This is the opposite of what happens in aging, which makes these tracts more diffuse.

The researchers cautioned that more work needs to be done to better understand the meaning of this finding, but the result is a never-before-seen sign of how psychedelics can change the brain. ”The inclusion of DTI enabled us to test for long-term changes in the integrity of white matter tracts post psilocybin,” the authors stated. “Results revealed decreased axial diffusivity in prefrontal-subcortical tracts 1-month post 25mg psilocybin.”

The day after the 25 mg dose, all but one of the 28 subjects rated the trip as the “single most” unusual state of consciousness they had ever experienced. The remaining person rated it as among their top five. The study participants said they had experienced more psychological insight after taking the 25 mg of psilocybin than they had after the 1 mg placebo.  The subjects also reported increased wellbeing two and four weeks after the study. This was measured from responses to statements such as, “I’ve been feeling optimistic about the future,” and “I’ve been dealing with problems well.”

As the scientists noted in their paper, “A predictive relationship was also found between brain entropy and longer-term mental-health changes—namely, improved wellbeing. Improved wellbeing could be predicted directly from acute increases in brain entropy as early as 1-h post dosing.”

A month after the study the study individuals also scored better on a test of cognitive flexibility.  “Psilocybin seems to loosen up stereotyped patterns of brain activity and give people the ability to revise entrenched patterns of thought,” said first author Taylor Lyons, PhD, a research associate at Imperial College London. “The fact that these changes track with insight and improved well‑being is especially exciting.”

The scientists found that the subjects who had experienced the largest increases in brain entropy in the minutes to hours after taking psilocybin were the most likely to have increased insight the next day and increased wellbeing a month later. The researchers concluded that improved wellbeing was driven by the experience of insight.

The authors suggest that the study findings could improve treatment for people with mental illness using psilocybin, for example, by ensuring that the right dosage is used to produce the right amount of brain entropy to promote insight. “We already knew psilocybin could be helpful for treating mental illness,” Carhart-Harris said. “But now we have a much better understanding of how.”

In their paper the team concluded, “The present multi-modal neuroimaging study in healthy participants sheds light on the brain effects of first-time high-dose psychedelic use and the therapeutic action of psilocybin-therapy, suggesting that therapeutically relevant changes—i.e., improved wellbeing—can be forecast via an acute human brain action, i.e., an entropic brain effect, that is well-known to relate to the psychedelic experience … Results support a role for psychological insight in mediating the causal association between the entropic brain effect and potentially enduring improvements in wellbeing.”

The post Psilocybin-Induced Brain Changes May Explain Therapeutic Effects appeared first on GEN – Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology News.

May 5, 2026

Statement on Mental Health and Access to Evidence-Based Care

The IOCDF is proud to be a member of the Mental Health Liaison Group, which distributed the below statement. To learn more about appropriate treatment for OCD, including the use of medication and SSRIs, visit IOCDF’s Treatment Guide.

Following the MAHA Institute May 4, 2026, Summit entitled, “Mental Health and Overmedicalization,” and HHS’ MAHA Action Plan to Curb Psychiatric Overprescribing, the Mental Health Liaison Group (MHLG)— a nonprofit coalition of national organizations representing people with mental health and substance use conditions, family members and caregivers, providers of mental health and substance use treatment and support, advocates, and other stakeholders— reaffirms that improving mental health outcomes requires expanding access to comprehensive, evidence-based care.

MHLG recognizes that mental health care should be appropriate, individualized, and guided by clinical expertise and informed patient decision-making. The goal is the right care, delivered at the right time and tailored to each person’s unique needs.

A strong body of evidence supports a range of effective, individualized treatments, including psychotherapy and, when clinically appropriate, medications such as Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIs). These treatments are effective for many individuals when appropriately prescribed, monitored, and supported as part of a comprehensive care plan. Individuals should be supported in working with their health care providers to determine and refine over time the care plan, including the benefits and risks, that best meets their needs, and engage in medical professional recommendation-based treatment, which for many may include psychotherapy and medication as part of a comprehensive approach to care.

Public discussion of mental health treatment should be informed by scientific evidence to support informed decision-making and patient-centered care. Misinformation or claims not supported by evidence may discourage individuals from seeking or continuing treatment, particularly at a time when many already face significant barriers to care.

MHLG supports policies that support ongoing research to expand access to comprehensive, evidence-based mental health services, reduce stigma, and strengthen the ability of individuals to initiate and remain engaged in appropriate care across the continuum of prevention, treatment, crisis and recovery. These priorities are consistent with MHLG’s principles, available at https://www.mhlg.org/about-us/

MHLG stands ready to engage with the Administration and policymakers as they consider and advance approaches impacting mental health care.

The Mental Health Liaison Group (MHLG) is a nonprofit coalition of national organizations representing people with mental health and substance use conditions, family members and caregivers, providers of mental health and substance use treatment and support, advocates, and other stakeholders committed to strengthening Americans’ access to mental health and substance use care. As trusted leaders in the field, our 100+ member organizations are dedicated to elevating the national conversation around mental health and substance use. Together, we work to advance federal policies that support prevention, early intervention, treatment, crisis response, and recovery services and supports.

The post Statement on Mental Health and Access to Evidence-Based Care appeared first on International OCD Foundation.

May 4, 2026

Addressing the Psychological Needs of Adolescents During the Wait Time for Mental Health Treatment: Service Design Study

Background: Adolescents waiting for mental health treatment often experience significant unmet psychological needs, including severe psychological distress, increased use of maladaptive coping strategies, and feelings of abandonment. However, current wait time support offerings across the mental health sector are sparse and lack clear evidence of effectiveness. Objective: Using design thinking, this early report describes the development of a service blueprint for a new model of care (While We Wait) designed to address the psychological needs of adolescents during the wait time for mental health treatment in Australia through targeted support from general practitioners (GPs) and brief, self-directed digital interventions. Methods: In partnership with health service designers from Deloitte Digital Australia, we conducted a rapid 6-week health service design sprint. This industry-led methodology involved iterative weekly activities, including the development of service user personas and service experience principles, consultation sessions with 12 youth with lived experience experts (aged 18 to 20 years) and 15 GPs, insight synthesis, and service blueprint development. Results: The design sprint produced a service blueprint anchored in 5 service experience principles: “I’m never alone,” “It’s for me,” “I’m in control,” “It’s easy to use,” and “It lifts me up.” The proposed service model incorporated a five-stage service journey: (1) recognition (the adolescent acknowledges the need for support), (2) initial consultation and onboarding with the GP, (3) support and monitoring, (4) preparation for treatment, and (5) transition to specialist care and follow-up. Key adolescent service outcomes included uptake, acceptability, self-advocacy, mental health and well-being, perceived quality of care, and help seeking intentions and behaviors. For GPs, outcomes included uptake, feasibility, acceptability, and confidence in supporting adolescents during the wait time. Conclusions: This work demonstrates that a rapid, industry-led design thinking approach may help identify priorities for developing services that address adolescents’ needs during the wait time for mental health treatment. The project also highlights the value of co-designing mental health services with lived experience experts and service providers. Together, these findings suggest that the wait time may represent an important opportunity for early therapeutic engagement rather than a passive delay before treatment.

May 4, 2026

Curiosity in a Novel Virtual Reality Scenario and Its Association With Symptoms of Depression: Observational Pilot Investigation

Background: Curiosity plays a fundamental role in human learning, development, and motivation, and emerging evidence suggests that reduced curiosity is linked to poorer mental health outcomes, including depressive symptoms (DS). However, to date, the majority of curiosity research relies on self-report assessments and thus risks biased reporting. Virtual reality (VR), a novel tool increasingly used within mental health research and treatment, might represent a potent tool for offering ecologically valid insights into curiosity-driven behaviors while circumventing issues related to self-report assessments, including demand characteristics and recall bias. Objective: The study aimed to enhance the assessment of curiosity by using a novel VR environment and to examine its relevance to DS. Specifically, we tested 2 hypotheses using a novel VR environment: first, that curiosity, as assessed through spontaneous exploratory interactions and behaviors in VR, positively correlates with self-reported curiosity, and second, that VR-based curiosity is inversely associated with DS. Methods: This exploratory study used an observational design that included 100 volunteers. All participants completed self-reported assessments of DS and curiosity before engaging in a novel VR scenario. Although progression in the virtual environment required solving cognitive tasks, these were embedded as structural elements rather than framed as the primary objective. Instead, participants’ free explorations and interactions with objects formed the basis for the 4 curiosity metrics used in this study. After VR exposure, participants completed a questionnaire assessing cybersickness symptoms. Results: Hypothesis 1 was not supported, as only one curiosity metric, namely object interactions, was positively associated with one aspect of curiosity relating to motivation to seek new knowledge and experiences. Further, diminishing significance after correction for multiple testing warranted caution. Results relating to hypothesis 2 indicated partial support, in that object interaction was significantly associated with DS while controlling for age, sex, and cybersickness levels. Sensitivity analyses showed no associations between object interactions and self-reported anxiety and stress symptoms. Conclusions: VR may be a potent tool for assessing exploratory behaviors in a controlled, yet ecologically valid, environment that avoids issues related to self-report. However, whether such motivations translate to established curiosity constructs warrants further research. This study also provided preliminary insights into how assessing exploratory interactions in VR may be a promising avenue that could enhance the understanding of the etiology and assessment of DS—particularly its early stages.
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May 4, 2026

Biomarker of Epigenetic Aging Could Signal Depression

Research led by New York University suggests a marker of epigenetic aging could be linked to depression.

The team found that accelerated aging of a type of white blood cell called a monocyte was significantly associated with the psychological and cognitive expressions of depression in a group of women with and without HIV.

“Depression is not a one-size-fits-all disorder—it can look really different from person to person, which is why it’s so important to consider varied presentations and not just a clinical label,” said lead researcher Nicole Beaulieu Perez, PhD, assistant professor at NYU Rory Meyers College of Nursing, in a press statement.

“Our study reveals unique biological underpinnings of mental health that are often obscured by broad diagnostic categories.”

As reported in The Journals of Gerontology Series A, the researchers analyzed blood samples and depression scores from 440 women, 261 living with HIV and 179 without, from the Women’s Interagency HIV Study. They tested women with HIV as people with this disease and others affecting the immune system are at greater risk of depression than the general public.

The team looked at biological aging using two epigenetic clocks: a broad multi-tissue clock and a monocyte-specific clock that measures chemical modifications to DNA in these cells.

Depression was measured using the CES-D questionnaire, which separates physical, bodily expressions of depression such as fatigue, appetite loss, and agitation from psychological and cognitive expressions of the disorder such as hopelessness, anhedonia, and feelings of failure.

Accelerated monocyte aging was significantly associated with the psychological and cognitive expressions of depression and with anhedonia specifically, even after adjusting for HIV status, race, and ethnicity. The broader multi-tissue Horvath clock showed no association with any depression domain, suggesting it is the monocyte-specific aging signal, not generalized biological aging, that tracks with mood and cognitive symptoms.

Diagnosis of depression relies largely on self-reported symptoms and not a specific physiological test. The finding that monocyte aging maps onto cognitive and mood symptoms rather than physical ones is counterintuitive, since monocytes are inflammatory cells that one might expect to track physical, inflammation-driven complaints like fatigue.

The study is small and cross-sectional, so causality cannot yet be established, but if the claims of the study were validated it could help to personalize treatment for depression in the future.

“The dynamics of monocyte aging and depression warrant further study to clarify mechanistic links,” conclude the authors.

“Our findings bring us a step closer to this goal of precision mental health care, especially for high-risk populations, by providing a biological framework that could guide future diagnosis and treatment,” adds Beaulieu Perez.

The post Biomarker of Epigenetic Aging Could Signal Depression appeared first on Inside Precision Medicine.

May 4, 2026

The Child Mind Institute Names Dr. Vera Feuer as Chief Clinical Officer

Feuer brings more than two decades of clinical leadership to inaugural role

New York, NY – The Child Mind Institute, an independent nonprofit dedicated to transforming the lives of children affected by mental health disorders, today announced Vera Feuer, MD, as the organization’s first-ever Chief Clinical Officer. A seasoned specialist in pediatric and adolescent mental health, Dr. Feuer will oversee clinical strategy, including patient care in the New York City and San Francisco Bay Area offices, and help drive innovation across treatment and research.

Dr. Feuer most recently served as Vice President of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at Northwell Health and is a professor of psychiatry, pediatrics, and emergency medicine at the Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell Health. A board-certified psychiatrist, she brings more than 20 years of clinical expertise and leadership in pediatric and adolescent mental health and crisis care to the Child Mind Institute. She has helped pioneer innovative standards of care in pediatric crisis behavioral health care and suicide prevention, and she has led the development of programs for the pediatric medical community and school district partnerships to expand mental health care access for students.

“I am thrilled to join the Child Mind Institute and beyond excited to bring my extensive experience of working with youth and families, creating access to care and innovative program development, and to work with this remarkable team,” Dr. Feuer says. “Together we will deepen access to high-quality, evidence-based care and develop programs that meet the needs of kids where they are.”

Dr. Feuer will provide strategic oversight to a multidisciplinary team of more than 70 clinicians who deliver over 70,000 patient appointments annually, ensuring continued excellence in delivering care, developing school-based programs, and establishing community partnerships while expanding access to high-quality mental health services. As a member of the Child Mind Institute’s executive leadership, Dr. Feuer will be instrumental in shaping the organization’s clinical vision, providing medical expertise to improve outcomes for children and families and guiding the integration of research through data-driven approaches that advance care and innovation.

“At a time when youth mental health needs are more urgent than ever, Dr. Feuer’s exceptional leadership brings crucial guidance to meet this moment,” says Harold S. Koplewicz, MD, founding president and medical director of the Child Mind Institute. “Our mission has always been to transform how families access and experience mental health care. With Dr. Feuer at the helm as our Chief Clinical Officer, we remain steadfast in our commitment to strengthening our clinical foundation, shaping the future of mental health and helping families nationwide.”

To learn more, visit childmind.org, and read Dr. Feuer’s full biography.

About the Child Mind Institute

The Child Mind Institute is dedicated to transforming the lives of children and families struggling with mental health and learning disorders by giving them the help they need. We’ve become the leading independent nonprofit in children’s mental health by providing gold-standard, evidence-based care, delivering educational resources to millions of families each year, training educators in underserved communities, and developing tomorrow’s breakthrough treatments.

Visit Child Mind Institute on social media: Instagram, Facebook, X, LinkedIn

For press questions, contact our press team at childmindinstitute@ssmandl.com or our media officer at mediaoffice@childmind.org.

The post The Child Mind Institute Names Dr. Vera Feuer as Chief Clinical Officer appeared first on Child Mind Institute.

May 4, 2026

Excessive Internet use and depressive symptom levels in adolescents with depressive disorders: chain mediation of social anxiety and sleep quality

BackgroundAdolescents with depressive disorders are at elevated risk for adverse mental health outcomes, and excessive Internet use has been increasingly linked to greater symptom severity. Therefore, this study aimed to examine the chain mediating roles of social anxiety and sleep quality in the association between excessive Internet use and depressive symptoms among adolescents with depressive disorders.MethodsA cross-sectional design was used. A total of 266 Chinese adolescents with clinically diagnosed depressive disorders (M = 15.79 years, SD = 1.85; 71.4% female) were assessed using the Internet Addiction Test, Zung Self-Rating Depression Scale, Social Anxiety Scale for Children, and Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index. Correlation analyses and bootstrapping methods were conducted using SPSS and the PROCESS macro to examine the chain mediating effects of social anxiety and sleep quality.ResultsThe total indirect effect of excessive Internet use on depressive symptoms accounted for 65.66% of the total effect. Specifically, the indirect effects via social anxiety and sleep quality accounted for 24.10% and 26.51% of the total effect, respectively. In addition, the chain mediating effect of social anxiety and sleep quality was significant, accounting for 14.76% of the total effect.ConclusionExcessive Internet use was positively associated with more severe depressive symptoms among adolescents with depressive disorders, both directly and indirectly through the chain mediating effects of social anxiety and sleep quality. These findings highlight potential targets for preventing and intervening in excessive Internet use among this population.