One of the many challenges clinicians have in treating patients with a chronic mental or physical illness is the risk of their developing a substance use disorder as a form of self-medication. For a long time, nicotine and alcohol—given their ease of acquisition—have been common addictions of concern; today, however, two other substances are rapidly rising in prevalence—opioids and marijuana.

Experts say that high rates of suicidal ideation among young adults underscore a need for access to mental health care.

An estimated 2.6 million adults aged 18 to 25 in the United States—roughly 1 in 13 young adults—reported experiencing serious thoughts of suicide in the past year, according to a report by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). The report offered a state-by-state comparison of suicidal ideation in this population.

By the time she was 61, Martha Rhodes had spent decades battling intractable depression. Diagnosis: treatment-resistant major depressive disorder. She’d tried a variety of medications to no avail; most were ineffective or caused nausea, diarrhea, weight gain and mood swings. During one particularly low evening in 2009, she attempted suicide. And every morning when she awoke, she experienced what she describes as “an emotional nausea – it was like this feeling of, ‘Why am I still here? Why do I have to be alive?’”

Substance abuse and dependence in bipolar disorder is a huge problem. More than half of people with bipolar disorder also experience substance use disorder. That rate is seven times higher than the United States average. These patients either abuse or are dependent on alcohol, marijuana or illicit drugs like opiates or amphetamines- perhaps even a combination. They also show symptoms earlier than average bipolar disorder patients and are hospitalized more often, making vigilance and treatment imperative.

Pregnant women and new mothers need more attention when it comes to screening for depression, according to recommendations issued Tuesday by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force. That came as part of the panel’s recommendation that all adults should be screened, in a situation where they can be provided treatment or get a referral if they are clinically depressed.

Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) is a noninvasive method for applying electromagnetic fields to the brain. It is the application through a medical device of a low 0.9 Hertz frequency stimulation by an electromagnetic field to the brain. It requires more than one session. One of the side effects is a tendency to underestimate time. Another side effect may be a slight headache. It is contra-indicated in epilepsy and multiple sclerosis.

Tinnitus is a frequent disorder which is very difficult to treat and there is compelling evidence that tinnitus is associated with functional alterations in the central nervous system. Targeted modulation of tinnitus-related cortical activity has been proposed as a promising new treatment approach. We aimed to investigate both immediate and long-term effects of low frequency (1 Hz) repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) in patients with tinnitus and normal hearing.

What do we really know about the relationship between the experience of pain and risk of developing opioid use disorder? Results from a recent study – the first to directly address this question—show that people with moderate or more severe pain had a 41 percent higher risk of developing prescription opioid use disorders than those without, independent of other demographic and clinical factors.

A few years ago Dr. Diana Martinez and Dr. Marco Diana decided to investigate a new technology that uses magnetic pulses to stimulate brain cells. Both had been trying to develop medications to treat cocaine addiction, and both had come to feel that the pace of progress—their own and others’—was unequal to the urgency of the need. In the new technology, Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS), they saw a potential treatment that might be developed relatively rapidly for clinical use.

Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) given in combination with standard cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) improves smoking abstinence rates in the short term compared with CBT plus sham TMS, results from a pilot study show.