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  Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy reduces activation in brain regions related to self-blame in patients in remission from depression     New research suggests mindfulness-based cognitive therapy protects remitted depressed patients from relapse by reducing tendencies toward self-blame. The findings were published in Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging . Major depressive disorder is a common mental health issue with a relatively high relapse rate. In an effort to reduce the likelihood of relapse, Mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) trains depressed individuals to respond to negative self-thoughts with acceptance and compassion, and studies suggest that the approach is effective. Researcher Kate Williams and her colleagues wanted to delve further into the effectiveness of MBCT, by investigating changes in the brain after treatment. As the reduction of self-blame is thought to be a key component in avoiding a relapse into depression, the researchers wer...

  New studies shed light on the mysterious process by which psilocybin can rapidly improve depression symptoms     Up to 30% of people with depression don’t respond to treatment with antidepressants. This may be down to differences in biology between patients and the fact that it often takes a long time to respond to the drugs – with some people giving up after a while. So there is an urgent need to expand the repertoire of drugs available to people with depression. In recent years, attention has turned to psychedelics such as psilocybin , the active compound in “magic mushrooms”. Despite a number of clinical trials showing that psilocybin can rapidly treat depression, including for cancer-related anxiety and depression , little is known about how psilocybin actually works to relieve depression in the brain. Now two recent studies, published in The New England Journal of Medicine and Nature Medicine, have shed some light on this mysterious process. Psilocybin ...