The study, published online in Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology, provides reassuring news for people with migraine who take common medications called triptans before or during pregnancy. Researchers found no increase in neurodevelopmental disorders, including autism and ADHD, in children whose mothers took these medications while pregnant.

Study author Hedvig Nordeng, PhD, from the University of Oslo in Norway, emphasized that the results are encouraging for people with migraine who may be taking these drugs before they even know that they are pregnant. This information is particularly helpful for their physicians, who can make more informed decisions about treating debilitating migraine attacks.

The study involved health registry records for the entire Norwegian population and identified 26,210 pregnancies in female participants with migraine at the start of pregnancy. The researchers divided the participants into four groups based on their triptan use before and during pregnancy:

* Low use and stopped using them before pregnancy (42%)
* Increased use six months before pregnancy and stopped using them in early pregnancy (31%)
* Moderate use before pregnancy and continued into early pregnancy (21%)
* Used triptans before and during pregnancy (6%)

The researchers followed the children born for an average of eight years, checking health registries for diagnoses of neurodevelopmental disorders. Overall, 1,140 children, or 4.3%, were diagnosed with a neurodevelopmental disorder during the study. The most common were ADHD and speech and language disorders.

When adjusting the results to account for other factors that could affect the risk of neurodevelopmental disorders, such as a parent having a neurodevelopmental disorder, folic acid intake, or use of other drugs like opioids or antidepressants, the researchers found no increased risk for neurodevelopmental disorders among children exposed to triptans prenatally.

“Migraine affects almost one in five people of childbearing age,” Nordeng said. “While symptoms often improve during pregnancy, about 8% of people experience worsening attacks during pregnancy, which can lead to increased risks of both maternal and fetal complications, so it’s vital to have treatment options available.”

A limitation of the study was that researchers did not verify whether people took their migraine medications; they only checked if participants filled their prescriptions. This might mean that actual drug exposure may be different than the estimates.

Overall, this study provides a reassuring message for people with migraine who are pregnant or planning to become pregnant: taking triptans during pregnancy does not increase the risk of neurodevelopmental disorders in children.

The article “Personalizing Bipolar Disorder Treatment: Unlocking the Potential of Personality Tests” reveals a groundbreaking study that suggests personality tests might help tailor care for people with bipolar disorder. Researchers from the University of Michigan’s Heinz C. Prechter Bipolar Research Program analyzed data from over 2,500 individuals with bipolar disorder who took part in two long-term studies. They identified certain combinations of personality traits, or styles, which could raise or lower a person’s risk of repeated depressive episodes and poor functioning in everyday life.

The study found that some personality styles were associated with higher risk for depression, while others were protective against it. Notably, all the styles involving high scores on neuroticism (prone to emotional instability and negative thinking) raised the risk of depression. Conversely, styles with low levels of neuroticism appeared to be protective.

The researchers also discovered that other personality traits not related to neuroticism could influence a person’s risk for frequent depressive episodes. This was similarly observed in predicting poor life functioning, where low levels of neuroticism were particularly beneficial.

In the second part of the study, which used data from over 2,000 individuals with bipolar disorder participating in the STEP-BD trial, two-thirds of the personality styles that predicted higher risk for depression and nine out of sixteen styles associated with protection were replicated. This replication strengthened the researchers’ confidence in their model.

Lead author Kelly Ryan notes that it’s not just individual personality traits but rather the interaction between them and the balance between protective and risk-increasing ones that appear to matter most. This knowledge can be used clinically to help individuals with bipolar disorder have fewer depressive episodes and higher life functioning.
The study highlights the potential for personalized treatment planning in bipolar disorder, where clinicians could take into account an individual’s personality traits when making decisions about their care. Patients themselves could also use these insights to better understand their experiences and work with clinicians to modify traits that might raise their long-term risk of depression and poor life management.

This is particularly significant given the growing recognition that personality traits can change over time through therapy or coaching, as exemplified by someone who scores low on the “openness” trait being guided therapeutically to seek out new experiences.

A groundbreaking study led by Yale researchers has shed new light on how our senses interact with the brain, revealing a crucial link between sensory perception and consciousness. The study, published in the journal NeuroImage, has significant implications for understanding disorders related to attention, arousal, and more.

For decades, scientists have known that each sense – sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell – activates different parts of the brain. However, this new research reveals a surprising truth: all senses converge on a critical region deep in the brain, controlling consciousness.

The study analyzed fMRI datasets from 1,561 healthy adult participants who performed various tasks using four senses: vision, audition, taste, and touch. The researchers discovered that sensory input from multiple senses shares the same subcortical arousal networks. Moreover, they found that sudden shifts in attention stimulate activity in two deep brain regions: the midbrain reticular formation and the central thalamus.

Lead author Aya Khalaf, a postdoctoral associate in neurology at Yale School of Medicine, was astonished by the findings. “We were expecting to find shared networks, but when we saw all senses light up the same central brain regions while a test subject was focusing, it was really astonishing.”

The study’s implications are far-reaching. The discovery highlights the importance of these central brain regions in regulating not only disorders of consciousness but also conditions that impact attention and focus, such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. This finding could lead to better targeted medications and brain stimulation techniques for patients.

Senior author Hal Blumenfeld, the Mark Loughridge and Michele Williams Professor of Neurology, notes, “This has also given us insights into how things work normally in the brain. It’s really a step forward in our understanding of awareness and consciousness.”

The research was supported in part by funding from the National Institutes of Health. As researchers continue to explore the intricacies of the human brain, this study serves as a crucial milestone in unraveling the secrets of sensory perception and consciousness.