Leading Psychiatrist Dies; Diagnostic Interviews Unreliable? Remote Work Distress

Harvard University professor Robert Coles, MD, the psychiatrist and Pulitzer Prize-winning author who championed the cause of children grappling with poverty and segregation, died at age 97. (AP)

High-intensity transcranial alternating current stimulation was well tolerated and effective at improving emotion regulation scores in adolescents with major depressive disorder and nonsuicidal self-injury, a randomized trial showed. (JAMA Network Open)

Can overlooked social connections help prevent suicide? (KFF Health News)

Standardized diagnostic interviews, while considered the “gold standard” of psychiatric disorder classification, varied widely in reliability, a meta-analysis found. (JAMA Network Open)

Existing data support a prospective clinical trial of low-dose lithium orotate to slow disease progression in mild cognitive impairment, authors argued in a JAMA Psychiatry review.

Since the pandemic, remote workers have reported more days spent entirely alone, decreased after-work socializing, and higher levels of mental distress than those with in-person jobs, U.S. survey data suggested. (Science)

Several South Florida behavioral health companies abruptly received Medicaid termination letters without explanation, forcing them to shutter services. (CBS News)

Meanwhile, the American Psychiatric Association and American Psychological Association urged Aetna-CVS Health to halt reimbursement rate cuts for behavioral health services delivered by Alma-affiliated clinicians.

Increasing social media time trajectories were associated with a greater likelihood of substance use experimentation, a cohort study of over 7,000 adolescents indicated. (American Journal of Psychiatry)

Recent guidance from the Trump administration revived partisan debates about using methadone and buprenorphine to treat opioid addiction. (STAT)