Brain Images Show Common Structures for Addiction and Mental Health
An article in Medical News Today discusses how analysis of brain images reveal that Several mental disorders share changes in certain brain regions. While it’s interesting, and the findings could lead to future therapies, it isn’t a surprise to those of us who have treated dual diagnosis clients for many years and it’s why integrated health care is so effective.
As the opening paragraph of the article states, “The research, published in JAMA Psychiatry, took the form of a meta-analysis of structural neuroimaging studies involving addiction, anxiety, bipolar disorder, depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder and schizophrenia.” Addiction can co-occur with any one of the other five listed disorders, and is still widely treated as a behavioral disorder rather than a mental illness. Several conclusions can be drawn from these findings, but if they prove to be accurate they show a definitive neural link between addiction and the other mental disorders.
It will be nice if, someday in the future, we could treat patients with co-occurring addiction and depression by seating them in the Tarzana Treatment Centers Cognitive Computer Training Center (which does not currently exist), or running the trainings on a website. After a few sessions the brain would retrain itself and minimize or eliminate both disorders. It sounds like science fiction, but, according to the article, trials are underway on these types of therapy.
It’s a little more difficult to treat co-occurring disorders, right now, but integrated care services make treatment effective. Whether an individual comes for help with substance use disorder or mental health, assessments in both areas ensure that the whole person is treated and not just the disorder.