At first blush, to say that depression occurs with other diseases may seem like belaboring the obvious. After all, to put it in the bluntest possible terms, it’s sad to be sick. But by looking more closely, it soon becomes clear that the association is stronger than that. The strongest association between depression and other diseases, Stefan Gold told the audience at the European College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ECNP) annual conference in Vienna this week, is “not necessarily the most severe or most immediately life-threatening disorders… [it’s] across the spectrum."
The use of cannabis and childhood trauma have been proposed as environmental factors impacting the risk of psychosis. Recent findings have suggested a link between genetic variants in the cannabinoid receptor 1 gene (CNR1) and cannabis use with the risk of psychosis development.
At the recent European Association of Nuclear Medicine meeting in Barcelona, researchers from the British Columbia Cancer Research Institute and the University of British Columbia reported the development and preclinical evaluation of bispecific radiotracers designed to target prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA) and fibroblast activation protein (FAP).