Christmas season spells less incidents of suicide around the world, according to a new study conducted by a team of researchers from the University of Pennsylvania in the United States on Saturday.

The research team, headed by Dan Romer, the university's director of Annenberg Adolescent Communication Institute, further claimed that contrary to previous reports that suicide rates showed an upward trend during the "ber" months, the study revealed that it is lower by as much as 40 percent

A 45-year-old woman who was wrongly diagnosed with HIV and received treatments for almost nine years before she discovered she never had AIDS, was awarded $2.5 million in damages by a jury Wednesday. .

Audrey Serrano said in her lawsuit against her doctor who diagnosed her, the multiple powerful drugs she took started a chain of ailments, including depression, loss of weight, fatigue, loss of appetite and inflammation of the intestine

An Australian medical study has found that fish oil or omega-3 fatty acids may stop young people from developing schizophrenia, a psychotic condition characterized by hallucinations and delusions.

In an experiment conducted by researchers from the Orygen Research Centre in Melbourne, only three percent of 40 people aged 13 to 24 and previous sufferers of hallucinations and delusions developed schizophrenia one year after taking capsules of fish oil over a period of three months

A study done by the Army has given the conclusion that involvement in the war in Iraq is not without effects on the mental health of 20 pct. of active soldiers, and 42 pct. of National Guard troops and reservists. Another revelation of the study was that most mental complications ensued months after the troops returned home.

Compared to the initial effects upon returning from the war, the mental concerns of soldiers have reportedly increased as well. The problems are usually post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and depression, said the study, which is slated for publication Wednesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association

Researchers have unlocked a key genetic switch that chronic cocaine or stress influences to cause the brain to descend into a pathological state. Scientists working with mice uncovered findings showing how chronic cocaine use changes gene activity to enhance the addictive reward from the drug. Similarly researchers also found that chronic stress induces the same kinds of changes that hypersensitizes the brain, causing depression-like symptoms.

The importance of this finding in animals gives new insight that could lead to better treatments for addiction, depression and other psychiatric disorders in people