The psychotic symptoms of schizophrenia may be due to an abnormal relationship between the activity of glutamate in the hippocampus and dopamine in the striatum, according to Dr James Stone and his colleagues at Imperial College, London. The findings, published in tomorrow's edition of the journal Biological Psychiatry, suggest a new approach to preventing psychotic symptoms, which could lead to better drugs for schizophrenia.

If you have a phobia you may have considered facing your fear as a way of getting over it. Many successful therapies, such as systematic desensitisation, flooding and implosion therapy see facing the object of fear as a crucial part of overcoming a phobia. A woman from Peterborough, however, has shown that the do-it-yourself version of these therapies is not always the best strategy.

The more chocolate a person eats, the more depressed they are. Do depressed people eat more chocolate because it helps relieve their symptoms or does the chocolate cause the depression? This is the question raised by new research showing that as depressive symptoms increase, so does chocolate consumption.

Patients who believe that God cares about them are more likely to respond favourably to antidepressant medication than those who do not believe in a God who cares and those who do not believe in God at all, according to new research by Patricia Murphy and George Fitchett of Rush University in Chicago...