Researchers develop tool to identify possible depression among youth

A research team from King’s College London have come up with a predictive tool that can help identify people who are at the higher end of the risk meter to experience a high or low depressive disorder.

Researchers used data from over 2,000 adolescents. With the help of this data, the team developed a tool that can help identify which young people will go on to experience a major depressive disorder when they reach 18 years.

Dr Valeria Mondelli, Reader in Psychoneuroimmunology at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience (IoPPN) and lead author on the study said, ‘This research marks an important first step in developing an accessible tool that could help screen adolescents for depression and improve mental health worldwide.’

Read more on the Hindustan times

Coronavirus super-spreaders: Why are they important?

Dr Nathalie MacDermott, National Institute for Health Research Academic Clinical Lecturer in Paediatrics (Infectious Diseases) has been speaking widely on the coronavirus outbreak. Contributing to a recent piece on ‘super-spreading’, where individual patients pass on an infection to large numbers of people (a feature of nearly every outbreak), Dr MacDermott says, ‘We need to be careful of the language we use. They [super-spreaders] haven't done anything wrong, this is an infection picked up through no fault of their own.’

Dr MacDermott says ‘We need to be careful of the language we use. They [super-spreaders] haven't done anything wrong, this is an infection picked up through no fault of their own.’

Read more on the BBC website

Woman plays the violin while undergoing surgery to remove brain tumour at hospital King’s College Hospital

Dagmar Turner, a violinist with the Isle of Wight Symphony Orchestra, recently underwent surgery at King’s College Hospital to remove a brain tumour. For part of the surgery Dagmar played the violin to ensure that surgeons did not damage the part of her brain which controls the fine movement in her left hand. Professor Keyoumars Ashkan, a consultant neurosurgeon at King’s College Hospital, came up with the plan to reduce the risk. Surgeons mapped her brain, opened the skull and then got her to play the violin as the tumour was removed.

Professor Ashkan said, ‘We managed to remove over 90% of the tumour, including all the areas suspicious of aggressive activity, while retaining full function in her left hand.’

Read more and watch the video on Sky News.

Government- backed target more women in the boardroom reached

A third of all board positions on the blue-chip FTSE 100 are now held by women – hitting a Government-backed target earlier than expected. By comparison, just 12.5% of boardroom positions were filled by women 10 years ago. But concerns remain over the lack of diversity and not enough women in senior leadership and executive roles, research shows. Only 15% of FTSE 100 finance chiefs are women, compared with 33% of all boardroom positions held.

In a report by the Global Institute for Women Leadership at King’s College London, researchers also found just 29.5% of companies on the second-tier FTSE 250 are women, with the number of all-male boards across all 350 top listed businesses stuck stubbornly at 44 – unchanged for two years.

Read more on the Daily Mail

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