Danielle N. Rette

Mental health apps (MHAs) and online interventions have considerable potential for addressing the unmet mental health needs of college students at-risk for suicide. We examined attitudes about MHAs and reported use of online treatment (online interventions and MHAs) among at-risk college students using a diverse sample of 827 students. About 65% of students were inclined to use MHAs, with over a third preferring MHAs to in-person treatment. Despite positive attitudes, actual use of online treatment was low. The full potential of online treatment on college campuses has not been fully realized due to low student awareness and uptake.

The antidepressant placebo response remains a barrier to the development of novel therapies for depression, despite decades of efforts to identify and methodologically address its clinical correlates. This manuscript reviews recent neuroimaging studies that aim to identify the neural signature of antidepressant placebo response. Data captured in clinical trials have primarily focused on antidepressant efficacy or predicting antidepressant response and have reliably implicated the rostral anterior cingulate cortex (rACC) in antidepressant placebo response, but also in medication response. Imaging and electroencephalography (EEG) experiments specifically interrogating the mechanism of antidepressant placebo response, while few, suggest the reward network, including opiate neurotransmission, is also involved. Therefore, while the rACC is likely involved in the antidepressant placebo response, its observation in isolation is unlikely to prospectively distinguish antidepressant placebo from medication responders. Instead, future studies of antidepressant placebo response should probe the reward network as a whole and incorporate sophisticated computational analytical approaches.