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Psychology
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December 2004
December 7
Teenagers
fail to see the consequences
Research into juveniles' appreciation of ultimate outcomes is being used
to support a ban on the US death penalty for under-18s.
Humans
can learn to be nice
Upbringing is a key contributor to a person's social responsibility, a new
study suggests, reducing the overwhelming role of genetic factors.
Psychotic
symptoms more likely with cannabis
Young adults using cannabis increase their risk of developing psychotic
symptom in later life, finds a large-scale study.
Chromosomes
aged 10 years by stress
Psychological stress acts on a cellular level and can prematurely age a
woman's chromosomes, a new study suggests.
November 2004
November 21
Mouse
Study Sheds Light on Nicotine's Addictive Power
More than four million people die from smoking-related causes each year,
making nicotine addiction a leading cause of preventable mortality worldwide.
But nicotine's highly addictive nature makes kicking the smoking habit very
difficult. New research identifies brain receptors in mice that may help
explain why it's so hard to quit, and help scientists develop new drugs
to help smokers butt out.
Stress
can make pregnant women miscarry
An overactive immune system can turn on the placenta, but extra doses of
a female hormone may save the pregnancy.
Malnutrition
In Early Years Leads To Low IQ And Later Antisocial Behavior, USC Study
Finds
Malnutrition in the first few years of life leads to antisocial and aggressive
behavior throughout childhood and late adolescence, according to a new University
of Southern California study.
November 8
DON'T LET THE MIND BUGS
BITE
There's growing evidence that some mental illnesses may spread in an
unexpected way by coughs and sneezes. p.40 (New Scientist, 11/6/2004)
New twist in gay gene debate. (New Scientist, 11/6/2004)
October 2004
October 24
Mental
Health Plays Part in Marital Bliss. MONDAY, Oct. 11 (HealthDayNews)
Satisfaction with marriage is affected by the mental health of both spouses,
says a study in the October issue of the Journal of Consulting and Clinical
Psychology. The study of 774 married couples from seven states in the United
States found that each spouse's level of anxiety and depression predicted
their own marital satisfaction and that of their spouse as well. The more
depressed or anxious either spouse was, the more dissatisfied he or she
was with the marriage.
October 10
PERSONALITY
PREDICTS POLITICS
Pollsters may be aided by test of how judgmental voters are.
September 2004
September 13
Single
gene removes gender differences in mice brains
Significant structural differences in male and female brains may result
from selective cell death orchestrated by just one gene.
August 2004
August 31
Chaotic
homes hamper child development
Growing up in a noisy, disorganised home hinders a child’s developing
mind, according to a new study of twins.
Children
With ADHD Benefit From Time Outdoors Enjoying Nature
Kids with attention deficit hyperactive disorder (ADHD) should spend some
quality after-school hours and weekend time outdoors enjoying nature.
August 23
Weird
links with words and colours in the mind
A strange condition which gives people weird sensory associations relies
on the brain - meaning all humans may be able to experience it.
August 17
Codependent
No More
When Pleasing Others Is Hurting You addresses the need to be needed.
Reviewed by Cindy Crosby.
SOCIAL
STATUS INFLUENCES BRAIN STRUCTURE
Assertive rats sprout extra nerve cells.
GENE
THERAPY CURES MONKEYS OF LAZINESS
Switching off key gene turns layabout primates into keen workers.
August 8
GREY
MATTER MATTERS FOR INTELLECT
Intelligence linked to size of key brain regions.
Medicine,
Mind, and Meaning, by Eve A. Wood
In "Medicine, Mind, and Meaning," a step-by-step guide that combines
traditional psychiatric approaches and spiritual principles.
New
Views On Mind-Body Connection
Studies into placebo effect and empathy suggest how the brain encodes subjective
experience.
July 2004
July 25
Good
mothers stop monkeys going bad.
Good mothering can abolish the impact of a "bad" gene for
aggression, suggests a new study, adding spice to the "nature-versus-nurture"
controversy.
Movies
Can Raise Or Lower Hormone Levels
A romantic movie or an action-adventure film can send your hormone levels
in measurably different directions, according to new research.
July 10
C.
Everett Koop on "Medicine, Mind, and Meaning," by Eve A. Wood
C. Everett Koop, former U.S. Surgeon General and McInerny Professor of Surgery,
Dartmouth Medical School, writes the foreward to Medicine, Mind, and Meaning
(2004), a new book by noted psychiatrist, professor and speaker, Eve A.
Wood. The book is a step-by-step guide that combines traditional psychiatric
approaches and spiritual principles. Not typically given to publicly endorsing
work, Koop's exception in this case marks the importance and urgency he
attaches to this text. Koop writes, "I have seldom been so moved by
a book. This is the only healing model that makes sense."
June 2004
June 20
Researchers
Make Promiscuous Animals Monogamous By Manipulating Genes. ATLANTA
Researchers at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center of Emory University
and Atlanta's Center for Behavioral Neuroscience (CBN) have found transferring
a single gene, the vasopressin receptor, into the brain's reward center
makes a promiscuous male meadow vole monogamous. This finding, which appears
in the June 17 issue of Nature, may help better explain the neurobiology
of romantic love as well as disorders of the ability to form social bonds,
such as autism. In addition, the finding supports previous research linking
social bond formation with drug addiction, also associated with the reward
center of the brain.
Emory
Researchers Study The Effects Of Zen Meditation On The Brain
Zen meditation is an ancient spiritual practice that promotes awareness
and presence through the undivided engagement of mind and body. For thousands
of years, many religious traditions have made meditation a common practice.
Now, researchers at Emory University are looking at the effects of Zen meditation
and how the brain functions during meditative states. By determining the
brain structures involved in meditation and whose activity is gradually
changed in the course of long-term meditative practice, researchers hope
this training could one day be used as a complementary treatment for neurological
conditions, such as Parkinson's disease and attention deficit and hyperactivity
disorder (ADHD).
Death
by Theory
According to attachment theory, certain children must be subjected to physical
"confrontation" and "restraint" to release repressed
abandonment anger. The process is repeated until the child is exhausted
and emotionally reduced to an "infantile" state. Then the parents
cradle, rock and bottle-feed him, implementing an "attachment."
This is pseudoscientific quackery masquerading as psychological science
and, put into practice, it can be deadly.
May 2004
May 2
Cravings reduced
in rehab rats
Discovery might help cocaine addicts kick the habit. 22 April 2004.
Alcohol patch
trials planned
Drug could help curb excess drinking. 20 April 2004.
April 2004
April 11
Surprises
Found In Gene Variation Associated With Schizophrenia
Approximately 2 percent of Caucasians have a gene segment variation that
can cause a certain form of schizophrenia.
April 4
The
Brain in Love
Most people think of romantic love as a feeling. Helen Fisher, however,
views it as a drive so powerful that it can override other drives, such
as hunger and thirst, render the most dignified person a fool, or bring
rapture to an unassuming wallflower.
Banished
Thoughts Resurface in Dreams
"Wishes suppressed during the day assert themselves in dreams,"
Sigmund Freud wrote more than a century ago. Now new research provides evidence
suggesting that not just wishes but all kinds of thoughts we bar from our
minds while awake reappear when we sleep.
March 2004
March 28
BAD
OR MAD?
The Christian philosopher Saint Augustine described two types of evil. "Natural
evil" is what happens when a volcano erupts or a storm strikes, while
"moral evil" includes all the dreadful things that humans knowingly
do to each other. Over the past decade, neuroscientists have found that
the brains of impulsive murderers and psychopaths are fundamentally different
from those of "normal" people. Those differences extend even to
their ability to make choices--to exercise free will. Sean Spence, a British
psychologist, asks how we should deal with these findings. For some people,
should we move the boundary between what is moral and natural evil?
Parental
Support Has Lifelong Benefits MONDAY, March 22 (HealthDayNews)
Abundant parental support during childhood leads to better mental and physical
health throughout adulthood, a new study finds. Conversely, a lack of love
is associated with depression and chronic health problems, says Benjamin
A. Shaw.
March 21
Bible
on the brain
MU psychiatrist's book investigates effects of religion on psyche (Columbia
Daily Tribune, Mo.).
March 14
The
master switch
A brain circuit long considered a no-go area could be the key to a new class
of molecule that will revolutionise the treatment of mental illness - including
many intractable or poorly treated diseases such as schizophrenia, epilepsy,
addiction, anxiety and chronic pain. The compounds, being developed by almost
every major pharmaceutical company, are based on glutamate, the brain’s
primary neurotransmitter. Glutamate signalling is so pervasive in the brain
that interfering with it usually leads to horrendous side effects. But researchers
have found promising ways to control it selectively for the first time,
so there is now a real prospect of taking control of the brain’s master
switch.
Criminals follow
laws of statistics
Stopping first crimes is the best way to halt criminality. 3 March 2004.
USC
Study Finds Faulty Wiring In Psychopaths.
Psychopaths have physical abnormalities in two key brain structures responsible
for functions ranging from fear detection to information processing, a USC
clinical neuroscientist has found in two studies that suggest a neuro-developmental
basis to the disorder.
February 2004
February 29
I feel your pain
Empathy lights up the same parts of the brain as personal injury. 20 February
2004.
Grieving
Children. (HealthDayNews)
When a family member dies, children react differently than adults. Some
may act like nothing has changed, others may become more infantile, and
certain kids will even blame themselves.
February 22
Lead linked to
schizophrenia
Study hints that prenatal toxins can trigger psychiatric disease. 17 February
2004.
Maths predicts
chance of divorce
Ignoring nasty comments is secret to long-lasting love. 14 February 2004.
Plenty
of books to sort out love, lust
The images of love that are promoted by American culture often don't lead
to happiness (The Tennessean).
February 15
The
Addicted Brain
New research indicates that chronic drug use induces changes in the structure
and function of the system's neurons that last for weeks, months or years
after the last fix. These adaptations, perversely, dampen the pleasurable
effects of a chronically abused substance yet also increase the cravings
that trap the addict in a destructive spiral of escalating use and increased
fallout at work and at home. Improved understanding of these neural alterations
should help provide better interventions for addiction, so that people who
have fallen prey to habit-forming drugs can reclaim their brains and their
lives.
Living
Together No Guarantee of Marriage. WEDNESDAY, Feb. 11 (HealthDayNews)
People who live together before marriage are less likely to say "I
do" than was previously believed.
February 8
'Mindsight'
could explain sixth sense
Some people are aware a scene has changed without being able to identify
what the change is, new psychological experiments suggest.
January 2004
January 25
Man Injured After Claiming God Told Him to Enter Lion's Den.
Singing Strengthens Immune System.
January 18
Split personalities
probed
Two personas trigger different brain networks. One human brain can have
two different personalities dwelling in it, according to a new imaging study
- and each personality seems to use its own network of nerves to help recall
or suppress memories. Alternative personalities are typically developed
by children who suffer severe trauma or abuse. The condition, called multiple
personality disorder, or dissociative identity disorder, appears to help
people cope by cutting off difficult memories, making them seem as if they
happened to someone else. Nature, 9 January 2004
Intelligence (11
Jan)
Intelligence in the workplace is not that different from intelligence at
school, according to the results of a meta-analysis of over one hundred
studies involving more than 20,000 people. The findings contradict the popular
notion that abilities required for success in the real world differ greatly
from what is needed to achieve success in the classroom. The results are
published in the January issue of the American Psychological Association's
(APA) Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
January 11
War
- genetics (7 Jan)
Research into the aggressive behaviour of male chimpanzees, our closest
biological ally, suggests that the urge to go to war is in our DNA and that
only women can stop it, says Sanjida O'Connell.
Research
Reveals Brain Has Biological Mechanism To Block Unwanted Memories.
For the first time, researchers at Stanford University and the University
of Oregon have shown that a biological mechanism exists in the human brain
to block unwanted memories. The findings, to be published Jan. 9 in the
journal Science, reinforce Sigmund Freud's controversial century-old thesis
about the existence of voluntary memory suppression.
January 4
Decoding
Schizophrenia
For decades, theories of schizophrenia have focused on a single neurotransmitter:
dopamine. In the past few years, though, it has become clear that a disturbance
in dopamine levels is just a part of the story and that, for many, the main
abnormalities lie elsewhere. In particular, suspicion has fallen on deficiencies
in the neurotransmitter glutamate. Scientists now realize that schizophrenia
affects virtually all parts of the brain and that, unlike dopamine, which
plays an important role only in isolated regions, glutamate is critical
virtually everywhere. As a result, investigators are searching for treatments
that can reverse the underlying glutamate deficit.
How
to Keep Your New Year's Resolutions.
Making life changes that last.
How
Are The Genders Different?
Georgetown Center Unearthing Core Biological Differences Between Men And
Women. Georgetown University Medical Center has officially launched the
Center for the Study of Gender Differences in Health, Aging, and more.
Unmaking
Memories: Interview with James McGaugh
In the sci-fi thriller Paycheck, an engineer has his memory erased after
completing a sensitive job. Scientific American.com spoke with a leading
neurobiologist to find out just how close scientists are to controlling
recall.