For nearly two decades, Jeffrey I. Gold, PhD, an investigator at The Saban Research Institute of Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, has been investigating the use of virtual reality (VR) as a technique to help children undergoing painful medical procedures. His research shows that the technology can have powerful effects. VR works so well that Children’s Hospital Los Angeles now offers it routinely for blood draws.
The troubling news and images emerging from Afghanistan as American troops withdraw from the region after 20 years is causing a spike in post-traumatic stress among veterans at home, says UCLA Health psychiatrist Bruce Kagan, MD, PhD.
In a study of rodents, scientists at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai discovered that a part of the brain traditionally thought to control typing the old habits may also play a critical role in learning the new actions. The results, published on August 25th in Nature Communications, suggest that this process involves a delicate balance in the activity of two neighboring neural circuits: one dedicated to new actions and the other to old habits
Stem cell models derived from people with specific genomic variation recapitulate aspects of their autism spectrum disorder, providing a valuable model to study the condition and look for therapeutic interventions.
A five-year study, published Aug. 25 in JAMA Psychiatry, found that telepsychiatry in rural, federally qualified health centers was a resounding success for patients who had screened positive for bipolar disorder and/or PTSD. The trial of 1,004 participants was the biggest yet on telehealth.
Rutgers School of Public Health professor and Rutgers Global Health Institute core faculty, Vincent M. Silenzio, has received a 2021 Global Health Seed Grant from Rutgers Global Health Institute in partnership with Rutgers Global.
During the pandemic, nurses continue to deliver a crisis standard of care, which requires allocating and using scarce medical resources. This care, in the context of COVID-19, an infectious and potentially fatal illness, requires nurses to balance their duty to care for patients while protecting themselves and their families. Crisis standards of care cause high moral distress for clinicians. The lack of preparedness of U.S. hospitals to initiate crisis care standards is likely amplifying such distress. Could better leadership communication mitigate this distress and consequential poorer mental health?
Researchers uncovered the precise hypothalamic neurons that regulate the drive to engage in mating behaviors in mice. The study sets the stage for developing a targeted therapy to offset the sexual side effects linked to antidepressants that can discourage patients from treating mental illnesses.
Half of adults aged 20-39 with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) have had a substance use disorder (SUD) in their lifetime according to new research published online ahead of print this month in Alcohol and Alcoholism.
from alcohol use disorder (AUD) have been clarified in a new study in Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research. AUD recovery was already known to be multidimensional, with behavioral changes – ranging from stopping heavy drinking to complete abstinence – accompanied by partial reversal of alcohol-induced brain damage. While the relationship between early abstinence (the “withdrawal phase”), negative mood, and sex-specific effects of alcohol on the brain’s “reward system” have been well-established, a growing body of evidence is revealing that AUD individuals in long-term abstinence (greater than five years) report higher levels of subjective happiness and emotional well-being, as well as a significantly lower risk of relapse. Yet, the way these long-term behavioral and emotional improvements relate to underlying brain changes, and potentially differ between men and women, remains unknown. To better understand and characterize these aspects of the recovery process, the study’s res
Irvine, Calif., Aug. 24, 2021 – The Orange County Sheriff’s Department and the University of California, Irvine are partnering to determine whether changing the jail experience can improve outcomes for young men upon their release.
An adolescent’s day can be filled with a dizzying array of digital technologies. For many teenagers, being online is a way to pass the time and communicate with friends. Cell phones and social media can also help teens cope with stressful events—as long as they strike the right balance between spending time online and pursuing other coping activities.
While many – from Aristotle to the Dalai Lama – have opined on the state of human happiness, a new Rutgers-led study finds that utter contentment depends, at least in part, on believing that leisure activities are not a waste of time.
A predicted population drop at the end of the century could be explained by stress from meaningless social interactions, according to a review article published in the Endocrine Society’s journal, Endocrinology.
The COVID-19 pandemic has brought a time period of grief in many forms, even grief unrelated to the loss of life – some caused by the need for isolation measures to slow the spread of the virus.
Northern California’s leading school of psychology and counseling the creation of ten scholarships of $10,000 each for Spanish speaking, Latinx undergraduate students in the University’s BS in Psychology and Social Action program.
Researchers measured both the psychological perception of stress and evaluated how undergraduate males and females cope with stress. The differences are vast. Females experienced much higher levels of stress than males and used emotion-focused approaches to cope more than males. Females used self-distractions, emotional support and venting as coping strategies. Male students on the other hand sought much lower levels of support, since they either may lack the social network or may not have developed those skills.
Patients with newly diagnosed multiple sclerosis report several symptoms - pain, fatigue, depression and anxiety - in the first year. A significant number of them experience a cluster of two or more of those symptoms, according to a new study from Michigan Medicine.
Expert Q&A: Do breakthrough cases mean we will soon need COVID boosters? The extremely contagious Delta variant continues to spread, prompting mask mandates, proof of vaccination, and other measures. Media invited to ask the experts about these and related topics.
We live our lives in real time, watching events unfold moment by moment. To make better sense of the world, however, our brains automatically predict how some events will unfold moments into the future. New research published in Psychological Science explores the brain’s “prediction machine” capabilities by examining how we experience music.
Alcohol intoxication is linked to impairments in the ability to interpret other people’s facial expressions, especially in men, according to a new study. The findings may help explain why alcohol use is often associated with harmful interpersonal and social consequences, such as physical aggression, intimate partner violence, sexual assault, or being victimized. Heavy drinking is known to have the potential to disrupt the recognition of facial expressions, leading to misinterpretation. This may in turn contribute to inappropriate behaviors. Identifying the social processing mechanisms influenced by alcohol may inform interventions designed to reduce these negative outcomes. Previous laboratory studies of alcohol use and emotion processing have had mixed findings, however, and the roles of gender and naturalistic settings have not been investigated. For the study in Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research, investigators explored the influence of alcohol intoxication on recognizing
Research published in the journal Psychology, Crime & Law suggests a new, low-cost approach that could potentially reduce antisocial behaviour and crime.
A new study comparing adolescent suicide rates with the availability of mental health services has found that more resources may contribute to fewer suicides, but don’t appear to have any role in reducing suicides involving firearms. The findings support efforts to bolster mental health services by increasing providers and reducing wait times where services already exist, and highlight the need to continue to focus on stricter gun laws, said senior researcher Thomas Wickizer, a professor emeritus at Ohio State’s College of Public Health.
Research led by a Wayne State University Department of Mathematics professor is aiding researchers in Wayne State’s Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurosciences in analyzing fMRI data. fMRI is the preeminent class of signals collected from the brain in vivo and is irreplaceable in the study of brain dysfunction in many medical fields, including psychiatry, neurology and pediatrics.
Two Johns Hopkins University researchers who study classroom stress and the emotional well-being of students and teachers have released an app that allows teachers to get daily reports about how their students are feeling.
Though the tool wasn’t created for the pandemic, it certainly has come in handy over the last year as educators struggle to keep tabs on students, especially if they’re teaching remotely.
Worry, anxiety and depression – when mental health problems strike, they hit hard, particularly in times of uncertainty. With young women consistently and disproportionately more affected by mental health problems compared to young men, experts say it highlights widespread gender inequalities, gendered violence, and discrimination.
A new study by researchers from Tufts University School of Medicine and Sage Therapeutics discovered that neurosteroids (allopregnanolone analogs) may alter network states in brain regions involved in emotional processing, which may explain the prolonged antidepressant effects of these compounds.
– Peter Lichtenberg, Ph.D., ABPP, director of the Institute of Gerontology at Wayne State University, has received an Exemplary Service Award for his years of extraordinary contributions to aging services in Michigan. Lichtenberg was jointly honored by the Michigan Commission on Services to the Aging, the Aging & Adult Services Agency, and the Statewide Network of Services for the Aging. Lichtenberg has worked as a clinical geropsychologist, researcher, program director and national leader in gerontology for the past 35 years.
COVID-19 stressors are negatively impacting resettled refugees’ mental health, a new study by UNSW Sydney psychologists in partnership with Australian Red Cross, Settlement Services International (SSI) and Phoenix Australia at the University of Melbourne has shown.
Making jokes about COVID-19 to alleviate stress is not necessarily a good way to communicate with your spouse or keep your relationship intact, according to a study by Rutgers and other researchers.
Among individuals who survive a trauma that resulted in the loss of a close friend or loved one, symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder can predict complicated grief – a sense of persistent sadness and an inability to cope – years after the trauma, according to research published by the American Psychological Association.
Playing professional football games in empty stadiums had a hugely negative effect on the success of home teams, with home advantage almost halved, new research shows.
The use of artificial intelligence and machine learning enable new insights to help diagnose illness, suggest specific courses of treatment and follow patient’s progress
Social media platforms like Twitter amplify expressions of moral outrage over time because users learn such language gets rewarded with an increased number of “likes” and “shares,” a new Yale University study shows.
Most children diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactive disorder (ADHD) don’t outgrow the disorder, as widely thought. It manifests itself in adulthood in different ways and waxes and wanes over a lifetime, according to a study published Aug.13 in the American Journal of Psychiatry.
Used for the treatment of depression that does not respond to standard antidepressant medications, the anesthesia drug ketamine – and the related drug esketamine, recently approved for depression treatment – has no important adverse effects on memory, attention, or other cognitive processes, concludes a systematic review of medical research in the September/October issue of Harvard Review of Psychiatry. The journal is published in the Lippincott portfolio by Wolters Kluwer.
How people respond to health threats can influence their own health and, when people are facing communal risks, even their community’s health. This interview explores how reducing fear may jeopardize health behaviors.
The Johns Hopkins School of Nursing will launch the Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner track as part of its top-ranked Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) program with first students starting in fall 2022.
Achieving peak performance in competitive athletics requires a complex but delicate interplay of skill, physical conditioning, practice, precision, grit and passion. Sometimes, both external and internal factors such as self-doubt, pressure, anxiety and stress can interfere with an athlete’s performance or desire to play.
This year’s Olympics brought countless memories, exceptional human performance and visibility to challenges faced by all athletes, elite or otherwise. Perhaps central to these challenges was the relationship between athletes and mental health. This new ACSM statement offers several resources.
Researchers from Vienna University of Economics and Business and Cornell University published a new paper in the Journal of Marketing that examines how marketers can cater to consumers’ need to feel grounded by offering products that connect to place, people, and past.
The isolation and abrupt interruption of social contacts and interpersonal affective relationships caused by the Covid-19 pandemic have triggered greater fragility and uncertainty in people and this condition has also had repercussions in the human-dog relationship.
An alarming percentage of children and adolescents are experiencing a global-wide mental crisis due to the COVID-19 pandemic according to a new University of Calgary study published in the medical journal JAMA Pediatrics.
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