Psychology news

• Characteristic pattern of protein deposits in brains of retired NFL players who suffered concussions

  06-04-2015 22:51
  
  A new study takes another step toward the early understanding of a degenerative brain condition called chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, which affects athletes in contact sports who are exposed to repetitive brain injuries. Using a new imaging tool, researchers found a strikingly similar pattern of abnormal protein deposits in the brains of retired NFL players who suffered from concussions.
  
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• Internet-style 'local area networks' in cerebral cortex of rats

  06-04-2015 21:30
  Studying 40 years' worth of data on rat brains, scientists found that the rat cerebral cortex has hubs and 'local area networks,' much like the Internet.
  
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• Broken cellular communication in brain contributes to Huntington's disease symptoms

  06-04-2015 21:28
  Broken communication in a specific part of the brain plays a role in the involuntary physical movements that affect individuals with Huntington's disease, researchers have found.
  
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• Near-death brain signaling accelerates demise of the heart

  06-04-2015 21:28
  What happens in the moments just before death is widely believed to be a slowdown of the body’s systems as the heart stops beating and blood flow ends. But there's a brainstorm happening, strongly synchronized with heart rhythm. Blocking this brain outflow may change the odds of survival for those who suffer cardiac arrest.
  
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• Brain activity boosts processes that promote neural connections

  06-04-2015 20:46
  Brain activity affects the way the developing brain connects neurons and a new study suggests a new model for understanding that process. "Our study has implications for understanding psychiatric disease and ties into the current conversations about the changing adolescent and teenage brain," said the senior author of the study.
  
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• Functional brain organization of newborns altered by prenatal cocaine exposure

  06-04-2015 19:35
  
  Cocaine-specific disruptions have been seen in a part of the brain circuitry thought to play an important role in arousal regulation, a new study of newborns with prenatal drug exposure finds. "This study may inform new strategies aimed at early risk identification and intervention," said a corresponding author of the study.
  
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• Multiple sclerosis patients could benefit from brain boost study

  06-04-2015 18:14
  Multiple sclerosis patients could one day benefit from treatments that boost their brain function, a study suggests. Increasing the activity of neurons could be beneficial in people with the disease, researchers say. It could stimulate the production of a substance that protects nerve fibres, the researchers say.
  
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• The brain game: How decreased neural activity may help you learn faster

  06-04-2015 18:13
  
  Why are some people able to master a new skill quickly while others require extra time or practice? Counterintuitive as it may seem, study participants who showed decreased neural activity learned the fastest. The critical distinction was in areas not directly related to seeing the cues or playing the notes that participants were trying to learn: the frontal cortex and the anterior cingulate cortex. These cognitive control centers are thought to be most responsible for what is known as executive
  
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• Discovering the relationship between autism and epilepsy

  06-04-2015 18:09
  Researchers are studying the neurobiological link between the autism spectrum disorder and epilepsy, in order to understand the reason why the brain of an autistic child is 20-30 percent more susceptible to seizures that an infant without this condition.
  
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• Brain's 'lowly' visual processor is more sophisticated than once thought

  06-04-2015 18:09
  When managing, assigning each task to a specialist is often the most efficient strategy. Most researchers regard the brain as working similarly, with each region specialized to a given task. But now neuroscientists have found, in rats, that the brain's primary visual cortex not only portrays the visual world but can also drive the timing of actions.
  
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• Why your commute is bad for you

  06-04-2015 15:40 via cnn.com
  
  Researchers found that mental health scores decreased for car commuters as time spent behind the wheel increased.
  
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• The cost of faking your personality at work

  06-04-2015 15:20 via nymag.com
  
  Research suggests that people are able to act against their natures when the situation calls for it.
  
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• When a Fearful Child Becomes a Tyrant

  06-04-2015 13:12 via counsellingresource.com
  
  Debilitating fear can become like a tyrant, not just for the person experiencing the fear, but also for other members of their family. Escaping the tyranny and helping a child to face and eventually overcome a debilitating fear requires something akin to "tough love".Tags: anxiety and stress, parenting and children, phobia
  
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• New treatment for dementia discovered: Deep brain stimulation

  06-04-2015 13:10
  
  New brain cells can be formed through deep brain stimulation, improving memory retention, researchers report. For decades, scientists have been finding ways to generate brain cells to boost memory and learning, but more importantly, to also treat brain trauma and injury, and age-related diseases such as dementia. By stimulating the front part of the brain known as the prefrontal cortex, they have no discovered that new brain cells are formed in the hippocampus although it had not been directly s
  
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• Wayne State study of brain networks shows differences in children with OCD

  06-04-2015 10:00
  A new study by scientists at the Wayne State University School of Medicine demonstrates that communication between some of the brain's most important centers is altered in children with...
  
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• Study: Phone counseling reduces pain, disability after back surgery

  06-04-2015 09:00
  Research by Johns Hopkins scientists suggests that having a short series of phone conversations with trained counselors can substantially boost recovery and reduce pain in patients after spinal...
  
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• 'Religiously integrated' psychotherapy is effective for depression

  06-04-2015 09:00
  For chronically ill patients with major depression, an approach to cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) that incorporates patients' religious beliefs is at least as effective as conventional CBT...
  
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• Is 10% of the Population Really Gay?

  06-04-2015 04:57 via feeds.socialpsychology.org
  
  Source: The GuardianDrawing on the widest survey of sexual behaviour since the Kinsey Report, David Spiegelhalter, in his book Sex By Numbers, answers key questions about our private lives. Here he reveals how Kinsey’s contested claim that 10% of us are gay is actually close to the mark For a single statistic to be the primary propaganda weapon for a radical political movement is unusual. Back in 1977, the US National Gay Task Force (NGTF) was invited into the...
  
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• Iran Will Allow Women to Attend Major Sporting Events

  06-04-2015 04:57 via feeds.socialpsychology.org
  
  Source: Time MagazineThe new policy still excludes some "masculine" sports like wrestling or swimming.
  
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