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DATE: January 23, 2026 at 03:00PM
SOURCE: BioWorld MedTechDirect article link at end of text block below.
#AI identifies #pregnancies at risk of spontaneous pre-term #birth
Here are any URLs found in the article text:
Articles can be found by scrolling down the page at https://www.bioworld.com/topics/85-bioworld-medtech .
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NYU Information for Practice puts out 400-500 good quality health-related research posts per week but its too much for many people, so that bot is limited to just subscribers. You can read it or subscribe at @PsychResearchBot
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Since 1991 The National Psychologist has focused on keeping practicing psychologists current with news, information and items of interest. Check them out for more free articles, resources, and subscription information: https://www.nationalpsychologist.com
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It's primitive... but it works... mostly...
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-------------------------------------------------#healthcare #healthtech #healthcaretech #healthtechnology #medgadget #medicine #doctor #hospital #medtech
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DATE: January 23, 2026 at 03:00PM
SOURCE: BioWorld MedTechDirect article link at end of text block below.
#AI identifies #pregnancies at risk of spontaneous pre-term #birth
Here are any URLs found in the article text:
Articles can be found by scrolling down the page at https://www.bioworld.com/topics/85-bioworld-medtech .
-------------------------------------------------
Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org
.
NYU Information for Practice puts out 400-500 good quality health-related research posts per week but its too much for many people, so that bot is limited to just subscribers. You can read it or subscribe at @PsychResearchBot
.
Since 1991 The National Psychologist has focused on keeping practicing psychologists current with news, information and items of interest. Check them out for more free articles, resources, and subscription information: https://www.nationalpsychologist.com
.
EMAIL DAILY DIGEST OF RSS FEEDS -- SUBSCRIBE:
http://subscribe-article-digests.clinicians-exchange.org
.
READ ONLINE: http://read-the-rss-mega-archive.clinicians-exchange.org
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It's primitive... but it works... mostly...
.
-------------------------------------------------#healthcare #healthtech #healthcaretech #healthtechnology #medgadget #medicine #doctor #hospital #medtech
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DATE: May 11, 2026 at 12:00PM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: The testosterone myth? Large analysis finds no link between the “macho” hormone and risk-taking
A meta-analysis of 52 studies found no link between testosterone levels and risk-taking. In general, only studies where participants completed specific lottery-based economic tasks showed a modest association between testosterone levels and risk-taking, while other types of behavioral studies did not. Furthermore, the lack of association did not depend on participants’ sex. The paper was published in Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews.
Testosterone is a hormone that belongs to a group of hormones called androgens. It is present in both males and females, but it is usually found in much higher levels in males. In males, testosterone is produced mainly in the testes; in females, smaller amounts are produced in the ovaries and adrenal glands.
Testosterone plays an important role in the development of male reproductive organs before birth and during puberty. During puberty, it contributes to changes such as a deeper voice, facial and body hair growth, increased muscle mass, and the growth of the penis and testes. In adults, testosterone helps regulate sexual desire, sperm production, bone density, red blood cell production, and muscle strength. Testosterone levels naturally vary by age, time of day, health status, sleep, stress, body fat, and the use of certain medications.
Study author Irene Sánchez Rodríguez and her colleagues note that, on average, men tend to be more prone to taking risks than women. Various hypotheses have been proposed to explain this gender gap. One prominent biological theory states that the gap is produced by differences in testosterone levels. Another theory, the “dual-hormone hypothesis,” suggests that the behavioral effects of testosterone actually depend on concurrent levels of cortisol, the body’s main stress hormone.
However, studies have not clearly supported the link between testosterone and risk-taking. While some studies have reported that individuals with higher testosterone levels were somewhat more prone to taking financial or physical risks, other studies have found absolutely no association.
The authors of this study conducted a meta-analysis aimed at synthesizing the existing findings to clarify the association between testosterone levels and risk-taking. They searched scientific databases—Google Scholar, PubMed, and Scopus—using “risk seeking,” “risk attitude,” and “risk aversion” as search terms. They looked for studies conducted on humans and sought to include studies examining testosterone alone as well as those testing the dual-hormone hypothesis.
To be included, studies needed to report a statistical association between testosterone and risk preference, to either measure or administer testosterone, and to use at least one behavioral or self-report measure of risk preference. Studies also needed to be written in English, Spanish, or Italian, and provide sufficient data to allow the researchers to calculate an “effect size” (the strength of the link between testosterone levels and risk-taking). In the end, 52 studies comprising 17,340 participants were included in the analyses.
These studies measured risk in various ways, such as gambling games, balloon-popping tasks, or self-reported questionnaires. They also measured testosterone in different ways: some studies used direct blood or saliva tests, some administered experimental doses of the hormone, and some relied on “morphological proxies” (like the ratio of a person’s index and ring fingers, which is theoretically linked to testosterone exposure in the womb).
When the researchers aggregated the data, the results showed that the overall association between testosterone levels and risk-taking across all 52 studies was practically zero. In other words, having high or low testosterone did not reliably predict whether a person would take a risk.
While the overall effect was zero, the data reported by individual studies were very heterogeneous—some studies reported a positive association (higher testosterone – higher risk-taking), while others reported a negative association (higher testosterone – lower risk-taking).
Further analyses revealed why the results varied so wildly. The researchers found that the method of measurement heavily influenced the outcome. For example, only studies that used lottery-based economic tasks to measure risk-taking showed a modest positive association, while studies measuring risk-taking via other methods (like impulsive games or self-reporting) did not. Similarly, the researchers noted that studies relying on indirect finger measurements sometimes hinted at a link, while highly rigorous studies using direct hormone measurements or administration did not.
Importantly, the lack of an association between testosterone levels and risk-taking did not depend on sex, meaning the relationship (or lack thereof) was no different in males than in females.
“Overall, the evidence challenges the notion that testosterone provides a general hormonal basis for human risk preferences,” the study authors concluded. “Instead, findings support a biopsychosocial framework in which ‘risk taking’ reflects the interaction of task demands, cognitive–affective processes, and situational context, with endocrine effects appearing narrow, context-dependent, and method-specific.”
The study contributes to the scientific knowledge surrounding the behavioral effects of testosterone, suggesting that societal and psychological factors likely play a much larger role in risk-taking than single hormones. However, the study authors note that their search did not yield a sufficient number of appropriate studies to reliably examine the dual-hormone hypothesis (whether a specific interaction between cortisol and testosterone might predict risk-taking).
The paper, “No relationship between testosterone and risk aversion: A meta-analytic review,” was authored by Irene Sánchez Rodríguez, Luca Bailo, Folco Panizza, Emiliano Ricciardi, and Francesco Bossi.
-------------------------------------------------
DAILY EMAIL DIGEST: Email [email protected] -- no subject or message needed.
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Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
NYU Information for Practice puts out 400-500 good quality health-related research posts per week but its too much for many people, so that bot is limited to just subscribers. You can read it or subscribe at @PsychResearchBot
Since 1991 The National Psychologist has focused on keeping practicing psychologists current with news, information and items of interest. Check them out for more free articles, resources, and subscription information: https://www.nationalpsychologist.com
EMAIL DAILY DIGEST OF RSS FEEDS -- SUBSCRIBE: http://subscribe-article-digests.clinicians-exchange.org
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It's primitive... but it works... mostly...
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #no relationship between testosterone and risk taking #testosterone myth debunked #risk taking meta-analysis #biopsychosocial factors #endocrine effects context dependent #lottery tasks risk study #gender differences risk taking not hormone driven #dual hormone hypothesis inconclusive #testosterone measurement methods matter #neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews study
-
DATE: May 11, 2026 at 12:00PM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: The testosterone myth? Large analysis finds no link between the “macho” hormone and risk-taking
A meta-analysis of 52 studies found no link between testosterone levels and risk-taking. In general, only studies where participants completed specific lottery-based economic tasks showed a modest association between testosterone levels and risk-taking, while other types of behavioral studies did not. Furthermore, the lack of association did not depend on participants’ sex. The paper was published in Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews.
Testosterone is a hormone that belongs to a group of hormones called androgens. It is present in both males and females, but it is usually found in much higher levels in males. In males, testosterone is produced mainly in the testes; in females, smaller amounts are produced in the ovaries and adrenal glands.
Testosterone plays an important role in the development of male reproductive organs before birth and during puberty. During puberty, it contributes to changes such as a deeper voice, facial and body hair growth, increased muscle mass, and the growth of the penis and testes. In adults, testosterone helps regulate sexual desire, sperm production, bone density, red blood cell production, and muscle strength. Testosterone levels naturally vary by age, time of day, health status, sleep, stress, body fat, and the use of certain medications.
Study author Irene Sánchez Rodríguez and her colleagues note that, on average, men tend to be more prone to taking risks than women. Various hypotheses have been proposed to explain this gender gap. One prominent biological theory states that the gap is produced by differences in testosterone levels. Another theory, the “dual-hormone hypothesis,” suggests that the behavioral effects of testosterone actually depend on concurrent levels of cortisol, the body’s main stress hormone.
However, studies have not clearly supported the link between testosterone and risk-taking. While some studies have reported that individuals with higher testosterone levels were somewhat more prone to taking financial or physical risks, other studies have found absolutely no association.
The authors of this study conducted a meta-analysis aimed at synthesizing the existing findings to clarify the association between testosterone levels and risk-taking. They searched scientific databases—Google Scholar, PubMed, and Scopus—using “risk seeking,” “risk attitude,” and “risk aversion” as search terms. They looked for studies conducted on humans and sought to include studies examining testosterone alone as well as those testing the dual-hormone hypothesis.
To be included, studies needed to report a statistical association between testosterone and risk preference, to either measure or administer testosterone, and to use at least one behavioral or self-report measure of risk preference. Studies also needed to be written in English, Spanish, or Italian, and provide sufficient data to allow the researchers to calculate an “effect size” (the strength of the link between testosterone levels and risk-taking). In the end, 52 studies comprising 17,340 participants were included in the analyses.
These studies measured risk in various ways, such as gambling games, balloon-popping tasks, or self-reported questionnaires. They also measured testosterone in different ways: some studies used direct blood or saliva tests, some administered experimental doses of the hormone, and some relied on “morphological proxies” (like the ratio of a person’s index and ring fingers, which is theoretically linked to testosterone exposure in the womb).
When the researchers aggregated the data, the results showed that the overall association between testosterone levels and risk-taking across all 52 studies was practically zero. In other words, having high or low testosterone did not reliably predict whether a person would take a risk.
While the overall effect was zero, the data reported by individual studies were very heterogeneous—some studies reported a positive association (higher testosterone – higher risk-taking), while others reported a negative association (higher testosterone – lower risk-taking).
Further analyses revealed why the results varied so wildly. The researchers found that the method of measurement heavily influenced the outcome. For example, only studies that used lottery-based economic tasks to measure risk-taking showed a modest positive association, while studies measuring risk-taking via other methods (like impulsive games or self-reporting) did not. Similarly, the researchers noted that studies relying on indirect finger measurements sometimes hinted at a link, while highly rigorous studies using direct hormone measurements or administration did not.
Importantly, the lack of an association between testosterone levels and risk-taking did not depend on sex, meaning the relationship (or lack thereof) was no different in males than in females.
“Overall, the evidence challenges the notion that testosterone provides a general hormonal basis for human risk preferences,” the study authors concluded. “Instead, findings support a biopsychosocial framework in which ‘risk taking’ reflects the interaction of task demands, cognitive–affective processes, and situational context, with endocrine effects appearing narrow, context-dependent, and method-specific.”
The study contributes to the scientific knowledge surrounding the behavioral effects of testosterone, suggesting that societal and psychological factors likely play a much larger role in risk-taking than single hormones. However, the study authors note that their search did not yield a sufficient number of appropriate studies to reliably examine the dual-hormone hypothesis (whether a specific interaction between cortisol and testosterone might predict risk-taking).
The paper, “No relationship between testosterone and risk aversion: A meta-analytic review,” was authored by Irene Sánchez Rodríguez, Luca Bailo, Folco Panizza, Emiliano Ricciardi, and Francesco Bossi.
-------------------------------------------------
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Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
NYU Information for Practice puts out 400-500 good quality health-related research posts per week but its too much for many people, so that bot is limited to just subscribers. You can read it or subscribe at @PsychResearchBot
Since 1991 The National Psychologist has focused on keeping practicing psychologists current with news, information and items of interest. Check them out for more free articles, resources, and subscription information: https://www.nationalpsychologist.com
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It's primitive... but it works... mostly...
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #no relationship between testosterone and risk taking #testosterone myth debunked #risk taking meta-analysis #biopsychosocial factors #endocrine effects context dependent #lottery tasks risk study #gender differences risk taking not hormone driven #dual hormone hypothesis inconclusive #testosterone measurement methods matter #neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews study
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DATE: May 13, 2026 at 03:28PM
SOURCE:
NEW YORK TIMES PSYCHOLOGY AND PSYCHOLOGISTS FEEDTITLE: Hantavirus Attacks Patients’ Bodies. This Doctor Tends to Their Minds.
URL: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/13/us/hantavirus-quarantine-psychology-omaha.html
David Cates, a psychologist working with Americans exposed to the disease on the MV Hondius, said psychosocial supports are just as important as physical care.
URL: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/13/us/hantavirus-quarantine-psychology-omaha.html
-------------------------------------------------
DAILY EMAIL DIGEST: Email [email protected] -- no subject or message needed.
Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org
Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
NYU Information for Practice puts out 400-500 good quality health-related research posts per week but its too much for many people, so that bot is limited to just subscribers. You can read it or subscribe at @PsychResearchBot
Since 1991 The National Psychologist has focused on keeping practicing psychologists current with news, information and items of interest. Check them out for more free articles, resources, and subscription information: https://www.nationalpsychologist.com
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It's primitive... but it works... mostly...
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #Hantavirus #MentalHealthSupport #PsychologicalCare #PatientWellbeing #MedicalPsychology #MVHondius #PsychosocialSupport #HealthcareProfessionals #MindBodyCare #PublicHealthProtection
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DATE: January 22, 2025 at 09:00AM
SOURCE: BioWorld MedTechDirect article link at end of text block below.
.@CMSGov drafts guidance for use of real-world data in CED studies
Here are any URLs found in the article text:
Articles can be found by scrolling down the page at https://www.bioworld.com/topics/85-bioworld-medtech .
-------------------------------------------------
Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org
.
NYU Information for Practice puts out 400-500 good quality health-related research posts per week but its too much for many people, so that bot is limited to just subscribers. You can read it or subscribe at @PsychResearchBot
.
Since 1991 The National Psychologist has focused on keeping practicing psychologists current with news, information and items of interest. Check them out for more free articles, resources, and subscription information: https://www.nationalpsychologist.com
.
EMAIL DAILY DIGEST OF RSS FEEDS -- SUBSCRIBE:
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READ ONLINE: http://read-the-rss-mega-archive.clinicians-exchange.org
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It's primitive... but it works... mostly...
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-------------------------------------------------#healthcare #healthtech #healthcaretech #healthtechnology #medgadget #medicine #doctor #hospital #medtech
-
DATE: May 12, 2026 at 07:50AM
SOURCE: SOCIALPSYCHOLOGY.ORGTITLE: European Union May Ban Social Media for Young Children and Teens
Source: United Press International - Health News
The European Union is considering a ban on social media for children, EU President Ursula Von der Leyen announced Tuesday. Von der Leyen said that the bloc will take action this fall against the "addictive design" of certain platforms. The EU has created what she called a "Special Panel of Experts on Child Safety Online" and is awaiting findings from its work. "Depending on the results, we could come with a legal proposal this summer," she...
-------------------------------------------------
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NYU Information for Practice puts out 400-500 good quality health-related research posts per week but its too much for many people, so that bot is limited to just subscribers. You can read it or subscribe at @PsychResearchBot
Since 1991 The National Psychologist has focused on keeping practicing psychologists current with news, information and items of interest. Check them out for more free articles, resources, and subscription information: https://www.nationalpsychologist.com
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It's primitive... but it works... mostly...
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #EUbanonsocialmedia #ChildSafetyOnline #AddictiveDesign #YouthProtection #DigitalWellbeing #EUpolicy #SocialMediaRegulation #OnlineSafetyForKids #TechPolicy #SpecialPanelExperts
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DATE: May 12, 2026 at 07:50AM
SOURCE: SOCIALPSYCHOLOGY.ORGTITLE: European Union May Ban Social Media for Young Children and Teens
Source: United Press International - Health News
The European Union is considering a ban on social media for children, EU President Ursula Von der Leyen announced Tuesday. Von der Leyen said that the bloc will take action this fall against the "addictive design" of certain platforms. The EU has created what she called a "Special Panel of Experts on Child Safety Online" and is awaiting findings from its work. "Depending on the results, we could come with a legal proposal this summer," she...
-------------------------------------------------
DAILY EMAIL DIGEST: Email [email protected] -- no subject or message needed.
Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org
Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
NYU Information for Practice puts out 400-500 good quality health-related research posts per week but its too much for many people, so that bot is limited to just subscribers. You can read it or subscribe at @PsychResearchBot
Since 1991 The National Psychologist has focused on keeping practicing psychologists current with news, information and items of interest. Check them out for more free articles, resources, and subscription information: https://www.nationalpsychologist.com
EMAIL DAILY DIGEST OF RSS FEEDS -- SUBSCRIBE: http://subscribe-article-digests.clinicians-exchange.org
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It's primitive... but it works... mostly...
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #EUbanonsocialmedia #ChildSafetyOnline #AddictiveDesign #YouthProtection #DigitalWellbeing #EUpolicy #SocialMediaRegulation #OnlineSafetyForKids #TechPolicy #SpecialPanelExperts
-
DATE: May 12, 2026 at 07:50AM
SOURCE: SOCIALPSYCHOLOGY.ORGTITLE: European Union May Ban Social Media for Young Children and Teens
Source: United Press International - Health News
The European Union is considering a ban on social media for children, EU President Ursula Von der Leyen announced Tuesday. Von der Leyen said that the bloc will take action this fall against the "addictive design" of certain platforms. The EU has created what she called a "Special Panel of Experts on Child Safety Online" and is awaiting findings from its work. "Depending on the results, we could come with a legal proposal this summer," she...
-------------------------------------------------
DAILY EMAIL DIGEST: Email [email protected] -- no subject or message needed.
Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org
Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
NYU Information for Practice puts out 400-500 good quality health-related research posts per week but its too much for many people, so that bot is limited to just subscribers. You can read it or subscribe at @PsychResearchBot
Since 1991 The National Psychologist has focused on keeping practicing psychologists current with news, information and items of interest. Check them out for more free articles, resources, and subscription information: https://www.nationalpsychologist.com
EMAIL DAILY DIGEST OF RSS FEEDS -- SUBSCRIBE: http://subscribe-article-digests.clinicians-exchange.org
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It's primitive... but it works... mostly...
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #EUbanonsocialmedia #ChildSafetyOnline #AddictiveDesign #YouthProtection #DigitalWellbeing #EUpolicy #SocialMediaRegulation #OnlineSafetyForKids #TechPolicy #SpecialPanelExperts
-
DATE: May 12, 2026 at 07:50AM
SOURCE: SOCIALPSYCHOLOGY.ORGTITLE: European Union May Ban Social Media for Young Children and Teens
Source: United Press International - Health News
The European Union is considering a ban on social media for children, EU President Ursula Von der Leyen announced Tuesday. Von der Leyen said that the bloc will take action this fall against the "addictive design" of certain platforms. The EU has created what she called a "Special Panel of Experts on Child Safety Online" and is awaiting findings from its work. "Depending on the results, we could come with a legal proposal this summer," she...
-------------------------------------------------
DAILY EMAIL DIGEST: Email [email protected] -- no subject or message needed.
Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org
Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
NYU Information for Practice puts out 400-500 good quality health-related research posts per week but its too much for many people, so that bot is limited to just subscribers. You can read it or subscribe at @PsychResearchBot
Since 1991 The National Psychologist has focused on keeping practicing psychologists current with news, information and items of interest. Check them out for more free articles, resources, and subscription information: https://www.nationalpsychologist.com
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It's primitive... but it works... mostly...
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #EUbanonsocialmedia #ChildSafetyOnline #AddictiveDesign #YouthProtection #DigitalWellbeing #EUpolicy #SocialMediaRegulation #OnlineSafetyForKids #TechPolicy #SpecialPanelExperts
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DATE: May 12, 2026 at 07:49AM
SOURCE: SOCIALPSYCHOLOGY.ORGTITLE: Rainbow Map Delivers Mixed Picture on LGBTQ+ Rights
Source: DW- top stories
Spain has overtaken Malta at the top of Europe's annual LGBTQ+ rights rainbow map. The 2026 ranking, compiled by the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association, compares laws and policies affecting LGBTQ+ people in 49 countries across Europe and Central Asia. Spain's rise reflects new equality laws, national action plans, and the depathologization of trans identities in healthcare. This year, the lowest ranked country...
-------------------------------------------------
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Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
NYU Information for Practice puts out 400-500 good quality health-related research posts per week but its too much for many people, so that bot is limited to just subscribers. You can read it or subscribe at @PsychResearchBot
Since 1991 The National Psychologist has focused on keeping practicing psychologists current with news, information and items of interest. Check them out for more free articles, resources, and subscription information: https://www.nationalpsychologist.com
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It's primitive... but it works... mostly...
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #LGBTQRights #RainbowMap #SpainLGBTQ #EqualityLaws #TransHealthcare #Depathologization #EuropeLGBTQ #LGBTQPolicy #HumanRights #PrideProgress
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DATE: May 10, 2026 at 02:00PM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: A half hour of aerobic exercise reduces test anxiety and boosts cognitive focus in students
A brief session of moderate aerobic exercise can ease the psychological burden of test anxiety while sharpening the specific mental skills needed to ignore distractions. Researchers found that a quick run on a treadmill rebalances brain activity, helping students process conflicting information with greater speed and focus. The findings were recently published in Physiology & Behavior.
Test-related distress is a common experience that goes beyond simple nervousness. It involves intense worry, physical tension, a racing heartbeat, and scattered thoughts that arise before or during an evaluative situation. People facing this condition often struggle with a cognitive skill known as inhibitory control.
Inhibitory control is the brain’s ability to tune out irrelevant information and suppress impulsive responses. It acts as a mental filter that allows a person to focus on a test question rather than the ticking of a clock or their own internal worries. This mental barricade prevents distracting signals from derailing a person’s train of thought.
When psychological distress disrupts this mental filter, students become easily distracted by their own fears. Their brains dedicate precious processing power to managing the worry itself, leaving less energy available for actual problem-solving. This scattered focus degrades their academic performance and fuels even more worry.
The experience can create a loop of poor performance and escalating anxiety. To break this cycle, psychologists Lingfeng Wu and Renlai Zhou from Nanjing University designed an experiment to see if physical activity could serve as an immediate remedy. They wanted to evaluate whether an acute session of aerobic exercise could temporarily repair the mental filters of affected students.
The research team recruited forty university students who scored very high on an established anxiety questionnaire. These participants were randomly divided into two groups of twenty. One group was assigned to an aerobic exercise intervention, while the other served as a resting control group.
During the main phase of the experiment, the exercise group spent thirty minutes walking and jogging on a treadmill. The researchers continuously monitored the participants’ heart rates to ensure the activity remained at a moderate intensity. The control group spent the same thirty minutes sitting in a quiet room reading neutral, sports-related magazines.
Both before and after these thirty-minute sessions, the students underwent a specialized cognitive assessment known as the Flanker task. This computer-based challenge is specifically designed to measure a person’s inhibitory control abilities.
In the Flanker task, participants stare at a computer screen and wait for a row of five arrows to appear. They must quickly identify the direction the middle arrow is pointing, choosing either left or right. The challenge comes from the surrounding arrows, which act as deliberate visual distractions.
In some trials, all the arrows point in the exact same direction, making the response relatively easy. In other trials, the outer arrows point in the opposite direction of the center target. This creates a visual conflict that the participant must mentally override in order to choose the correct answer.
Throughout this task, the researchers recorded the students’ brain activity using an electroencephalogram. This device consists of a fitted cap with small sensors placed across the scalp to detect electrical signals in the brain. The scientists paid close attention to two specific brain wave patterns, known as the N2 and P3 waves.
To replicate the pressure of a real testing environment, the researchers manipulated the stakes of the computer task using a standard psychological tactic. They told the students that they were taking a highly reliable aptitude test that would successfully predict their future university performance. They also offered a cash reward for the top performers and informed the students that they were being recorded on video for expert analysis.
The results showed that the thirty-minute exercise session had an immediate, measurable impact. Students in the treadmill group reported lower levels of subjective anxiety on their questionnaires after working out. The control group saw no statistical difference in their self-reported anxiety levels.
The behavioral data from the computer task mirrored these emotional improvements. After exercising, the treadmill group became much faster at identifying the correct arrow direction across all trials.
More importantly, the exercise group showed a marked improvement in the difficult, conflicting trials. The reaction time gap between the easy trials and the hard trials shrank considerably. This reduction suggests a direct upgrade in their ability to filter out distracting, conflicting information.
Accuracy remained very high for almost all participants across both groups. The researchers note that anxiety usually damages processing speed rather than raw accuracy. The fact that the exercise group got faster without making more mistakes confirms that their overall processing efficiency genuinely improved.
The brain wave recordings provided an internal view of how the exercise changed the participants’ cognitive processing. The researchers looked first at the N2 wave, an electrical pulse that peaks just after a person encounters conflicting information.
In the exercise group, the electrical amplitude of the N2 wave became noticeably smaller after the treadmill session. A smaller N2 wave typically means the brain is exerting less effort to detect and manage conflicting stimuli. The physical activity seemed to make the brain’s early conflict-monitoring system run more smoothly.
The team also measured the P3 wave, which appears slightly later than the N2 wave. The P3 wave is tied to how effectively the brain allocates its attention to a given task.
After the treadmill session, the exercise group generated a much larger P3 wave. This expansion indicates a heightened capacity to direct mental resources exactly where they need to go.
The control group essentially spun their wheels. The brain wave readings for the seated control group were not statistically significant when comparing their before and after states. Their brains processed the conflicting arrows with the exact same level of effort and attention as they had during the baseline test.
The researchers attribute these mental shifts to the neurochemical changes sparked by physical exertion. Moderate aerobic activity prompts the brain to release chemicals like dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin. These neurotransmitters help regulate mood and boost the function of the prefrontal cortex, a brain region heavily involved in higher-level reasoning and maintaining focus.
Lowering the students’ subjective anxiety likely freed up mental energy as well. When people aren’t dedicating active brainpower to worrying, they have more cognitive resources available to tackle the task in front of them without feeling overwhelmed.
While the results are promising, the research team noted several boundaries to their experiment. The study only monitored university students, entirely omitting middle and high school students who often experience the highest rates of academic distress. Future studies will need to test younger age groups.
The experiment also relied on an artificial testing scenario. While the researchers used cash prizes and video recordings to simulate stress, this setup does not perfectly mirror the emotional stakes of a real university exam. Tracking students during an actual testing week would provide more realistic data.
In addition, the study did not include a control group composed of students with low anxiety levels. Without this baseline, it is difficult to determine if the exercise brought the anxious students’ mental skills back to an average level or just elevated them slightly from a severe deficit.
Finally, a thirty-minute run is a temporary intervention. Even after the treadmill session, the students’ distress scores still registered moderately high. Researchers hope to investigate whether a consistent exercise routine, perhaps combined with psychological therapies, might offer a more lasting solution to academic anxiety.
The study, “Acute aerobic exercise improves inhibitory control in individuals with test anxiety: evidence from event-related potentials,” was authored by Lingfeng Wu and Renlai Zhou.
-------------------------------------------------
DAILY EMAIL DIGEST: Email [email protected] -- no subject or message needed.
Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org
Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
NYU Information for Practice puts out 400-500 good quality health-related research posts per week but its too much for many people, so that bot is limited to just subscribers. You can read it or subscribe at @PsychResearchBot
Since 1991 The National Psychologist has focused on keeping practicing psychologists current with news, information and items of interest. Check them out for more free articles, resources, and subscription information: https://www.nationalpsychologist.com
EMAIL DAILY DIGEST OF RSS FEEDS -- SUBSCRIBE: http://subscribe-article-digests.clinicians-exchange.org
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It's primitive... but it works... mostly...
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #TestAnxiety #AerobicExercise #CognitiveFocus #InhibitoryControl #FlankerTask #BrainWaves #N2P3 #PrefrontalCortex #AcademicPerformance #MentalFocus
-
DATE: May 10, 2026 at 02:00PM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: A half hour of aerobic exercise reduces test anxiety and boosts cognitive focus in students
A brief session of moderate aerobic exercise can ease the psychological burden of test anxiety while sharpening the specific mental skills needed to ignore distractions. Researchers found that a quick run on a treadmill rebalances brain activity, helping students process conflicting information with greater speed and focus. The findings were recently published in Physiology & Behavior.
Test-related distress is a common experience that goes beyond simple nervousness. It involves intense worry, physical tension, a racing heartbeat, and scattered thoughts that arise before or during an evaluative situation. People facing this condition often struggle with a cognitive skill known as inhibitory control.
Inhibitory control is the brain’s ability to tune out irrelevant information and suppress impulsive responses. It acts as a mental filter that allows a person to focus on a test question rather than the ticking of a clock or their own internal worries. This mental barricade prevents distracting signals from derailing a person’s train of thought.
When psychological distress disrupts this mental filter, students become easily distracted by their own fears. Their brains dedicate precious processing power to managing the worry itself, leaving less energy available for actual problem-solving. This scattered focus degrades their academic performance and fuels even more worry.
The experience can create a loop of poor performance and escalating anxiety. To break this cycle, psychologists Lingfeng Wu and Renlai Zhou from Nanjing University designed an experiment to see if physical activity could serve as an immediate remedy. They wanted to evaluate whether an acute session of aerobic exercise could temporarily repair the mental filters of affected students.
The research team recruited forty university students who scored very high on an established anxiety questionnaire. These participants were randomly divided into two groups of twenty. One group was assigned to an aerobic exercise intervention, while the other served as a resting control group.
During the main phase of the experiment, the exercise group spent thirty minutes walking and jogging on a treadmill. The researchers continuously monitored the participants’ heart rates to ensure the activity remained at a moderate intensity. The control group spent the same thirty minutes sitting in a quiet room reading neutral, sports-related magazines.
Both before and after these thirty-minute sessions, the students underwent a specialized cognitive assessment known as the Flanker task. This computer-based challenge is specifically designed to measure a person’s inhibitory control abilities.
In the Flanker task, participants stare at a computer screen and wait for a row of five arrows to appear. They must quickly identify the direction the middle arrow is pointing, choosing either left or right. The challenge comes from the surrounding arrows, which act as deliberate visual distractions.
In some trials, all the arrows point in the exact same direction, making the response relatively easy. In other trials, the outer arrows point in the opposite direction of the center target. This creates a visual conflict that the participant must mentally override in order to choose the correct answer.
Throughout this task, the researchers recorded the students’ brain activity using an electroencephalogram. This device consists of a fitted cap with small sensors placed across the scalp to detect electrical signals in the brain. The scientists paid close attention to two specific brain wave patterns, known as the N2 and P3 waves.
To replicate the pressure of a real testing environment, the researchers manipulated the stakes of the computer task using a standard psychological tactic. They told the students that they were taking a highly reliable aptitude test that would successfully predict their future university performance. They also offered a cash reward for the top performers and informed the students that they were being recorded on video for expert analysis.
The results showed that the thirty-minute exercise session had an immediate, measurable impact. Students in the treadmill group reported lower levels of subjective anxiety on their questionnaires after working out. The control group saw no statistical difference in their self-reported anxiety levels.
The behavioral data from the computer task mirrored these emotional improvements. After exercising, the treadmill group became much faster at identifying the correct arrow direction across all trials.
More importantly, the exercise group showed a marked improvement in the difficult, conflicting trials. The reaction time gap between the easy trials and the hard trials shrank considerably. This reduction suggests a direct upgrade in their ability to filter out distracting, conflicting information.
Accuracy remained very high for almost all participants across both groups. The researchers note that anxiety usually damages processing speed rather than raw accuracy. The fact that the exercise group got faster without making more mistakes confirms that their overall processing efficiency genuinely improved.
The brain wave recordings provided an internal view of how the exercise changed the participants’ cognitive processing. The researchers looked first at the N2 wave, an electrical pulse that peaks just after a person encounters conflicting information.
In the exercise group, the electrical amplitude of the N2 wave became noticeably smaller after the treadmill session. A smaller N2 wave typically means the brain is exerting less effort to detect and manage conflicting stimuli. The physical activity seemed to make the brain’s early conflict-monitoring system run more smoothly.
The team also measured the P3 wave, which appears slightly later than the N2 wave. The P3 wave is tied to how effectively the brain allocates its attention to a given task.
After the treadmill session, the exercise group generated a much larger P3 wave. This expansion indicates a heightened capacity to direct mental resources exactly where they need to go.
The control group essentially spun their wheels. The brain wave readings for the seated control group were not statistically significant when comparing their before and after states. Their brains processed the conflicting arrows with the exact same level of effort and attention as they had during the baseline test.
The researchers attribute these mental shifts to the neurochemical changes sparked by physical exertion. Moderate aerobic activity prompts the brain to release chemicals like dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin. These neurotransmitters help regulate mood and boost the function of the prefrontal cortex, a brain region heavily involved in higher-level reasoning and maintaining focus.
Lowering the students’ subjective anxiety likely freed up mental energy as well. When people aren’t dedicating active brainpower to worrying, they have more cognitive resources available to tackle the task in front of them without feeling overwhelmed.
While the results are promising, the research team noted several boundaries to their experiment. The study only monitored university students, entirely omitting middle and high school students who often experience the highest rates of academic distress. Future studies will need to test younger age groups.
The experiment also relied on an artificial testing scenario. While the researchers used cash prizes and video recordings to simulate stress, this setup does not perfectly mirror the emotional stakes of a real university exam. Tracking students during an actual testing week would provide more realistic data.
In addition, the study did not include a control group composed of students with low anxiety levels. Without this baseline, it is difficult to determine if the exercise brought the anxious students’ mental skills back to an average level or just elevated them slightly from a severe deficit.
Finally, a thirty-minute run is a temporary intervention. Even after the treadmill session, the students’ distress scores still registered moderately high. Researchers hope to investigate whether a consistent exercise routine, perhaps combined with psychological therapies, might offer a more lasting solution to academic anxiety.
The study, “Acute aerobic exercise improves inhibitory control in individuals with test anxiety: evidence from event-related potentials,” was authored by Lingfeng Wu and Renlai Zhou.
-------------------------------------------------
DAILY EMAIL DIGEST: Email [email protected] -- no subject or message needed.
Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org
Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
NYU Information for Practice puts out 400-500 good quality health-related research posts per week but its too much for many people, so that bot is limited to just subscribers. You can read it or subscribe at @PsychResearchBot
Since 1991 The National Psychologist has focused on keeping practicing psychologists current with news, information and items of interest. Check them out for more free articles, resources, and subscription information: https://www.nationalpsychologist.com
EMAIL DAILY DIGEST OF RSS FEEDS -- SUBSCRIBE: http://subscribe-article-digests.clinicians-exchange.org
READ ONLINE: http://read-the-rss-mega-archive.clinicians-exchange.org
It's primitive... but it works... mostly...
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #TestAnxiety #AerobicExercise #CognitiveFocus #InhibitoryControl #FlankerTask #BrainWaves #N2P3 #PrefrontalCortex #AcademicPerformance #MentalFocus
-
DATE: May 10, 2026 at 02:00PM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: A half hour of aerobic exercise reduces test anxiety and boosts cognitive focus in students
A brief session of moderate aerobic exercise can ease the psychological burden of test anxiety while sharpening the specific mental skills needed to ignore distractions. Researchers found that a quick run on a treadmill rebalances brain activity, helping students process conflicting information with greater speed and focus. The findings were recently published in Physiology & Behavior.
Test-related distress is a common experience that goes beyond simple nervousness. It involves intense worry, physical tension, a racing heartbeat, and scattered thoughts that arise before or during an evaluative situation. People facing this condition often struggle with a cognitive skill known as inhibitory control.
Inhibitory control is the brain’s ability to tune out irrelevant information and suppress impulsive responses. It acts as a mental filter that allows a person to focus on a test question rather than the ticking of a clock or their own internal worries. This mental barricade prevents distracting signals from derailing a person’s train of thought.
When psychological distress disrupts this mental filter, students become easily distracted by their own fears. Their brains dedicate precious processing power to managing the worry itself, leaving less energy available for actual problem-solving. This scattered focus degrades their academic performance and fuels even more worry.
The experience can create a loop of poor performance and escalating anxiety. To break this cycle, psychologists Lingfeng Wu and Renlai Zhou from Nanjing University designed an experiment to see if physical activity could serve as an immediate remedy. They wanted to evaluate whether an acute session of aerobic exercise could temporarily repair the mental filters of affected students.
The research team recruited forty university students who scored very high on an established anxiety questionnaire. These participants were randomly divided into two groups of twenty. One group was assigned to an aerobic exercise intervention, while the other served as a resting control group.
During the main phase of the experiment, the exercise group spent thirty minutes walking and jogging on a treadmill. The researchers continuously monitored the participants’ heart rates to ensure the activity remained at a moderate intensity. The control group spent the same thirty minutes sitting in a quiet room reading neutral, sports-related magazines.
Both before and after these thirty-minute sessions, the students underwent a specialized cognitive assessment known as the Flanker task. This computer-based challenge is specifically designed to measure a person’s inhibitory control abilities.
In the Flanker task, participants stare at a computer screen and wait for a row of five arrows to appear. They must quickly identify the direction the middle arrow is pointing, choosing either left or right. The challenge comes from the surrounding arrows, which act as deliberate visual distractions.
In some trials, all the arrows point in the exact same direction, making the response relatively easy. In other trials, the outer arrows point in the opposite direction of the center target. This creates a visual conflict that the participant must mentally override in order to choose the correct answer.
Throughout this task, the researchers recorded the students’ brain activity using an electroencephalogram. This device consists of a fitted cap with small sensors placed across the scalp to detect electrical signals in the brain. The scientists paid close attention to two specific brain wave patterns, known as the N2 and P3 waves.
To replicate the pressure of a real testing environment, the researchers manipulated the stakes of the computer task using a standard psychological tactic. They told the students that they were taking a highly reliable aptitude test that would successfully predict their future university performance. They also offered a cash reward for the top performers and informed the students that they were being recorded on video for expert analysis.
The results showed that the thirty-minute exercise session had an immediate, measurable impact. Students in the treadmill group reported lower levels of subjective anxiety on their questionnaires after working out. The control group saw no statistical difference in their self-reported anxiety levels.
The behavioral data from the computer task mirrored these emotional improvements. After exercising, the treadmill group became much faster at identifying the correct arrow direction across all trials.
More importantly, the exercise group showed a marked improvement in the difficult, conflicting trials. The reaction time gap between the easy trials and the hard trials shrank considerably. This reduction suggests a direct upgrade in their ability to filter out distracting, conflicting information.
Accuracy remained very high for almost all participants across both groups. The researchers note that anxiety usually damages processing speed rather than raw accuracy. The fact that the exercise group got faster without making more mistakes confirms that their overall processing efficiency genuinely improved.
The brain wave recordings provided an internal view of how the exercise changed the participants’ cognitive processing. The researchers looked first at the N2 wave, an electrical pulse that peaks just after a person encounters conflicting information.
In the exercise group, the electrical amplitude of the N2 wave became noticeably smaller after the treadmill session. A smaller N2 wave typically means the brain is exerting less effort to detect and manage conflicting stimuli. The physical activity seemed to make the brain’s early conflict-monitoring system run more smoothly.
The team also measured the P3 wave, which appears slightly later than the N2 wave. The P3 wave is tied to how effectively the brain allocates its attention to a given task.
After the treadmill session, the exercise group generated a much larger P3 wave. This expansion indicates a heightened capacity to direct mental resources exactly where they need to go.
The control group essentially spun their wheels. The brain wave readings for the seated control group were not statistically significant when comparing their before and after states. Their brains processed the conflicting arrows with the exact same level of effort and attention as they had during the baseline test.
The researchers attribute these mental shifts to the neurochemical changes sparked by physical exertion. Moderate aerobic activity prompts the brain to release chemicals like dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin. These neurotransmitters help regulate mood and boost the function of the prefrontal cortex, a brain region heavily involved in higher-level reasoning and maintaining focus.
Lowering the students’ subjective anxiety likely freed up mental energy as well. When people aren’t dedicating active brainpower to worrying, they have more cognitive resources available to tackle the task in front of them without feeling overwhelmed.
While the results are promising, the research team noted several boundaries to their experiment. The study only monitored university students, entirely omitting middle and high school students who often experience the highest rates of academic distress. Future studies will need to test younger age groups.
The experiment also relied on an artificial testing scenario. While the researchers used cash prizes and video recordings to simulate stress, this setup does not perfectly mirror the emotional stakes of a real university exam. Tracking students during an actual testing week would provide more realistic data.
In addition, the study did not include a control group composed of students with low anxiety levels. Without this baseline, it is difficult to determine if the exercise brought the anxious students’ mental skills back to an average level or just elevated them slightly from a severe deficit.
Finally, a thirty-minute run is a temporary intervention. Even after the treadmill session, the students’ distress scores still registered moderately high. Researchers hope to investigate whether a consistent exercise routine, perhaps combined with psychological therapies, might offer a more lasting solution to academic anxiety.
The study, “Acute aerobic exercise improves inhibitory control in individuals with test anxiety: evidence from event-related potentials,” was authored by Lingfeng Wu and Renlai Zhou.
-------------------------------------------------
DAILY EMAIL DIGEST: Email [email protected] -- no subject or message needed.
Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org
Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
NYU Information for Practice puts out 400-500 good quality health-related research posts per week but its too much for many people, so that bot is limited to just subscribers. You can read it or subscribe at @PsychResearchBot
Since 1991 The National Psychologist has focused on keeping practicing psychologists current with news, information and items of interest. Check them out for more free articles, resources, and subscription information: https://www.nationalpsychologist.com
EMAIL DAILY DIGEST OF RSS FEEDS -- SUBSCRIBE: http://subscribe-article-digests.clinicians-exchange.org
READ ONLINE: http://read-the-rss-mega-archive.clinicians-exchange.org
It's primitive... but it works... mostly...
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #TestAnxiety #AerobicExercise #CognitiveFocus #InhibitoryControl #FlankerTask #BrainWaves #N2P3 #PrefrontalCortex #AcademicPerformance #MentalFocus
-
DATE: May 13, 2026 at 08:00PM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: Study reveals the key ingredients for successful social media mental health interventions
A meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials testing the effects of social-media-based mental health interventions found that they lead to moderate-high reductions in stress symptoms and low-moderate reductions in depression and anxiety symptom severity. The interventions were more effective when participants were more than 70% female, when the programs were human-guided, social-oriented, and when effects were compared to groups that received care as usual. The paper was published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research.
More than 1 in 8 adults and adolescents worldwide live with a mental disorder. The two most common types of mental health disorders are anxiety disorders and depression. However, estimates state that only a small fraction of individuals suffering from mental health disorders receive a treatment that results in the remission of symptoms. That is why scientists are looking for new ways to provide mental health treatments at scale to people who need them.
One prospective type of treatment that can be delivered at scale are online mental health interventions, particularly interventions delivered through social-media-based programs. These interventions represent organized efforts to provide psychological support, education, coping skills, or behavior-change strategies through platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, WhatsApp, Reddit, or other online communities.
They include therapist-led groups, peer-support communities, psychoeducational posts, chat-based guidance, mood tracking, crisis resources, or structured activities based on approaches such as cognitive-behavioral therapy or mindfulness. These programs can make support more accessible because many people already use social media regularly and may find it easier to engage online than in traditional services. However, their quality, privacy protections, safety procedures, and effectiveness vary, with studies reporting inconsistent results about their effectiveness.
Study author Qiyang Zhang and her colleagues wanted to integrate the findings of rigorously designed randomized controlled trials examining the effectiveness of social-media-based mental health interventions in reducing mental health symptoms. They were interested in the overall impact of these treatments on symptoms of depression, anxiety, stress, negative affect, and psychological distress. These researchers also wanted to know how much these effects depend on the methodological specificities of studies and programs, such as program duration, program focus, or the control group the treatment was compared with.
They conducted a meta-analysis. The first author of this study conducted a search of databases of published scientific reports that included the Education Resources Information Center, PsychINFO, Scopus, PsychArticles, Communication and Mass Media Complete, PubMed, and Proquest databases. She also searched for studies through Paperfetcher across journals in the field the study authors considered reputable, and examined the reference lists of the papers they found.
Study authors looked for studies that reported results of randomized controlled trials with at least 30 participants per experimental condition. The intervention examined in the study needed to be delivered through social media platforms (e.g., Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and WeChat), and the difference in mental health symptoms between groups undergoing different treatments needed to be small at the start. Additionally, the interventions needed to be delivered by nonresearchers to better reflect how these programs would function in the real world.
They also required the difference between the number of participants who did not finish the study (the attrition rate) in the compared treatment conditions to be less than 15%. In this way, they wanted to reduce the risk that the observed treatment differences were caused by different dropout rates. For example, if participants who benefited least, or those who experienced the strongest effects or adverse experiences, left one condition more often than the other, the remaining participants could become systematically different, biasing the results.
In the end, after screening over 11,000 published studies, 17 studies met all the criteria the study authors defined. These studies reported the effects of 22 distinct intervention programs, comprising 5,624 total participants. Of these programs, 7 were conducted on adolescents, 7 on people in early adulthood, 7 included middle adulthood participants, while 1 study was of older individuals.
Twelve studies had more than 70% female participants. In 9 studies, participants were recruited based on a specific clinical condition.
Overall, the results showed that the examined studies had a low-moderate beneficial effect on mental health symptoms. The symptom reduction was the strongest for stress symptoms and it was moderate-high in size. Effects on reducing anxiety and depression symptoms were low-moderate.
Further analyses found that the examined social-media-based interventions tended to be more effective when the studies were conducted on groups that were more than 70% female, when the programs were human-guided (i.e., guided by humans including therapists, coaches, or research assistants), social-oriented (i.e., programs that provide mainly social interaction, emotional support, or companionship), and when control groups were people who received care as usual (i.e., where control group participants received standard care as opposed to waitlist groups). Interestingly, the researchers found that a participant’s age did not significantly affect the outcomes of the intervention.
“This meta-analysis synthesized the best evidence on this topic and found that, overall, high-quality social-media-based RCTs [randomized controlled trials] were effective in reducing depression, anxiety, stress, negative affect, and psychological distress. Given the benefits of scalability and cost-effectiveness of social-media-based approaches, mental health services should consider integrating online interventions into routine practice,” the study authors concluded.
The study contributes to the scientific understanding of the mental health effects of social-media-based mental health interventions. However, the study authors note that the statistical power of their review was limited by the small sample size of available, high-quality studies. Furthermore, the reported effects are not generalizable to all social-media-based mental health interventions. In each case, the effects of a specific intervention depend on its particular characteristics and on its appropriateness for the mental health condition or difficulties that individuals undergoing the intervention are experiencing.
The paper, “Social-Media-Based Mental Health Interventions: Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials,” was authored by Qiyang Zhang, Zixuan Huang, Yuan Sui, Fu-Hung Lin, Hongjie Guan, Li Li, Ke Wang, and Amanda Neitzel.
-------------------------------------------------
DAILY EMAIL DIGEST: Email [email protected] -- no subject or message needed.
Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org
Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
NYU Information for Practice puts out 400-500 good quality health-related research posts per week but its too much for many people, so that bot is limited to just subscribers. You can read it or subscribe at @PsychResearchBot
Since 1991 The National Psychologist has focused on keeping practicing psychologists current with news, information and items of interest. Check them out for more free articles, resources, and subscription information: https://www.nationalpsychologist.com
EMAIL DAILY DIGEST OF RSS FEEDS -- SUBSCRIBE: http://subscribe-article-digests.clinicians-exchange.org
READ ONLINE: http://read-the-rss-mega-archive.clinicians-exchange.org
It's primitive... but it works... mostly...
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #SocialMediaMentalHealth #MentalHealthInterventions #OnlineTherapy #SocialSupportOnline #CBT #Mindfulness #DigitalHealth #StressReduction #AnxietyHelp #DepressionSupport
-
DATE: May 13, 2026 at 08:00PM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: Study reveals the key ingredients for successful social media mental health interventions
A meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials testing the effects of social-media-based mental health interventions found that they lead to moderate-high reductions in stress symptoms and low-moderate reductions in depression and anxiety symptom severity. The interventions were more effective when participants were more than 70% female, when the programs were human-guided, social-oriented, and when effects were compared to groups that received care as usual. The paper was published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research.
More than 1 in 8 adults and adolescents worldwide live with a mental disorder. The two most common types of mental health disorders are anxiety disorders and depression. However, estimates state that only a small fraction of individuals suffering from mental health disorders receive a treatment that results in the remission of symptoms. That is why scientists are looking for new ways to provide mental health treatments at scale to people who need them.
One prospective type of treatment that can be delivered at scale are online mental health interventions, particularly interventions delivered through social-media-based programs. These interventions represent organized efforts to provide psychological support, education, coping skills, or behavior-change strategies through platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, WhatsApp, Reddit, or other online communities.
They include therapist-led groups, peer-support communities, psychoeducational posts, chat-based guidance, mood tracking, crisis resources, or structured activities based on approaches such as cognitive-behavioral therapy or mindfulness. These programs can make support more accessible because many people already use social media regularly and may find it easier to engage online than in traditional services. However, their quality, privacy protections, safety procedures, and effectiveness vary, with studies reporting inconsistent results about their effectiveness.
Study author Qiyang Zhang and her colleagues wanted to integrate the findings of rigorously designed randomized controlled trials examining the effectiveness of social-media-based mental health interventions in reducing mental health symptoms. They were interested in the overall impact of these treatments on symptoms of depression, anxiety, stress, negative affect, and psychological distress. These researchers also wanted to know how much these effects depend on the methodological specificities of studies and programs, such as program duration, program focus, or the control group the treatment was compared with.
They conducted a meta-analysis. The first author of this study conducted a search of databases of published scientific reports that included the Education Resources Information Center, PsychINFO, Scopus, PsychArticles, Communication and Mass Media Complete, PubMed, and Proquest databases. She also searched for studies through Paperfetcher across journals in the field the study authors considered reputable, and examined the reference lists of the papers they found.
Study authors looked for studies that reported results of randomized controlled trials with at least 30 participants per experimental condition. The intervention examined in the study needed to be delivered through social media platforms (e.g., Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and WeChat), and the difference in mental health symptoms between groups undergoing different treatments needed to be small at the start. Additionally, the interventions needed to be delivered by nonresearchers to better reflect how these programs would function in the real world.
They also required the difference between the number of participants who did not finish the study (the attrition rate) in the compared treatment conditions to be less than 15%. In this way, they wanted to reduce the risk that the observed treatment differences were caused by different dropout rates. For example, if participants who benefited least, or those who experienced the strongest effects or adverse experiences, left one condition more often than the other, the remaining participants could become systematically different, biasing the results.
In the end, after screening over 11,000 published studies, 17 studies met all the criteria the study authors defined. These studies reported the effects of 22 distinct intervention programs, comprising 5,624 total participants. Of these programs, 7 were conducted on adolescents, 7 on people in early adulthood, 7 included middle adulthood participants, while 1 study was of older individuals.
Twelve studies had more than 70% female participants. In 9 studies, participants were recruited based on a specific clinical condition.
Overall, the results showed that the examined studies had a low-moderate beneficial effect on mental health symptoms. The symptom reduction was the strongest for stress symptoms and it was moderate-high in size. Effects on reducing anxiety and depression symptoms were low-moderate.
Further analyses found that the examined social-media-based interventions tended to be more effective when the studies were conducted on groups that were more than 70% female, when the programs were human-guided (i.e., guided by humans including therapists, coaches, or research assistants), social-oriented (i.e., programs that provide mainly social interaction, emotional support, or companionship), and when control groups were people who received care as usual (i.e., where control group participants received standard care as opposed to waitlist groups). Interestingly, the researchers found that a participant’s age did not significantly affect the outcomes of the intervention.
“This meta-analysis synthesized the best evidence on this topic and found that, overall, high-quality social-media-based RCTs [randomized controlled trials] were effective in reducing depression, anxiety, stress, negative affect, and psychological distress. Given the benefits of scalability and cost-effectiveness of social-media-based approaches, mental health services should consider integrating online interventions into routine practice,” the study authors concluded.
The study contributes to the scientific understanding of the mental health effects of social-media-based mental health interventions. However, the study authors note that the statistical power of their review was limited by the small sample size of available, high-quality studies. Furthermore, the reported effects are not generalizable to all social-media-based mental health interventions. In each case, the effects of a specific intervention depend on its particular characteristics and on its appropriateness for the mental health condition or difficulties that individuals undergoing the intervention are experiencing.
The paper, “Social-Media-Based Mental Health Interventions: Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials,” was authored by Qiyang Zhang, Zixuan Huang, Yuan Sui, Fu-Hung Lin, Hongjie Guan, Li Li, Ke Wang, and Amanda Neitzel.
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DATE: May 13, 2026 at 08:00PM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: Study reveals the key ingredients for successful social media mental health interventions
A meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials testing the effects of social-media-based mental health interventions found that they lead to moderate-high reductions in stress symptoms and low-moderate reductions in depression and anxiety symptom severity. The interventions were more effective when participants were more than 70% female, when the programs were human-guided, social-oriented, and when effects were compared to groups that received care as usual. The paper was published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research.
More than 1 in 8 adults and adolescents worldwide live with a mental disorder. The two most common types of mental health disorders are anxiety disorders and depression. However, estimates state that only a small fraction of individuals suffering from mental health disorders receive a treatment that results in the remission of symptoms. That is why scientists are looking for new ways to provide mental health treatments at scale to people who need them.
One prospective type of treatment that can be delivered at scale are online mental health interventions, particularly interventions delivered through social-media-based programs. These interventions represent organized efforts to provide psychological support, education, coping skills, or behavior-change strategies through platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, WhatsApp, Reddit, or other online communities.
They include therapist-led groups, peer-support communities, psychoeducational posts, chat-based guidance, mood tracking, crisis resources, or structured activities based on approaches such as cognitive-behavioral therapy or mindfulness. These programs can make support more accessible because many people already use social media regularly and may find it easier to engage online than in traditional services. However, their quality, privacy protections, safety procedures, and effectiveness vary, with studies reporting inconsistent results about their effectiveness.
Study author Qiyang Zhang and her colleagues wanted to integrate the findings of rigorously designed randomized controlled trials examining the effectiveness of social-media-based mental health interventions in reducing mental health symptoms. They were interested in the overall impact of these treatments on symptoms of depression, anxiety, stress, negative affect, and psychological distress. These researchers also wanted to know how much these effects depend on the methodological specificities of studies and programs, such as program duration, program focus, or the control group the treatment was compared with.
They conducted a meta-analysis. The first author of this study conducted a search of databases of published scientific reports that included the Education Resources Information Center, PsychINFO, Scopus, PsychArticles, Communication and Mass Media Complete, PubMed, and Proquest databases. She also searched for studies through Paperfetcher across journals in the field the study authors considered reputable, and examined the reference lists of the papers they found.
Study authors looked for studies that reported results of randomized controlled trials with at least 30 participants per experimental condition. The intervention examined in the study needed to be delivered through social media platforms (e.g., Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and WeChat), and the difference in mental health symptoms between groups undergoing different treatments needed to be small at the start. Additionally, the interventions needed to be delivered by nonresearchers to better reflect how these programs would function in the real world.
They also required the difference between the number of participants who did not finish the study (the attrition rate) in the compared treatment conditions to be less than 15%. In this way, they wanted to reduce the risk that the observed treatment differences were caused by different dropout rates. For example, if participants who benefited least, or those who experienced the strongest effects or adverse experiences, left one condition more often than the other, the remaining participants could become systematically different, biasing the results.
In the end, after screening over 11,000 published studies, 17 studies met all the criteria the study authors defined. These studies reported the effects of 22 distinct intervention programs, comprising 5,624 total participants. Of these programs, 7 were conducted on adolescents, 7 on people in early adulthood, 7 included middle adulthood participants, while 1 study was of older individuals.
Twelve studies had more than 70% female participants. In 9 studies, participants were recruited based on a specific clinical condition.
Overall, the results showed that the examined studies had a low-moderate beneficial effect on mental health symptoms. The symptom reduction was the strongest for stress symptoms and it was moderate-high in size. Effects on reducing anxiety and depression symptoms were low-moderate.
Further analyses found that the examined social-media-based interventions tended to be more effective when the studies were conducted on groups that were more than 70% female, when the programs were human-guided (i.e., guided by humans including therapists, coaches, or research assistants), social-oriented (i.e., programs that provide mainly social interaction, emotional support, or companionship), and when control groups were people who received care as usual (i.e., where control group participants received standard care as opposed to waitlist groups). Interestingly, the researchers found that a participant’s age did not significantly affect the outcomes of the intervention.
“This meta-analysis synthesized the best evidence on this topic and found that, overall, high-quality social-media-based RCTs [randomized controlled trials] were effective in reducing depression, anxiety, stress, negative affect, and psychological distress. Given the benefits of scalability and cost-effectiveness of social-media-based approaches, mental health services should consider integrating online interventions into routine practice,” the study authors concluded.
The study contributes to the scientific understanding of the mental health effects of social-media-based mental health interventions. However, the study authors note that the statistical power of their review was limited by the small sample size of available, high-quality studies. Furthermore, the reported effects are not generalizable to all social-media-based mental health interventions. In each case, the effects of a specific intervention depend on its particular characteristics and on its appropriateness for the mental health condition or difficulties that individuals undergoing the intervention are experiencing.
The paper, “Social-Media-Based Mental Health Interventions: Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials,” was authored by Qiyang Zhang, Zixuan Huang, Yuan Sui, Fu-Hung Lin, Hongjie Guan, Li Li, Ke Wang, and Amanda Neitzel.
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DATE: May 11, 2026
SOURCE: SOCIALWORKER.COMTITLE: Self-Care A-Z: A Letter to My Newbie Self-Care Self
URL: https://www.socialworker.com/feature-articles/self-care/letter-newbie-selfcare-self/
I decided to write a letter to myself, when I was just beginning to delve into prioritizing self-care. I hope my letter resonates and perhaps encourages you to write your own—and invite others in your sphere to do so, too.
URL: https://www.socialworker.com/feature-articles/self-care/letter-newbie-selfcare-self/
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DATE: May 11, 2026
SOURCE: SOCIALWORKER.COMTITLE: Self-Care A-Z: A Letter to My Newbie Self-Care Self
URL: https://www.socialworker.com/feature-articles/self-care/letter-newbie-selfcare-self/
I decided to write a letter to myself, when I was just beginning to delve into prioritizing self-care. I hope my letter resonates and perhaps encourages you to write your own—and invite others in your sphere to do so, too.
URL: https://www.socialworker.com/feature-articles/self-care/letter-newbie-selfcare-self/
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-
DATE: May 11, 2026
SOURCE: SOCIALWORKER.COMTITLE: Self-Care A-Z: A Letter to My Newbie Self-Care Self
URL: https://www.socialworker.com/feature-articles/self-care/letter-newbie-selfcare-self/
I decided to write a letter to myself, when I was just beginning to delve into prioritizing self-care. I hope my letter resonates and perhaps encourages you to write your own—and invite others in your sphere to do so, too.
URL: https://www.socialworker.com/feature-articles/self-care/letter-newbie-selfcare-self/
-------------------------------------------------
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-
DATE: May 10, 2026 at 08:00AM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: Scientists challenge The Body Keeps the Score with a new predictive model of trauma
A recent theoretical paper published in Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience suggests that psychological trauma is not literally stored in the tissues of the body. Instead, the authors propose that trauma creates a rigid pattern of threat prediction within the brain, reducing cognitive flexibility. This updated perspective provides evidence that therapies focusing on mental state shifting, such as flow states, may help retrain the nervous system and support recovery.
In 2014, psychiatrist Bessel van der Kolk published The Body Keeps the Score, a book suggesting that trauma alters the nervous system and becomes physically lodged in the body. The bestseller popularized the idea that individuals cannot simply talk through trauma, as the body continues to react to past threats. While the book gained immense public and clinical popularity, some scientists have criticized its underlying biological mechanisms.
Scientists Steven Kotler, Michael Mannino, Glenn Fox, and Karl Friston recently authored a paper to address these mechanistic discrepancies. They argue that the popular metaphor of somatic storage is biologically inaccurate. They propose an alternative model based on computational neuroscience.
Michael Mannino, the chief science officer of the Flow Research Collective and a distinguished research fellow at Florida Atlantic University, explained the motivation behind the paper. “Two things motivated the pushback,” Mannino said. He noted a conversation with researcher George Bonanno regarding resilience data.
“Bonanno had looked at some of the same kinds of trauma data and drawn very different conclusions than the dominant ‘trauma is stored in the body’ framing,” Mannino explained.
This conversation resonated with his own observations. “That conversation crystallized something I had already been sensing: the model did not line up with what we were seeing in flow research or in real-world performance contexts,” Mannino said.
Additionally, the authors noticed conflicts between the body storage theory and their own work on optimal mental states. “Second, the ‘body keeps the score’ framing became harder to reconcile with the evidence around flow,” Mannino noted. “Flow is common, trainable, and repeatedly associated with improvements in psychological functioning.”
He elaborated on this contradiction. “If trauma were literally stored in somatic tissue in the way the popular metaphor suggests, then it would be strange that flow training could have such broad effects on trauma recovery,” Mannino said. “Flow is not a specialized somatic therapy. It is not manually targeting hidden trauma deposits in muscle or fascia.”
“So if flow is helping people shift traumatic patterns, then the problem likely is not ‘stored trauma’ in the body,” Mannino continued. “It is more likely a problem in how the brain predicts threat, safety, agency, and action.”
The authors also felt the cultural timing was right for a shift in perspective. “The timing also matters because the popular culture around trauma has shifted,” Mannino pointed out. “Many people now lead with trauma as identity. The concern is that the storage metaphor may unintentionally reinforce victim identity, external locus of control, and chronic reactivation of painful memories.”
“If trauma is framed as something buried inside the body that must be located and released, people can feel less empowered,” Mannino added. “But if trauma is understood as a disorder of prediction, then we have more actionable targets.”
In their paper, the authors reframe trauma as a disorder of prediction rather than a disorder of storage. They use a concept called predictive coding, which suggests the brain constantly guesses what will happen next based on past experiences. In a healthy brain, these predictions are flexible and update when new information arrives.
Following a traumatic event, the brain tends to assign too much weight to signs of danger. This creates a highly rigid system where the brain anticipates threats everywhere, leading to hypervigilance and avoidance. The brain misinterprets regular physical sensations, like a racing heart, as proof of immediate danger.
Because of this rigid prediction system, the brain loses what scientists call metastability. Metastability refers to the brain’s ability to fluidly switch between different networks and mental states. High metastability allows for cognitive flexibility, meaning a person can easily adapt to new situations.
Trauma traps the brain in a narrow, inflexible state of fear. The body acts as a messenger in this process, sending signals that the brain misinterprets, but the body does not serve as an archive for the trauma itself.
“The main takeaway is empowering: trauma is not necessarily something hidden in the tissues that must be excavated,” Mannino said. “It may be better understood as a maladaptive prediction system.”
He explained that the brain is always forecasting safety, danger, and the meaning of physical sensations. “The brain is constantly predicting what is safe, what is dangerous, what matters, what action is possible, and what the body’s sensations mean,” he said.
“In trauma, those predictions can become rigid, overgeneralized, and threat-biased,” Mannino noted. “The person may not simply be ‘remembering’ the past. Their nervous system may be predicting the present and future through the lens of unresolved danger.”
This distinction is important for treatment. “That distinction matters because storage is a very hard target,” Mannino said. “We do not fully understand how memories are stored in the brain, let alone how traumatic memory would be stored in the body in a literal biological sense. But prediction is a much more tractable target.”
Mannino emphasized that psychology already utilizes tools that address prediction, including cognitive reframing, exposure therapies, attention training, and mindset changes. “So the average person should not hear this as ‘the body does not matter,'” he said. “The body absolutely matters. Pain, posture, breath, autonomic tone, movement, touch, and interoception all shape prediction.”
“But the mechanism may not be that trauma is physically stored in the muscles,” Mannino continued. “The mechanism may be that bodily signals are feeding into the brain’s predictive machinery, shaping what the person expects, fears, avoids, or interprets as dangerous.”
To help restore mental flexibility, the authors suggest flow states could act as a powerful intervention. Flow happens when a person becomes completely absorbed in a meaningful, highly challenging activity. Action sports, playing music, or engaging in complex tasks can trigger these states.
During flow, the brain’s threat detection centers quiet down, and networks related to focus and adaptation engage. “The strongest evidence begins with a large body of converging observations,” Mannino said regarding the connection between flow and trauma recovery.
He pointed to action sports athletes who face high risk but often report feeling regulated and empowered. “If trauma were simply stored in the body through overwhelming experience, then repeated exposure to danger should reliably worsen trauma,” Mannino noted. “But that is not always what we see.”
“Another line of evidence comes from flow-based and adventure-based interventions,” Mannino explained. Programs focusing on outdoor leadership or addiction recovery tend to help individuals break out of fixed behavioral loops. “Flow may help because it trains flexible state-shifting, agency, attention, and adaptive prediction under challenge,” he said.
“The strongest theoretical argument is that flow targets the prediction system,” Mannino added. “Flow changes attention, motivation, agency, threat perception, self-processing, and action-readiness. Those are all central to trauma.”
“If trauma involves rigid threat prediction, then flow may help by creating conditions where the nervous system learns, experientially, that challenge can be navigated safely and effectively,” Mannino said.
While the authors challenge the idea of somatic storage, they do not suggest that body-based therapies are ineffective. Bodywork, massage, and breathing exercises often provide significant relief for trauma survivors. The authors simply propose a different biological explanation for why these treatments work.
“We should not dismiss the therapeutic benefit people report,” Mannino stated. “Bodywork, somatic therapies, massage, acupuncture, breathwork, and related interventions clearly help many people. The question is not whether they can help. The question is why they help.”
Mannino suggests that finding a tight or painful spot during bodywork might create a prediction error in the brain. “A bodyworker finds a spot of pain, tightness, or unusual sensation,” he explained. “The brain then has to interpret that signal: ‘What is causing this?'”
Because sensation and emotion are linked, the brain might generate a memory or narrative to explain the physical feeling. “That does not mean the memory was literally stored in that muscle,” Mannino said. “It may mean the sensation created a prediction error, and the brain searched for a prior, an explanatory model, or an associated emotional memory.”
He believes this perspective opens the door to better scientific questions. “Is the therapeutic effect coming from touch? From relaxation? From parasympathetic activation? From interpersonal synchrony? From human connection? From increased interoceptive awareness? From changing threat predictions? From the therapist-client relational field?” Mannino asked. “The goal should not be to banish bodywork from trauma recovery. The goal should be to get the mechanism right so we can improve the interventions.”
The authors acknowledge limitations in their current model. Their framework represents a proposed mechanistic reframing, not a finalized clinical doctrine. Additionally, the specific connection between flow states and trauma recovery requires further direct testing.
“What remains speculative is the exact mechanism,” Mannino noted. “We do not yet have definitive evidence that flow heals trauma by increasing metastability, altering prediction error, or reorganizing attractor dynamics. Those are plausible, testable hypotheses, not settled facts.”
Trauma also comes in many forms, meaning this model might not apply universally. “PTSD, developmental trauma, acute trauma, grief, moral injury, chronic stress, and traumatic brain injury may involve overlapping but distinct mechanisms,” Mannino cautioned. “A prediction-based model may be powerful, but it should not be treated as a one-size-fits-all explanation.”
“A second caveat is that body-based therapies may still work,” Mannino added. “Rejecting the storage metaphor does not mean rejecting massage, somatic therapy, breathwork, movement, or bodywork. It means we should ask better mechanistic questions. These practices may work by changing autonomic state, increasing interoceptive precision, reducing threat prediction, enhancing safety cues, promoting interpersonal synchrony, or creating prediction error that allows updating.”
The evidence connecting flow to healing also needs formal neuroscientific backing. “Finally, the flow-trauma connection is still developing,” Mannino noted. “There is strong theoretical and anecdotal support, plus related evidence from performance, adventure therapy, and clinical psychology. But the direct neuroscientific evidence still needs to be built.”
Moving forward, the researchers hope to test their claims by measuring brain dynamics in populations with trauma histories. “To test the claim directly, we would need to measure brain dynamics in trauma populations, especially looking at whether PTSD is associated with reduced metastability, reduced flexibility, or difficulty transitioning between neural states,” Mannino said.
A strong study might use brain imaging to look at flexibility in people with trauma compared to a control group. “The prediction would be that PTSD involves overly rigid attractor dynamics: the nervous system gets stuck in certain threat-biased patterns and has trouble transitioning flexibly into alternative states,” Mannino explained.
Researchers could also test different interventions, comparing body-based treatments to flow-based activities. Mannino mentioned a speculative idea from Kotler involving bodywork. “If a bodyworker stimulates a painful area and the person reports a memory or emotional response, researchers could examine whether the content of that response varies according to contralateral brain-body organization,” Mannino said.
“So yes, the line of research is moving toward empirical testing,” Mannino emphasized. “The key is to move beyond metaphor and into measurable predictions: metastability, complexity, state transitions, prediction error, symptom change, and intervention response.”
The broader goal is to build a performance-based approach to neuroscience. “The next step is to test the model directly,” Mannino stated. “One direction is to examine metastability and neural complexity in trauma populations, especially before and after interventions.”
“A second direction is to compare somatic-based interventions with flow-based interventions, and potentially with combined interventions,” Mannino continued. “If bodywork helps, we want to know why.”
“A third direction is to study prediction-related mechanisms in adjacent conditions: PTSD, depression, anxiety, addiction, traumatic brain injury, Parkinson’s, ALS, and other neurodegenerative or neuropsychiatric conditions where rigidity, loss of agency, and impaired state transitions may play a role,” Mannino added.
The team envisions a future where treatments focus on expanding mental capabilities. “The broader aim is to develop a performance-neuroscience approach to brain health: not just reducing symptoms, but restoring flexibility, agency, adaptive prediction, and the capacity to enter high-functioning states like flow,” Mannino concluded. “That is where this line of research is headed.”
Scheduled for release in July, Kotler and Mannino’s forthcoming textbook defines the emerging scientific field of performance neuroscience. The book explores how the brain and body coordinate under high-pressure conditions, explaining the biological mechanisms behind flow states, stress regulation, and peak human achievement. The book will “will help formalize the field and provide a broader scientific foundation for this line of work.”
The study, “The body does not keep the score: trauma, predictive coding, and the restoration of metastability,” was authored by Steven Kotler, Michael Mannino, Glenn Fox, and Karl Friston.
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DATE: May 10, 2026 at 10:00AM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: Keeping strict emotional score with a romantic partner is connected to depressive moods
People who view love and emotional support as limited resources are more likely to experience depressive moods in their romantic relationships. A new empirical study shows that treating intimate empathy like a prize with finite winners leads partners to withhold emotional affection and keep strict emotional score. The findings, published in the Journal of Affective Disorders, suggest that a competitive mindset regarding interpersonal exchanges reliably predicts daily emotional distress.
A zero-sum framework dictates that a gain for one side perfectly corresponds with a loss for the opposing side. In economics or board games, these limits are written into the absolute rules of the engagement. Applying this rigidly economic perspective to the chemistry of human relationships creates unique and persistent friction.
Everyday life offers many overt examples of a competitive outlook. In finance or sports, a victory for one group frequently dictates a direct loss for another. Individuals who hold these beliefs view the world through a lens of extreme scarcity. They assume that resources are completely finite and that any benefit given to someone else comes at a personal cost.
Psychology researchers have extensively documented how this mindset modifies behavior in the workplace or within local politics. Employees might view a coworker receiving public praise as a direct threat to their own corporate status. Citizens might interpret social progress for a minority group as an active subtraction from the majority class. Modern social science reveals these beliefs are not restricted to tangible rewards like money or official job titles.
Researchers are just beginning to investigate how zero-sum logic applies to highly abstract concepts. Emotional resources, such as personal happiness or political voice, can also be perceived as limited commodities. A few recent academic investigations suggest that even the raw feeling of being understood can be treated as a scarce good.
Mei-Ru Wang and Peng-Xing Ying, both psychology researchers at Beijing Normal University, wanted to know if this competitive baseline extended into romantic partnerships. Specifically, they designed a daily study to track interpersonal empathy. Empathy is generally defined as the internal capacity to understand, share, and dynamically respond to the emotions of another person.
Providing genuine emotional support to a romantic partner requires substantial mental energy. In a demanding or stressful situation, individuals might suspect that their internal resources are running low. Wang and Ying suspected that people who view empathy as a purely finite supply might hold back from caring for their domestic partners.
They reasoned that these specific individuals might see sharing their feelings as a risk to their own psychological reserves. Because empathy functionally acts as a protective buffer against daily depression, treating it like a limited commodity could carry severe emotional penalties. To test this broad idea, Wang and Ying recruited 198 heterosexual couples for a daily tracking experiment.
The participants were young adults who were fully employed and had been in a committed relationship for an average of nearly four years. Over the course of two consecutive weeks, these individuals filled out daily evening surveys. The researchers asked all participants a specific series of questions about their emotional exchanges that day.
The survey measured how much energy the participants felt their romantic partner spent supporting their personal emotions. It also asked how much effort they believed their partner spent supporting colleagues or friends at the office. By comparing these daily answers, the researchers could gauge each person’s exact zero-sum mindset regarding emotional support.
Additionally, the daily check-ins measured how much empathy each person offered to their partner. Empathy operates on multiple specific levels, and the survey captured these different dimensions. Cognitive empathy is the intellectual ability to recognize and understand what another person is experiencing. Affective empathy represents the tendency to actually share in those same biological feelings.
The participants also rated how much total empathy they felt they received in return from their spouse or partner. Finally, the evening survey asked individuals to rate their daily feelings of sadness, discouragement, and hopelessness. This gave the academic team a running measure of early depressive moods across the two weeks.
The empirical results point to two distinct ways that extreme scarcity mindsets disrupt emotional connections at home. First, people who scored high in zero-sum beliefs tended to consistently give less empathy to their partners. The researchers frame this withdrawal behavior as a straightforward resource conservation strategy. Expecting an emotional deficit, these individuals preemptively exit the interaction to save inner mental energy.
The second disruptive path involves a vastly heightened sensitivity to unequal romantic exchanges. Zero-sum thinkers are historically highly focused on social comparisons. The researchers found that these individuals constantly monitored their relationships for an overarching empathic trade-off. This academic term refers to the exact perceived imbalance between the support a person gives and the support they receive.
People with highly competitive mindsets were intensely sensitive to who was getting more emotional attention. They treated normal daily interactions like a banking ledger that needed to be balanced completely and constantly. This vigilant scorekeeping habit transformed casual romantic exchanges into stressful comparative evaluations.
Both of these internal pathways successfully predicted specific negative outcomes for the individual. Giving less daily empathy to a partner predicted higher levels of immediate depressive moods. Similarly, constantly tracking the supposed imbalance of support also predicted highly elevated depressive states.
The researchers explain this negative outcome using the idea of self-discrepancy theory. Within close modern relationships, society sets a strong normative expectation for mutual care. When people fail to meet this basic standard because they are selfishly guarding their emotional resources, a psychological gap forms. The difference between what a relationship ought to be and the actual emotional reality breeds deep feelings of anxiety.
To fully parse the data, the scientists used statistical calculations that measured both individual effects and partner effects. An individual effect tracks how a person’s behavior alters their own mental state over time. A partner effect maps how that exact same behavior influences the mental state of the person they live with. This dual empirical approach allowed the team to see the relationship as an interconnected emotional system.
Usually, a lack of affection harms both people in a romantic pairing quite equally. But the researchers found an unexpected gender pattern hidden in their daily data sets. When male participants held strong zero-sum beliefs and reduced their empathic engagement, their female partners actually reported surprisingly lower levels of depressive moods.
The researchers admit that this outcome seems highly paradoxical. A competitive home environment typically harms overall relationship satisfaction for everyone involved. To conceptually explain this anomaly, Wang and Ying offer a sociological theory based on relational regulation.
Often, women shoulder an unequal amount of the sheer emotional labor in a heterosexual partnership. When a male partner withdraws to conserve his own emotional resources, the female partner might rapidly adjust her expectations. More appropriately, she might experience a sense of psychological release from her duties.
If the male partner views empathy as draining and pulls away, the female partner might feel less obligated to do the difficult work of emotional coordination. This temporary relief from constant relationship pressure could easily explain the sudden drop in her depressive symptoms. This dynamic deeply highlights how emotional processes do not happen in absolute isolation.
The scientific team acknowledges a few central caveats in their initial study design. The overall data relies on a very specific demographic of young, heterosexual, employed couples living in China. Fundamental relationship dynamics operate quite differently across distinct age groups and varying cultural backgrounds.
The daily tracking method also omitted several powerful environmental factors. Elements like sleep quality, daily job stress, and physical health dictate just how much mental capacity a person has on a given day. These external variables likely influence how strictly someone guards their emotional reserves when they arrive home.
Some modern jobs require intense social interaction, forcing professional employees to manage the raw feelings of clients all day. Coming home from a demanding service job might make the basic prospect of supporting a romantic partner feel overwhelmingly costly. Future clinical investigations will need to look at whether similar patterns show up across different specific professions.
Studying populations with diagnosed depressive disorders might offer even more insight into therapeutic treatments for couples. Therapists could ideally use these exact insights to build targeted couples counseling programs. Asking couples to explicitly discuss their emotional capacities might reveal hidden competitive assumptions about affection.
Previous psychological studies show that when people are directly taught to view empathy as a renewable muscle rather than a finite bank account, their motivation to help others fundamentally increases. Correcting false zero-sum assumptions could provide a relatively simple way to lower home-based stress. Finding new public ways to apply this basic psychological lesson to intimate partnerships might offer a path to vastly better mental health.
The study, “When empathy feels scarce: How zero-sum beliefs fuel depression in close relationships,” was authored by Mei-Ru Wang and Peng-Xing Ying.
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DATE: May 12, 2026 at 05:02AM
SOURCE:
NEW YORK TIMES PSYCHOLOGY AND PSYCHOLOGISTS FEEDTITLE: Your Decision Making Is All Wrong
URL: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/12/opinion/decision-making-herbert-simon.html
Why searching for the best is the wrong goal.
URL: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/12/opinion/decision-making-herbert-simon.html
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DATE: May 12, 2026 at 05:02AM
SOURCE:
NEW YORK TIMES PSYCHOLOGY AND PSYCHOLOGISTS FEEDTITLE: Your Decision Making Is All Wrong
URL: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/12/opinion/decision-making-herbert-simon.html
Why searching for the best is the wrong goal.
URL: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/12/opinion/decision-making-herbert-simon.html
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DATE: May 12, 2026 at 05:02AM
SOURCE:
NEW YORK TIMES PSYCHOLOGY AND PSYCHOLOGISTS FEEDTITLE: Your Decision Making Is All Wrong
URL: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/12/opinion/decision-making-herbert-simon.html
Why searching for the best is the wrong goal.
URL: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/12/opinion/decision-making-herbert-simon.html
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DATE: May 9, 2026 at 08:00PM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: Real world outcomes support the benefits of psychedelic therapy for severe depression
A recent study has found that specialized psychotherapy paired with doses of either LSD or psilocybin is associated with strong reductions in severe depression and anxiety. These mental health improvements emerged relatively quickly and took place within a standard hospital care program. The findings were published in the journal Psychiatry Research.
In recent years, researchers have renewed their investigation into the medical potential of classic hallucinogens. Conditions like severe depression and generalized anxiety do not always respond to standard psychiatric medications. For many individuals, initial treatments such as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors fail to provide lasting relief from persistent sad moods or chronic worry.
Individuals who do not respond to multiple standard treatments are often diagnosed with treatment-resistant conditions. This status leaves them with limited options in conventional medical practice. Psychedelic-assisted therapy has emerged as a promising alternative for these populations in strictly monitored experimental trials.
These therapies combine traditional talk therapy with the ingestion of a mind-altering substance under professional supervision. The goal is to induce a temporary change in consciousness that allows patients to process difficult emotions. A trained therapist helps the patient integrate these conceptual insights into their daily life after the drug effects wear off.
Most of the current evidence for these treatments comes from randomized controlled trials. While these trials offer rigorous baseline data, they often exclude patients with varied medical histories to isolate a specific chemical variable. This strict filtering means the results do not always translate perfectly to general hospital populations.
To understand how these treatments perform outside of rigid experiments, researchers look to compassionate use programs. These legal frameworks allow doctors to administer unapproved, experimental medications to patients who have exhausted all other available therapies. Switzerland operates one such framework, giving doctors restricted authorization to use specialized substances for severe mental health cases.
Tatiana Aboulafia-Brakha, a researcher at the Geneva University Hospitals, led an effort to analyze data from one of these Swiss clinical programs. Aboulafia-Brakha and her team wanted to evaluate the outcomes of patients receiving these therapies in a routine hospital setting. They sought to document changes in mental health symptoms and to record how well patients tolerated the experience.
The team collected retrospective data from a cohort of adults diagnosed with treatment-resistant depressive or anxiety disorders. This cohort underwent their first standardized treatment cycle between May 2024 and October 2025. Each individual received either 100 micrograms of LSD or 25 milligrams of psilocybin during their session.
Psilocybin is the primary psychoactive compound found in certain species of hallucinogenic mushrooms. LSD is a synthetic chemical known for producing potent shifts in perception and thought patterns. Patients were allowed to choose their preferred substance based on personal comfort, anticipated session length, and cost.
The program required extensive preparation before the actual administration of the drug. Patients attended screening sessions to review their medical histories and ensure no underlying heart or neurological conditions existed. They also engaged in preparatory meetings to set therapeutic intentions and learn coping strategies like breathing exercises for managing acute moments of fear.
On the day of the treatment, patients arrived at an outpatient clinic and settled into a quiet room under the constant supervision of psychiatric nurses. The nurses monitored vital signs and intervened only if the patient requested support or required help navigating a challenging psychological reaction. The patients then remained in the clinic until the acute subjective effects had completely resolved.
Patients returned the following day for an integration session with a psychotherapist. During this conversation, patients discussed the imagery, body sensations, and emotional revelations they experienced while receiving the drug. The therapist then helped them translate those abstract insights into actionable behavioral routines.
To quantify the results, the researchers administered standard psychological questionnaires at three distinct points in time. Patients filled out surveys during their initial screening, one month before the treatment, and one to three months after the session. These tools measured the severity of general sadness, pessimism, and habitual stress responses.
The team observed a pronounced decrease in both depression and anxiety scores over the treatment timeline. More than a third of the sample reported that their depressive symptoms had been reduced by at least half. A smaller portion recorded modest but noticeable symptom relief. These benefits appeared robust across the broader cohort, supporting previous findings from highly controlled laboratory environments.
The choice of substance did not seem to alter the long-term therapeutic outcome. Patients who took LSD and those who took psilocybin experienced largely identical improvements in their daily mental health.
Aboulafia-Brakha and her team also investigated how patients managed their emotions before and after the treatments. A subset of the patients completed an emotion regulation survey measuring strategies like rumination and catastrophizing. Rumination involves repetitively dwelling on negative feelings, while catastrophizing is a tendency to expect the worst possible outcome in any situation.
Following the therapy, patients reported large reductions in their tendencies to ruminate, catastrophize, and blame themselves for negative life events. They also demonstrated an increased capacity for positive reappraisal, which means they could more easily find a constructive perspective in difficult situations. These conceptual shifts align with psychological theories that consider rigid thinking to be a primary maintenance factor for severe depression.
While the long-term clinical benefits were similar across both substances, the acute physical experiences differed notably. The data indicated that LSD produced a longer, sustained plateau of intense subjective effects. Psilocybin caused a similar peak of intensity, but the overall duration of the psychoactive experience was noticeably shorter.
Despite these differing timelines, the overall intensity of the mystical experiences reported by the patients was roughly equivalent. Questionnaires measuring profound feelings of unity, distinct alterations in time perception, and deep spiritual insight yielded similar scores. These outcomes support the concept that the subjective journey might matter more than the specific pharmacological timeline.
Safety evaluations showed that both substances were well tolerated within the hospital environment. Many patients reported no adverse reactions at all, while the majority of recorded side effects were mild and temporary. The most common physical complaints included transient blurred vision, dizziness, and mild nausea during the active phase of the medication.
The team recorded no serious medical complications or severe psychiatric emergencies during the study period. No patient discontinued the treatment due to an adverse reaction. These details provide reassuring baseline evidence for medical professionals worried about introducing potent hallucinogens into general outpatient clinics.
This study has a few limitations due to its retrospective design and observational nature. The researchers did not include a placebo group, which means they cannot entirely rule out the influence of patient expectations. Patients who pursue rigorous medical treatments often expect to feel better, and this hope can artificially inflate self-reported symptom relief.
The cohort was highly motivated, considering the long waiting times and financial costs associated with the compassionate use program. This unique determination among the participants might mean the results would be different in a less motivated patient population. The reliance on self-reported questionnaires also leaves room for memory biases to influence the data.
Future studies will need to implement randomized designs involving active placebos to better isolate the specific physiological effects of the therapy. Combining patient self-reports with objective evaluations from independent clinicians could ensure a more reliable assessment of long-term improvement. Until then, these findings offer an encouraging glimpse into the practical realities of psychedelic therapies in standard psychiatric settings.
The study, “Real-world effectiveness and safety of psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy: Outcomes from a large-scale compassionate use cohort in Switzerland,” was authored by T. Aboulafia-Brakha, A. Buchard, C. Mabilais, S. Alaux, C. Amberger, L. Furtado, F. Seragnoli, J-F Briefer, G. Thorens, M. Sabé, L. Szczesniak, R. Iuga, D. Zullino, and L. Penzenstadler.
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DATE: June 24, 2025 at 06:30PM
SOURCE: BioWorld MedTechDirect article link at end of text block below.
Hearts break as Carmat faces #insolvency
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-------------------------------------------------#healthcare #healthtech #healthcaretech #healthtechnology #medgadget #medicine #doctor #hospital #medtech
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DATE: June 23, 2025 at 06:30PM
SOURCE: BioWorld MedTechDirect article link at end of text block below.
Hearts break as Carmat faces #insolvency
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DATE: August 28, 2025 at 04:30PM
SOURCE: BioWorld MedTechDirect article link at end of text block below.
Phyxiom looks to transform outcomes for patients with #asthma, #COPD
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TRIGGER WARNING: Military Psychology
DATE: April 22, 2026 at 01:33PM
SOURCE: THE CENTER FOR DEPLOYMENT PSYCHOLOGYDirect article link at end of text block below.
Wearables have become increasingly popular over the last few years, and chances are high that you own one yourself, or someone in your close circle does. Read the full blog, "Staff Perspective: The Opportunities & Limitations of Sleep Tracking Technology". https://t.co/90YiSBEll2
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