#counseling — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #counseling, aggregated by home.social.
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DATE: September 6, 2026 at 05:21PM
SOURCE: SCIENCE DAILY MIND-BRAIN FEEDTITLE: Popular brain supplement linked to shorter lifespan in men
URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/09/260904000330.htm
A large study involving more than 270,000 people has linked higher blood levels of the amino acid tyrosine to a shorter lifespan in men. Using both observational data and genetic analysis, researchers found that elevated tyrosine could potentially reduce male life expectancy by nearly a year, while no significant effect appeared in women. Tyrosine is found naturally in protein-rich foods and is also sold as a supplement for boosting focus and mental performance, making the finding especially intriguing.
URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/09/260904000330.htm
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#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #Tyrosine #lifespan #menhealth #brainhealth #supplements #longevity #publichealth #nutritionresearch #genderdifferences #mentalperformance
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DATE: September 6, 2026 at 05:21PM
SOURCE: SCIENCE DAILY MIND-BRAIN FEEDTITLE: Popular brain supplement linked to shorter lifespan in men
URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/09/260904000330.htm
A large study involving more than 270,000 people has linked higher blood levels of the amino acid tyrosine to a shorter lifespan in men. Using both observational data and genetic analysis, researchers found that elevated tyrosine could potentially reduce male life expectancy by nearly a year, while no significant effect appeared in women. Tyrosine is found naturally in protein-rich foods and is also sold as a supplement for boosting focus and mental performance, making the finding especially intriguing.
URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/09/260904000330.htm
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Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org
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#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #Tyrosine #lifespan #menhealth #brainhealth #supplements #longevity #publichealth #nutritionresearch #genderdifferences #mentalperformance
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DATE: September 6, 2026 at 05:21PM
SOURCE: SCIENCE DAILY MIND-BRAIN FEEDTITLE: Popular brain supplement linked to shorter lifespan in men
URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/09/260904000330.htm
A large study involving more than 270,000 people has linked higher blood levels of the amino acid tyrosine to a shorter lifespan in men. Using both observational data and genetic analysis, researchers found that elevated tyrosine could potentially reduce male life expectancy by nearly a year, while no significant effect appeared in women. Tyrosine is found naturally in protein-rich foods and is also sold as a supplement for boosting focus and mental performance, making the finding especially intriguing.
URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/09/260904000330.htm
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#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #Tyrosine #lifespan #menhealth #brainhealth #supplements #longevity #publichealth #nutritionresearch #genderdifferences #mentalperformance
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DATE: September 6, 2026 at 04:00PM
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 psychological effects of padel and pickleball, according to science
URL: https://www.psypost.org/the-psychological-effects-of-padel-and-pickleball-according-to-science/
Pickleball participation was associated with greater happiness, life satisfaction, social integration and lower depression, while padel was more closely studied in relation to confidence, anxiety and mental fatigue, according to a systematic review published in Frontiers in Psychology.
Physical activity is widely linked to better mental health, yet many people do not meet recommended activity levels. Padel and pickleball have attracted attention because they are social, relatively accessible and can be played across a range of ages and skill levels. Padel is played on an enclosed court where the ball can rebound from the walls, while pickleball uses a smaller court, a perforated plastic ball and slower-paced play that emphasizes strategy and interaction.
The researchers conducted the review because most previous studies had concentrated on physical fitness, injuries and sporting performance. Less was known about whether these sports were related to mental health and wellbeing. The review ultimately revealed a stark divide in the existing literature: padel has mostly been studied in competitive settings, while pickleball research has frequently focused on recreational play among older adults.
Led by Lena Lauxtermann at the University of Vienna, the researchers searched for studies published through October 8, 2024. Of 71 records screened, 14 studies were included, representing 1,403 participants. Eight padel studies included 538 people and six pickleball studies included 865. Women represented 42% of the overall sample, or approximately 589 participants.
The pickleball findings were mainly linked to wellbeing. Participation was associated with greater happiness, stronger social connections and higher life satisfaction. One study found that happiness was positively related to participation, while another linked more serious involvement in pickleball with lower depression. Social integration appeared particularly important for female players. During the COVID-19 pandemic, reduced opportunities to play were associated with increased loneliness and poorer mental health, suggesting that the social contact provided by the sport may be part of its benefit.
The padel studies focused more on athletes’ performance-related emotions. Higher-level players generally reported greater self-confidence and lower physical symptoms of anxiety. Anxiety also changed according to ranking, gender, match stage and whether players won or lost. Mental fatigue increased across consecutive matches and was linked to slower reactions and poorer accuracy. Motivation sometimes rose during mentally demanding matches, which may help explain why players continued performing despite feeling mentally tired.
The findings suggest the two rapidly growing racket sports may offer different mental-health benefits, but stronger research is needed to determine whether playing them directly causes improvements.
The authors summarized: “Padel studies primarily target performance aspects like self-confidence, anxiety, and mental fatigue, while pickleball research highlights wellbeing gains in life satisfaction, happiness, and social integration.”
Some limitations are to be noted. The results should not be interpreted as proof that either sport prevents depression or anxiety. For example, many studies relied on self-reported experiences, and all of the included studies were observational rather than randomized controlled trials. Padel research also overrepresented elite and competitive players, while pickleball research focused mainly on older adults. Additionally, the available research was geographically narrow, with all included studies originating from just three countries: the United States, Spain and Finland.
The study, “Padel, pickleball and wellbeing: a systematic review,” was authored by Lena Lauxtermann and Brendon Stubbs.
URL: https://www.psypost.org/the-psychological-effects-of-padel-and-pickleball-according-to-science/
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#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #PadelWellbeing #PickleballHappiness #SportsPsychology #MentalHealthSports #SocialConnectivity #WellbeingThroughSport #SportsForMentalHealth #PadelAnxiety #PickleballLifeSatisfaction #ActiveAgingSports
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DATE: September 6, 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: Common artificial sweetener aspartame makes brain cells more vulnerable to stroke damage, mouse study suggests
Recent research in mice provides evidence that consuming the common artificial sweetener aspartame may worsen the brain damage caused by a stroke. The findings indicate that the sweetener disrupts cellular energy centers and blocks protective signaling pathways during periods of oxygen deprivation, making brain cells more vulnerable to injury. The study was published in Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety.
Aspartame is a non-nutritive sweetener widely used in zero-calorie beverages and processed foods. While regulatory agencies generally consider it safe for human consumption within established daily limits, ongoing scientific debates have raised questions about its potential effects on the nervous system. For instance, a study covered by PsyPost in 2023 found that mothers of boys with autism had more than tripled odds of daily exposure to diet soda or aspartame during pregnancy.
Additionally, a 2023 study indicated that treating human brain cells with aspartame led to oxidative stress and damage to mitochondria, the energy-producing structures inside cells. The new research, led by Yan Bai and Ji Feng at Fudan University, aimed to test whether aspartame consumption might make the brain more susceptible to injury during the intense stress of a stroke.
When an ischemic stroke occurs, a blockage prevents blood and oxygen from reaching parts of the brain. When blood flow is finally restored, the sudden rush of oxygen and nutrients can paradoxically trigger a cascade of inflammation and oxidative stress, causing additional tissue damage. This secondary wave of damage is known as cerebral ischemia-reperfusion injury.
The scientists conducted their research using both living mice and lab-grown mouse brain cells. For the animal model, they divided 50 male mice into groups. The experimental groups were given drinking water containing either 0.1% or 0.2% aspartame for seven days. These concentrations were specifically chosen to approximate the upper limits of an acceptable daily intake for humans.
After the week of aspartame consumption, the researchers temporarily blocked the mice’s carotid arteries for two hours to simulate an ischemic stroke. They then removed the blockage to allow 12 hours of reperfusion.
The findings indicated that mice pretreated with aspartame suffered worse brain damage than those that drank regular water. In mice exposed to a simulated stroke without aspartame, the area of dead brain tissue was about 24.3%. In mice given the 0.2% aspartame water, the dead tissue area expanded to 58.6%.
Microscopic examination of the brain tissue showed that aspartame worsened the physical breakdown of neurons in the cortex and hippocampus, two brain regions involved in memory and thinking. The aspartame-treated mice had fewer surviving neurons and showed more severe signs of cellular degeneration.
To understand exactly how aspartame caused this added damage, the researchers isolated neural stem cells from the brains of newborn mice. They grew these cells in a laboratory dish and pretreated them with aspartame for 48 hours. They then subjected the cells to oxygen and glucose deprivation to replicate the harsh conditions of a stroke.
Similar to the animal experiment, aspartame increased cell death in the dish. Cells treated with the sweetener experienced an approximate 25% larger reduction in viability compared to cells that underwent oxygen and glucose deprivation alone. Interestingly, other common artificial sweeteners tested in the study, such as sucralose and acesulfame potassium, did not produce this added toxic effect.
The researchers observed that aspartame caused a massive buildup of reactive oxygen species within the mitochondria of the cells. Reactive oxygen species are unstable molecules that can cause severe structural damage when they accumulate beyond normal levels. This buildup was accompanied by a loss of mitochondrial membrane potential, a sign that the cells’ energy centers were failing.
The sweetener also suppressed the ERK/CREB1 pathway, a sequence of chemical signals that normally helps cells survive stress and promotes neuronal resilience. When the researchers added specific chemical compounds to activate this protective pathway and neutralize the reactive oxygen species in the mitochondria, they were able to partially reverse the cell death and inflammation caused by the aspartame.
As with all research, there are a few things to keep in mind regarding these results. The study exposed the mice to aspartame for only seven days, which does not reflect the long-term, daily consumption habits of many people who drink artificially sweetened beverages. It remains unknown how chronic, low-dose exposure might alter the brain’s resilience to injury over a lifetime.
The animal experiments also relied exclusively on male mice, meaning it is uncertain if females would show the same neurological vulnerabilities. The researchers did not test the mice for behavioral or cognitive changes, so it is not entirely established how this cellular damage might translate to physical or mental impairments after a stroke.
Future research will need to explore how artificial sweeteners alter metabolic pathways over longer periods and whether these mechanisms hold true in human clinical scenarios.
The study, “Aspartame exacerbates cerebral ischemia–reperfusion injury via mitochondrial dysfunction and ERK/CREB1 pathway suppression,” was authored by Yan Bai, Ji Feng, Xiao-Yu Wu, Zhi-Sheng Yao, Yue-Tong Liu, Yu-Hong Li, Guo-Dong Lu, and Kun Xue.
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#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #AspartameSafety #StrokeResearch #IschemiaReperfusion #MitochondrialDysfunction #ERKCREB1 #NeuronalDamage #NeuroscienceNews #ArtificialSweeteners #BrainHealth #PublicHealthRisk
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DATE: September 6, 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: Escitalopram reduces impulsivity and anger in women with severe premenstrual irritability
A study of women suffering from severe premenstrual irritability and anger found that escitalopram reduced their irritability and anger in the luteal phase of the menstrual cycle. Participants on escitalopram also demonstrated a lower frequency of anticipatory responses and greater consistency in response speeds in a sustained attention test. The paper was published in Psychological Medicine.
The menstrual cycle is a recurring biological process in which hormonal changes prepare the body of a woman for a possible pregnancy. It is commonly divided into the menstrual, follicular, ovulatory, and luteal phases. The cycle begins with menstruation, when the uterine lining is shed and menstrual bleeding occurs. Ovulation occurs around the middle of the cycle, when a mature egg is released from the ovary. The last is the luteal phase, during which progesterone becomes dominant and the uterine lining is maintained in preparation for a possible pregnancy. If pregnancy does not occur, estrogen and progesterone levels fall toward the end of the luteal phase, leading to the beginning of a new menstrual cycle.
For some women, these hormonal changes are accompanied by recurring emotional, behavioral, and physical symptoms that become particularly pronounced before menstruation. These changes, called premenstrual symptoms, are thought to be linked to normal fluctuations in sex hormones across the menstrual cycle. In more severe cases, the symptoms may form part of premenstrual dysphoric disorder, or PMDD. In this disorder, several symptoms repeatedly emerge during the luteal phase and largely disappear after menstruation begins.
Studies have shown that selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, or SSRIs, a type of medication used to treat depression, can be effective in reducing the symptoms of PMDD within only a few days. This suggests that serotonin, a neurotransmitter affected by SSRIs, might play an important role in premenstrual symptoms. It seems to be particularly effective in reducing irritability, anger, and rapid mood shifts.
Study author Maria Gröndal and her colleagues conducted a study in which they examined possible cognitive components of impulsivity in premenstrual irritability. They also examined the women’s sustained attention and the effects of intermittent treatment with escitalopram, a widely used SSRI.
Study participants were 27 women suffering from severe premenstrual irritability and anger, selected from an initial pool of 203 prospective participants. Participants were included in the study if they showed at least a 50% increase in irritability/anger symptoms from the follicular phase to the luteal phase of a menstrual cycle, and had a mean rating of irritability/anger over a threshold study authors defined over the last 5 days of the menstrual cycle. Participants’ average age was 33 years. 85% of them had a university degree. Participants received 1000 SEK (around $100) for each of their three lab visits, plus reimbursement for travel or loss of income.
The study extended over three of the study participants’ menstrual cycles. The first cycle did not involve any intervention. In cycles 2 and 3, participants were randomly assigned to either receive 20mg of escitalopram per day during the luteal phase of cycle 2 and placebo (an identically looking pill with no effects) during the luteal phase of cycle 3, in a single-blind design, or to receive these same treatments in the reverse order (placebo in cycle 2, escitalopram in cycle 3).
Participants completed a sustained attention test (the Conners Continuous Performance Test 3 – CPT 3) twice, once in the luteal phase of cycle 2 and once in the luteal phase of cycle 3. They also completed an assessment of impulsivity twice – once in the follicular phase and once in the luteal phase of the cycle when they were receiving placebo. Participants also rated their symptoms on a daily basis using an online survey. The symptoms they rated were irritability/anger, depressed mood, mood swings, and tension/anxiety.
Results showed that participants reported significantly higher levels of negative urgency (the tendency to act impulsively when experiencing negative emotions) during the luteal phase of the menstrual cycle compared to the follicular phase. They also showed lower levels of sensation seeking. There were no differences between phases of the menstrual cycle in the other two aspects of impulsivity (lack of premeditation and lack of perseverance).
On the sustained attention test, perseverations (anticipatory, repetitive, or random responses) were significantly higher during the placebo cycle than during the escitalopram cycle. During the menstrual cycle when participants were receiving placebo, they also showed greater variability in their response speeds. In other words, escitalopram reduced participants’ anticipatory responses and made their reaction speeds more consistent. Escitalopram treatment also caused a significant reduction in self-rated irritability, anger, and mood swings in the luteal phase.
“The current study showed that intermittent treatment with escitalopram during the symptomatic luteal phase of the menstrual cycle may have a beneficial impact on specific aspects of impulsivity and inattentiveness in women with severe premenstrual irritability and anger. Moreover, our findings showed that self-reported urgency increased, whereas self-reported sensation seeking decreased in the luteal versus the follicular phase, suggesting that different facets of impulsivity may be of different significance to premenstrual complaints,” study authors concluded.
The study contributes to the scientific knowledge about premenstrual disorders and ways to treat their symptoms. However, it should be noted that the study was conducted on a very small group of women, selected for severe premenstrual irritability and anger. Results of studies involving larger groups of women may not be identical.
The paper, “The effects of intermittent escitalopram treatment on impulsivity and inattention in women with premenstrual irritability and anger,” was authored by Maria Gröndal, Christin Englund, Jakob Näslund, Karl Ask, Elias Eriksson, and Stefan Winblad.
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#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #EscitalopramPMDD #PremenstrualIrritability #PMDDTreatment #ImpulseControl #SustainedAttention #LutealPhase #SerotoninSSRIs #AngerManagement #WomenHealthResearch #PsychologicalMedicine
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DATE: September 6, 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: Free-to-play video games carry heavy financial costs for a vulnerable minority of teens
A recent study has found that financial spending on video games is highly unequal among adolescents, with just 10 percent of paying players accounting for over 60 percent of all in-game purchases. The research indicates that these heavy spenders are more likely to exhibit symptoms of gaming and gambling disorders, regardless of their family’s economic background. The findings, published in Frontiers in Public Health, raise consumer protection concerns about modern video game monetization strategies.
The research, led by Markus Meschik, a professor of social pedagogy at St. Pölten University of Applied Sciences in Austria, aimed to understand the extent of monetary expenditure on in-game purchases among adolescents in Austria.
“In my work as a counselor for families affected by problematic video gaming, I repeatedly encountered young players who were spending large amounts of money in games,” Meschik told PsyPost.
“This was not limited to loot boxes, which have already been studied quite extensively, but also involved in-game purchases in games more generally. Both the actual extent of these expenditures and their associations with pathological behaviors have received relatively little research attention so far, which is why we conducted this study.”
Over the past decade, the video game industry has shifted away from selling games as single, standalone products. Instead, many developers now use a free-to-play model.
These games cost nothing to download but rely on continuous microtransactions to generate revenue. Microtransactions are small, real-money purchases made during gameplay. Players might buy cosmetic items that change a character’s appearance or pay for features that provide a competitive advantage.
Often, these purchases involve loot boxes, which are virtual grab-bags that dispense randomized digital rewards. Because the player does not know what they will get until they pay and open the box, the mechanics closely mirror traditional casino games. This convergence of gaming and gambling has raised concerns, particularly regarding younger players whose impulse control is still developing.
Previous investigations have shown that randomized in-game purchases can carry risks. For instance, a 2018 survey showed that adult gamers who spent more money on loot boxes tended to experience more severe gambling problems. In the broader betting industry, revenue is notoriously dependent on a tiny fraction of heavy spenders.
For example, a 2019 study of traditional gambling markets indicated that a disproportionately large share of revenue comes from problem gamblers. Meschik and his colleagues wanted to know if this same pattern exists in the video game market for adolescents. They also aimed to determine whether heavy spenders in video games come from wealthier families, or if disadvantaged youth are spending large amounts of money they might not be able to afford.
To explore these questions, the research team analyzed survey data from 2,308 students aged 10 to 19 across various school types in Austria. The sample was roughly evenly split between boys and girls. The survey asked students about their video game habits, their in-game spending over the past 12 months, and their family’s economic status.
The researchers also included psychological screening tools to check for signs of gaming disorder and gambling disorder. Gaming disorder involves a loss of control over gaming habits to the point that it disrupts daily life and responsibilities. Gambling disorder is a similar condition related to betting money, and this screening was only given to the 103 students who reported actually gambling with real money in the past year.
Out of the total sample, 818 participants, or about 35 percent, reported spending money on in-game purchases during the past year. Among these paying players, the average annual expenditure was about 170 euros. Boys spent considerably more than girls, averaging 181 euros compared to 102 euros.
Spending did not simply increase as children got older. Instead, it peaked among 15- to 16-year-olds, who averaged over 200 euros in yearly in-game purchases. When the researchers looked at how this spending was distributed across the group, they found extreme inequality.
Most adolescents spent very little, but a small minority spent massive amounts. The top 10 percent of spenders, often referred to in the gaming and gambling industries as whales, accounted for 61.4 percent of all the money spent by the entire group. These 85 heavy spenders spent between 400 and 12,000 euros in a single year, averaging just over 1,000 euros each.
“The strong concentration of spending was particularly striking,” Meschik said. “Consumer spending is often described using the Pareto principle, according to which roughly 20% of consumers account for 80% of revenue of a product.”
“In our sample, however, the distribution was even more concentrated,” he explained. “A similarly pronounced concentration of spending can also be observed in gambling, which makes this pattern particularly noteworthy.”
Heavy spenders were mostly boys, and they were more likely to show signs of psychological distress. Among the heavy spenders, 14.1 percent met the criteria for gaming disorder, compared to just 4.2 percent of the casual spenders. Within the smaller subgroup of students who also gambled with real money, the heavy in-game spenders were substantially more likely to meet the criteria for a probable gambling disorder.
Interestingly, a family’s financial situation had no bearing on whether a teenager became a heavy spender. Adolescents from lower-income backgrounds spent roughly the same absolute amounts of money on games as their wealthier peers. This indicates that high spending is not restricted to teenagers with a lot of disposable family income.
Instead, young people with fewer financial resources might be dedicating a much larger share of their available money to virtual items, making the financial burden heavier for them. These results are in line with research covered by PsyPost in 2019, which found that excessive engagement with loot boxes was associated with higher levels of problematic gambling behaviors. The new study demonstrates comparable patterns, though it examined overall in-game microtransaction spending among adolescents, whereas the earlier study focused specifically on loot box use in adults, with both linking heavy game-related spending to problem gambling.
“One important takeaway is that free-to-play games are not necessarily free in practice,” Meschik told PsyPost. “Players, even young ones, can spend substantial amounts of money on these games, and higher spending can be associated with pathological behaviors, irrespective of socioeconomic status.”
“Our findings also suggest that existing regulations may not be sufficient and that additional measures to protect vulnerable players should be considered,” he added.
“Spending money in video games is not problematic per se,” Meschik noted. “The majority of players appear to use these monetization models without experiencing problems, as the industry also regularly emphasizes.”
“This does not excuse the absence of regulation, however. Regulatory efforts should aim at protecting the smaller group of players who spend disproportionately large amounts of money and who may also experience pathological gaming or gambling-related behaviors, for example by introducing greater friction into purchasing processes and additional safeguards for high levels of spending.”
As with all research, there are a few things to keep in mind. The study relied on self-reported data, which means participants had to remember and estimate how much money they spent over an entire year. People often struggle to accurately recall their expenses, especially when making many small digital purchases over a long period.
Heavy spenders might have underestimated their total costs, which could affect the exact financial figures reported. Additionally, the gambling disorder screening was only given to a small subset of 103 students who reported betting real money in the past year. Because of this small sample size, the estimates regarding gambling disorder should be viewed as preliminary.
The research also captured a single snapshot in time. This makes it impossible to know whether spending money in video games causes problematic behaviors to develop, or if adolescents who already have these tendencies are just more drawn to heavy in-game spending. Future research could benefit from using actual transaction data from video game companies to track spending patterns more objectively.
Exploring how specific consumer protection measures, such as mandatory spending limits or better transparency regarding the odds of winning digital items, might help mitigate these risks would also provide practical guidance for policymakers.
“One important next step is to understand the mechanisms or dark patterns behind these numbers,” Meschik said. “Quantitative data can show us that heavy spending and problematic behavior are associated, but they tell us much less about why people continue spending, how they experience these systems, and which game-design mechanisms are particularly influential.”
“We are therefore also interested in qualitative research with high-spending players, including adults, and in examining similarities and differences between monetization mechanisms in digital games and gambling,” he explained. “In the longer term, I hope this work can contribute to evidence-based consumer protection and to a discussion about how game monetization can be designed without disproportionately relying on vulnerable players.”
The study, “Heavy spenders in digital games: expenditure disparities and associations between microtransactions, gaming disorder and gambling disorder among adolescents,” was authored by Markus Meschik, Elena Hammer, Doris Malischnig, Natalia Wächter, and Mark D. Griffiths.
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#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #HeavySpendersInGames #InGamePurchases #LootBoxes #GamingDisorder #GamblingDisorder #FreeToPlayCosts #AdolescentGaming #Microtransactions #ConsumerProtection #ParetoPrinciple
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DATE: September 6, 2026 at 09:00AM
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: Survey reveals associations between Big Five personality traits and nightmare coping habits
URL: https://www.psypost.org/how-personality-traits-shape-the-way-we-cope-with-nightmares/
New research indicates that a person’s personality traits might slightly influence how they deal with distressing dreams. People who are more outgoing tend to cope with nightmares by talking about them, while other personality traits show weaker links to specific coping behaviors. The findings were published in the Journal of Sleep Research.
Nightmares are vivid, frightening dreams that usually occur during rapid eye movement sleep. They often cause a person to wake up feeling intense fear that lingers even after they are fully conscious. If these bad dreams cause extreme distress or impair a person’s ability to function during the day, doctors might diagnose them with a nightmare disorder. However, occasional bad dreams are very common in the general population.
Despite the distress they cause, nightmares are rarely treated with specific medical interventions. This leaves many people to find their own ways to manage the experience in their daily lives. The “Big Five” is a well-established psychological model that groups human personality into five broad categories. These categories are openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism.
Previous psychological research has shown that these traits affect how people manage daily stress. For instance, people with high levels of neuroticism, a trait associated with experiencing negative emotions, often use avoidant coping strategies. Researchers Julia Wiesenthal and Michael Schredl from Heidelberg University in Germany wanted to understand how the general public copes with nighttime distress. They designed a study to test if these personality traits play a role in selecting specific nightmare coping strategies.
To investigate this question, the researchers conducted an online survey of 411 adults. The participant pool consisted mostly of university psychology students, with an average age of 28. The participants completed standardized questionnaires that measured their personality traits, how often they experienced nightmares, and the level of distress those dreams caused. They also reported their experiences with lucid dreaming, a state where a person becomes aware that they are dreaming while the dream is still happening.
The survey included a section asking participants about eight specific coping strategies. These strategies included talking to someone, avoiding triggers, gathering information, using medication, and seeking professional help. The list also included cognitive techniques like trying to induce lucid dreams or practicing self-administered imagery rehearsal therapy. Imagery rehearsal therapy is a technique where a person writes down their bad dream and rewrites it with a positive ending while awake.
Participants indicated how often they used each strategy and rated how helpful they perceived each one to be. The researchers then used statistical models to look for associations between specific personality traits and coping behaviors. They adjusted their mathematical models to account for factors like the participants’ age, gender, and education levels. The team formulated three main predictions before they began analyzing the survey responses.
They expected that high openness to experience would predict seeking out information about nightmares. They also predicted that high extraversion would predict talking about the dreams, and high neuroticism would predict avoiding situations that might trigger a nightmare. Out of these three initial predictions, only one was supported by the survey data. The results showed a positive link between extraversion and discussing nightmares with others.
People scoring high in openness did not show a tendency to research their nightmares. Similarly, people with high levels of neuroticism were not more likely to avoid potential nightmare triggers. The study did reveal several secondary associations through exploratory data analysis. For example, people with higher neuroticism scores were slightly more likely to seek professional help for their dreams.
Participants who scored high in openness were somewhat more likely to practice self-administered imagery rehearsal therapy. They were also more likely to document their dreams by writing them down or drawing them. Agreeable individuals showed a slight preference for discussing their nightmares with friends or family. These agreeable participants were also less likely to practice lucid dreaming techniques to control their bad dreams.
Looking at overall habits across all personality types, discussing nightmares was the most common coping strategy. Participants also rated talking about their dreams as the most helpful approach. Avoiding potential triggers was the second most common method used by the respondents. Strategies like practicing lucid dreaming, seeking information, and rewriting the dream’s ending were used far less frequently.
Seeking professional help was quite rare among the participants in the survey. However, the small number of people who did consult a professional rated it as a highly helpful strategy. Using medication for nightmares was the least common approach reported. In line with the lack of medical evidence for treating regular nightmares with drugs, no participants rated medication as very helpful.
The researchers also noticed demographic differences in how people viewed the effectiveness of these strategies. Female participants tended to find talking about their nightmares more helpful than male participants did. Conversely, male participants rated lucid dreaming as a more effective coping tool than female participants did. Older participants generally found both discussing nightmares and rewriting dream endings to be less helpful than younger participants did.
The study relies on self-reported survey data collected at a single point in time. This type of research design means the results cannot prove that a specific personality trait causes a person to choose a certain coping mechanism. The data only shows that the personality traits and the coping behaviors are statistically related. People might also be biased in their survey responses, such as rating a strategy as highly effective simply because they use it often.
Because the participants were mostly university psychology students, their behavior might not represent how the broader public handles bad dreams. The study also measured perceived helpfulness rather than tracking actual changes in nightmare frequency over time. Future studies would need to track participants over a longer period to see if these coping strategies actually reduce the occurrence of nightmares.
Researchers might also assign specific coping techniques to different groups of people to better measure their true effectiveness. Assessing how coping mechanisms work in people formally diagnosed with nightmare disorders could also provide better guidance for medical treatments. Until then, these findings offer a preliminary look at how human personality shapes the way we handle nighttime fears.
The study, “Nightmare Coping Strategies and Their Association With Big Five Personality Traits,” was authored by Julia Wiesenthal and Michael Schredl.
URL: https://www.psypost.org/how-personality-traits-shape-the-way-we-cope-with-nightmares/
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DATE: September 6, 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: Rising loneliness among US veterans is closely tied to psychiatric burden and suicide risk
New research indicates that loneliness is a widespread and worsening issue among United States military veterans, with more than one in five reporting frequent feelings of isolation. The study, published in J Clin Psychiatry, provides evidence that higher levels of loneliness are strongly linked to increased risks of psychiatric disorders and suicidal thoughts. These findings suggest that addressing social disconnection could be an important target for improving veteran mental health and preventing suicide.
The research was led by Robert H. Pietrzak, a professor of psychiatry at the Yale School of Medicine and professor of public health at the Yale School of Public Health. He and his team aimed to update our understanding of how social disconnection affects former military personnel. Loneliness is generally defined as the subjective feeling of being left out, isolated, or lacking in companionship. It is not just about being physically alone, but rather experiencing a painful gap between the social connections a person wants and the ones they actually have.
“Loneliness was already highly prevalent among U.S. veterans in 2019–2020, but the demographic composition of the veteran population and broader social environment have changed since then, particularly following the COVID-19 pandemic,” Pietrzak told PsyPost. “We wanted to provide updated national estimates of the prevalence of loneliness and determine whether it is independently associated with psychiatric disorders and suicide-related outcomes after accounting for a broad range of sociodemographic, military, trauma, health, and social factors.”
Data from 2019 and 2020 showed that more than half of U.S. veterans experienced at least moderate loneliness, with nearly one in five feeling lonely on a frequent basis. Since then, the social landscape has shifted considerably. The researchers noted that the veteran population has been changing, with an increasing proportion of younger, female, and racially diverse individuals transitioning out of the military. This demographic shift is an important detail, as a study covered by PsyPost in 2015 found that younger generations of military personnel tend to experience lower levels of social integration, making them more vulnerable to mental health struggles and suicide.
In addition to these demographic changes, the lingering social effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and broader societal stressors may have worsened feelings of isolation. Because loneliness often co-occurs with serious mental health conditions, the researchers wanted to explore exactly how current levels of loneliness correspond to specific psychiatric burdens. For instance, research covered by PsyPost in 2018 highlighted that veterans battling both post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, and depression face an exceptionally high risk of suicidal thoughts. Pietrzak and his team sought to determine if loneliness was acting as a similar, widespread risk factor that spans multiple psychiatric conditions.
To investigate these trends, the researchers analyzed data from the National Health and Resilience in Veterans Study. This nationally representative survey gathered responses from 2,612 U.S. veterans between December 2025 and January 2026. The participants were drawn from a large, probability-based panel designed to reflect the broader U.S. household population. By weighting the data, the researchers ensured their findings could be generalized to the entire population of living U.S. veterans.
The survey measured loneliness using a standard three-item questionnaire. Participants were asked how often they felt left out, how often they felt isolated from others, and how often they felt they lacked companionship. Based on their responses, the veterans were placed into one of three categories: hardly ever lonely, moderate loneliness, or frequent loneliness. The researchers also collected data on a variety of mental health indicators, including symptoms of major depressive disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, PTSD, alcohol and drug use disorders, and various measures of suicidal thoughts and behaviors.
The results indicated that loneliness is highly prevalent among veterans. Overall, 58.7% of the respondents reported experiencing at least moderate loneliness. When broken down further, 36.3% fell into the moderate loneliness category, while 22.4% reported frequent loneliness. When compared to the estimates from 2019 and 2020, the prevalence of moderate loneliness remained relatively stable. However, the rate of frequent loneliness increased from 19.7% to 22.4%. The researchers estimate that this percentage increase translates to roughly 460,000 additional veterans experiencing frequent loneliness across the country.
“Loneliness is not simply an unpleasant feeling—it is a major public health concern,” Pietrzak explained. “Prior work has found that chronic loneliness is associated with an increased risk of premature mortality comparable to the risk associated with smoking as many as 15 cigarettes per day.”
The study also provides evidence of a strong relationship between the severity of loneliness and mental health struggles. Veterans in the moderate loneliness group had notably higher odds of meeting the screening criteria for depression, anxiety, PTSD, hazardous alcohol use, and suicidal thoughts over the past year, compared to those who were hardly ever lonely.
For veterans experiencing frequent loneliness, the psychiatric burden was even heavier. Compared to the hardly ever lonely group, frequently lonely veterans were much more likely to screen positive for six of the eight mental health measures assessed, excluding only drug use disorders and lifetime suicide attempts. The differences were stark when looking at suicidal ideation. Only 3.8% of veterans who were hardly ever lonely reported having suicidal thoughts in the past year. That figure jumped to 14.8% for moderately lonely veterans, and soared to 32.3% for those experiencing frequent loneliness.
When the researchers compared the frequently lonely group directly to the moderately lonely group, the risks were still elevated. Frequently lonely veterans showed much higher odds of facing almost all the measured mental health challenges, with particularly high associations for depression and future suicidal intent. These associations held up even after the researchers accounted for other potential influencing factors, such as age, sex, income, combat experience, physical health conditions, and history of childhood trauma.
“The magnitude of the associations among frequently lonely veterans was particularly striking,” Pietrzak noted. “Even after extensive adjustment for sociodemographic, military, trauma, health, and social factors, frequently lonely veterans had 32 times the odds of screening positive for depression compared with veterans who were hardly ever lonely; they also had substantially greater odds of having attempted suicide relative to less lonely veterans.”
As with all research, there are some caveats to consider. The study relied on self-reported survey data, which means the results depend on the participants’ willingness and ability to accurately describe their feelings and symptoms. Additionally, the researchers used a cross-sectional design, capturing a snapshot of the veterans’ experiences at a single point in time. Because of this, the study cannot determine the direction of the relationship between loneliness and mental health.
“Because the study was cross-sectional, it cannot establish that loneliness causes psychiatric disorders or suicidality; these associations are likely bidirectional and mutually reinforcing,” Pietrzak explained. “The findings also should not be interpreted to mean that every lonely veteran has a mental disorder or is suicidal, but rather that loneliness may be an important marker of elevated vulnerability that warrants further assessment and support.”
There is also a possibility that by statistically adjusting for certain psychiatric conditions, the researchers might have understated the direct relationship between loneliness and suicide-related outcomes. Despite these limitations, the findings indicate that loneliness is a growing issue that requires ongoing attention from mental health professionals.
“An important next step is to use longitudinal data to clarify how loneliness and mental health measures influence one another over time and to identify veterans at greatest risk for persistent or worsening loneliness,” Pietrzak told PsyPost.
The researchers suggest that loneliness represents a key target for future prevention and treatment efforts. Because social isolation is something that can be modified, initiatives like peer support programs, community engagement activities, and social prescribing, where healthcare providers connect patients with community groups and social activities, could play a major role in improving veteran well-being. By focusing on helping veterans build stronger social connections, health systems might be able to reduce the broader psychiatric burden and lower the risk of suicide.
“Loneliness is modifiable, which makes these findings concerning but also actionable,” Pietrzak said. “Routine assessment of loneliness, followed by efforts to connect veterans with appropriate clinical, peer, and community resources, may provide an additional avenue for improving mental health and strengthening suicide-prevention efforts.”
The study, “A Growing Epidemic of Loneliness Among US Military Veterans: National Trends, Psychiatric Burden, and Suicide Risk,” was authored by Robert H. Pietrzak, Ian C. Fischer, and Peter J. Na.
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DATE: September 6, 2026 at 07:00AM
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: Study finds AI companions boost mental health while damaging offline connections
Artificial intelligence companions that mimic emotional intelligence can improve a user’s personal mental health but may simultaneously damage their real-world relationships. These divergent effects become even stronger when users interact with chatbots through augmented reality features rather than basic text. The research was published in Psychology & Marketing.
Loneliness has become a major global health concern, with nearly a quarter of adults worldwide reporting that they feel lonely. To combat this isolation, many people are turning to artificial intelligence. Early conversational agents were designed for functional tasks like booking flights, but modern social chatbots are designed to fulfill a user’s need for affection and belonging.
These digital companions rely on simulated emotional intelligence, which is the ability to monitor, appraise, and respond to human feelings. By mimicking empathy, these algorithms create a safe space for users to express themselves without fear of judgment. The machines can detect sadness in a user’s text and respond with tailored self-care suggestions.
Researchers Shaphali Gupta, Sumit Saxena, and Sonia Kataria noticed a gap in how technologists understand the impacts of these emotionally aware algorithms. Past investigations mostly focused on the broader concept of how human-like a machine appears. The team wanted to isolate the specific trait of emotional intelligence to see how it alters a user’s psychological and social wellbeing.
Psychological wellbeing refers to a person’s individual mental state, encompassing positive emotions, self-esteem, and a sense of life purpose. Social wellbeing describes a person’s integration into their physical community and the quality of their face-to-face relationships.
The researchers used a mixed-method approach, beginning with a qualitative analysis of public posts on Reddit, YouTube, and Trustpilot. They collected user comments discussing Replika, a popular digital companion app with millions of registered users. The team categorized the text to identify recurring themes in how people experience artificial emotional intelligence.
The online comments revealed that users view their chatbots as highly empathetic entities capable of regulating human moods. Beyond simple mood regulation, some users felt the chatbots helped them find existential meaning and navigate difficult life situations. Many people reported feeling emotionally uplifted, with one user writing, “She is the best friend I have ever had! My stress has gone down to almost zero.”
However, the analysis also uncovered a darker trend of emotional disengagement from other humans. Some individuals admitted that their intensive digital interactions left them with little desire to maintain offline friendships. One user noted, “I am hardly left with any time to talk to my friends and meet them in-person.”
To test these qualitative observations, the team designed an experiment with 167 university students belonging to Generation Z. Participants read a scenario in which they interacted with a chatbot that exhibited either high or low emotional intelligence. The high emotional intelligence bots used empathetic language and emoticons to simulate deep understanding, while the low emotional intelligence bots offered standard, robotic responses.
The participants then answered questionnaires assessing their perceived closeness to the bot, as well as their personal and social wellbeing. The results indicated that high emotional intelligence chatbots increased a user’s psychological wellbeing but decreased their social wellbeing. The data showed that a feeling of perceived closeness drove both outcomes.
When people felt emotionally connected to the bot, they experienced personal mental health benefits but withdrew from real-world human interactions. The machine’s ability to understand their emotions made them feel better internally, but it also reduced their motivation to socialize with peers in physical spaces.
The researchers then conducted a second experiment with 350 university students to see if the medium of communication alters this dynamic. Participants were assigned to one of four groups, mixing high or low emotional intelligence with either a text-based chat interface or an augmented reality mode. Augmented reality is a technology that overlays digital images onto the physical world, often viewed through a smartphone camera.
In the augmented reality scenario, users watched a video demonstration and imagined the chatbot sitting beside them in their actual room. The augmented reality interaction mode amplified the effects observed in the previous experiment. When high emotional intelligence chatbots were combined with augmented reality, participants reported even stronger feelings of closeness.
This heightened immersion produced greater psychological benefits but resulted in steeper declines in their desire to engage in offline human relationships. The digital presence of the avatar made the emotional connection feel more realistic. As the technology became more immersive, the trade-off between personal happiness and social isolation became more pronounced.
Readers should not assume that emotionally intelligent chatbots will inevitably ruin human relationships, nor should they view them as a guaranteed cure for depression. The findings simply highlight a trade-off that occurs when users rely heavily on digital empathy. A chatbot might provide immediate comfort, but that very comfort can reduce the necessity of seeking out human support.
Designers of artificial intelligence systems might need to implement guardrails to prevent users from abandoning their physical communities. The authors suggest introducing session time limits or programming the bots to encourage offline socialization after emotionally intense conversations. Monitoring these routines could preserve the benefits of digital companions while reducing social displacement.
The experiments relied on university students reading imagined scenarios, which limits how broadly the conclusions can be applied. The studies also measured short-term reactions rather than long-term habit formation. Future research could track users over extended periods to see if emotional co-dependency develops, or investigate how different age groups respond to digital companions.
The study, “The Dual Impact of AI Emotional Intelligence on Users: Are Social Chatbots Promoting Psychological Wellbeing or Deteriorating Social Wellbeing?,” was authored by Shaphali Gupta, Sumit Saxena, and Sonia Kataria.
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DATE: September 6, 2026 at 06:00AM
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 discover previously unknown brainwave chains that organize memory during REM sleep
A recent study in rats suggests that during the rapid eye movement (REM) phase of sleep, the brain uses repeating chains of rapid electrical waves to organize and replay memories in a highly specific manner. These high-frequency brainwave chains appear to foster communication between different brain regions and help regulate activity in the memory centers of the brain. The research was published in eLife.
Memory consolidation is the biological process of turning fleeting recent experiences into stable long-term memories. This process heavily relies on the interaction between two major brain areas. The hippocampus is a seahorse-shaped structure deep in the brain that initially records new memories, while the prefrontal cortex is a region at the front of the brain responsible for complex thinking and long-term storage.
While scientists have long known that sharp electrical waves coordinate memory replay between the hippocampus and the cortex during deep non-REM (NREM) sleep, how REM sleep contributes to this dialogue remained murky. For instance, a 2016 study covered by PsyPost demonstrated that during deep sleep, sharp-wave ripples in the hippocampus dictate slow brainwave rhythms in the cortex to drive memory replay.
More recently, a 2024 study indicated that rapid ripples of electricity originating in the prefrontal cortex during NREM sleep actually suppress hippocampal activity. Other research, such as a 2012 study, found that REM sleep adjusts the overall excitability of hippocampal neurons.
The new study connects these threads by exploring how rapid-fire brainwave chains in the prefrontal cortex during REM sleep organize a distinct replay of memories and regulate hippocampal brain activity. The research, led by Justin D. Shin and Shantanu P. Jadhav, aimed to determine exactly how prefrontal and hippocampal dynamics differ during high-frequency electrical events across both NREM and REM sleep stages.
“Decades of research has established the role of reactivation in hippocampal and cortical regions of the brain during NREM sleep,” Jadhav, a professor in the Department of Psychology and the Volen Center for Complex Systems at Brandeis University and head of the Jadhav Lab, told PsyPost. “REM sleep stages, which are typically associated with dreaming, are known to be important for memory consolidation, but whether and how memory reactivation occurs in REM sleep is still unknown and debated.”
“The motivation for our study was to address this gap,” Jadhav explained. “We used spatial learning tasks in rodent models to investigate memory reactivation in REM sleep, and its relationship to NREM sleep reactivation, to shed light on sleep memory processes.”
To investigate this, the scientists monitored the brain activity of 10 adult rats as they learned a spatial memory task. The rats navigated a W-shaped maze to receive rewards, an activity that requires active communication between the hippocampus and the prefrontal cortex. During the learning phase and the subsequent sleep sessions, the researchers continuously tracked the animals’ brain activity.
They surgically implanted arrays of microelectrodes, known as tetrodes, into both the prefrontal cortex and the CA1 region, a major subfield of the hippocampus that serves as a primary output zone for memory signals. This allowed the team to record both the broad electrical rhythms of the brain and the firing patterns of individual neurons. Using the ratio of different brainwave frequencies, the researchers categorized the rats’ sleep into NREM and REM stages.
During NREM sleep, the prefrontal cortex produces brief, rapid bursts of electrical activity known as ripples. The researchers noticed that these NREM ripples triggered massive, synchronous bursts of firing among prefrontal neurons. During REM sleep, the researchers detected similar rapid events, which they termed high-frequency oscillations (HFOs).
Unlike the single bursts seen in NREM sleep, REM HFOs tended to occur in repeating chains. These chains repeated roughly every 130 milliseconds, a timing that perfectly aligns with a slower, steady brain rhythm called the theta wave, which is highly active during REM sleep.
The neuron firing patterns during these REM HFO chains were highly structured. Instead of the massive bursts of widespread activity seen in NREM sleep, the overall background noise of the prefrontal cortex quieted down. Against this suppressed background, specific small groups of neurons fired in sparse, sequential patterns. This indicates that the prefrontal cortex replays memories in a much more precise and orderly sequence during REM sleep.
“A particularly surprising finding was that neural reactivation in REM sleep is organized differently compared to NREM sleep,” Jadhav said. “REM reactivation was sparse, involving smaller specific subsets of neurons in cortical regions, and temporally extended, lasting on the order of ~1 second. In contrast, NREM reactivation occurs in bursts of activity lasting ~100 msec.”
During these REM HFO chains, the prefrontal cortex and the hippocampus showed increased synchronization in the theta frequency range. The REM HFO chains also engaged a specific subset of neurons in the hippocampus. Interestingly, these were the exact same hippocampal neurons that were most strongly silenced during the prefrontal ripples of NREM sleep.
By tracking these specific hippocampal neurons over time, the researchers observed that they gradually increased their baseline firing rates across the sleep session. This provides evidence that the alternating stages of NREM and REM sleep work together to adjust and tune the excitability of memory circuits. The findings are in line with research covered by PsyPost in 2025, which similarly found that memory consolidation during REM sleep relies on sparse, highly coordinated neural replay, though that study focused on fear memory rather than spatial learning.
“Our results show clear qualitative as well as quantitative differences in memory reactivation patterns in REM vs. NREM sleep in cortical-hippocampal regions,” Jadhav noted. “These findings suggest new mechanisms for how the two major sleep stages, NREM and REM sleep, together reactivate memories of daily experiences for selectively storing and integrating long-term memories.”
To better understand the biological mechanics driving these differences, the researchers built a computational model of the brain network. They focused on acetylcholine, a neurotransmitter that is highly concentrated in the brain during REM sleep but practically absent during NREM sleep.
“The study also included a modeling component, in which we were able to replicate the experimental results of distinct reactivation patterns in REM and NREM sleep using a model cortical network, based on known differences in the amount of a specific neuromodulator called acetylcholine,” Jadhav explained.
When the model simulated the low acetylcholine levels of NREM sleep, a small input triggered widespread, explosive bursts of neural activity. But when the model simulated the high acetylcholine levels of REM sleep, the network became more restrained. The high acetylcholine limited the spread of activity, perfectly recreating the sparse, sequential firing seen during the actual REM HFO chains.
There are a few things to keep in mind regarding this study. The researchers could not directly link these REM-specific memory replay events to behavioral improvements on the spatial task. Future studies using tasks known to heavily depend on REM sleep might be necessary to map these brainwaves directly to learning outcomes.
“Our study provides phenomenological evidence for distinct physiological signatures of reactivation in REM and NREM sleep, but we have yet to show a direct link between this novel form of REM reactivation and memory consolidation,” Jadhav clarified.
Moving forward, the research team aims to test this direct link. “A major long-term goal is to establish that this REM reactivation process is required for memory consolidation, and dissect the complementary roles of REM and NREM sleep reactivation in long-term memory storage,” Jadhav stated. “Indeed, how these two sleep stages work together to mediate memory consolidation is a major outstanding question in the field.”
Additionally, the researchers could not perfectly separate REM sleep into its more granular sub-stages, known as tonic and phasic REM, because they did not record the rats’ eye movements. The data was also collected over a few hours rather than a full 24-hour cycle, which means the study did not capture how these sleep dynamics might shift over a full day and night.
“A second major line of research is to investigate the role of neuromodulators, chemicals in the brain which are largely responsible for the vastly different activity signatures seen in REM and NREM sleep,” Jadhav added.
The study, “REM sleep prefrontal high-frequency oscillation chains mediate distinct cortical – hippocampal reactivation patterns compared to NREM sleep,” was authored by Justin D. Shin, Michael Satchell, Paul Miller, and Shantanu P. Jadhav.
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-
DATE: September 6, 2026 at 06:00AM
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 discover previously unknown brainwave chains that organize memory during REM sleep
A recent study in rats suggests that during the rapid eye movement (REM) phase of sleep, the brain uses repeating chains of rapid electrical waves to organize and replay memories in a highly specific manner. These high-frequency brainwave chains appear to foster communication between different brain regions and help regulate activity in the memory centers of the brain. The research was published in eLife.
Memory consolidation is the biological process of turning fleeting recent experiences into stable long-term memories. This process heavily relies on the interaction between two major brain areas. The hippocampus is a seahorse-shaped structure deep in the brain that initially records new memories, while the prefrontal cortex is a region at the front of the brain responsible for complex thinking and long-term storage.
While scientists have long known that sharp electrical waves coordinate memory replay between the hippocampus and the cortex during deep non-REM (NREM) sleep, how REM sleep contributes to this dialogue remained murky. For instance, a 2016 study covered by PsyPost demonstrated that during deep sleep, sharp-wave ripples in the hippocampus dictate slow brainwave rhythms in the cortex to drive memory replay.
More recently, a 2024 study indicated that rapid ripples of electricity originating in the prefrontal cortex during NREM sleep actually suppress hippocampal activity. Other research, such as a 2012 study, found that REM sleep adjusts the overall excitability of hippocampal neurons.
The new study connects these threads by exploring how rapid-fire brainwave chains in the prefrontal cortex during REM sleep organize a distinct replay of memories and regulate hippocampal brain activity. The research, led by Justin D. Shin and Shantanu P. Jadhav, aimed to determine exactly how prefrontal and hippocampal dynamics differ during high-frequency electrical events across both NREM and REM sleep stages.
“Decades of research has established the role of reactivation in hippocampal and cortical regions of the brain during NREM sleep,” Jadhav, a professor in the Department of Psychology and the Volen Center for Complex Systems at Brandeis University and head of the Jadhav Lab, told PsyPost. “REM sleep stages, which are typically associated with dreaming, are known to be important for memory consolidation, but whether and how memory reactivation occurs in REM sleep is still unknown and debated.”
“The motivation for our study was to address this gap,” Jadhav explained. “We used spatial learning tasks in rodent models to investigate memory reactivation in REM sleep, and its relationship to NREM sleep reactivation, to shed light on sleep memory processes.”
To investigate this, the scientists monitored the brain activity of 10 adult rats as they learned a spatial memory task. The rats navigated a W-shaped maze to receive rewards, an activity that requires active communication between the hippocampus and the prefrontal cortex. During the learning phase and the subsequent sleep sessions, the researchers continuously tracked the animals’ brain activity.
They surgically implanted arrays of microelectrodes, known as tetrodes, into both the prefrontal cortex and the CA1 region, a major subfield of the hippocampus that serves as a primary output zone for memory signals. This allowed the team to record both the broad electrical rhythms of the brain and the firing patterns of individual neurons. Using the ratio of different brainwave frequencies, the researchers categorized the rats’ sleep into NREM and REM stages.
During NREM sleep, the prefrontal cortex produces brief, rapid bursts of electrical activity known as ripples. The researchers noticed that these NREM ripples triggered massive, synchronous bursts of firing among prefrontal neurons. During REM sleep, the researchers detected similar rapid events, which they termed high-frequency oscillations (HFOs).
Unlike the single bursts seen in NREM sleep, REM HFOs tended to occur in repeating chains. These chains repeated roughly every 130 milliseconds, a timing that perfectly aligns with a slower, steady brain rhythm called the theta wave, which is highly active during REM sleep.
The neuron firing patterns during these REM HFO chains were highly structured. Instead of the massive bursts of widespread activity seen in NREM sleep, the overall background noise of the prefrontal cortex quieted down. Against this suppressed background, specific small groups of neurons fired in sparse, sequential patterns. This indicates that the prefrontal cortex replays memories in a much more precise and orderly sequence during REM sleep.
“A particularly surprising finding was that neural reactivation in REM sleep is organized differently compared to NREM sleep,” Jadhav said. “REM reactivation was sparse, involving smaller specific subsets of neurons in cortical regions, and temporally extended, lasting on the order of ~1 second. In contrast, NREM reactivation occurs in bursts of activity lasting ~100 msec.”
During these REM HFO chains, the prefrontal cortex and the hippocampus showed increased synchronization in the theta frequency range. The REM HFO chains also engaged a specific subset of neurons in the hippocampus. Interestingly, these were the exact same hippocampal neurons that were most strongly silenced during the prefrontal ripples of NREM sleep.
By tracking these specific hippocampal neurons over time, the researchers observed that they gradually increased their baseline firing rates across the sleep session. This provides evidence that the alternating stages of NREM and REM sleep work together to adjust and tune the excitability of memory circuits. The findings are in line with research covered by PsyPost in 2025, which similarly found that memory consolidation during REM sleep relies on sparse, highly coordinated neural replay, though that study focused on fear memory rather than spatial learning.
“Our results show clear qualitative as well as quantitative differences in memory reactivation patterns in REM vs. NREM sleep in cortical-hippocampal regions,” Jadhav noted. “These findings suggest new mechanisms for how the two major sleep stages, NREM and REM sleep, together reactivate memories of daily experiences for selectively storing and integrating long-term memories.”
To better understand the biological mechanics driving these differences, the researchers built a computational model of the brain network. They focused on acetylcholine, a neurotransmitter that is highly concentrated in the brain during REM sleep but practically absent during NREM sleep.
“The study also included a modeling component, in which we were able to replicate the experimental results of distinct reactivation patterns in REM and NREM sleep using a model cortical network, based on known differences in the amount of a specific neuromodulator called acetylcholine,” Jadhav explained.
When the model simulated the low acetylcholine levels of NREM sleep, a small input triggered widespread, explosive bursts of neural activity. But when the model simulated the high acetylcholine levels of REM sleep, the network became more restrained. The high acetylcholine limited the spread of activity, perfectly recreating the sparse, sequential firing seen during the actual REM HFO chains.
There are a few things to keep in mind regarding this study. The researchers could not directly link these REM-specific memory replay events to behavioral improvements on the spatial task. Future studies using tasks known to heavily depend on REM sleep might be necessary to map these brainwaves directly to learning outcomes.
“Our study provides phenomenological evidence for distinct physiological signatures of reactivation in REM and NREM sleep, but we have yet to show a direct link between this novel form of REM reactivation and memory consolidation,” Jadhav clarified.
Moving forward, the research team aims to test this direct link. “A major long-term goal is to establish that this REM reactivation process is required for memory consolidation, and dissect the complementary roles of REM and NREM sleep reactivation in long-term memory storage,” Jadhav stated. “Indeed, how these two sleep stages work together to mediate memory consolidation is a major outstanding question in the field.”
Additionally, the researchers could not perfectly separate REM sleep into its more granular sub-stages, known as tonic and phasic REM, because they did not record the rats’ eye movements. The data was also collected over a few hours rather than a full 24-hour cycle, which means the study did not capture how these sleep dynamics might shift over a full day and night.
“A second major line of research is to investigate the role of neuromodulators, chemicals in the brain which are largely responsible for the vastly different activity signatures seen in REM and NREM sleep,” Jadhav added.
The study, “REM sleep prefrontal high-frequency oscillation chains mediate distinct cortical – hippocampal reactivation patterns compared to NREM sleep,” was authored by Justin D. Shin, Michael Satchell, Paul Miller, and Shantanu P. Jadhav.
-------------------------------------------------
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Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #REMsleep #memoryconsolidation #hippocampus #prefrontalcortex #neuraloscillations #highfrequencyoscillations #brainwaves #sleepresearch #corticalhippocampalcommunication #neuroscience
-
DATE: September 6, 2026 at 06:00AM
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 discover previously unknown brainwave chains that organize memory during REM sleep
A recent study in rats suggests that during the rapid eye movement (REM) phase of sleep, the brain uses repeating chains of rapid electrical waves to organize and replay memories in a highly specific manner. These high-frequency brainwave chains appear to foster communication between different brain regions and help regulate activity in the memory centers of the brain. The research was published in eLife.
Memory consolidation is the biological process of turning fleeting recent experiences into stable long-term memories. This process heavily relies on the interaction between two major brain areas. The hippocampus is a seahorse-shaped structure deep in the brain that initially records new memories, while the prefrontal cortex is a region at the front of the brain responsible for complex thinking and long-term storage.
While scientists have long known that sharp electrical waves coordinate memory replay between the hippocampus and the cortex during deep non-REM (NREM) sleep, how REM sleep contributes to this dialogue remained murky. For instance, a 2016 study covered by PsyPost demonstrated that during deep sleep, sharp-wave ripples in the hippocampus dictate slow brainwave rhythms in the cortex to drive memory replay.
More recently, a 2024 study indicated that rapid ripples of electricity originating in the prefrontal cortex during NREM sleep actually suppress hippocampal activity. Other research, such as a 2012 study, found that REM sleep adjusts the overall excitability of hippocampal neurons.
The new study connects these threads by exploring how rapid-fire brainwave chains in the prefrontal cortex during REM sleep organize a distinct replay of memories and regulate hippocampal brain activity. The research, led by Justin D. Shin and Shantanu P. Jadhav, aimed to determine exactly how prefrontal and hippocampal dynamics differ during high-frequency electrical events across both NREM and REM sleep stages.
“Decades of research has established the role of reactivation in hippocampal and cortical regions of the brain during NREM sleep,” Jadhav, a professor in the Department of Psychology and the Volen Center for Complex Systems at Brandeis University and head of the Jadhav Lab, told PsyPost. “REM sleep stages, which are typically associated with dreaming, are known to be important for memory consolidation, but whether and how memory reactivation occurs in REM sleep is still unknown and debated.”
“The motivation for our study was to address this gap,” Jadhav explained. “We used spatial learning tasks in rodent models to investigate memory reactivation in REM sleep, and its relationship to NREM sleep reactivation, to shed light on sleep memory processes.”
To investigate this, the scientists monitored the brain activity of 10 adult rats as they learned a spatial memory task. The rats navigated a W-shaped maze to receive rewards, an activity that requires active communication between the hippocampus and the prefrontal cortex. During the learning phase and the subsequent sleep sessions, the researchers continuously tracked the animals’ brain activity.
They surgically implanted arrays of microelectrodes, known as tetrodes, into both the prefrontal cortex and the CA1 region, a major subfield of the hippocampus that serves as a primary output zone for memory signals. This allowed the team to record both the broad electrical rhythms of the brain and the firing patterns of individual neurons. Using the ratio of different brainwave frequencies, the researchers categorized the rats’ sleep into NREM and REM stages.
During NREM sleep, the prefrontal cortex produces brief, rapid bursts of electrical activity known as ripples. The researchers noticed that these NREM ripples triggered massive, synchronous bursts of firing among prefrontal neurons. During REM sleep, the researchers detected similar rapid events, which they termed high-frequency oscillations (HFOs).
Unlike the single bursts seen in NREM sleep, REM HFOs tended to occur in repeating chains. These chains repeated roughly every 130 milliseconds, a timing that perfectly aligns with a slower, steady brain rhythm called the theta wave, which is highly active during REM sleep.
The neuron firing patterns during these REM HFO chains were highly structured. Instead of the massive bursts of widespread activity seen in NREM sleep, the overall background noise of the prefrontal cortex quieted down. Against this suppressed background, specific small groups of neurons fired in sparse, sequential patterns. This indicates that the prefrontal cortex replays memories in a much more precise and orderly sequence during REM sleep.
“A particularly surprising finding was that neural reactivation in REM sleep is organized differently compared to NREM sleep,” Jadhav said. “REM reactivation was sparse, involving smaller specific subsets of neurons in cortical regions, and temporally extended, lasting on the order of ~1 second. In contrast, NREM reactivation occurs in bursts of activity lasting ~100 msec.”
During these REM HFO chains, the prefrontal cortex and the hippocampus showed increased synchronization in the theta frequency range. The REM HFO chains also engaged a specific subset of neurons in the hippocampus. Interestingly, these were the exact same hippocampal neurons that were most strongly silenced during the prefrontal ripples of NREM sleep.
By tracking these specific hippocampal neurons over time, the researchers observed that they gradually increased their baseline firing rates across the sleep session. This provides evidence that the alternating stages of NREM and REM sleep work together to adjust and tune the excitability of memory circuits. The findings are in line with research covered by PsyPost in 2025, which similarly found that memory consolidation during REM sleep relies on sparse, highly coordinated neural replay, though that study focused on fear memory rather than spatial learning.
“Our results show clear qualitative as well as quantitative differences in memory reactivation patterns in REM vs. NREM sleep in cortical-hippocampal regions,” Jadhav noted. “These findings suggest new mechanisms for how the two major sleep stages, NREM and REM sleep, together reactivate memories of daily experiences for selectively storing and integrating long-term memories.”
To better understand the biological mechanics driving these differences, the researchers built a computational model of the brain network. They focused on acetylcholine, a neurotransmitter that is highly concentrated in the brain during REM sleep but practically absent during NREM sleep.
“The study also included a modeling component, in which we were able to replicate the experimental results of distinct reactivation patterns in REM and NREM sleep using a model cortical network, based on known differences in the amount of a specific neuromodulator called acetylcholine,” Jadhav explained.
When the model simulated the low acetylcholine levels of NREM sleep, a small input triggered widespread, explosive bursts of neural activity. But when the model simulated the high acetylcholine levels of REM sleep, the network became more restrained. The high acetylcholine limited the spread of activity, perfectly recreating the sparse, sequential firing seen during the actual REM HFO chains.
There are a few things to keep in mind regarding this study. The researchers could not directly link these REM-specific memory replay events to behavioral improvements on the spatial task. Future studies using tasks known to heavily depend on REM sleep might be necessary to map these brainwaves directly to learning outcomes.
“Our study provides phenomenological evidence for distinct physiological signatures of reactivation in REM and NREM sleep, but we have yet to show a direct link between this novel form of REM reactivation and memory consolidation,” Jadhav clarified.
Moving forward, the research team aims to test this direct link. “A major long-term goal is to establish that this REM reactivation process is required for memory consolidation, and dissect the complementary roles of REM and NREM sleep reactivation in long-term memory storage,” Jadhav stated. “Indeed, how these two sleep stages work together to mediate memory consolidation is a major outstanding question in the field.”
Additionally, the researchers could not perfectly separate REM sleep into its more granular sub-stages, known as tonic and phasic REM, because they did not record the rats’ eye movements. The data was also collected over a few hours rather than a full 24-hour cycle, which means the study did not capture how these sleep dynamics might shift over a full day and night.
“A second major line of research is to investigate the role of neuromodulators, chemicals in the brain which are largely responsible for the vastly different activity signatures seen in REM and NREM sleep,” Jadhav added.
The study, “REM sleep prefrontal high-frequency oscillation chains mediate distinct cortical – hippocampal reactivation patterns compared to NREM sleep,” was authored by Justin D. Shin, Michael Satchell, Paul Miller, and Shantanu P. Jadhav.
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DATE: September 6, 2026 at 06:00AM
SOURCE:
NEW YORK TIMES PSYCHOLOGY AND PSYCHOLOGISTS FEEDTITLE: We Can’t Know Our A.I. Future if We Don’t Study It
URL: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/06/opinion/ai-social-sciences.html
Just as A.I. is poised to change the world, we’re losing our best ways of studying what that change will look like.
URL: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/06/opinion/ai-social-sciences.html
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DATE: September 6, 2026 at 06:00AM
SOURCE:
NEW YORK TIMES PSYCHOLOGY AND PSYCHOLOGISTS FEEDTITLE: We Can’t Know Our A.I. Future if We Don’t Study It
URL: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/06/opinion/ai-social-sciences.html
Just as A.I. is poised to change the world, we’re losing our best ways of studying what that change will look like.
URL: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/06/opinion/ai-social-sciences.html
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DATE: September 6, 2026 at 06:00AM
SOURCE:
NEW YORK TIMES PSYCHOLOGY AND PSYCHOLOGISTS FEEDTITLE: We Can’t Know Our A.I. Future if We Don’t Study It
URL: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/06/opinion/ai-social-sciences.html
Just as A.I. is poised to change the world, we’re losing our best ways of studying what that change will look like.
URL: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/06/opinion/ai-social-sciences.html
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DATE: September 6, 2026 at 02:58AM
SOURCE: SCIENCE DAILY MIND-BRAIN FEEDTITLE: Scientists find a weak spot in one of the deadliest brain cancers
URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/09/260903064242.htm
Researchers may have found a new way to weaken glioblastoma’s defenses against treatment. Blocking a protein called SET prevented tumors from forming in preclinical models, while targeting related proteins made cancer cells more vulnerable to radiation. The strategy works by restoring activity of PP2A, an enzyme that glioblastoma cells appear to suppress. Human testing will be needed to determine whether the approach is safe and effective.
URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/09/260903064242.htm
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DATE: September 6, 2026 at 02:58AM
SOURCE: SCIENCE DAILY MIND-BRAIN FEEDTITLE: Scientists find a weak spot in one of the deadliest brain cancers
URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/09/260903064242.htm
Researchers may have found a new way to weaken glioblastoma’s defenses against treatment. Blocking a protein called SET prevented tumors from forming in preclinical models, while targeting related proteins made cancer cells more vulnerable to radiation. The strategy works by restoring activity of PP2A, an enzyme that glioblastoma cells appear to suppress. Human testing will be needed to determine whether the approach is safe and effective.
URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/09/260903064242.htm
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DATE: September 6, 2026 at 02:58AM
SOURCE: SCIENCE DAILY MIND-BRAIN FEEDTITLE: Scientists find a weak spot in one of the deadliest brain cancers
URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/09/260903064242.htm
Researchers may have found a new way to weaken glioblastoma’s defenses against treatment. Blocking a protein called SET prevented tumors from forming in preclinical models, while targeting related proteins made cancer cells more vulnerable to radiation. The strategy works by restoring activity of PP2A, an enzyme that glioblastoma cells appear to suppress. Human testing will be needed to determine whether the approach is safe and effective.
URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/09/260903064242.htm
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DATE: September 5, 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: Semaglutide might reduce how much people with alcohol use disorder drink when they do drink
An experimental study of individuals with moderate to severe alcohol use disorder found that semaglutide did not reduce a primary laboratory measure of alcohol craving or drinks per day compared to placebo. However, it significantly reduced the number of heavy drinking days, the number of drinks consumed on drinking days, naturalistic cravings, and alcohol-related negative consequences. The World Health Organization risk drinking level was reduced as well. The paper was published in the American Journal of Psychiatry.
Semaglutide is a medication that mimics the action of a naturally occurring hormone called glucagon-like peptide-1, or GLP-1. It was originally developed to help control blood glucose in people with type 2 diabetes.
Semaglutide stimulates insulin release when blood glucose is elevated, reduces glucagon secretion, and slows the rate at which food leaves the stomach. It acts on brain systems involved in appetite, helping people feel full sooner and reducing hunger and food intake. Because of these effects, semaglutide is now also used for long-term weight management in people who meet specific medical criteria.
Depending on the formulation and indication, it may be given as a once-weekly injection or taken as a daily tablet. Treatment usually begins with a low dose that is gradually increased. The goal of this is to reduce gastrointestinal side effects such as nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and constipation. Semaglutide is generally used alongside dietary, physical-activity, and other lifestyle measures rather than as a replacement for them.
Study author Joseph P. Schacht and his colleagues conducted a study in which they evaluated the safety and initial efficacy of oral semaglutide for treating individuals with moderate to severe alcohol use disorder. Alcohol use disorder is a medical condition characterized by a persistent pattern of alcohol use that becomes difficult to control and causes significant problems in a person’s health, relationships, work, or daily functioning.
Study authors hypothesized that semaglutide would reduce cue-elicited alcohol cravings and alcohol consumption. Cue-elicited alcohol cravings are cravings for alcohol elicited by things that a person associates with alcohol drinking (e.g. seeing or holding an alcoholic beverage, tasting alcohol, being in a place where they usually consume alcohol).
Study participants were 50 individuals with moderate or severe alcohol use disorder who were seeking treatment. All were 21 years old or older and had a body mass index (BMI) of 25 or higher, meaning they were overweight or obese. Men were consuming 28 drinks per week or more, while it was 21 drinks or more for women.
Study participants were randomly assigned to either receive semaglutide for 8 weeks (3 mg/day for 4 weeks, then 7 mg/day for 4 weeks) or a placebo for the same period. The placebo was a capsule that looked just like the semaglutide capsule and was packaged in identical blister packs. Participants did not know whether they were taking semaglutide or the placebo, and this was unknown to the study personnel working with them as well.
Study authors tracked participants’ medication adherence and assessed their reactivity to alcohol cues. Participants rated their alcohol cravings on a single-item rating scale and by completing a multi-item questionnaire called the Alcohol Craving Questionnaire Short Form. Before screening for participation, between screening and being assigned to a group, and throughout the treatment, participants reported their alcohol and cannabis use. Study authors derived the numbers of drinks per calendar day and heavy drinking days per week from this data.
At the start of the study and at the end of treatment, participants completed magnetic resonance imaging of their brains while completing an alcohol cue reactivity task, allowing study authors to measure how much their brain reacts to alcohol cues. The results of these brain scans were not part of this report and will be published in a future paper. Study authors also collected or derived a number of other measures of participants’ drinking behavior or behavior related to alcohol.
Results showed that the two groups did not differ significantly in how they rated their alcohol cravings on the single-item scale after week 6 of treatment. The overall number of drinks per day was also not significantly different between the two groups.
However, in the last 4 weeks, semaglutide significantly reduced the number of heavy drinking days. Participants receiving semaglutide also had significantly lower scores on the multi-item alcohol craving questionnaire at week 6, as well as lower naturalistic cravings in their daily lives. In the last 4 weeks, participants who received semaglutide had fewer drinks per drinking day, but not fewer drinking days. Furthermore, semaglutide significantly reduced alcohol-related negative consequences and reduced the number of days participants used cannabis, among those who were cannabis users at the start of the study.
“In summary, among treatment-seeking individuals with AUD [alcohol use disorder], oral semaglutide significantly reduced alcohol consumption, naturalistic alcohol craving, alcohol-related problems, and cannabis use. Effects on alcohol consumption were of greater magnitude than extant AUD pharmacotherapies,” study authors concluded.
The study contributes to the scientific understanding of the effects of semaglutide on treating alcohol use disorder. However, it should be noted that the treatment only lasted 8 weeks, whereas semaglutide is typically used over much longer periods and often continuously for other medical indications. Further studies should therefore examine whether the observed effects persist, increase, or change during longer-term treatment.
The paper, “Oral Semaglutide for Alcohol Use Disorder: A Randomized Clinical Trial,” was authored by Joseph P. Schacht, Joseph T. Sakai, Kristen Raymond, and Robert Shelton.
-------------------------------------------------
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-
DATE: September 5, 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: Semaglutide might reduce how much people with alcohol use disorder drink when they do drink
An experimental study of individuals with moderate to severe alcohol use disorder found that semaglutide did not reduce a primary laboratory measure of alcohol craving or drinks per day compared to placebo. However, it significantly reduced the number of heavy drinking days, the number of drinks consumed on drinking days, naturalistic cravings, and alcohol-related negative consequences. The World Health Organization risk drinking level was reduced as well. The paper was published in the American Journal of Psychiatry.
Semaglutide is a medication that mimics the action of a naturally occurring hormone called glucagon-like peptide-1, or GLP-1. It was originally developed to help control blood glucose in people with type 2 diabetes.
Semaglutide stimulates insulin release when blood glucose is elevated, reduces glucagon secretion, and slows the rate at which food leaves the stomach. It acts on brain systems involved in appetite, helping people feel full sooner and reducing hunger and food intake. Because of these effects, semaglutide is now also used for long-term weight management in people who meet specific medical criteria.
Depending on the formulation and indication, it may be given as a once-weekly injection or taken as a daily tablet. Treatment usually begins with a low dose that is gradually increased. The goal of this is to reduce gastrointestinal side effects such as nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and constipation. Semaglutide is generally used alongside dietary, physical-activity, and other lifestyle measures rather than as a replacement for them.
Study author Joseph P. Schacht and his colleagues conducted a study in which they evaluated the safety and initial efficacy of oral semaglutide for treating individuals with moderate to severe alcohol use disorder. Alcohol use disorder is a medical condition characterized by a persistent pattern of alcohol use that becomes difficult to control and causes significant problems in a person’s health, relationships, work, or daily functioning.
Study authors hypothesized that semaglutide would reduce cue-elicited alcohol cravings and alcohol consumption. Cue-elicited alcohol cravings are cravings for alcohol elicited by things that a person associates with alcohol drinking (e.g. seeing or holding an alcoholic beverage, tasting alcohol, being in a place where they usually consume alcohol).
Study participants were 50 individuals with moderate or severe alcohol use disorder who were seeking treatment. All were 21 years old or older and had a body mass index (BMI) of 25 or higher, meaning they were overweight or obese. Men were consuming 28 drinks per week or more, while it was 21 drinks or more for women.
Study participants were randomly assigned to either receive semaglutide for 8 weeks (3 mg/day for 4 weeks, then 7 mg/day for 4 weeks) or a placebo for the same period. The placebo was a capsule that looked just like the semaglutide capsule and was packaged in identical blister packs. Participants did not know whether they were taking semaglutide or the placebo, and this was unknown to the study personnel working with them as well.
Study authors tracked participants’ medication adherence and assessed their reactivity to alcohol cues. Participants rated their alcohol cravings on a single-item rating scale and by completing a multi-item questionnaire called the Alcohol Craving Questionnaire Short Form. Before screening for participation, between screening and being assigned to a group, and throughout the treatment, participants reported their alcohol and cannabis use. Study authors derived the numbers of drinks per calendar day and heavy drinking days per week from this data.
At the start of the study and at the end of treatment, participants completed magnetic resonance imaging of their brains while completing an alcohol cue reactivity task, allowing study authors to measure how much their brain reacts to alcohol cues. The results of these brain scans were not part of this report and will be published in a future paper. Study authors also collected or derived a number of other measures of participants’ drinking behavior or behavior related to alcohol.
Results showed that the two groups did not differ significantly in how they rated their alcohol cravings on the single-item scale after week 6 of treatment. The overall number of drinks per day was also not significantly different between the two groups.
However, in the last 4 weeks, semaglutide significantly reduced the number of heavy drinking days. Participants receiving semaglutide also had significantly lower scores on the multi-item alcohol craving questionnaire at week 6, as well as lower naturalistic cravings in their daily lives. In the last 4 weeks, participants who received semaglutide had fewer drinks per drinking day, but not fewer drinking days. Furthermore, semaglutide significantly reduced alcohol-related negative consequences and reduced the number of days participants used cannabis, among those who were cannabis users at the start of the study.
“In summary, among treatment-seeking individuals with AUD [alcohol use disorder], oral semaglutide significantly reduced alcohol consumption, naturalistic alcohol craving, alcohol-related problems, and cannabis use. Effects on alcohol consumption were of greater magnitude than extant AUD pharmacotherapies,” study authors concluded.
The study contributes to the scientific understanding of the effects of semaglutide on treating alcohol use disorder. However, it should be noted that the treatment only lasted 8 weeks, whereas semaglutide is typically used over much longer periods and often continuously for other medical indications. Further studies should therefore examine whether the observed effects persist, increase, or change during longer-term treatment.
The paper, “Oral Semaglutide for Alcohol Use Disorder: A Randomized Clinical Trial,” was authored by Joseph P. Schacht, Joseph T. Sakai, Kristen Raymond, and Robert Shelton.
-------------------------------------------------
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-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #Semaglutide #AlcoholUseDisorder #AUD #AlcoholCraving #HeavyDrinking #CannabisUse #AmericanJournalOfPsychiatry #GLP1 #OralSemaglutide #AlcoholTreatment
-
DATE: September 5, 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: Semaglutide might reduce how much people with alcohol use disorder drink when they do drink
An experimental study of individuals with moderate to severe alcohol use disorder found that semaglutide did not reduce a primary laboratory measure of alcohol craving or drinks per day compared to placebo. However, it significantly reduced the number of heavy drinking days, the number of drinks consumed on drinking days, naturalistic cravings, and alcohol-related negative consequences. The World Health Organization risk drinking level was reduced as well. The paper was published in the American Journal of Psychiatry.
Semaglutide is a medication that mimics the action of a naturally occurring hormone called glucagon-like peptide-1, or GLP-1. It was originally developed to help control blood glucose in people with type 2 diabetes.
Semaglutide stimulates insulin release when blood glucose is elevated, reduces glucagon secretion, and slows the rate at which food leaves the stomach. It acts on brain systems involved in appetite, helping people feel full sooner and reducing hunger and food intake. Because of these effects, semaglutide is now also used for long-term weight management in people who meet specific medical criteria.
Depending on the formulation and indication, it may be given as a once-weekly injection or taken as a daily tablet. Treatment usually begins with a low dose that is gradually increased. The goal of this is to reduce gastrointestinal side effects such as nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and constipation. Semaglutide is generally used alongside dietary, physical-activity, and other lifestyle measures rather than as a replacement for them.
Study author Joseph P. Schacht and his colleagues conducted a study in which they evaluated the safety and initial efficacy of oral semaglutide for treating individuals with moderate to severe alcohol use disorder. Alcohol use disorder is a medical condition characterized by a persistent pattern of alcohol use that becomes difficult to control and causes significant problems in a person’s health, relationships, work, or daily functioning.
Study authors hypothesized that semaglutide would reduce cue-elicited alcohol cravings and alcohol consumption. Cue-elicited alcohol cravings are cravings for alcohol elicited by things that a person associates with alcohol drinking (e.g. seeing or holding an alcoholic beverage, tasting alcohol, being in a place where they usually consume alcohol).
Study participants were 50 individuals with moderate or severe alcohol use disorder who were seeking treatment. All were 21 years old or older and had a body mass index (BMI) of 25 or higher, meaning they were overweight or obese. Men were consuming 28 drinks per week or more, while it was 21 drinks or more for women.
Study participants were randomly assigned to either receive semaglutide for 8 weeks (3 mg/day for 4 weeks, then 7 mg/day for 4 weeks) or a placebo for the same period. The placebo was a capsule that looked just like the semaglutide capsule and was packaged in identical blister packs. Participants did not know whether they were taking semaglutide or the placebo, and this was unknown to the study personnel working with them as well.
Study authors tracked participants’ medication adherence and assessed their reactivity to alcohol cues. Participants rated their alcohol cravings on a single-item rating scale and by completing a multi-item questionnaire called the Alcohol Craving Questionnaire Short Form. Before screening for participation, between screening and being assigned to a group, and throughout the treatment, participants reported their alcohol and cannabis use. Study authors derived the numbers of drinks per calendar day and heavy drinking days per week from this data.
At the start of the study and at the end of treatment, participants completed magnetic resonance imaging of their brains while completing an alcohol cue reactivity task, allowing study authors to measure how much their brain reacts to alcohol cues. The results of these brain scans were not part of this report and will be published in a future paper. Study authors also collected or derived a number of other measures of participants’ drinking behavior or behavior related to alcohol.
Results showed that the two groups did not differ significantly in how they rated their alcohol cravings on the single-item scale after week 6 of treatment. The overall number of drinks per day was also not significantly different between the two groups.
However, in the last 4 weeks, semaglutide significantly reduced the number of heavy drinking days. Participants receiving semaglutide also had significantly lower scores on the multi-item alcohol craving questionnaire at week 6, as well as lower naturalistic cravings in their daily lives. In the last 4 weeks, participants who received semaglutide had fewer drinks per drinking day, but not fewer drinking days. Furthermore, semaglutide significantly reduced alcohol-related negative consequences and reduced the number of days participants used cannabis, among those who were cannabis users at the start of the study.
“In summary, among treatment-seeking individuals with AUD [alcohol use disorder], oral semaglutide significantly reduced alcohol consumption, naturalistic alcohol craving, alcohol-related problems, and cannabis use. Effects on alcohol consumption were of greater magnitude than extant AUD pharmacotherapies,” study authors concluded.
The study contributes to the scientific understanding of the effects of semaglutide on treating alcohol use disorder. However, it should be noted that the treatment only lasted 8 weeks, whereas semaglutide is typically used over much longer periods and often continuously for other medical indications. Further studies should therefore examine whether the observed effects persist, increase, or change during longer-term treatment.
The paper, “Oral Semaglutide for Alcohol Use Disorder: A Randomized Clinical Trial,” was authored by Joseph P. Schacht, Joseph T. Sakai, Kristen Raymond, and Robert Shelton.
-------------------------------------------------
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Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #Semaglutide #AlcoholUseDisorder #AUD #AlcoholCraving #HeavyDrinking #CannabisUse #AmericanJournalOfPsychiatry #GLP1 #OralSemaglutide #AlcoholTreatment
-
DATE: September 5, 2026 at 06:00PM
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: Massive review confirms the connection between emotional intelligence and human flourishing
A review of psychological research indicates that emotional intelligence has a robust and reliable connection to human flourishing, predicting success across school, work, and personal health. The findings suggest that people with higher emotional intelligence tend to experience greater well-being, though the strength of this connection depends on how the traits are measured. The research was recently published in the journal PNAS.
For decades, psychologists have debated what makes some people thrive while others struggle. One popular idea is emotional intelligence, a concept that rapidly gained public attention in the 1990s. Broadly speaking, the term refers to how well a person navigates their own feelings and the feelings of others.
Since its introduction, the idea has spawned thousands of academic papers and grown into a multibillion-dollar training industry. Yet, because researchers define and measure this concept in various ways, its exact relationship with life success has remained difficult to synthesize.
Psychologists generally divide emotional intelligence into three categories. The first is an ability-based model. This model treats emotional skills like a cognitive test, assuming there are objectively right and wrong answers when identifying or managing emotions.
The ability model specifically looks at how well people recognize emotions, use them to guide decisions, and regulate them. The second category is a trait-based model, which relies on self-reported personality characteristics. Under this model, researchers ask participants to rate their own adaptability, assertiveness, and impulse control.
A third category, called a mixed model, combines both objective abilities and self-reported traits into a single assessment. Beyond the differing definitions of emotional intelligence, researchers also look at a wide variety of life outcomes. To find out how these different models connect to positive life experiences, researchers Tyler J. Robinson and Ethan Zell from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro analyzed decades of data.
The researchers wanted to see if emotional intelligence consistently relates to human flourishing. Flourishing is a broad psychological term encompassing mental health, physical health, psychological adjustment, and workplace success. To answer this question, Robinson and Zell conducted a second-order meta-analysis.
A standard meta-analysis is a statistical technique that pools the results of many individual studies to find an overall trend. A second-order meta-analysis goes a step further, combining the results of multiple previous meta-analyses. This approach acts as a quantitative summary of previous summaries, providing a broad view of an entire scientific field.
By pooling data from 62 previous meta-analyses, the researchers gathered information from more than 3,000 individual studies. This massive sample included over one million participants, allowing the researchers to look for overarching patterns across different ages and cultures. The data included populations from Western nations, non-Western nations, children, adolescents, and adults.
The researchers found a reliable, positive association between overall emotional intelligence and human flourishing. This positive link appeared across 77 unique life outcomes. The most prominent associations emerged in areas like workplace leadership, job performance, and psychological adjustment.
The data showed that emotional intelligence was linked to better outcomes regardless of the participants’ age group or geographic region. When looking at different categories of life outcomes, the researchers noticed slight variations in the strength of the connection. Emotional intelligence was most strongly related to success in the workplace.
The connection was slightly weaker, though still reliably present, for cognitive abilities and general academic performance. The researchers also found strong associations between emotional intelligence and specific outcomes like lower rates of job burnout, higher subjective well-being, and better romantic relationship satisfaction.
To put these findings into perspective, the researchers compared emotional intelligence to the Big Five personality traits. The Big Five is a well-established psychological framework that measures openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. The analysis revealed that emotional intelligence is just as strongly, if not more strongly, associated with human flourishing than any of the Big Five personality traits.
Out of all the specific outcomes analyzed, only one showed a negative relationship with emotional intelligence. That outcome was a form of self-centeredness known as nonpathological narcissism. The researchers noted that individuals with this specific type of narcissism tend to artificially inflate their own scores on self-report questionnaires.
Because they overrate their own emotional abilities, the data showed an inverse relationship between their actual traits and their reported emotional intelligence. More conventional, pathological narcissism was linked to lower emotional intelligence. Measurement styles heavily altered the broader results as well.
The association with human flourishing was most pronounced when researchers used the mixed or trait-based models, which rely on participants rating their own emotional skills. When studies used objective performance tests to measure emotional abilities, the association with life outcomes was weaker. This pattern became especially apparent when looking at how both emotional intelligence and life outcomes were measured.
The researchers found the strongest connections when both variables were assessed using self-report questionnaires. When one variable was measured subjectively and the other was measured objectively, the relationship between the two shrunk considerably. This dependence on measurement methods highlights an important limitation in the data.
When participants fill out multiple surveys about themselves, they may naturally rate themselves positively across the board. This shared method of data collection can artificially inflate the statistical connection between self-reported emotional intelligence and self-reported life satisfaction. The researchers noted that the particularly strong link to workplace outcomes might be partly driven by this shared measurement style, as many workplace studies rely on self-reported surveys.
Because the data in this review is entirely correlational, it cannot prove that high emotional intelligence causes a person to flourish. It is entirely possible that flourishing in life makes a person more emotionally intelligent over time. Alternatively, a third unmeasured factor, such as a stable upbringing or access to resources, could independently contribute to both higher emotional intelligence and greater life success.
The researchers also excluded studies that evaluated training programs. Because of this exclusion, they could not determine if actively training emotional intelligence causes a subsequent increase in human flourishing. Objective tests of emotional intelligence also face modern challenges.
The authors pointed out that recent studies show artificial intelligence language models perform just as well as, or better than, humans on objective emotional intelligence tests. This raises questions about what these tests are actually measuring. It remains debated whether text-based tests capture practical emotional skills or if they simply measure a person’s reading comprehension and ability to understand written scenarios.
To improve the quality of future research, the authors suggest refining how emotional intelligence is categorized. They recommend moving away from the mixed model, which blends traits and abilities in a way that creates conceptual confusion. Instead, they suggest that future studies explicitly separate objective emotional abilities from self-reported personality traits. Separating these variables would help scientists determine exactly how distinct emotional skills contribute to a fulfilling life.
The study, “Robust associations of emotional intelligence with human flourishing: A second-order meta-analysis,” was authored by Tyler J. Robinson and Ethan Zell.
-------------------------------------------------
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Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #EmotionalIntelligence #HumanFlourishing #WellBeing #WorkplaceLeadership #JobPerformance #PsychologicalHealth #WellBeingResearch #EI #PersonalityTraits #MetaAnalysis
-
DATE: September 5, 2026 at 06:00PM
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: Massive review confirms the connection between emotional intelligence and human flourishing
A review of psychological research indicates that emotional intelligence has a robust and reliable connection to human flourishing, predicting success across school, work, and personal health. The findings suggest that people with higher emotional intelligence tend to experience greater well-being, though the strength of this connection depends on how the traits are measured. The research was recently published in the journal PNAS.
For decades, psychologists have debated what makes some people thrive while others struggle. One popular idea is emotional intelligence, a concept that rapidly gained public attention in the 1990s. Broadly speaking, the term refers to how well a person navigates their own feelings and the feelings of others.
Since its introduction, the idea has spawned thousands of academic papers and grown into a multibillion-dollar training industry. Yet, because researchers define and measure this concept in various ways, its exact relationship with life success has remained difficult to synthesize.
Psychologists generally divide emotional intelligence into three categories. The first is an ability-based model. This model treats emotional skills like a cognitive test, assuming there are objectively right and wrong answers when identifying or managing emotions.
The ability model specifically looks at how well people recognize emotions, use them to guide decisions, and regulate them. The second category is a trait-based model, which relies on self-reported personality characteristics. Under this model, researchers ask participants to rate their own adaptability, assertiveness, and impulse control.
A third category, called a mixed model, combines both objective abilities and self-reported traits into a single assessment. Beyond the differing definitions of emotional intelligence, researchers also look at a wide variety of life outcomes. To find out how these different models connect to positive life experiences, researchers Tyler J. Robinson and Ethan Zell from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro analyzed decades of data.
The researchers wanted to see if emotional intelligence consistently relates to human flourishing. Flourishing is a broad psychological term encompassing mental health, physical health, psychological adjustment, and workplace success. To answer this question, Robinson and Zell conducted a second-order meta-analysis.
A standard meta-analysis is a statistical technique that pools the results of many individual studies to find an overall trend. A second-order meta-analysis goes a step further, combining the results of multiple previous meta-analyses. This approach acts as a quantitative summary of previous summaries, providing a broad view of an entire scientific field.
By pooling data from 62 previous meta-analyses, the researchers gathered information from more than 3,000 individual studies. This massive sample included over one million participants, allowing the researchers to look for overarching patterns across different ages and cultures. The data included populations from Western nations, non-Western nations, children, adolescents, and adults.
The researchers found a reliable, positive association between overall emotional intelligence and human flourishing. This positive link appeared across 77 unique life outcomes. The most prominent associations emerged in areas like workplace leadership, job performance, and psychological adjustment.
The data showed that emotional intelligence was linked to better outcomes regardless of the participants’ age group or geographic region. When looking at different categories of life outcomes, the researchers noticed slight variations in the strength of the connection. Emotional intelligence was most strongly related to success in the workplace.
The connection was slightly weaker, though still reliably present, for cognitive abilities and general academic performance. The researchers also found strong associations between emotional intelligence and specific outcomes like lower rates of job burnout, higher subjective well-being, and better romantic relationship satisfaction.
To put these findings into perspective, the researchers compared emotional intelligence to the Big Five personality traits. The Big Five is a well-established psychological framework that measures openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. The analysis revealed that emotional intelligence is just as strongly, if not more strongly, associated with human flourishing than any of the Big Five personality traits.
Out of all the specific outcomes analyzed, only one showed a negative relationship with emotional intelligence. That outcome was a form of self-centeredness known as nonpathological narcissism. The researchers noted that individuals with this specific type of narcissism tend to artificially inflate their own scores on self-report questionnaires.
Because they overrate their own emotional abilities, the data showed an inverse relationship between their actual traits and their reported emotional intelligence. More conventional, pathological narcissism was linked to lower emotional intelligence. Measurement styles heavily altered the broader results as well.
The association with human flourishing was most pronounced when researchers used the mixed or trait-based models, which rely on participants rating their own emotional skills. When studies used objective performance tests to measure emotional abilities, the association with life outcomes was weaker. This pattern became especially apparent when looking at how both emotional intelligence and life outcomes were measured.
The researchers found the strongest connections when both variables were assessed using self-report questionnaires. When one variable was measured subjectively and the other was measured objectively, the relationship between the two shrunk considerably. This dependence on measurement methods highlights an important limitation in the data.
When participants fill out multiple surveys about themselves, they may naturally rate themselves positively across the board. This shared method of data collection can artificially inflate the statistical connection between self-reported emotional intelligence and self-reported life satisfaction. The researchers noted that the particularly strong link to workplace outcomes might be partly driven by this shared measurement style, as many workplace studies rely on self-reported surveys.
Because the data in this review is entirely correlational, it cannot prove that high emotional intelligence causes a person to flourish. It is entirely possible that flourishing in life makes a person more emotionally intelligent over time. Alternatively, a third unmeasured factor, such as a stable upbringing or access to resources, could independently contribute to both higher emotional intelligence and greater life success.
The researchers also excluded studies that evaluated training programs. Because of this exclusion, they could not determine if actively training emotional intelligence causes a subsequent increase in human flourishing. Objective tests of emotional intelligence also face modern challenges.
The authors pointed out that recent studies show artificial intelligence language models perform just as well as, or better than, humans on objective emotional intelligence tests. This raises questions about what these tests are actually measuring. It remains debated whether text-based tests capture practical emotional skills or if they simply measure a person’s reading comprehension and ability to understand written scenarios.
To improve the quality of future research, the authors suggest refining how emotional intelligence is categorized. They recommend moving away from the mixed model, which blends traits and abilities in a way that creates conceptual confusion. Instead, they suggest that future studies explicitly separate objective emotional abilities from self-reported personality traits. Separating these variables would help scientists determine exactly how distinct emotional skills contribute to a fulfilling life.
The study, “Robust associations of emotional intelligence with human flourishing: A second-order meta-analysis,” was authored by Tyler J. Robinson and Ethan Zell.
-------------------------------------------------
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
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #EmotionalIntelligence #HumanFlourishing #WellBeing #WorkplaceLeadership #JobPerformance #PsychologicalHealth #WellBeingResearch #EI #PersonalityTraits #MetaAnalysis
-
DATE: September 5, 2026 at 06:00PM
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: Massive review confirms the connection between emotional intelligence and human flourishing
A review of psychological research indicates that emotional intelligence has a robust and reliable connection to human flourishing, predicting success across school, work, and personal health. The findings suggest that people with higher emotional intelligence tend to experience greater well-being, though the strength of this connection depends on how the traits are measured. The research was recently published in the journal PNAS.
For decades, psychologists have debated what makes some people thrive while others struggle. One popular idea is emotional intelligence, a concept that rapidly gained public attention in the 1990s. Broadly speaking, the term refers to how well a person navigates their own feelings and the feelings of others.
Since its introduction, the idea has spawned thousands of academic papers and grown into a multibillion-dollar training industry. Yet, because researchers define and measure this concept in various ways, its exact relationship with life success has remained difficult to synthesize.
Psychologists generally divide emotional intelligence into three categories. The first is an ability-based model. This model treats emotional skills like a cognitive test, assuming there are objectively right and wrong answers when identifying or managing emotions.
The ability model specifically looks at how well people recognize emotions, use them to guide decisions, and regulate them. The second category is a trait-based model, which relies on self-reported personality characteristics. Under this model, researchers ask participants to rate their own adaptability, assertiveness, and impulse control.
A third category, called a mixed model, combines both objective abilities and self-reported traits into a single assessment. Beyond the differing definitions of emotional intelligence, researchers also look at a wide variety of life outcomes. To find out how these different models connect to positive life experiences, researchers Tyler J. Robinson and Ethan Zell from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro analyzed decades of data.
The researchers wanted to see if emotional intelligence consistently relates to human flourishing. Flourishing is a broad psychological term encompassing mental health, physical health, psychological adjustment, and workplace success. To answer this question, Robinson and Zell conducted a second-order meta-analysis.
A standard meta-analysis is a statistical technique that pools the results of many individual studies to find an overall trend. A second-order meta-analysis goes a step further, combining the results of multiple previous meta-analyses. This approach acts as a quantitative summary of previous summaries, providing a broad view of an entire scientific field.
By pooling data from 62 previous meta-analyses, the researchers gathered information from more than 3,000 individual studies. This massive sample included over one million participants, allowing the researchers to look for overarching patterns across different ages and cultures. The data included populations from Western nations, non-Western nations, children, adolescents, and adults.
The researchers found a reliable, positive association between overall emotional intelligence and human flourishing. This positive link appeared across 77 unique life outcomes. The most prominent associations emerged in areas like workplace leadership, job performance, and psychological adjustment.
The data showed that emotional intelligence was linked to better outcomes regardless of the participants’ age group or geographic region. When looking at different categories of life outcomes, the researchers noticed slight variations in the strength of the connection. Emotional intelligence was most strongly related to success in the workplace.
The connection was slightly weaker, though still reliably present, for cognitive abilities and general academic performance. The researchers also found strong associations between emotional intelligence and specific outcomes like lower rates of job burnout, higher subjective well-being, and better romantic relationship satisfaction.
To put these findings into perspective, the researchers compared emotional intelligence to the Big Five personality traits. The Big Five is a well-established psychological framework that measures openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. The analysis revealed that emotional intelligence is just as strongly, if not more strongly, associated with human flourishing than any of the Big Five personality traits.
Out of all the specific outcomes analyzed, only one showed a negative relationship with emotional intelligence. That outcome was a form of self-centeredness known as nonpathological narcissism. The researchers noted that individuals with this specific type of narcissism tend to artificially inflate their own scores on self-report questionnaires.
Because they overrate their own emotional abilities, the data showed an inverse relationship between their actual traits and their reported emotional intelligence. More conventional, pathological narcissism was linked to lower emotional intelligence. Measurement styles heavily altered the broader results as well.
The association with human flourishing was most pronounced when researchers used the mixed or trait-based models, which rely on participants rating their own emotional skills. When studies used objective performance tests to measure emotional abilities, the association with life outcomes was weaker. This pattern became especially apparent when looking at how both emotional intelligence and life outcomes were measured.
The researchers found the strongest connections when both variables were assessed using self-report questionnaires. When one variable was measured subjectively and the other was measured objectively, the relationship between the two shrunk considerably. This dependence on measurement methods highlights an important limitation in the data.
When participants fill out multiple surveys about themselves, they may naturally rate themselves positively across the board. This shared method of data collection can artificially inflate the statistical connection between self-reported emotional intelligence and self-reported life satisfaction. The researchers noted that the particularly strong link to workplace outcomes might be partly driven by this shared measurement style, as many workplace studies rely on self-reported surveys.
Because the data in this review is entirely correlational, it cannot prove that high emotional intelligence causes a person to flourish. It is entirely possible that flourishing in life makes a person more emotionally intelligent over time. Alternatively, a third unmeasured factor, such as a stable upbringing or access to resources, could independently contribute to both higher emotional intelligence and greater life success.
The researchers also excluded studies that evaluated training programs. Because of this exclusion, they could not determine if actively training emotional intelligence causes a subsequent increase in human flourishing. Objective tests of emotional intelligence also face modern challenges.
The authors pointed out that recent studies show artificial intelligence language models perform just as well as, or better than, humans on objective emotional intelligence tests. This raises questions about what these tests are actually measuring. It remains debated whether text-based tests capture practical emotional skills or if they simply measure a person’s reading comprehension and ability to understand written scenarios.
To improve the quality of future research, the authors suggest refining how emotional intelligence is categorized. They recommend moving away from the mixed model, which blends traits and abilities in a way that creates conceptual confusion. Instead, they suggest that future studies explicitly separate objective emotional abilities from self-reported personality traits. Separating these variables would help scientists determine exactly how distinct emotional skills contribute to a fulfilling life.
The study, “Robust associations of emotional intelligence with human flourishing: A second-order meta-analysis,” was authored by Tyler J. Robinson and Ethan Zell.
-------------------------------------------------
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
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #EmotionalIntelligence #HumanFlourishing #WellBeing #WorkplaceLeadership #JobPerformance #PsychologicalHealth #WellBeingResearch #EI #PersonalityTraits #MetaAnalysis
-
DATE: September 5, 2026 at 04:00PM
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: Comedy is funnier when it is easier to process, new psychology study finds
URL: https://www.psypost.org/comedy-is-funnier-when-it-is-easier-to-process-new-psychology-study-finds/
Comedy is funnier when it is easier to process, largely because fluency helps incongruous material make sense, according to research published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.
Humour often depends on incongruity: something happens that conflicts with what an audience expects. But surprise alone is not enough. For an incongruity to be funny, people must notice it while still being able to understand how its conflicting elements fit together. If a joke is too confusing, meaningless, or threatening, it is less likely to succeed.
Processing fluency, the subjective experience that something is easy to perceive or understand, may help comedy achieve this balance. Fluent processing can make information feel more coherent and familiar, but it can also produce positive feelings that might make a violation seem less threatening.
Because earlier evidence was largely limited to text-based riddles, Drew Gorenz and Norbert Schwarz examined whether fluency would enhance appreciation of more familiar comedic formats and whether it worked primarily by increasing perceived coherence or by making potentially offensive humour seem more benign.
Across four experiments, the researchers analyzed data from 999 participants recruited through a U.S. university psychology subject pool, including 248 in Experiment 1, 273 in Experiment 2, 206 in Experiment 3, and 272 in Experiment 4. In Experiment 1, participants viewed eight internet memes, four in their original form and four degraded by reducing their exposure and colour saturation. They rated each meme’s funniness from 0, “not funny at all,” to 6, “very funny,” and its ease of processing from 1, “difficult,” to 101, “easy.” They also reported how frequently they encountered memes and sought out comedy in everyday life on seven-point scales. The order of the funniness and fluency ratings was counterbalanced.
In Experiment 2, participants completed 25 fill-in-the-blank jokes and selected the funnier of two substantively similar punchlines. Ten pairs compared rhyming with non-rhyming punchlines, ten compared alliterating with non-alliterating punchlines, and five were fillers. Experiments 3 and 4 presented eight short scenarios describing people who had received nicknames. Experiment 3 used aggressive nicknames, whereas Experiment 4 included both aggressive and benign ones; the researchers varied whether each nickname alliterated with the person’s name.
Participants rated funniness from 0 to 6, ease of processing from 1 to 101, and coherence from 0 to 6 using three items assessing whether the nickname sounded right, seemed fitting, and was likely to be used by the person’s peers. They also answered yes-or-no questions about whether each nickname could be considered “wrong” and “not wrong,” allowing the researchers to identify nicknames perceived as both violations and benign. All experiments also collected demographic information.
In Experiment 1, degraded memes were rated as substantially harder to process and, on average, 0.65 points less funny than the original versions. Participants who reported encountering memes more frequently also found the study’s memes easier to process and funnier. The mediation findings were consistent with the proposed explanation, such that, the visual manipulation’s relationship with humour was fully accounted for by experienced fluency, while fluency accounted for approximately half of the relationship between prior meme exposure and humour ratings.
In Experiment 2, participants selected the fluent punchline as funnier 76.45% of the time, compared with 23.55% for the alternative. This preference appeared for both rhyming punchlines, selected 78.38% of the time, and alliterating punchlines, selected 74.53% of the time.
The nickname experiments produced a similar pattern. In Experiment 3, alliterating aggressive nicknames were rated as easier to process, more coherent, and funnier than non-alliterating versions. In Experiment 4, alliterating nicknames were again easier to process and were rated 2.22 out of 6 for funniness, compared with 1.90 for non-alliterating nicknames; this benefit did not reliably differ between benign and aggressive nicknames.
Across both experiments, the relationship between alliteration and funniness was fully accounted for by greater experienced fluency and coherence. Alliteration did not make the nicknames more likely to be judged benign or less likely to be considered violations, offering no evidence that fluency increased humour by softening their aggressive or inappropriate qualities.
Given participants were predominantly young U.S. university students and the stimuli were limited to memes, punchlines, and nicknames, the findings may not generalize to broader populations or every form of comedy.
Together, these findings identify processing fluency as a potentially broad principle of humour appreciation.
The research, “Is comedy funnier when it is easier to process? The interplay of fluency and coherence in humor appreciation,” was authored by Drew Gorenz and Norbert Schwarz.
URL: https://www.psypost.org/comedy-is-funnier-when-it-is-easier-to-process-new-psychology-study-finds/
-------------------------------------------------
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-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #ComedyFluency #HumorScience #ProcessingFluency #CoherenceInHumor #MemesAndLaughter #AlliterationHumor #RhymingPunchlines #IncongruityAndLaughs #HumorResearch #JournalOfExperimentalSocialPsychology
-
DATE: September 5, 2026 at 04:00PM
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: Comedy is funnier when it is easier to process, new psychology study finds
URL: https://www.psypost.org/comedy-is-funnier-when-it-is-easier-to-process-new-psychology-study-finds/
Comedy is funnier when it is easier to process, largely because fluency helps incongruous material make sense, according to research published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.
Humour often depends on incongruity: something happens that conflicts with what an audience expects. But surprise alone is not enough. For an incongruity to be funny, people must notice it while still being able to understand how its conflicting elements fit together. If a joke is too confusing, meaningless, or threatening, it is less likely to succeed.
Processing fluency, the subjective experience that something is easy to perceive or understand, may help comedy achieve this balance. Fluent processing can make information feel more coherent and familiar, but it can also produce positive feelings that might make a violation seem less threatening.
Because earlier evidence was largely limited to text-based riddles, Drew Gorenz and Norbert Schwarz examined whether fluency would enhance appreciation of more familiar comedic formats and whether it worked primarily by increasing perceived coherence or by making potentially offensive humour seem more benign.
Across four experiments, the researchers analyzed data from 999 participants recruited through a U.S. university psychology subject pool, including 248 in Experiment 1, 273 in Experiment 2, 206 in Experiment 3, and 272 in Experiment 4. In Experiment 1, participants viewed eight internet memes, four in their original form and four degraded by reducing their exposure and colour saturation. They rated each meme’s funniness from 0, “not funny at all,” to 6, “very funny,” and its ease of processing from 1, “difficult,” to 101, “easy.” They also reported how frequently they encountered memes and sought out comedy in everyday life on seven-point scales. The order of the funniness and fluency ratings was counterbalanced.
In Experiment 2, participants completed 25 fill-in-the-blank jokes and selected the funnier of two substantively similar punchlines. Ten pairs compared rhyming with non-rhyming punchlines, ten compared alliterating with non-alliterating punchlines, and five were fillers. Experiments 3 and 4 presented eight short scenarios describing people who had received nicknames. Experiment 3 used aggressive nicknames, whereas Experiment 4 included both aggressive and benign ones; the researchers varied whether each nickname alliterated with the person’s name.
Participants rated funniness from 0 to 6, ease of processing from 1 to 101, and coherence from 0 to 6 using three items assessing whether the nickname sounded right, seemed fitting, and was likely to be used by the person’s peers. They also answered yes-or-no questions about whether each nickname could be considered “wrong” and “not wrong,” allowing the researchers to identify nicknames perceived as both violations and benign. All experiments also collected demographic information.
In Experiment 1, degraded memes were rated as substantially harder to process and, on average, 0.65 points less funny than the original versions. Participants who reported encountering memes more frequently also found the study’s memes easier to process and funnier. The mediation findings were consistent with the proposed explanation, such that, the visual manipulation’s relationship with humour was fully accounted for by experienced fluency, while fluency accounted for approximately half of the relationship between prior meme exposure and humour ratings.
In Experiment 2, participants selected the fluent punchline as funnier 76.45% of the time, compared with 23.55% for the alternative. This preference appeared for both rhyming punchlines, selected 78.38% of the time, and alliterating punchlines, selected 74.53% of the time.
The nickname experiments produced a similar pattern. In Experiment 3, alliterating aggressive nicknames were rated as easier to process, more coherent, and funnier than non-alliterating versions. In Experiment 4, alliterating nicknames were again easier to process and were rated 2.22 out of 6 for funniness, compared with 1.90 for non-alliterating nicknames; this benefit did not reliably differ between benign and aggressive nicknames.
Across both experiments, the relationship between alliteration and funniness was fully accounted for by greater experienced fluency and coherence. Alliteration did not make the nicknames more likely to be judged benign or less likely to be considered violations, offering no evidence that fluency increased humour by softening their aggressive or inappropriate qualities.
Given participants were predominantly young U.S. university students and the stimuli were limited to memes, punchlines, and nicknames, the findings may not generalize to broader populations or every form of comedy.
Together, these findings identify processing fluency as a potentially broad principle of humour appreciation.
The research, “Is comedy funnier when it is easier to process? The interplay of fluency and coherence in humor appreciation,” was authored by Drew Gorenz and Norbert Schwarz.
URL: https://www.psypost.org/comedy-is-funnier-when-it-is-easier-to-process-new-psychology-study-finds/
-------------------------------------------------
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
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #ComedyFluency #HumorScience #ProcessingFluency #CoherenceInHumor #MemesAndLaughter #AlliterationHumor #RhymingPunchlines #IncongruityAndLaughs #HumorResearch #JournalOfExperimentalSocialPsychology
-
DATE: September 5, 2026 at 04:00PM
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: Comedy is funnier when it is easier to process, new psychology study finds
URL: https://www.psypost.org/comedy-is-funnier-when-it-is-easier-to-process-new-psychology-study-finds/
Comedy is funnier when it is easier to process, largely because fluency helps incongruous material make sense, according to research published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.
Humour often depends on incongruity: something happens that conflicts with what an audience expects. But surprise alone is not enough. For an incongruity to be funny, people must notice it while still being able to understand how its conflicting elements fit together. If a joke is too confusing, meaningless, or threatening, it is less likely to succeed.
Processing fluency, the subjective experience that something is easy to perceive or understand, may help comedy achieve this balance. Fluent processing can make information feel more coherent and familiar, but it can also produce positive feelings that might make a violation seem less threatening.
Because earlier evidence was largely limited to text-based riddles, Drew Gorenz and Norbert Schwarz examined whether fluency would enhance appreciation of more familiar comedic formats and whether it worked primarily by increasing perceived coherence or by making potentially offensive humour seem more benign.
Across four experiments, the researchers analyzed data from 999 participants recruited through a U.S. university psychology subject pool, including 248 in Experiment 1, 273 in Experiment 2, 206 in Experiment 3, and 272 in Experiment 4. In Experiment 1, participants viewed eight internet memes, four in their original form and four degraded by reducing their exposure and colour saturation. They rated each meme’s funniness from 0, “not funny at all,” to 6, “very funny,” and its ease of processing from 1, “difficult,” to 101, “easy.” They also reported how frequently they encountered memes and sought out comedy in everyday life on seven-point scales. The order of the funniness and fluency ratings was counterbalanced.
In Experiment 2, participants completed 25 fill-in-the-blank jokes and selected the funnier of two substantively similar punchlines. Ten pairs compared rhyming with non-rhyming punchlines, ten compared alliterating with non-alliterating punchlines, and five were fillers. Experiments 3 and 4 presented eight short scenarios describing people who had received nicknames. Experiment 3 used aggressive nicknames, whereas Experiment 4 included both aggressive and benign ones; the researchers varied whether each nickname alliterated with the person’s name.
Participants rated funniness from 0 to 6, ease of processing from 1 to 101, and coherence from 0 to 6 using three items assessing whether the nickname sounded right, seemed fitting, and was likely to be used by the person’s peers. They also answered yes-or-no questions about whether each nickname could be considered “wrong” and “not wrong,” allowing the researchers to identify nicknames perceived as both violations and benign. All experiments also collected demographic information.
In Experiment 1, degraded memes were rated as substantially harder to process and, on average, 0.65 points less funny than the original versions. Participants who reported encountering memes more frequently also found the study’s memes easier to process and funnier. The mediation findings were consistent with the proposed explanation, such that, the visual manipulation’s relationship with humour was fully accounted for by experienced fluency, while fluency accounted for approximately half of the relationship between prior meme exposure and humour ratings.
In Experiment 2, participants selected the fluent punchline as funnier 76.45% of the time, compared with 23.55% for the alternative. This preference appeared for both rhyming punchlines, selected 78.38% of the time, and alliterating punchlines, selected 74.53% of the time.
The nickname experiments produced a similar pattern. In Experiment 3, alliterating aggressive nicknames were rated as easier to process, more coherent, and funnier than non-alliterating versions. In Experiment 4, alliterating nicknames were again easier to process and were rated 2.22 out of 6 for funniness, compared with 1.90 for non-alliterating nicknames; this benefit did not reliably differ between benign and aggressive nicknames.
Across both experiments, the relationship between alliteration and funniness was fully accounted for by greater experienced fluency and coherence. Alliteration did not make the nicknames more likely to be judged benign or less likely to be considered violations, offering no evidence that fluency increased humour by softening their aggressive or inappropriate qualities.
Given participants were predominantly young U.S. university students and the stimuli were limited to memes, punchlines, and nicknames, the findings may not generalize to broader populations or every form of comedy.
Together, these findings identify processing fluency as a potentially broad principle of humour appreciation.
The research, “Is comedy funnier when it is easier to process? The interplay of fluency and coherence in humor appreciation,” was authored by Drew Gorenz and Norbert Schwarz.
URL: https://www.psypost.org/comedy-is-funnier-when-it-is-easier-to-process-new-psychology-study-finds/
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DATE: September 5, 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: People with unfulfilled romantic needs form stronger attachments to fictional characters
People who are single or unhappy in their romantic relationships tend to develop stronger romantic feelings for fictional media characters. These findings suggest that one-sided crushes on movie stars or fictional personas can serve as a substitute for unfulfilled emotional needs in real life. The research was published in the journal Psychology of Popular Media.
Psychologists use the term “parasocial phenomena” to describe the one-sided psychological connections viewers form with media figures. First introduced in the 1950s, the concept captures how media consumers can feel as though they are interacting with a character on a screen. These mediated bonds resemble face-to-face social interactions but completely lack any mutual exchange.
Historically, researchers have debated whether these one-sided connections act as a social surrogate. The social surrogacy hypothesis proposes that individuals might use media figures to substitute for real-world social deficits. Past investigations mostly focused on platonic, friendship-like parasocial bonds. The consensus from those studies was generally that lonely individuals do not engage more intensely with media figures than people with active social lives.
Platonic connections represent only one facet of human social behavior. Nicole Liebers, a researcher at the University of Würzburg, conducted this study to explore the neglected romantic dimensions of parasocial phenomena. While platonic media connections might not cure general loneliness, Liebers proposed that romantic media connections might specifically help individuals cope with unfulfilled romantic needs.
Romantic parasocial phenomena involve intense emotional, physical, and sexual attraction toward a character. Liebers designed two studies to test whether relationship status and relationship satisfaction influence how strongly viewers become infatuated with these fictional figures. The research separated these phenomena into immediate parasocial interactions during viewing and long-term parasocial relationships that endure after the screen goes dark.
In the first study, Liebers recruited 96 moviegoers at a public cinema center in Germany. Participants had just watched one of three movies: Wonder Woman, Baywatch, or Transformers 5. These specific films were selected because they all featured at least one male and one female main character that the audience might find attractive.
Researchers asked the participants to complete a smartphone questionnaire immediately after leaving the theater. The viewers identified the specific character they felt most emotionally and sexually attracted to. They then answered questions designed to measure their real-time romantic parasocial interaction, which captures the immediate mental and physical attraction experienced while watching the film.
The researcher divided the participants into three groups based on their social situations. The groups included single individuals who watched the movie with a non-romantic companion, people in relationships who watched with a non-romantic companion, and people who attended the movie with their romantic partner. Individuals who attended the movie alone were excluded from the analysis, as watching a movie alone can alter a viewer’s general immersion in the story.
Liebers found that single individuals experienced more intense romantic parasocial interactions than people who were in a relationship. Specifically, single viewers reported stronger emotional love and a higher desire to interact with the character. The two groups did not differ in their physical attraction to the characters.
The social setting of the theater also influenced the viewers’ experiences. People who attended the movie with their romantic partner reported lower emotional and physical attraction to the characters compared to coupled people who attended without their partner. Having a romantic partner present in the room appeared to dampen the immediate romantic connection to the media figure.
The second study expanded the focus from real-time reactions to long-term romantic attachments. Liebers surveyed 358 volunteers online, asking them to recall a media character from any recently watched movie to whom they felt romantically and sexually attracted. The open-ended prompt resulted in a wide range of reported characters, from Magic Mike to Princess Jasmine in Aladdin.
Participants reported their current relationship status. Those who were currently in a relationship also completed a questionnaire assessing their overall relationship satisfaction, answering questions about how well their partner met their needs. Finally, all participants answered questions measuring their ongoing romantic parasocial relationship with their chosen character.
Unlike the immediate reactions measured in the first study, a parasocial relationship describes a bond that endures well after the movie ends. This survey allowed participants to select from a wide variety of movies. It provided a broader look at how these one-sided romances function in daily life.
Mirroring the first study, single participants developed stronger long-term romantic parasocial relationships than coupled participants. In this broader context, single individuals reported higher levels of both emotional love and physical attraction toward the characters. The data indicated that lacking a real-world romantic partner heightened the overall intensity of the fictional romance.
For participants who were in a relationship, their satisfaction with their real-life partner played a defining role. Lower relationship satisfaction predicted stronger emotional love for the fictional character. However, relationship satisfaction had no statistically significant effect on the physical attraction viewers felt toward the character.
These results suggest that emotional closeness might be a more important driver of parasocial romances than physical attraction. People with unfulfilled romantic needs appear to seek out emotional bonding with fictional characters to compensate for what they lack in real life. This finding aligns with the idea that the human drive for emotional love is often stronger than the drive for physical gratification.
These observational findings rely on self-reported data, which can introduce certain biases. For example, people watching a movie while sitting next to their romantic partner might simply feel more reluctant to admit they are attracted to a fictional character. The social desirability of reporting a crush could vary greatly depending on who is standing nearby.
The research design also prevents definitive conclusions about cause and effect. It is possible that individuals turn to media characters to compensate for romantic deficits. But it is equally possible that engaging in intense parasocial romances creates unrealistic expectations, which then lowers a person’s satisfaction with their real-world partner.
Future research will need to measure subjective feelings of romantic loneliness directly, rather than relying solely on relationship status as a proxy. Tracking these media habits over time could clarify whether fictional romances truly heal unfulfilled needs or simply complicate existing relationships. Accounting for a viewer’s prior exposure to an actor could also help isolate the exact mechanisms driving these one-sided love affairs.
The study, “Unfulfilled Romantic Needs: Effects of Relationship Status, Presence of Romantic Partners, and Relationship Satisfaction on Romantic Parasocial Phenomena,” was authored by Nicole Liebers.
-------------------------------------------------
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#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #ParasocialRomance #UnfulfilledRomanticNeeds #RomanticParasocialPhenomena #SingleAndCrushing #FictionalCharacterLove #RelationshipSatisfaction #EmotionalLove #MediaScientists #CinemaRomance #SocialSurrogacy
-
DATE: September 5, 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: People with unfulfilled romantic needs form stronger attachments to fictional characters
People who are single or unhappy in their romantic relationships tend to develop stronger romantic feelings for fictional media characters. These findings suggest that one-sided crushes on movie stars or fictional personas can serve as a substitute for unfulfilled emotional needs in real life. The research was published in the journal Psychology of Popular Media.
Psychologists use the term “parasocial phenomena” to describe the one-sided psychological connections viewers form with media figures. First introduced in the 1950s, the concept captures how media consumers can feel as though they are interacting with a character on a screen. These mediated bonds resemble face-to-face social interactions but completely lack any mutual exchange.
Historically, researchers have debated whether these one-sided connections act as a social surrogate. The social surrogacy hypothesis proposes that individuals might use media figures to substitute for real-world social deficits. Past investigations mostly focused on platonic, friendship-like parasocial bonds. The consensus from those studies was generally that lonely individuals do not engage more intensely with media figures than people with active social lives.
Platonic connections represent only one facet of human social behavior. Nicole Liebers, a researcher at the University of Würzburg, conducted this study to explore the neglected romantic dimensions of parasocial phenomena. While platonic media connections might not cure general loneliness, Liebers proposed that romantic media connections might specifically help individuals cope with unfulfilled romantic needs.
Romantic parasocial phenomena involve intense emotional, physical, and sexual attraction toward a character. Liebers designed two studies to test whether relationship status and relationship satisfaction influence how strongly viewers become infatuated with these fictional figures. The research separated these phenomena into immediate parasocial interactions during viewing and long-term parasocial relationships that endure after the screen goes dark.
In the first study, Liebers recruited 96 moviegoers at a public cinema center in Germany. Participants had just watched one of three movies: Wonder Woman, Baywatch, or Transformers 5. These specific films were selected because they all featured at least one male and one female main character that the audience might find attractive.
Researchers asked the participants to complete a smartphone questionnaire immediately after leaving the theater. The viewers identified the specific character they felt most emotionally and sexually attracted to. They then answered questions designed to measure their real-time romantic parasocial interaction, which captures the immediate mental and physical attraction experienced while watching the film.
The researcher divided the participants into three groups based on their social situations. The groups included single individuals who watched the movie with a non-romantic companion, people in relationships who watched with a non-romantic companion, and people who attended the movie with their romantic partner. Individuals who attended the movie alone were excluded from the analysis, as watching a movie alone can alter a viewer’s general immersion in the story.
Liebers found that single individuals experienced more intense romantic parasocial interactions than people who were in a relationship. Specifically, single viewers reported stronger emotional love and a higher desire to interact with the character. The two groups did not differ in their physical attraction to the characters.
The social setting of the theater also influenced the viewers’ experiences. People who attended the movie with their romantic partner reported lower emotional and physical attraction to the characters compared to coupled people who attended without their partner. Having a romantic partner present in the room appeared to dampen the immediate romantic connection to the media figure.
The second study expanded the focus from real-time reactions to long-term romantic attachments. Liebers surveyed 358 volunteers online, asking them to recall a media character from any recently watched movie to whom they felt romantically and sexually attracted. The open-ended prompt resulted in a wide range of reported characters, from Magic Mike to Princess Jasmine in Aladdin.
Participants reported their current relationship status. Those who were currently in a relationship also completed a questionnaire assessing their overall relationship satisfaction, answering questions about how well their partner met their needs. Finally, all participants answered questions measuring their ongoing romantic parasocial relationship with their chosen character.
Unlike the immediate reactions measured in the first study, a parasocial relationship describes a bond that endures well after the movie ends. This survey allowed participants to select from a wide variety of movies. It provided a broader look at how these one-sided romances function in daily life.
Mirroring the first study, single participants developed stronger long-term romantic parasocial relationships than coupled participants. In this broader context, single individuals reported higher levels of both emotional love and physical attraction toward the characters. The data indicated that lacking a real-world romantic partner heightened the overall intensity of the fictional romance.
For participants who were in a relationship, their satisfaction with their real-life partner played a defining role. Lower relationship satisfaction predicted stronger emotional love for the fictional character. However, relationship satisfaction had no statistically significant effect on the physical attraction viewers felt toward the character.
These results suggest that emotional closeness might be a more important driver of parasocial romances than physical attraction. People with unfulfilled romantic needs appear to seek out emotional bonding with fictional characters to compensate for what they lack in real life. This finding aligns with the idea that the human drive for emotional love is often stronger than the drive for physical gratification.
These observational findings rely on self-reported data, which can introduce certain biases. For example, people watching a movie while sitting next to their romantic partner might simply feel more reluctant to admit they are attracted to a fictional character. The social desirability of reporting a crush could vary greatly depending on who is standing nearby.
The research design also prevents definitive conclusions about cause and effect. It is possible that individuals turn to media characters to compensate for romantic deficits. But it is equally possible that engaging in intense parasocial romances creates unrealistic expectations, which then lowers a person’s satisfaction with their real-world partner.
Future research will need to measure subjective feelings of romantic loneliness directly, rather than relying solely on relationship status as a proxy. Tracking these media habits over time could clarify whether fictional romances truly heal unfulfilled needs or simply complicate existing relationships. Accounting for a viewer’s prior exposure to an actor could also help isolate the exact mechanisms driving these one-sided love affairs.
The study, “Unfulfilled Romantic Needs: Effects of Relationship Status, Presence of Romantic Partners, and Relationship Satisfaction on Romantic Parasocial Phenomena,” was authored by Nicole Liebers.
-------------------------------------------------
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
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #ParasocialRomance #UnfulfilledRomanticNeeds #RomanticParasocialPhenomena #SingleAndCrushing #FictionalCharacterLove #RelationshipSatisfaction #EmotionalLove #MediaScientists #CinemaRomance #SocialSurrogacy
-
DATE: September 5, 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: People with unfulfilled romantic needs form stronger attachments to fictional characters
People who are single or unhappy in their romantic relationships tend to develop stronger romantic feelings for fictional media characters. These findings suggest that one-sided crushes on movie stars or fictional personas can serve as a substitute for unfulfilled emotional needs in real life. The research was published in the journal Psychology of Popular Media.
Psychologists use the term “parasocial phenomena” to describe the one-sided psychological connections viewers form with media figures. First introduced in the 1950s, the concept captures how media consumers can feel as though they are interacting with a character on a screen. These mediated bonds resemble face-to-face social interactions but completely lack any mutual exchange.
Historically, researchers have debated whether these one-sided connections act as a social surrogate. The social surrogacy hypothesis proposes that individuals might use media figures to substitute for real-world social deficits. Past investigations mostly focused on platonic, friendship-like parasocial bonds. The consensus from those studies was generally that lonely individuals do not engage more intensely with media figures than people with active social lives.
Platonic connections represent only one facet of human social behavior. Nicole Liebers, a researcher at the University of Würzburg, conducted this study to explore the neglected romantic dimensions of parasocial phenomena. While platonic media connections might not cure general loneliness, Liebers proposed that romantic media connections might specifically help individuals cope with unfulfilled romantic needs.
Romantic parasocial phenomena involve intense emotional, physical, and sexual attraction toward a character. Liebers designed two studies to test whether relationship status and relationship satisfaction influence how strongly viewers become infatuated with these fictional figures. The research separated these phenomena into immediate parasocial interactions during viewing and long-term parasocial relationships that endure after the screen goes dark.
In the first study, Liebers recruited 96 moviegoers at a public cinema center in Germany. Participants had just watched one of three movies: Wonder Woman, Baywatch, or Transformers 5. These specific films were selected because they all featured at least one male and one female main character that the audience might find attractive.
Researchers asked the participants to complete a smartphone questionnaire immediately after leaving the theater. The viewers identified the specific character they felt most emotionally and sexually attracted to. They then answered questions designed to measure their real-time romantic parasocial interaction, which captures the immediate mental and physical attraction experienced while watching the film.
The researcher divided the participants into three groups based on their social situations. The groups included single individuals who watched the movie with a non-romantic companion, people in relationships who watched with a non-romantic companion, and people who attended the movie with their romantic partner. Individuals who attended the movie alone were excluded from the analysis, as watching a movie alone can alter a viewer’s general immersion in the story.
Liebers found that single individuals experienced more intense romantic parasocial interactions than people who were in a relationship. Specifically, single viewers reported stronger emotional love and a higher desire to interact with the character. The two groups did not differ in their physical attraction to the characters.
The social setting of the theater also influenced the viewers’ experiences. People who attended the movie with their romantic partner reported lower emotional and physical attraction to the characters compared to coupled people who attended without their partner. Having a romantic partner present in the room appeared to dampen the immediate romantic connection to the media figure.
The second study expanded the focus from real-time reactions to long-term romantic attachments. Liebers surveyed 358 volunteers online, asking them to recall a media character from any recently watched movie to whom they felt romantically and sexually attracted. The open-ended prompt resulted in a wide range of reported characters, from Magic Mike to Princess Jasmine in Aladdin.
Participants reported their current relationship status. Those who were currently in a relationship also completed a questionnaire assessing their overall relationship satisfaction, answering questions about how well their partner met their needs. Finally, all participants answered questions measuring their ongoing romantic parasocial relationship with their chosen character.
Unlike the immediate reactions measured in the first study, a parasocial relationship describes a bond that endures well after the movie ends. This survey allowed participants to select from a wide variety of movies. It provided a broader look at how these one-sided romances function in daily life.
Mirroring the first study, single participants developed stronger long-term romantic parasocial relationships than coupled participants. In this broader context, single individuals reported higher levels of both emotional love and physical attraction toward the characters. The data indicated that lacking a real-world romantic partner heightened the overall intensity of the fictional romance.
For participants who were in a relationship, their satisfaction with their real-life partner played a defining role. Lower relationship satisfaction predicted stronger emotional love for the fictional character. However, relationship satisfaction had no statistically significant effect on the physical attraction viewers felt toward the character.
These results suggest that emotional closeness might be a more important driver of parasocial romances than physical attraction. People with unfulfilled romantic needs appear to seek out emotional bonding with fictional characters to compensate for what they lack in real life. This finding aligns with the idea that the human drive for emotional love is often stronger than the drive for physical gratification.
These observational findings rely on self-reported data, which can introduce certain biases. For example, people watching a movie while sitting next to their romantic partner might simply feel more reluctant to admit they are attracted to a fictional character. The social desirability of reporting a crush could vary greatly depending on who is standing nearby.
The research design also prevents definitive conclusions about cause and effect. It is possible that individuals turn to media characters to compensate for romantic deficits. But it is equally possible that engaging in intense parasocial romances creates unrealistic expectations, which then lowers a person’s satisfaction with their real-world partner.
Future research will need to measure subjective feelings of romantic loneliness directly, rather than relying solely on relationship status as a proxy. Tracking these media habits over time could clarify whether fictional romances truly heal unfulfilled needs or simply complicate existing relationships. Accounting for a viewer’s prior exposure to an actor could also help isolate the exact mechanisms driving these one-sided love affairs.
The study, “Unfulfilled Romantic Needs: Effects of Relationship Status, Presence of Romantic Partners, and Relationship Satisfaction on Romantic Parasocial Phenomena,” was authored by Nicole Liebers.
-------------------------------------------------
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Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
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#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #ParasocialRomance #UnfulfilledRomanticNeeds #RomanticParasocialPhenomena #SingleAndCrushing #FictionalCharacterLove #RelationshipSatisfaction #EmotionalLove #MediaScientists #CinemaRomance #SocialSurrogacy
-
DATE: September 5, 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: Scientists build a more accurate Alzheimer’s risk score using global DNA data
Researchers have developed a new genetic risk scoring method that improves the prediction of Alzheimer’s disease across diverse populations, moving beyond the historical reliance on European genetic data. The findings indicate that blending genetic information from multiple global groups also helps predict biological markers of the disease. The research was published in Alzheimer’s & Dementia.
Alzheimer’s disease is a progressive neurological condition that slowly destroys memory and thinking skills. To understand who might be at the highest risk of developing the disease, scientists often use polygenic risk scores. A polygenic risk score is a tool that adds up the tiny effects of thousands of genetic variations across a person’s entire genetic code to estimate their overall inherited risk for a specific condition.
To build these scores, researchers rely on genome-wide association studies. These are large-scale projects that scan the DNA of thousands of people to find small genetic differences linked to a disease. Historically, these massive genetic databases have overwhelmingly featured individuals of European descent. A 2016 study showed that genetic risk scores built primarily from people of European descent lose substantial accuracy when applied to other ancestral groups. Because human genetics vary slightly across populations due to demographic history, a score that works well for a European individual often fails to predict disease risk for someone of African or Asian descent.
The push to solve this problem has led scientists to gather more diverse genetic data. For example, a study covered by PsyPost in 2025 found novel Alzheimer’s-linked genes by analyzing multi-ancestry genome data. To make use of this newly available information, statisticians have been designing new ways to combine the data. A 2023 study demonstrated that building risk scores from diverse, multi-ethnic groups consistently outperforms scores built from just one population.
Building on this progress, Meri Okorie, Shea J. Andrews, and their colleagues at the University of California, San Francisco, sought to test these new scoring models for Alzheimer’s disease. They wanted to see if a cross-ancestry approach could accurately predict not just the clinical diagnosis of Alzheimer’s, but also the underlying physical damage occurring in the brain, across a multiethnic group of older adults.
The researchers gathered genetic summary data from hundreds of thousands of individuals of European, African, Admixed American, East Asian, and Caribbean Hispanic descent. The term Admixed American refers to populations, such as many Latino or Hispanic individuals, whose ancestry is a complex mix of Indigenous American, European, and African genetics.
Using this diverse data, the team built three different types of polygenic risk scores. The first was a single-ancestry score, created using only the European genetic data. The second was a multi-ancestry score, which simply pooled all the genetic data from the different groups together. The third was a cross-ancestry score, an advanced statistical model that jointly analyzed the data from multiple populations to adjust how much weight each genetic variant should carry based on shared genetic effects. The researchers also used a specialized mathematical step called ancestry normalization to ensure the scores were scaled fairly across different genetic backgrounds.
To test these three scores, the researchers applied them to two large groups of patients living in the United States. The first testing group came from the Alzheimer’s Disease Sequencing Project. This sample included 19,398 individuals, with 7,111 diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease and 12,287 who were cognitively normal. The participants in this group were of European, Admixed American, and African descent.
The second testing group came from the Health and Aging Brain Study–Health Disparities. This group included 2,559 older adults of European, Admixed American, and African descent. For all analyses, the researchers adjusted for factors like age, sex, and the presence of the APOE gene. The APOE gene is a well-established genetic variation that strongly increases Alzheimer’s risk on its own, so controlling for it allowed the researchers to see the effect of the broader polygenic risk score.
In addition to looking at whether participants were diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, the researchers looked at objective medical measurements. These included cognitive test scores assessing memory and language, brain scans, and the analysis of cerebrospinal fluid. Cerebrospinal fluid is the liquid that surrounds the brain and spinal cord, and it can be tested for specific proteins that act as warning signs for Alzheimer’s disease.
The researchers found that the single-ancestry score, built only from European data, performed poorly outside of European populations. While it worked well for predicting Alzheimer’s risk in participants of European descent, its accuracy dropped noticeably in Admixed American participants. For participants of African ancestry, the single-ancestry score completely failed to predict Alzheimer’s disease risk.
In contrast, the cross-ancestry score showed the highest predictive performance across the board. When applied to participants of African ancestry, a higher cross-ancestry score was associated with a 71 percent increase in the odds of having an Alzheimer’s diagnosis compared to the baseline risk. This advanced scoring model also maintained high accuracy for Admixed American and European participants, providing a more balanced predictive tool for diverse populations.
Beyond predicting a clinical diagnosis, the cross-ancestry score successfully predicted physical and cognitive signs of the disease. Across the testing groups, higher cross-ancestry risk scores were tied to poorer performance in cognitive domains like memory, language, and executive function. Executive function refers to mental skills that include working memory, flexible thinking, and self-control.
The cross-ancestry score also aligned with biomarkers of the disease in the body. Individuals with higher genetic risk scores tended to have lower levels of amyloid-beta 42 in their cerebrospinal fluid. In the context of Alzheimer’s disease, a drop of this specific protein in the spinal fluid indicates that the protein is clumping together inside the brain to form harmful plaques.
The researchers also looked at autopsy data and advanced brain imaging. They found that participants with the highest cross-ancestry polygenic risk scores had a higher probability of being in the most severe categories of brain pathology. This indicates that the genetic risk score is not only catching surface-level symptoms but is reflecting the advanced physical accumulation of plaques and tangles that destroy brain tissue.
There are a few things to keep in mind regarding this study. The data lacked representation from South and East Asian populations in the testing phase, which limits the ability to know exactly how well the cross-ancestry score performs for those specific groups. Expanding genetic databases to include more global populations is an ongoing challenge in medical research.
The participants tested in this study were all residents of the United States. It is unknown if the models would perform with the exact same accuracy in populations living in other environments or continents, where different lifestyle and environmental factors are at play.
The researchers also point out that these risk scores currently explain only a modest fraction of a person’s total risk for Alzheimer’s disease. A polygenic risk score is just one piece of the puzzle. Age, sex, specific rare genes, and environmental factors like diet and exercise all interact to determine whether someone will actually develop the disease. This study did not look at how a person’s environment might modify their genetic risk.
The study, “Cross-ancestry polygenic risk scores enhance Alzheimer’s disease risk prediction in multiethnic cohorts,” was authored by Meri Okorie, Caroline Jonson, Alexis P. Oddi, Patricia A. Castruita, Brian Fulton-Howard, Kristine Yaffe, Jennifer S. Yokoyama, Chinedu Udeh-Momoh, and Shea J. Andrews.
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Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
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#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #AlzheimersRisk #PolygenicRiskScore #MultiethnicGenomics #CrossAncestry #GeneticPrediction #DiversityInGenetics #AlzheimersDisease #Biomarkers #BrainHealth #NeurodegenerativeResearch
-
DATE: September 5, 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: Scientists build a more accurate Alzheimer’s risk score using global DNA data
Researchers have developed a new genetic risk scoring method that improves the prediction of Alzheimer’s disease across diverse populations, moving beyond the historical reliance on European genetic data. The findings indicate that blending genetic information from multiple global groups also helps predict biological markers of the disease. The research was published in Alzheimer’s & Dementia.
Alzheimer’s disease is a progressive neurological condition that slowly destroys memory and thinking skills. To understand who might be at the highest risk of developing the disease, scientists often use polygenic risk scores. A polygenic risk score is a tool that adds up the tiny effects of thousands of genetic variations across a person’s entire genetic code to estimate their overall inherited risk for a specific condition.
To build these scores, researchers rely on genome-wide association studies. These are large-scale projects that scan the DNA of thousands of people to find small genetic differences linked to a disease. Historically, these massive genetic databases have overwhelmingly featured individuals of European descent. A 2016 study showed that genetic risk scores built primarily from people of European descent lose substantial accuracy when applied to other ancestral groups. Because human genetics vary slightly across populations due to demographic history, a score that works well for a European individual often fails to predict disease risk for someone of African or Asian descent.
The push to solve this problem has led scientists to gather more diverse genetic data. For example, a study covered by PsyPost in 2025 found novel Alzheimer’s-linked genes by analyzing multi-ancestry genome data. To make use of this newly available information, statisticians have been designing new ways to combine the data. A 2023 study demonstrated that building risk scores from diverse, multi-ethnic groups consistently outperforms scores built from just one population.
Building on this progress, Meri Okorie, Shea J. Andrews, and their colleagues at the University of California, San Francisco, sought to test these new scoring models for Alzheimer’s disease. They wanted to see if a cross-ancestry approach could accurately predict not just the clinical diagnosis of Alzheimer’s, but also the underlying physical damage occurring in the brain, across a multiethnic group of older adults.
The researchers gathered genetic summary data from hundreds of thousands of individuals of European, African, Admixed American, East Asian, and Caribbean Hispanic descent. The term Admixed American refers to populations, such as many Latino or Hispanic individuals, whose ancestry is a complex mix of Indigenous American, European, and African genetics.
Using this diverse data, the team built three different types of polygenic risk scores. The first was a single-ancestry score, created using only the European genetic data. The second was a multi-ancestry score, which simply pooled all the genetic data from the different groups together. The third was a cross-ancestry score, an advanced statistical model that jointly analyzed the data from multiple populations to adjust how much weight each genetic variant should carry based on shared genetic effects. The researchers also used a specialized mathematical step called ancestry normalization to ensure the scores were scaled fairly across different genetic backgrounds.
To test these three scores, the researchers applied them to two large groups of patients living in the United States. The first testing group came from the Alzheimer’s Disease Sequencing Project. This sample included 19,398 individuals, with 7,111 diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease and 12,287 who were cognitively normal. The participants in this group were of European, Admixed American, and African descent.
The second testing group came from the Health and Aging Brain Study–Health Disparities. This group included 2,559 older adults of European, Admixed American, and African descent. For all analyses, the researchers adjusted for factors like age, sex, and the presence of the APOE gene. The APOE gene is a well-established genetic variation that strongly increases Alzheimer’s risk on its own, so controlling for it allowed the researchers to see the effect of the broader polygenic risk score.
In addition to looking at whether participants were diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, the researchers looked at objective medical measurements. These included cognitive test scores assessing memory and language, brain scans, and the analysis of cerebrospinal fluid. Cerebrospinal fluid is the liquid that surrounds the brain and spinal cord, and it can be tested for specific proteins that act as warning signs for Alzheimer’s disease.
The researchers found that the single-ancestry score, built only from European data, performed poorly outside of European populations. While it worked well for predicting Alzheimer’s risk in participants of European descent, its accuracy dropped noticeably in Admixed American participants. For participants of African ancestry, the single-ancestry score completely failed to predict Alzheimer’s disease risk.
In contrast, the cross-ancestry score showed the highest predictive performance across the board. When applied to participants of African ancestry, a higher cross-ancestry score was associated with a 71 percent increase in the odds of having an Alzheimer’s diagnosis compared to the baseline risk. This advanced scoring model also maintained high accuracy for Admixed American and European participants, providing a more balanced predictive tool for diverse populations.
Beyond predicting a clinical diagnosis, the cross-ancestry score successfully predicted physical and cognitive signs of the disease. Across the testing groups, higher cross-ancestry risk scores were tied to poorer performance in cognitive domains like memory, language, and executive function. Executive function refers to mental skills that include working memory, flexible thinking, and self-control.
The cross-ancestry score also aligned with biomarkers of the disease in the body. Individuals with higher genetic risk scores tended to have lower levels of amyloid-beta 42 in their cerebrospinal fluid. In the context of Alzheimer’s disease, a drop of this specific protein in the spinal fluid indicates that the protein is clumping together inside the brain to form harmful plaques.
The researchers also looked at autopsy data and advanced brain imaging. They found that participants with the highest cross-ancestry polygenic risk scores had a higher probability of being in the most severe categories of brain pathology. This indicates that the genetic risk score is not only catching surface-level symptoms but is reflecting the advanced physical accumulation of plaques and tangles that destroy brain tissue.
There are a few things to keep in mind regarding this study. The data lacked representation from South and East Asian populations in the testing phase, which limits the ability to know exactly how well the cross-ancestry score performs for those specific groups. Expanding genetic databases to include more global populations is an ongoing challenge in medical research.
The participants tested in this study were all residents of the United States. It is unknown if the models would perform with the exact same accuracy in populations living in other environments or continents, where different lifestyle and environmental factors are at play.
The researchers also point out that these risk scores currently explain only a modest fraction of a person’s total risk for Alzheimer’s disease. A polygenic risk score is just one piece of the puzzle. Age, sex, specific rare genes, and environmental factors like diet and exercise all interact to determine whether someone will actually develop the disease. This study did not look at how a person’s environment might modify their genetic risk.
The study, “Cross-ancestry polygenic risk scores enhance Alzheimer’s disease risk prediction in multiethnic cohorts,” was authored by Meri Okorie, Caroline Jonson, Alexis P. Oddi, Patricia A. Castruita, Brian Fulton-Howard, Kristine Yaffe, Jennifer S. Yokoyama, Chinedu Udeh-Momoh, and Shea J. Andrews.
-------------------------------------------------
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-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #AlzheimersRisk #PolygenicRiskScore #MultiethnicGenomics #CrossAncestry #GeneticPrediction #DiversityInGenetics #AlzheimersDisease #Biomarkers #BrainHealth #NeurodegenerativeResearch
-
DATE: September 5, 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: Scientists build a more accurate Alzheimer’s risk score using global DNA data
Researchers have developed a new genetic risk scoring method that improves the prediction of Alzheimer’s disease across diverse populations, moving beyond the historical reliance on European genetic data. The findings indicate that blending genetic information from multiple global groups also helps predict biological markers of the disease. The research was published in Alzheimer’s & Dementia.
Alzheimer’s disease is a progressive neurological condition that slowly destroys memory and thinking skills. To understand who might be at the highest risk of developing the disease, scientists often use polygenic risk scores. A polygenic risk score is a tool that adds up the tiny effects of thousands of genetic variations across a person’s entire genetic code to estimate their overall inherited risk for a specific condition.
To build these scores, researchers rely on genome-wide association studies. These are large-scale projects that scan the DNA of thousands of people to find small genetic differences linked to a disease. Historically, these massive genetic databases have overwhelmingly featured individuals of European descent. A 2016 study showed that genetic risk scores built primarily from people of European descent lose substantial accuracy when applied to other ancestral groups. Because human genetics vary slightly across populations due to demographic history, a score that works well for a European individual often fails to predict disease risk for someone of African or Asian descent.
The push to solve this problem has led scientists to gather more diverse genetic data. For example, a study covered by PsyPost in 2025 found novel Alzheimer’s-linked genes by analyzing multi-ancestry genome data. To make use of this newly available information, statisticians have been designing new ways to combine the data. A 2023 study demonstrated that building risk scores from diverse, multi-ethnic groups consistently outperforms scores built from just one population.
Building on this progress, Meri Okorie, Shea J. Andrews, and their colleagues at the University of California, San Francisco, sought to test these new scoring models for Alzheimer’s disease. They wanted to see if a cross-ancestry approach could accurately predict not just the clinical diagnosis of Alzheimer’s, but also the underlying physical damage occurring in the brain, across a multiethnic group of older adults.
The researchers gathered genetic summary data from hundreds of thousands of individuals of European, African, Admixed American, East Asian, and Caribbean Hispanic descent. The term Admixed American refers to populations, such as many Latino or Hispanic individuals, whose ancestry is a complex mix of Indigenous American, European, and African genetics.
Using this diverse data, the team built three different types of polygenic risk scores. The first was a single-ancestry score, created using only the European genetic data. The second was a multi-ancestry score, which simply pooled all the genetic data from the different groups together. The third was a cross-ancestry score, an advanced statistical model that jointly analyzed the data from multiple populations to adjust how much weight each genetic variant should carry based on shared genetic effects. The researchers also used a specialized mathematical step called ancestry normalization to ensure the scores were scaled fairly across different genetic backgrounds.
To test these three scores, the researchers applied them to two large groups of patients living in the United States. The first testing group came from the Alzheimer’s Disease Sequencing Project. This sample included 19,398 individuals, with 7,111 diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease and 12,287 who were cognitively normal. The participants in this group were of European, Admixed American, and African descent.
The second testing group came from the Health and Aging Brain Study–Health Disparities. This group included 2,559 older adults of European, Admixed American, and African descent. For all analyses, the researchers adjusted for factors like age, sex, and the presence of the APOE gene. The APOE gene is a well-established genetic variation that strongly increases Alzheimer’s risk on its own, so controlling for it allowed the researchers to see the effect of the broader polygenic risk score.
In addition to looking at whether participants were diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, the researchers looked at objective medical measurements. These included cognitive test scores assessing memory and language, brain scans, and the analysis of cerebrospinal fluid. Cerebrospinal fluid is the liquid that surrounds the brain and spinal cord, and it can be tested for specific proteins that act as warning signs for Alzheimer’s disease.
The researchers found that the single-ancestry score, built only from European data, performed poorly outside of European populations. While it worked well for predicting Alzheimer’s risk in participants of European descent, its accuracy dropped noticeably in Admixed American participants. For participants of African ancestry, the single-ancestry score completely failed to predict Alzheimer’s disease risk.
In contrast, the cross-ancestry score showed the highest predictive performance across the board. When applied to participants of African ancestry, a higher cross-ancestry score was associated with a 71 percent increase in the odds of having an Alzheimer’s diagnosis compared to the baseline risk. This advanced scoring model also maintained high accuracy for Admixed American and European participants, providing a more balanced predictive tool for diverse populations.
Beyond predicting a clinical diagnosis, the cross-ancestry score successfully predicted physical and cognitive signs of the disease. Across the testing groups, higher cross-ancestry risk scores were tied to poorer performance in cognitive domains like memory, language, and executive function. Executive function refers to mental skills that include working memory, flexible thinking, and self-control.
The cross-ancestry score also aligned with biomarkers of the disease in the body. Individuals with higher genetic risk scores tended to have lower levels of amyloid-beta 42 in their cerebrospinal fluid. In the context of Alzheimer’s disease, a drop of this specific protein in the spinal fluid indicates that the protein is clumping together inside the brain to form harmful plaques.
The researchers also looked at autopsy data and advanced brain imaging. They found that participants with the highest cross-ancestry polygenic risk scores had a higher probability of being in the most severe categories of brain pathology. This indicates that the genetic risk score is not only catching surface-level symptoms but is reflecting the advanced physical accumulation of plaques and tangles that destroy brain tissue.
There are a few things to keep in mind regarding this study. The data lacked representation from South and East Asian populations in the testing phase, which limits the ability to know exactly how well the cross-ancestry score performs for those specific groups. Expanding genetic databases to include more global populations is an ongoing challenge in medical research.
The participants tested in this study were all residents of the United States. It is unknown if the models would perform with the exact same accuracy in populations living in other environments or continents, where different lifestyle and environmental factors are at play.
The researchers also point out that these risk scores currently explain only a modest fraction of a person’s total risk for Alzheimer’s disease. A polygenic risk score is just one piece of the puzzle. Age, sex, specific rare genes, and environmental factors like diet and exercise all interact to determine whether someone will actually develop the disease. This study did not look at how a person’s environment might modify their genetic risk.
The study, “Cross-ancestry polygenic risk scores enhance Alzheimer’s disease risk prediction in multiethnic cohorts,” was authored by Meri Okorie, Caroline Jonson, Alexis P. Oddi, Patricia A. Castruita, Brian Fulton-Howard, Kristine Yaffe, Jennifer S. Yokoyama, Chinedu Udeh-Momoh, and Shea J. Andrews.
-------------------------------------------------
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
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #AlzheimersRisk #PolygenicRiskScore #MultiethnicGenomics #CrossAncestry #GeneticPrediction #DiversityInGenetics #AlzheimersDisease #Biomarkers #BrainHealth #NeurodegenerativeResearch
-
DATE: September 5, 2026 at 11:00AM
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: Personality impairments link childhood maltreatment to adult anxiety
URL: https://www.psypost.org/how-childhood-emotional-abuse-and-neglect-fuel-adult-anxiety-symptoms/
A history of childhood maltreatment is strongly linked to the development of anxiety in adulthood, an association largely explained by disruptions in how a person perceives themselves and connects with others. A recent study published in the journal Psychological Reports details how emotional abuse and neglect shape adult anxiety symptoms by impairing fundamental personality traits. By identifying these underlying psychological pathways, the research points toward more personalized therapeutic strategies for patients dealing with the lasting effects of early trauma.
Generalized anxiety disorder involves excessive, persistent worry about everyday events that is disproportionate to the actual risks. It is one of the most common mental health conditions globally, affecting hundreds of millions of people. Rates of anxiety disorders grew notably during the recent global pandemic.
Childhood maltreatment is an established risk factor for developing severe and treatment-resistant anxiety. This maltreatment encompasses physical abuse, emotional abuse, sexual abuse, emotional neglect, and physical neglect. Stephanie Vaccarezza, a clinical psychologist at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, led a research team to investigate the psychological mechanisms connecting early adversity to later anxiety. They were particularly interested in how these dynamics unfold in clinical settings where patients are actively seeking mental health treatment.
The researchers focused on a concept called “personality functioning.” In modern psychiatric models, personality functioning describes how well a person navigates their own identity and their relationships with others. Evaluating this functioning helps clinicians understand the severity of personality disruptions in a highly individualized way.
Personality functioning is divided into two main areas. The first is self-functioning, which encompasses a person’s sense of identity, self-esteem, and ability to set meaningful life goals. It also includes the capacity for emotional regulation and productive self-reflection. The second area is interpersonal functioning, which involves empathy, the desire for closeness, and the ability to maintain mutually beneficial relationships with others.
When these capacities are impaired, individuals often struggle with their self-worth and social interactions. The researchers hypothesized that early emotional and physical maltreatment disrupts the normal development of these core capacities. This disruption leaves individuals more vulnerable to internalized distress, which often surfaces as anxiety later in life.
To test this idea, the researchers recruited 335 adults who were beginning individual psychotherapy. The participants were drawn from four mental health outpatient centers in Santiago, Chile. The group included a mix of patients seeking help for various difficulties, with the majority having completed university or technical education.
The participants completed a series of intake questionnaires designed to assess their early life experiences, current personality functioning, and anxiety levels. The childhood maltreatment survey asked participants to rate how often they experienced different forms of abuse and neglect while growing up. Emotional abuse includes verbal assaults or humiliating actions directed at a child. Emotional neglect refers to a caregiver failing to meet a child’s basic psychological needs for love, belonging, and support.
The researchers measured personality functioning by asking participants to rate statements about their self-perception, emotional regulation, and relationship dynamics. The responses allowed the team to gauge impairments in both self-functioning and interpersonal functioning. Finally, the researchers evaluated the participants for symptoms of generalized anxiety using a standard symptom checklist.
The team then used statistical models to analyze the relationships between the different types of childhood maltreatment, personality impairments, and anxiety levels. They specifically looked for mediation effects, which occur when a third variable explains the relationship between an initial predictor and a final outcome. They utilized a statistical technique that simulates a thousand data samples to ensure the mathematical reliability of their findings.
The researchers found that 64.2 percent of the patients reported experiencing at least one type of childhood maltreatment. Emotional abuse was the most common form, affecting 43 percent of the participants, followed closely by sexual abuse and physical neglect. A smaller subset of patients reported experiencing all five types of maltreatment.
More than half of the total sample met the diagnostic criteria for generalized anxiety disorder. Women in the study had statistically higher odds of experiencing anxiety symptoms compared to men. Women were also more likely to report histories of childhood sexual abuse.
Overall, a higher total score for childhood maltreatment was associated with higher levels of anxiety. When looking at the specific types of maltreatment, only emotional abuse and emotional neglect showed a robust total effect on adult anxiety. Physical abuse, physical neglect, and sexual abuse were not statistically significant predictors of higher anxiety scores in this specific analysis.
Personality functioning proved to be a major factor in connecting early maltreatment to current anxiety. Impairments in overall personality functioning accounted for roughly 73 percent of the total relationship between childhood maltreatment and adult anxiety. Both self-functioning and interpersonal functioning played major roles in this dynamic.
Impairments in self-functioning had a slightly larger impact than impairments in interpersonal relationships. For emotional abuse, self-functioning explained a larger proportion of the resulting anxiety symptoms than interpersonal functioning did. The same pattern held true for emotional neglect, where self-functioning again proved to be the stronger mediator.
For patients who experienced emotional neglect, the relationship with adult anxiety was entirely explained by diminished personality functioning. In other words, emotional neglect did not show a direct statistical link to anxiety except through the way it hindered a person’s self-perception and social skills. Emotional abuse, on the other hand, retained a direct statistical link to adult anxiety, though personality impairments still accounted for more than half of its total effect.
The study relied on retrospective self-reports, meaning participants had to recall events from their childhoods. This method can sometimes introduce memory biases or subjective interpretations of past events. The participants were also predominantly highly educated and recruited mostly from private clinics, which means the results might not perfectly represent the broader public.
Additionally, the data was collected at a single point in time when the patients were starting therapy. This cross-sectional design makes it impossible to establish a firm trajectory of cause and effect, as the researchers could not observe how anxiety symptoms or personality functioning changed over the course of treatment. Future studies will need to track individuals over several years to confirm how these psychological mechanisms unfold during human development.
The researchers noted that therapy for adult anxiety often focuses heavily on reducing immediate symptoms. For patients with a history of emotional maltreatment, clinical interventions might be more successful if they also target core self-esteem, identity, and relationship skills. By treating the underlying personality impairments, clinicians can help patients build the emotional regulation necessary to manage long-term anxiety.
The study, “Childhood Maltreatment and Anxiety in Adulthood: Disentangling the Role of Personality Functioning,” was authored by Stephanie Vaccarezza, Sebastián Opazo, Adrian P. Mundt, Alejandra Cortázar, and Paula Errazuriz.
URL: https://www.psypost.org/how-childhood-emotional-abuse-and-neglect-fuel-adult-anxiety-symptoms/
-------------------------------------------------
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
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #ChildhoodMaltreatment #AdultAnxiety #PersonalityFunctioning #SelfFunctioning #InterpersonalFunctioning #EmotionalAbuse #EmotionalNeglect #TraumaTherapy #AnxietyResearch #MentalHealthAwareness
-
DATE: September 5, 2026 at 11:00AM
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: Personality impairments link childhood maltreatment to adult anxiety
URL: https://www.psypost.org/how-childhood-emotional-abuse-and-neglect-fuel-adult-anxiety-symptoms/
A history of childhood maltreatment is strongly linked to the development of anxiety in adulthood, an association largely explained by disruptions in how a person perceives themselves and connects with others. A recent study published in the journal Psychological Reports details how emotional abuse and neglect shape adult anxiety symptoms by impairing fundamental personality traits. By identifying these underlying psychological pathways, the research points toward more personalized therapeutic strategies for patients dealing with the lasting effects of early trauma.
Generalized anxiety disorder involves excessive, persistent worry about everyday events that is disproportionate to the actual risks. It is one of the most common mental health conditions globally, affecting hundreds of millions of people. Rates of anxiety disorders grew notably during the recent global pandemic.
Childhood maltreatment is an established risk factor for developing severe and treatment-resistant anxiety. This maltreatment encompasses physical abuse, emotional abuse, sexual abuse, emotional neglect, and physical neglect. Stephanie Vaccarezza, a clinical psychologist at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, led a research team to investigate the psychological mechanisms connecting early adversity to later anxiety. They were particularly interested in how these dynamics unfold in clinical settings where patients are actively seeking mental health treatment.
The researchers focused on a concept called “personality functioning.” In modern psychiatric models, personality functioning describes how well a person navigates their own identity and their relationships with others. Evaluating this functioning helps clinicians understand the severity of personality disruptions in a highly individualized way.
Personality functioning is divided into two main areas. The first is self-functioning, which encompasses a person’s sense of identity, self-esteem, and ability to set meaningful life goals. It also includes the capacity for emotional regulation and productive self-reflection. The second area is interpersonal functioning, which involves empathy, the desire for closeness, and the ability to maintain mutually beneficial relationships with others.
When these capacities are impaired, individuals often struggle with their self-worth and social interactions. The researchers hypothesized that early emotional and physical maltreatment disrupts the normal development of these core capacities. This disruption leaves individuals more vulnerable to internalized distress, which often surfaces as anxiety later in life.
To test this idea, the researchers recruited 335 adults who were beginning individual psychotherapy. The participants were drawn from four mental health outpatient centers in Santiago, Chile. The group included a mix of patients seeking help for various difficulties, with the majority having completed university or technical education.
The participants completed a series of intake questionnaires designed to assess their early life experiences, current personality functioning, and anxiety levels. The childhood maltreatment survey asked participants to rate how often they experienced different forms of abuse and neglect while growing up. Emotional abuse includes verbal assaults or humiliating actions directed at a child. Emotional neglect refers to a caregiver failing to meet a child’s basic psychological needs for love, belonging, and support.
The researchers measured personality functioning by asking participants to rate statements about their self-perception, emotional regulation, and relationship dynamics. The responses allowed the team to gauge impairments in both self-functioning and interpersonal functioning. Finally, the researchers evaluated the participants for symptoms of generalized anxiety using a standard symptom checklist.
The team then used statistical models to analyze the relationships between the different types of childhood maltreatment, personality impairments, and anxiety levels. They specifically looked for mediation effects, which occur when a third variable explains the relationship between an initial predictor and a final outcome. They utilized a statistical technique that simulates a thousand data samples to ensure the mathematical reliability of their findings.
The researchers found that 64.2 percent of the patients reported experiencing at least one type of childhood maltreatment. Emotional abuse was the most common form, affecting 43 percent of the participants, followed closely by sexual abuse and physical neglect. A smaller subset of patients reported experiencing all five types of maltreatment.
More than half of the total sample met the diagnostic criteria for generalized anxiety disorder. Women in the study had statistically higher odds of experiencing anxiety symptoms compared to men. Women were also more likely to report histories of childhood sexual abuse.
Overall, a higher total score for childhood maltreatment was associated with higher levels of anxiety. When looking at the specific types of maltreatment, only emotional abuse and emotional neglect showed a robust total effect on adult anxiety. Physical abuse, physical neglect, and sexual abuse were not statistically significant predictors of higher anxiety scores in this specific analysis.
Personality functioning proved to be a major factor in connecting early maltreatment to current anxiety. Impairments in overall personality functioning accounted for roughly 73 percent of the total relationship between childhood maltreatment and adult anxiety. Both self-functioning and interpersonal functioning played major roles in this dynamic.
Impairments in self-functioning had a slightly larger impact than impairments in interpersonal relationships. For emotional abuse, self-functioning explained a larger proportion of the resulting anxiety symptoms than interpersonal functioning did. The same pattern held true for emotional neglect, where self-functioning again proved to be the stronger mediator.
For patients who experienced emotional neglect, the relationship with adult anxiety was entirely explained by diminished personality functioning. In other words, emotional neglect did not show a direct statistical link to anxiety except through the way it hindered a person’s self-perception and social skills. Emotional abuse, on the other hand, retained a direct statistical link to adult anxiety, though personality impairments still accounted for more than half of its total effect.
The study relied on retrospective self-reports, meaning participants had to recall events from their childhoods. This method can sometimes introduce memory biases or subjective interpretations of past events. The participants were also predominantly highly educated and recruited mostly from private clinics, which means the results might not perfectly represent the broader public.
Additionally, the data was collected at a single point in time when the patients were starting therapy. This cross-sectional design makes it impossible to establish a firm trajectory of cause and effect, as the researchers could not observe how anxiety symptoms or personality functioning changed over the course of treatment. Future studies will need to track individuals over several years to confirm how these psychological mechanisms unfold during human development.
The researchers noted that therapy for adult anxiety often focuses heavily on reducing immediate symptoms. For patients with a history of emotional maltreatment, clinical interventions might be more successful if they also target core self-esteem, identity, and relationship skills. By treating the underlying personality impairments, clinicians can help patients build the emotional regulation necessary to manage long-term anxiety.
The study, “Childhood Maltreatment and Anxiety in Adulthood: Disentangling the Role of Personality Functioning,” was authored by Stephanie Vaccarezza, Sebastián Opazo, Adrian P. Mundt, Alejandra Cortázar, and Paula Errazuriz.
URL: https://www.psypost.org/how-childhood-emotional-abuse-and-neglect-fuel-adult-anxiety-symptoms/
-------------------------------------------------
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
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #ChildhoodMaltreatment #AdultAnxiety #PersonalityFunctioning #SelfFunctioning #InterpersonalFunctioning #EmotionalAbuse #EmotionalNeglect #TraumaTherapy #AnxietyResearch #MentalHealthAwareness
-
DATE: September 5, 2026 at 11:00AM
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: Personality impairments link childhood maltreatment to adult anxiety
URL: https://www.psypost.org/how-childhood-emotional-abuse-and-neglect-fuel-adult-anxiety-symptoms/
A history of childhood maltreatment is strongly linked to the development of anxiety in adulthood, an association largely explained by disruptions in how a person perceives themselves and connects with others. A recent study published in the journal Psychological Reports details how emotional abuse and neglect shape adult anxiety symptoms by impairing fundamental personality traits. By identifying these underlying psychological pathways, the research points toward more personalized therapeutic strategies for patients dealing with the lasting effects of early trauma.
Generalized anxiety disorder involves excessive, persistent worry about everyday events that is disproportionate to the actual risks. It is one of the most common mental health conditions globally, affecting hundreds of millions of people. Rates of anxiety disorders grew notably during the recent global pandemic.
Childhood maltreatment is an established risk factor for developing severe and treatment-resistant anxiety. This maltreatment encompasses physical abuse, emotional abuse, sexual abuse, emotional neglect, and physical neglect. Stephanie Vaccarezza, a clinical psychologist at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, led a research team to investigate the psychological mechanisms connecting early adversity to later anxiety. They were particularly interested in how these dynamics unfold in clinical settings where patients are actively seeking mental health treatment.
The researchers focused on a concept called “personality functioning.” In modern psychiatric models, personality functioning describes how well a person navigates their own identity and their relationships with others. Evaluating this functioning helps clinicians understand the severity of personality disruptions in a highly individualized way.
Personality functioning is divided into two main areas. The first is self-functioning, which encompasses a person’s sense of identity, self-esteem, and ability to set meaningful life goals. It also includes the capacity for emotional regulation and productive self-reflection. The second area is interpersonal functioning, which involves empathy, the desire for closeness, and the ability to maintain mutually beneficial relationships with others.
When these capacities are impaired, individuals often struggle with their self-worth and social interactions. The researchers hypothesized that early emotional and physical maltreatment disrupts the normal development of these core capacities. This disruption leaves individuals more vulnerable to internalized distress, which often surfaces as anxiety later in life.
To test this idea, the researchers recruited 335 adults who were beginning individual psychotherapy. The participants were drawn from four mental health outpatient centers in Santiago, Chile. The group included a mix of patients seeking help for various difficulties, with the majority having completed university or technical education.
The participants completed a series of intake questionnaires designed to assess their early life experiences, current personality functioning, and anxiety levels. The childhood maltreatment survey asked participants to rate how often they experienced different forms of abuse and neglect while growing up. Emotional abuse includes verbal assaults or humiliating actions directed at a child. Emotional neglect refers to a caregiver failing to meet a child’s basic psychological needs for love, belonging, and support.
The researchers measured personality functioning by asking participants to rate statements about their self-perception, emotional regulation, and relationship dynamics. The responses allowed the team to gauge impairments in both self-functioning and interpersonal functioning. Finally, the researchers evaluated the participants for symptoms of generalized anxiety using a standard symptom checklist.
The team then used statistical models to analyze the relationships between the different types of childhood maltreatment, personality impairments, and anxiety levels. They specifically looked for mediation effects, which occur when a third variable explains the relationship between an initial predictor and a final outcome. They utilized a statistical technique that simulates a thousand data samples to ensure the mathematical reliability of their findings.
The researchers found that 64.2 percent of the patients reported experiencing at least one type of childhood maltreatment. Emotional abuse was the most common form, affecting 43 percent of the participants, followed closely by sexual abuse and physical neglect. A smaller subset of patients reported experiencing all five types of maltreatment.
More than half of the total sample met the diagnostic criteria for generalized anxiety disorder. Women in the study had statistically higher odds of experiencing anxiety symptoms compared to men. Women were also more likely to report histories of childhood sexual abuse.
Overall, a higher total score for childhood maltreatment was associated with higher levels of anxiety. When looking at the specific types of maltreatment, only emotional abuse and emotional neglect showed a robust total effect on adult anxiety. Physical abuse, physical neglect, and sexual abuse were not statistically significant predictors of higher anxiety scores in this specific analysis.
Personality functioning proved to be a major factor in connecting early maltreatment to current anxiety. Impairments in overall personality functioning accounted for roughly 73 percent of the total relationship between childhood maltreatment and adult anxiety. Both self-functioning and interpersonal functioning played major roles in this dynamic.
Impairments in self-functioning had a slightly larger impact than impairments in interpersonal relationships. For emotional abuse, self-functioning explained a larger proportion of the resulting anxiety symptoms than interpersonal functioning did. The same pattern held true for emotional neglect, where self-functioning again proved to be the stronger mediator.
For patients who experienced emotional neglect, the relationship with adult anxiety was entirely explained by diminished personality functioning. In other words, emotional neglect did not show a direct statistical link to anxiety except through the way it hindered a person’s self-perception and social skills. Emotional abuse, on the other hand, retained a direct statistical link to adult anxiety, though personality impairments still accounted for more than half of its total effect.
The study relied on retrospective self-reports, meaning participants had to recall events from their childhoods. This method can sometimes introduce memory biases or subjective interpretations of past events. The participants were also predominantly highly educated and recruited mostly from private clinics, which means the results might not perfectly represent the broader public.
Additionally, the data was collected at a single point in time when the patients were starting therapy. This cross-sectional design makes it impossible to establish a firm trajectory of cause and effect, as the researchers could not observe how anxiety symptoms or personality functioning changed over the course of treatment. Future studies will need to track individuals over several years to confirm how these psychological mechanisms unfold during human development.
The researchers noted that therapy for adult anxiety often focuses heavily on reducing immediate symptoms. For patients with a history of emotional maltreatment, clinical interventions might be more successful if they also target core self-esteem, identity, and relationship skills. By treating the underlying personality impairments, clinicians can help patients build the emotional regulation necessary to manage long-term anxiety.
The study, “Childhood Maltreatment and Anxiety in Adulthood: Disentangling the Role of Personality Functioning,” was authored by Stephanie Vaccarezza, Sebastián Opazo, Adrian P. Mundt, Alejandra Cortázar, and Paula Errazuriz.
URL: https://www.psypost.org/how-childhood-emotional-abuse-and-neglect-fuel-adult-anxiety-symptoms/
-------------------------------------------------
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-
DATE: September 5, 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: First human trial of psilocin since the 1960s reveals better tolerability than psilocybin
Recent research suggests that consuming psilocin, the active compound in “magic” mushrooms, might cause fewer side effects than taking psilocybin. The study also explored taking the drug under the tongue, finding it well tolerated though less intense at the tested doses. The findings were published in Journal of Psychopharmacology.
Psilocybin is a naturally occurring compound found in certain hallucinogenic mushrooms. In recent years, it has gained attention as a potential treatment for mental health conditions. For example, a study covered by PsyPost in 2021 noted that psilocybin therapy could offer symptom relief comparable to some conventional antidepressants.
However, psilocybin itself does not directly cause psychedelic effects. It is a prodrug, meaning the body must break it down to activate it. When a person swallows psilocybin, enzymes in the gut and liver strip away a phosphate molecule, converting it into a new chemical called psilocin.
Psilocin is the active substance that enters the brain and alters perception. In fact, a 2019 study indicated that the intensity of a person’s psychedelic experience closely matches the concentration of psilocin circulating in their blood. Because the body’s conversion process can vary from person to person, standard oral psilocybin often yields unpredictable results and tends to cause unpleasant side effects.
“Nearly every modern psilocybin trial has used the same thing: synthetic psilocybin, 25 mg, in a capsule,” Josh Woolley, an associate professor of psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco and director of the Translational Psychedelic Research Program, told PsyPost. “There are reasons to think other options might work better. Psilocybin is a prodrug, so the body has to convert it to psilocin, and people vary a lot in how efficiently they do that. That may be part of why responses to a fixed dose are so variable.”
Researchers wanted to know if administering psilocin directly would skip this metabolic step, potentially offering a gentler and more predictable experience. They also wanted to test a sublingual route, which involves placing a dissolving tablet under the tongue. Sublingual administration allows a drug to absorb directly into the bloodstream through the tissues of the mouth, completely bypassing the digestive system.
“Nobody had given psilocin directly to a human since the 1960s, and nobody had tried a sublingual formulation of any of these compounds,” Woolley noted.
Additionally, the research team used botanical extracts rather than lab-made synthetic chemicals. These whole-mushroom formulations contain natural trace compounds, known as alkaloids, alongside the primary drug. Alkaloids are naturally occurring chemical compounds found in plants and fungi that produce physiological effects on the body, and some researchers suspect they might influence the overall experience. “Mushrooms contain other alkaloids besides psilocybin, and standardized botanical extracts now make it possible to test whole-mushroom formulations under pharmaceutical conditions, which hadn’t been done,” Woolley said.
The research, led by Marlene L. Tai and Woolley, aimed to compare these different methods in a controlled setting. The scientists recruited 20 healthy adults between the ages of 25 and 50. All participants had prior experience with psychedelics and reported mild feelings of social disconnection. The study used a crossover design, meaning each person received multiple different treatments on separate days to compare the effects within the same individual.
Participants attended up to four drug administration sessions spaced four weeks apart. During these sessions, they received either an oral capsule of psilocybin (25 milligrams), an oral capsule of psilocin (17.5 milligrams, a dose designed to match the psilocybin strength), or a sublingual tablet of psilocin. The initial sublingual dose was set low at 2.18 milligrams and later increased to 4.36 milligrams or 8 milligrams to assess safety and tolerability.
All sessions took place in a comfortable clinic room where participants wore eyeshades and listened to music. A therapist and an assistant stayed in the room to provide psychological support. Throughout the day, the research team measured blood pressure and heart rate, while participants rated the intensity of the drug’s effects every 15 to 30 minutes.
At the end of each session, participants completed several questionnaires. These surveys measured the emotional and psychological qualities of their experience, including feelings of unity, emotional breakthroughs, and challenging states like fear or paranoia.
When comparing the two oral capsules, the scientists found that psilocin produced a psychological and physical journey that was very similar to psilocybin. The onset time, peak intensity, and duration of the experiences were mostly indistinguishable. Both drugs reliably produced deep psychological insights and mystical-type experiences.
“We expected psilocin to come on faster, since it skips a metabolic step, and it didn’t,” Woolley explained. “The two were hard to tell apart on almost every measure.”
However, oral psilocin was associated with a lower overall burden of adverse side effects. While almost all participants experienced mild issues on both drugs, oral psilocybin was linked to more moderate and severe events. These included headaches, anxiety, and one instance of transient loss of consciousness. Interestingly, gastrointestinal issues like nausea were similar between the two oral drugs, suggesting that stomach upset is not solely caused by the body breaking down psilocybin.
“The tolerability difference was modest, not dramatic,” Woolley said. “Fewer and milder adverse events on average, mostly headache and anxiety, rather than a categorical improvement. Whether that matters clinically depends on the setting. In a treatment where one session already requires eight hours of monitoring, small reductions in burden can add up. But this was 18 people per condition, so it’s a signal worth following, not an established difference.”
The sublingual psilocin tablets proved safe and were well tolerated by the participants. But the physical and psychological effects were much milder than the oral doses. The subjective intensity and cardiovascular responses were noticeably lower, indicating that less of the drug made its way into the systemic circulation at the tested amounts.
“At the cautious doses we used with FDA input, we clearly didn’t reach the exposure needed to test whether the route has real advantages,” Woolley noted. “This is an early study in 20 healthy volunteers. It’s a first look, not a verdict.”
Despite the milder overall intensity, sublingual psilocin still facilitated notable psychological responses. Participants reported scores on measures of emotional breakthrough and psychological insight that rivaled those typically seen with much higher oral doses. The authors noted that this suggests even mild psychedelic exposures might offer some therapeutic benefit.
“One result we’re still thinking about,” the researcher stated. “Even the very mild sublingual doses produced emotional breakthrough scores comparable to the full 25 mg doses. That could be a false positive, or an effect of the psychotherapy rather than the drug. But if it holds, it raises a real question about whether an intense psychedelic experience is necessary for the psychological benefits people are after.”
In an exploratory analysis, the researchers also compared their botanical mushroom extracts to data from a separate trial that used synthetic psilocybin. The psychological effects were broadly similar. This provides evidence that standardized whole-mushroom extracts function much like lab-made versions, offering a viable alternative for future treatments.
“On the botanical question, our comparison was with data from a previously published trial of synthetic psilocybin, not with a synthetic arm in our own study,” Woolley explained. “Two different populations, two different settings. So the fair statement is that we saw nothing that would suggest a big difference, not that we ruled one out. Testing the ‘entourage effect’ properly would require a head-to-head comparison in the same trial.” This entourage effect is the theory that multiple natural compounds within a plant or mushroom work together synergistically to produce stronger or different effects than an isolated chemical alone.
As with all research, there are a few things to keep in mind. The study included a small group of healthy, highly educated volunteers who already had experience with psychedelics. Because of this, it is not guaranteed that people with severe mental health conditions or those entirely new to psychedelics would respond in the exact same way.
The researchers also emphasized the strict clinical environment used during the trial. “The main one is that nothing here suggests people should be taking mushroom extracts on their own or trying to convert psilocybin to psilocin at home,” Woolley warned. “These were pharmaceutical grade products made to Good Manufacturing Practice standards, given under continuous medical supervision with a licensed therapist present throughout. That matters. One participant briefly lost consciousness during a psilocybin session, which we’ve reported separately, and it was handled because clinicians were in the room.”
The trial also lacked a pure inactive placebo group. Because the sublingual doses produced noticeably milder physical sensations than the oral capsules, participants and therapists were often able to guess which treatment had been administered. This awareness could have influenced the subjective survey responses.
Finally, the research team did not collect blood samples during the sessions. Without measuring the actual concentration of psilocin in the blood, it is difficult to know exactly how much of the sublingual drug was absorbed or how individual metabolisms processed the oral capsules. Future studies will need to incorporate blood testing and try higher sublingual doses to fully evaluate this delivery method.
“Measuring actual psilocin levels is what would let us link formulation to exposure to effect, and its absence was our main limitation here,” Woolley observed. “Sublingual psilocin needs a proper dose-ranging study at higher doses. And eventually this has to be tested in people with the conditions these drugs might treat, not just healthy volunteers.”
Moving forward, the team intends to share additional findings from the current participants. “We have a companion paper in preparation from this same trial looking at longer-term psychological outcomes, including loneliness, out to six months,” Woolley, who also serves as a staff psychiatrist at the San Francisco VA Medical Center, added. “That’s the other half of the story and we’ll have more to say when it’s out.”
The study, “A randomized crossover trial comparing the acute physiological and psychological effects of botanical formulations of oral psilocybin, oral psilocin, and sublingual psilocin,” was authored by Marlene L. Tai, Balázs Szigeti, Amanda E. Downey, Jacob S. Aday, Lisa Fredenburg, Kimberly Sakai, Cesar Molina, Gisele Fernandes-Osterhold, Ellen R. Bradley, Maddie Pantoni, Ryan Moss, Benjamin Lightburn, Franziska Plessow, Aoife O’Donovan, and Josh D. Woolley.
-------------------------------------------------
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-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #psilocin #psilocybin #psychedelicresearch #mentalhealth #sublingual #botanicalextracts #psychopharmacology #entourageeffect #clinicaltrial #psychedelics
-
DATE: September 5, 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: First human trial of psilocin since the 1960s reveals better tolerability than psilocybin
Recent research suggests that consuming psilocin, the active compound in “magic” mushrooms, might cause fewer side effects than taking psilocybin. The study also explored taking the drug under the tongue, finding it well tolerated though less intense at the tested doses. The findings were published in Journal of Psychopharmacology.
Psilocybin is a naturally occurring compound found in certain hallucinogenic mushrooms. In recent years, it has gained attention as a potential treatment for mental health conditions. For example, a study covered by PsyPost in 2021 noted that psilocybin therapy could offer symptom relief comparable to some conventional antidepressants.
However, psilocybin itself does not directly cause psychedelic effects. It is a prodrug, meaning the body must break it down to activate it. When a person swallows psilocybin, enzymes in the gut and liver strip away a phosphate molecule, converting it into a new chemical called psilocin.
Psilocin is the active substance that enters the brain and alters perception. In fact, a 2019 study indicated that the intensity of a person’s psychedelic experience closely matches the concentration of psilocin circulating in their blood. Because the body’s conversion process can vary from person to person, standard oral psilocybin often yields unpredictable results and tends to cause unpleasant side effects.
“Nearly every modern psilocybin trial has used the same thing: synthetic psilocybin, 25 mg, in a capsule,” Josh Woolley, an associate professor of psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco and director of the Translational Psychedelic Research Program, told PsyPost. “There are reasons to think other options might work better. Psilocybin is a prodrug, so the body has to convert it to psilocin, and people vary a lot in how efficiently they do that. That may be part of why responses to a fixed dose are so variable.”
Researchers wanted to know if administering psilocin directly would skip this metabolic step, potentially offering a gentler and more predictable experience. They also wanted to test a sublingual route, which involves placing a dissolving tablet under the tongue. Sublingual administration allows a drug to absorb directly into the bloodstream through the tissues of the mouth, completely bypassing the digestive system.
“Nobody had given psilocin directly to a human since the 1960s, and nobody had tried a sublingual formulation of any of these compounds,” Woolley noted.
Additionally, the research team used botanical extracts rather than lab-made synthetic chemicals. These whole-mushroom formulations contain natural trace compounds, known as alkaloids, alongside the primary drug. Alkaloids are naturally occurring chemical compounds found in plants and fungi that produce physiological effects on the body, and some researchers suspect they might influence the overall experience. “Mushrooms contain other alkaloids besides psilocybin, and standardized botanical extracts now make it possible to test whole-mushroom formulations under pharmaceutical conditions, which hadn’t been done,” Woolley said.
The research, led by Marlene L. Tai and Woolley, aimed to compare these different methods in a controlled setting. The scientists recruited 20 healthy adults between the ages of 25 and 50. All participants had prior experience with psychedelics and reported mild feelings of social disconnection. The study used a crossover design, meaning each person received multiple different treatments on separate days to compare the effects within the same individual.
Participants attended up to four drug administration sessions spaced four weeks apart. During these sessions, they received either an oral capsule of psilocybin (25 milligrams), an oral capsule of psilocin (17.5 milligrams, a dose designed to match the psilocybin strength), or a sublingual tablet of psilocin. The initial sublingual dose was set low at 2.18 milligrams and later increased to 4.36 milligrams or 8 milligrams to assess safety and tolerability.
All sessions took place in a comfortable clinic room where participants wore eyeshades and listened to music. A therapist and an assistant stayed in the room to provide psychological support. Throughout the day, the research team measured blood pressure and heart rate, while participants rated the intensity of the drug’s effects every 15 to 30 minutes.
At the end of each session, participants completed several questionnaires. These surveys measured the emotional and psychological qualities of their experience, including feelings of unity, emotional breakthroughs, and challenging states like fear or paranoia.
When comparing the two oral capsules, the scientists found that psilocin produced a psychological and physical journey that was very similar to psilocybin. The onset time, peak intensity, and duration of the experiences were mostly indistinguishable. Both drugs reliably produced deep psychological insights and mystical-type experiences.
“We expected psilocin to come on faster, since it skips a metabolic step, and it didn’t,” Woolley explained. “The two were hard to tell apart on almost every measure.”
However, oral psilocin was associated with a lower overall burden of adverse side effects. While almost all participants experienced mild issues on both drugs, oral psilocybin was linked to more moderate and severe events. These included headaches, anxiety, and one instance of transient loss of consciousness. Interestingly, gastrointestinal issues like nausea were similar between the two oral drugs, suggesting that stomach upset is not solely caused by the body breaking down psilocybin.
“The tolerability difference was modest, not dramatic,” Woolley said. “Fewer and milder adverse events on average, mostly headache and anxiety, rather than a categorical improvement. Whether that matters clinically depends on the setting. In a treatment where one session already requires eight hours of monitoring, small reductions in burden can add up. But this was 18 people per condition, so it’s a signal worth following, not an established difference.”
The sublingual psilocin tablets proved safe and were well tolerated by the participants. But the physical and psychological effects were much milder than the oral doses. The subjective intensity and cardiovascular responses were noticeably lower, indicating that less of the drug made its way into the systemic circulation at the tested amounts.
“At the cautious doses we used with FDA input, we clearly didn’t reach the exposure needed to test whether the route has real advantages,” Woolley noted. “This is an early study in 20 healthy volunteers. It’s a first look, not a verdict.”
Despite the milder overall intensity, sublingual psilocin still facilitated notable psychological responses. Participants reported scores on measures of emotional breakthrough and psychological insight that rivaled those typically seen with much higher oral doses. The authors noted that this suggests even mild psychedelic exposures might offer some therapeutic benefit.
“One result we’re still thinking about,” the researcher stated. “Even the very mild sublingual doses produced emotional breakthrough scores comparable to the full 25 mg doses. That could be a false positive, or an effect of the psychotherapy rather than the drug. But if it holds, it raises a real question about whether an intense psychedelic experience is necessary for the psychological benefits people are after.”
In an exploratory analysis, the researchers also compared their botanical mushroom extracts to data from a separate trial that used synthetic psilocybin. The psychological effects were broadly similar. This provides evidence that standardized whole-mushroom extracts function much like lab-made versions, offering a viable alternative for future treatments.
“On the botanical question, our comparison was with data from a previously published trial of synthetic psilocybin, not with a synthetic arm in our own study,” Woolley explained. “Two different populations, two different settings. So the fair statement is that we saw nothing that would suggest a big difference, not that we ruled one out. Testing the ‘entourage effect’ properly would require a head-to-head comparison in the same trial.” This entourage effect is the theory that multiple natural compounds within a plant or mushroom work together synergistically to produce stronger or different effects than an isolated chemical alone.
As with all research, there are a few things to keep in mind. The study included a small group of healthy, highly educated volunteers who already had experience with psychedelics. Because of this, it is not guaranteed that people with severe mental health conditions or those entirely new to psychedelics would respond in the exact same way.
The researchers also emphasized the strict clinical environment used during the trial. “The main one is that nothing here suggests people should be taking mushroom extracts on their own or trying to convert psilocybin to psilocin at home,” Woolley warned. “These were pharmaceutical grade products made to Good Manufacturing Practice standards, given under continuous medical supervision with a licensed therapist present throughout. That matters. One participant briefly lost consciousness during a psilocybin session, which we’ve reported separately, and it was handled because clinicians were in the room.”
The trial also lacked a pure inactive placebo group. Because the sublingual doses produced noticeably milder physical sensations than the oral capsules, participants and therapists were often able to guess which treatment had been administered. This awareness could have influenced the subjective survey responses.
Finally, the research team did not collect blood samples during the sessions. Without measuring the actual concentration of psilocin in the blood, it is difficult to know exactly how much of the sublingual drug was absorbed or how individual metabolisms processed the oral capsules. Future studies will need to incorporate blood testing and try higher sublingual doses to fully evaluate this delivery method.
“Measuring actual psilocin levels is what would let us link formulation to exposure to effect, and its absence was our main limitation here,” Woolley observed. “Sublingual psilocin needs a proper dose-ranging study at higher doses. And eventually this has to be tested in people with the conditions these drugs might treat, not just healthy volunteers.”
Moving forward, the team intends to share additional findings from the current participants. “We have a companion paper in preparation from this same trial looking at longer-term psychological outcomes, including loneliness, out to six months,” Woolley, who also serves as a staff psychiatrist at the San Francisco VA Medical Center, added. “That’s the other half of the story and we’ll have more to say when it’s out.”
The study, “A randomized crossover trial comparing the acute physiological and psychological effects of botanical formulations of oral psilocybin, oral psilocin, and sublingual psilocin,” was authored by Marlene L. Tai, Balázs Szigeti, Amanda E. Downey, Jacob S. Aday, Lisa Fredenburg, Kimberly Sakai, Cesar Molina, Gisele Fernandes-Osterhold, Ellen R. Bradley, Maddie Pantoni, Ryan Moss, Benjamin Lightburn, Franziska Plessow, Aoife O’Donovan, and Josh D. Woolley.
-------------------------------------------------
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
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #psilocin #psilocybin #psychedelicresearch #mentalhealth #sublingual #botanicalextracts #psychopharmacology #entourageeffect #clinicaltrial #psychedelics
-
DATE: September 5, 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: First human trial of psilocin since the 1960s reveals better tolerability than psilocybin
Recent research suggests that consuming psilocin, the active compound in “magic” mushrooms, might cause fewer side effects than taking psilocybin. The study also explored taking the drug under the tongue, finding it well tolerated though less intense at the tested doses. The findings were published in Journal of Psychopharmacology.
Psilocybin is a naturally occurring compound found in certain hallucinogenic mushrooms. In recent years, it has gained attention as a potential treatment for mental health conditions. For example, a study covered by PsyPost in 2021 noted that psilocybin therapy could offer symptom relief comparable to some conventional antidepressants.
However, psilocybin itself does not directly cause psychedelic effects. It is a prodrug, meaning the body must break it down to activate it. When a person swallows psilocybin, enzymes in the gut and liver strip away a phosphate molecule, converting it into a new chemical called psilocin.
Psilocin is the active substance that enters the brain and alters perception. In fact, a 2019 study indicated that the intensity of a person’s psychedelic experience closely matches the concentration of psilocin circulating in their blood. Because the body’s conversion process can vary from person to person, standard oral psilocybin often yields unpredictable results and tends to cause unpleasant side effects.
“Nearly every modern psilocybin trial has used the same thing: synthetic psilocybin, 25 mg, in a capsule,” Josh Woolley, an associate professor of psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco and director of the Translational Psychedelic Research Program, told PsyPost. “There are reasons to think other options might work better. Psilocybin is a prodrug, so the body has to convert it to psilocin, and people vary a lot in how efficiently they do that. That may be part of why responses to a fixed dose are so variable.”
Researchers wanted to know if administering psilocin directly would skip this metabolic step, potentially offering a gentler and more predictable experience. They also wanted to test a sublingual route, which involves placing a dissolving tablet under the tongue. Sublingual administration allows a drug to absorb directly into the bloodstream through the tissues of the mouth, completely bypassing the digestive system.
“Nobody had given psilocin directly to a human since the 1960s, and nobody had tried a sublingual formulation of any of these compounds,” Woolley noted.
Additionally, the research team used botanical extracts rather than lab-made synthetic chemicals. These whole-mushroom formulations contain natural trace compounds, known as alkaloids, alongside the primary drug. Alkaloids are naturally occurring chemical compounds found in plants and fungi that produce physiological effects on the body, and some researchers suspect they might influence the overall experience. “Mushrooms contain other alkaloids besides psilocybin, and standardized botanical extracts now make it possible to test whole-mushroom formulations under pharmaceutical conditions, which hadn’t been done,” Woolley said.
The research, led by Marlene L. Tai and Woolley, aimed to compare these different methods in a controlled setting. The scientists recruited 20 healthy adults between the ages of 25 and 50. All participants had prior experience with psychedelics and reported mild feelings of social disconnection. The study used a crossover design, meaning each person received multiple different treatments on separate days to compare the effects within the same individual.
Participants attended up to four drug administration sessions spaced four weeks apart. During these sessions, they received either an oral capsule of psilocybin (25 milligrams), an oral capsule of psilocin (17.5 milligrams, a dose designed to match the psilocybin strength), or a sublingual tablet of psilocin. The initial sublingual dose was set low at 2.18 milligrams and later increased to 4.36 milligrams or 8 milligrams to assess safety and tolerability.
All sessions took place in a comfortable clinic room where participants wore eyeshades and listened to music. A therapist and an assistant stayed in the room to provide psychological support. Throughout the day, the research team measured blood pressure and heart rate, while participants rated the intensity of the drug’s effects every 15 to 30 minutes.
At the end of each session, participants completed several questionnaires. These surveys measured the emotional and psychological qualities of their experience, including feelings of unity, emotional breakthroughs, and challenging states like fear or paranoia.
When comparing the two oral capsules, the scientists found that psilocin produced a psychological and physical journey that was very similar to psilocybin. The onset time, peak intensity, and duration of the experiences were mostly indistinguishable. Both drugs reliably produced deep psychological insights and mystical-type experiences.
“We expected psilocin to come on faster, since it skips a metabolic step, and it didn’t,” Woolley explained. “The two were hard to tell apart on almost every measure.”
However, oral psilocin was associated with a lower overall burden of adverse side effects. While almost all participants experienced mild issues on both drugs, oral psilocybin was linked to more moderate and severe events. These included headaches, anxiety, and one instance of transient loss of consciousness. Interestingly, gastrointestinal issues like nausea were similar between the two oral drugs, suggesting that stomach upset is not solely caused by the body breaking down psilocybin.
“The tolerability difference was modest, not dramatic,” Woolley said. “Fewer and milder adverse events on average, mostly headache and anxiety, rather than a categorical improvement. Whether that matters clinically depends on the setting. In a treatment where one session already requires eight hours of monitoring, small reductions in burden can add up. But this was 18 people per condition, so it’s a signal worth following, not an established difference.”
The sublingual psilocin tablets proved safe and were well tolerated by the participants. But the physical and psychological effects were much milder than the oral doses. The subjective intensity and cardiovascular responses were noticeably lower, indicating that less of the drug made its way into the systemic circulation at the tested amounts.
“At the cautious doses we used with FDA input, we clearly didn’t reach the exposure needed to test whether the route has real advantages,” Woolley noted. “This is an early study in 20 healthy volunteers. It’s a first look, not a verdict.”
Despite the milder overall intensity, sublingual psilocin still facilitated notable psychological responses. Participants reported scores on measures of emotional breakthrough and psychological insight that rivaled those typically seen with much higher oral doses. The authors noted that this suggests even mild psychedelic exposures might offer some therapeutic benefit.
“One result we’re still thinking about,” the researcher stated. “Even the very mild sublingual doses produced emotional breakthrough scores comparable to the full 25 mg doses. That could be a false positive, or an effect of the psychotherapy rather than the drug. But if it holds, it raises a real question about whether an intense psychedelic experience is necessary for the psychological benefits people are after.”
In an exploratory analysis, the researchers also compared their botanical mushroom extracts to data from a separate trial that used synthetic psilocybin. The psychological effects were broadly similar. This provides evidence that standardized whole-mushroom extracts function much like lab-made versions, offering a viable alternative for future treatments.
“On the botanical question, our comparison was with data from a previously published trial of synthetic psilocybin, not with a synthetic arm in our own study,” Woolley explained. “Two different populations, two different settings. So the fair statement is that we saw nothing that would suggest a big difference, not that we ruled one out. Testing the ‘entourage effect’ properly would require a head-to-head comparison in the same trial.” This entourage effect is the theory that multiple natural compounds within a plant or mushroom work together synergistically to produce stronger or different effects than an isolated chemical alone.
As with all research, there are a few things to keep in mind. The study included a small group of healthy, highly educated volunteers who already had experience with psychedelics. Because of this, it is not guaranteed that people with severe mental health conditions or those entirely new to psychedelics would respond in the exact same way.
The researchers also emphasized the strict clinical environment used during the trial. “The main one is that nothing here suggests people should be taking mushroom extracts on their own or trying to convert psilocybin to psilocin at home,” Woolley warned. “These were pharmaceutical grade products made to Good Manufacturing Practice standards, given under continuous medical supervision with a licensed therapist present throughout. That matters. One participant briefly lost consciousness during a psilocybin session, which we’ve reported separately, and it was handled because clinicians were in the room.”
The trial also lacked a pure inactive placebo group. Because the sublingual doses produced noticeably milder physical sensations than the oral capsules, participants and therapists were often able to guess which treatment had been administered. This awareness could have influenced the subjective survey responses.
Finally, the research team did not collect blood samples during the sessions. Without measuring the actual concentration of psilocin in the blood, it is difficult to know exactly how much of the sublingual drug was absorbed or how individual metabolisms processed the oral capsules. Future studies will need to incorporate blood testing and try higher sublingual doses to fully evaluate this delivery method.
“Measuring actual psilocin levels is what would let us link formulation to exposure to effect, and its absence was our main limitation here,” Woolley observed. “Sublingual psilocin needs a proper dose-ranging study at higher doses. And eventually this has to be tested in people with the conditions these drugs might treat, not just healthy volunteers.”
Moving forward, the team intends to share additional findings from the current participants. “We have a companion paper in preparation from this same trial looking at longer-term psychological outcomes, including loneliness, out to six months,” Woolley, who also serves as a staff psychiatrist at the San Francisco VA Medical Center, added. “That’s the other half of the story and we’ll have more to say when it’s out.”
The study, “A randomized crossover trial comparing the acute physiological and psychological effects of botanical formulations of oral psilocybin, oral psilocin, and sublingual psilocin,” was authored by Marlene L. Tai, Balázs Szigeti, Amanda E. Downey, Jacob S. Aday, Lisa Fredenburg, Kimberly Sakai, Cesar Molina, Gisele Fernandes-Osterhold, Ellen R. Bradley, Maddie Pantoni, Ryan Moss, Benjamin Lightburn, Franziska Plessow, Aoife O’Donovan, and Josh D. Woolley.
-------------------------------------------------
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
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #psilocin #psilocybin #psychedelicresearch #mentalhealth #sublingual #botanicalextracts #psychopharmacology #entourageeffect #clinicaltrial #psychedelics
-
DATE: September 5, 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: First human trial of psilocin since the 1960s reveals better tolerability than psilocybin
Recent research suggests that consuming psilocin, the active compound in “magic” mushrooms, might cause fewer side effects than taking psilocybin. The study also explored taking the drug under the tongue, finding it well tolerated though less intense at the tested doses. The findings were published in Journal of Psychopharmacology.
Psilocybin is a naturally occurring compound found in certain hallucinogenic mushrooms. In recent years, it has gained attention as a potential treatment for mental health conditions. For example, a study covered by PsyPost in 2021 noted that psilocybin therapy could offer symptom relief comparable to some conventional antidepressants.
However, psilocybin itself does not directly cause psychedelic effects. It is a prodrug, meaning the body must break it down to activate it. When a person swallows psilocybin, enzymes in the gut and liver strip away a phosphate molecule, converting it into a new chemical called psilocin.
Psilocin is the active substance that enters the brain and alters perception. In fact, a 2019 study indicated that the intensity of a person’s psychedelic experience closely matches the concentration of psilocin circulating in their blood. Because the body’s conversion process can vary from person to person, standard oral psilocybin often yields unpredictable results and tends to cause unpleasant side effects.
“Nearly every modern psilocybin trial has used the same thing: synthetic psilocybin, 25 mg, in a capsule,” Josh Woolley, an associate professor of psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco and director of the Translational Psychedelic Research Program, told PsyPost. “There are reasons to think other options might work better. Psilocybin is a prodrug, so the body has to convert it to psilocin, and people vary a lot in how efficiently they do that. That may be part of why responses to a fixed dose are so variable.”
Researchers wanted to know if administering psilocin directly would skip this metabolic step, potentially offering a gentler and more predictable experience. They also wanted to test a sublingual route, which involves placing a dissolving tablet under the tongue. Sublingual administration allows a drug to absorb directly into the bloodstream through the tissues of the mouth, completely bypassing the digestive system.
“Nobody had given psilocin directly to a human since the 1960s, and nobody had tried a sublingual formulation of any of these compounds,” Woolley noted.
Additionally, the research team used botanical extracts rather than lab-made synthetic chemicals. These whole-mushroom formulations contain natural trace compounds, known as alkaloids, alongside the primary drug. Alkaloids are naturally occurring chemical compounds found in plants and fungi that produce physiological effects on the body, and some researchers suspect they might influence the overall experience. “Mushrooms contain other alkaloids besides psilocybin, and standardized botanical extracts now make it possible to test whole-mushroom formulations under pharmaceutical conditions, which hadn’t been done,” Woolley said.
The research, led by Marlene L. Tai and Woolley, aimed to compare these different methods in a controlled setting. The scientists recruited 20 healthy adults between the ages of 25 and 50. All participants had prior experience with psychedelics and reported mild feelings of social disconnection. The study used a crossover design, meaning each person received multiple different treatments on separate days to compare the effects within the same individual.
Participants attended up to four drug administration sessions spaced four weeks apart. During these sessions, they received either an oral capsule of psilocybin (25 milligrams), an oral capsule of psilocin (17.5 milligrams, a dose designed to match the psilocybin strength), or a sublingual tablet of psilocin. The initial sublingual dose was set low at 2.18 milligrams and later increased to 4.36 milligrams or 8 milligrams to assess safety and tolerability.
All sessions took place in a comfortable clinic room where participants wore eyeshades and listened to music. A therapist and an assistant stayed in the room to provide psychological support. Throughout the day, the research team measured blood pressure and heart rate, while participants rated the intensity of the drug’s effects every 15 to 30 minutes.
At the end of each session, participants completed several questionnaires. These surveys measured the emotional and psychological qualities of their experience, including feelings of unity, emotional breakthroughs, and challenging states like fear or paranoia.
When comparing the two oral capsules, the scientists found that psilocin produced a psychological and physical journey that was very similar to psilocybin. The onset time, peak intensity, and duration of the experiences were mostly indistinguishable. Both drugs reliably produced deep psychological insights and mystical-type experiences.
“We expected psilocin to come on faster, since it skips a metabolic step, and it didn’t,” Woolley explained. “The two were hard to tell apart on almost every measure.”
However, oral psilocin was associated with a lower overall burden of adverse side effects. While almost all participants experienced mild issues on both drugs, oral psilocybin was linked to more moderate and severe events. These included headaches, anxiety, and one instance of transient loss of consciousness. Interestingly, gastrointestinal issues like nausea were similar between the two oral drugs, suggesting that stomach upset is not solely caused by the body breaking down psilocybin.
“The tolerability difference was modest, not dramatic,” Woolley said. “Fewer and milder adverse events on average, mostly headache and anxiety, rather than a categorical improvement. Whether that matters clinically depends on the setting. In a treatment where one session already requires eight hours of monitoring, small reductions in burden can add up. But this was 18 people per condition, so it’s a signal worth following, not an established difference.”
The sublingual psilocin tablets proved safe and were well tolerated by the participants. But the physical and psychological effects were much milder than the oral doses. The subjective intensity and cardiovascular responses were noticeably lower, indicating that less of the drug made its way into the systemic circulation at the tested amounts.
“At the cautious doses we used with FDA input, we clearly didn’t reach the exposure needed to test whether the route has real advantages,” Woolley noted. “This is an early study in 20 healthy volunteers. It’s a first look, not a verdict.”
Despite the milder overall intensity, sublingual psilocin still facilitated notable psychological responses. Participants reported scores on measures of emotional breakthrough and psychological insight that rivaled those typically seen with much higher oral doses. The authors noted that this suggests even mild psychedelic exposures might offer some therapeutic benefit.
“One result we’re still thinking about,” the researcher stated. “Even the very mild sublingual doses produced emotional breakthrough scores comparable to the full 25 mg doses. That could be a false positive, or an effect of the psychotherapy rather than the drug. But if it holds, it raises a real question about whether an intense psychedelic experience is necessary for the psychological benefits people are after.”
In an exploratory analysis, the researchers also compared their botanical mushroom extracts to data from a separate trial that used synthetic psilocybin. The psychological effects were broadly similar. This provides evidence that standardized whole-mushroom extracts function much like lab-made versions, offering a viable alternative for future treatments.
“On the botanical question, our comparison was with data from a previously published trial of synthetic psilocybin, not with a synthetic arm in our own study,” Woolley explained. “Two different populations, two different settings. So the fair statement is that we saw nothing that would suggest a big difference, not that we ruled one out. Testing the ‘entourage effect’ properly would require a head-to-head comparison in the same trial.” This entourage effect is the theory that multiple natural compounds within a plant or mushroom work together synergistically to produce stronger or different effects than an isolated chemical alone.
As with all research, there are a few things to keep in mind. The study included a small group of healthy, highly educated volunteers who already had experience with psychedelics. Because of this, it is not guaranteed that people with severe mental health conditions or those entirely new to psychedelics would respond in the exact same way.
The researchers also emphasized the strict clinical environment used during the trial. “The main one is that nothing here suggests people should be taking mushroom extracts on their own or trying to convert psilocybin to psilocin at home,” Woolley warned. “These were pharmaceutical grade products made to Good Manufacturing Practice standards, given under continuous medical supervision with a licensed therapist present throughout. That matters. One participant briefly lost consciousness during a psilocybin session, which we’ve reported separately, and it was handled because clinicians were in the room.”
The trial also lacked a pure inactive placebo group. Because the sublingual doses produced noticeably milder physical sensations than the oral capsules, participants and therapists were often able to guess which treatment had been administered. This awareness could have influenced the subjective survey responses.
Finally, the research team did not collect blood samples during the sessions. Without measuring the actual concentration of psilocin in the blood, it is difficult to know exactly how much of the sublingual drug was absorbed or how individual metabolisms processed the oral capsules. Future studies will need to incorporate blood testing and try higher sublingual doses to fully evaluate this delivery method.
“Measuring actual psilocin levels is what would let us link formulation to exposure to effect, and its absence was our main limitation here,” Woolley observed. “Sublingual psilocin needs a proper dose-ranging study at higher doses. And eventually this has to be tested in people with the conditions these drugs might treat, not just healthy volunteers.”
Moving forward, the team intends to share additional findings from the current participants. “We have a companion paper in preparation from this same trial looking at longer-term psychological outcomes, including loneliness, out to six months,” Woolley, who also serves as a staff psychiatrist at the San Francisco VA Medical Center, added. “That’s the other half of the story and we’ll have more to say when it’s out.”
The study, “A randomized crossover trial comparing the acute physiological and psychological effects of botanical formulations of oral psilocybin, oral psilocin, and sublingual psilocin,” was authored by Marlene L. Tai, Balázs Szigeti, Amanda E. Downey, Jacob S. Aday, Lisa Fredenburg, Kimberly Sakai, Cesar Molina, Gisele Fernandes-Osterhold, Ellen R. Bradley, Maddie Pantoni, Ryan Moss, Benjamin Lightburn, Franziska Plessow, Aoife O’Donovan, and Josh D. Woolley.
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DATE: September 5, 2026 at 09:00AM
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: Watching violent online pornography is linked to poorer sexual health
URL: https://www.psypost.org/watching-violent-online-pornography-is-linked-to-poorer-sexual-health/
Young adults who watch violent online pornography tend to report worse sexual well-being, lower empathy, and more acceptance of violence against women than those who watch nonviolent content. These patterns, which look different for men and women, suggest that the specific types of sexual media people consume might shape their interpersonal relationships and physical experiences. The research was published in the journal Behavioral Sciences.
The World Health Organization defines sexual health as a broad state of physical, emotional, and social well-being. This definition goes beyond the mere absence of disease to include psychosocial skills that help people form healthy relationships. Two of these foundational skills are empathy, which involves understanding and sharing the feelings of another person, and sexual assertiveness.
Sexual assertiveness refers to a person’s ability to communicate their desires, initiate wanted encounters, and refuse unwanted sexual activity. Higher levels of this skill protect against sexual coercion and encourage safer sexual practices. Empathy also plays a role in sexual health by fostering mutual satisfaction and reducing the likelihood of aggressive behaviors.
While people consume large amounts of online pornography, research on how different types of explicit media relate to sexual well-being remains mixed. Prior studies often grouped all pornography together, masking how specific content might correlate with different outcomes. Psychological models of media consumption suggest that the consequences of watching pornography depend heavily on the specific context and material viewed.
In recent years, highly accessible online platforms have exposed young viewers to increasingly extreme content during their formative years. To address the knowledge gap regarding specific content, public health researcher Belén Sanz-Barbero from Spain’s National School of Public Health and her colleagues investigated how different forms of violent pornography associate with various dimensions of sexual health.
The researchers organized a large online survey of 3,607 young adults living in Spain between the ages of 18 and 35. For their primary analysis, they isolated a subgroup of 1,985 individuals who reported being sexually active and having watched pornography in the past year. This final group included 1,249 men and 736 women.
The participants answered detailed questionnaires regarding their pornography viewing habits and sexual experiences. To avoid social desirability bias, the tendency for survey respondents to answer questions in a way that will be viewed favorably by others, the researchers avoided using extreme words like rape. Instead, they provided subtle descriptions of sexual encounters and asked participants to rate how often they watched those specific scenarios.
The researchers then categorized the participants based on the most extreme type of pornography they regularly consumed. The three categories were pornography with no explicit violence, pornography featuring degrading or humiliating acts without physical violence, and pornography featuring physical violence. Degrading content included scenes featuring insults, threats, or domination practices that did not inflict physical pain.
Physically violent content included depictions of nonconsensual acts, the use of force, or painful submission practices. The survey instrument also measured the participants’ empathy, sexual assertiveness, and acceptance of violence against women. Additional sections of the questionnaire asked respondents about their sexual satisfaction, their ability to reach orgasm, and whether they had been recently diagnosed with any sexually transmitted infections.
The researchers found that consuming violent pornography was widespread among the study participants. More than 63 percent of the men and nearly 51 percent of the women reported watching pornography that contained physical violence. Men who watched these physically violent videos scored lower on psychological tests measuring empathy and sexual assertiveness compared to men who watched nonviolent pornography.
Both men and women who watched physically violent pornography demonstrated a higher acceptance of violence against women. Men who watched degrading or humiliating content also showed this increased acceptance. The researchers noticed distinct differences between men and women regarding physical sexual function and interpersonal satisfaction.
Men who watched physically violent content were more likely to report enjoying and having fun during sexual activities than those watching nonviolent videos. At the same time, these men were more likely to report feeling discomfort during real world sexual encounters. They also experienced greater difficulty getting or maintaining an erection and were much more likely to use sexual enhancement drugs.
Past studies have shown that the prevalence of erectile dysfunction in men under 40 has increased in recent decades. The researchers proposed that unrealistic sexual fantasies created by violent pornography might cause feelings of distress or moral incongruence when they are not fulfilled in real life. This distress could ultimately interfere with physical sexual function and satisfaction.
For women, watching physically violent pornography was associated with a higher likelihood of struggling to reach orgasm when with a partner. However, these women did not report this same difficulty when experiencing sexual activity alone. The researchers proposed that unrealistic expectations created by violent media might make it harder for viewers to communicate their boundaries or achieve satisfaction with real partners.
The survey also tracked recent diagnoses of sexually transmitted infections like gonorrhea, human papillomavirus, and chlamydia. Individuals of both sexes who watched violent pornography reported higher rates of these recent infections. However, the differences were not statistically significant after the researchers adjusted the data for other demographic variables.
Because this research relied on a survey administered at a single point in time, it cannot prove that watching violent pornography causes these negative sexual health outcomes. The relationship might work in the opposite direction. For example, individuals who already struggle with low empathy or sexual dysfunction might seek out more extreme or violent material to achieve sexual arousal.
The psychological theory of empathy suggests that media consumers often identify with one specific actor in a scene, leading to an empathetic disconnection from the other people involved. It is possible that men with naturally lower empathy are drawn to media that allows them to disconnect from the experiences of women. Women might possess a greater emotional resilience to the effects of violent pornography due to different patterns of empathetic identification.
The survey also depended on participants accurately and honestly reporting their viewing habits. Even with built-in statistical adjustments for social desirability, people might naturally underreport socially unacceptable behaviors and overreport positive traits. The researchers also noted that their sample focused heavily on sexually active individuals, which might limit how well the findings apply to broader populations.
Future longitudinal studies tracking viewers over several years will help determine whether exposure to violent pornography directly alters psychosocial development. Until then, public health interventions targeting young adults could focus on building communication skills and critical thinking regarding the sexual scripts modeled in digital media. Recognizing violent pornography as an emerging factor in sexual health could help educators promote safer and more respectful relationships.
The findings offer a new perspective on how digital media habits align with physical and emotional well-being. The study, “Violent Content in Online Pornography Is Associated with Sexual Health of Women and Men,” was authored by Belén Sanz-Barbero, Vanesa Pérez-Martínez, Ana Rico, Laura Otero-García, Marta Fernández-López, Ariadna Cerdán-Torregrosa, and Carmen Vives-Cases.
URL: https://www.psypost.org/watching-violent-online-pornography-is-linked-to-poorer-sexual-health/
-------------------------------------------------
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-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #ViolentPornography #SexualHealth #Empathy #SexualAssertiveness # PornographyResearch #SexualWellBeing #MediaInfluence #HealthyRelationships #STIsAwareness #DigitalMediaEducation
-
DATE: September 5, 2026 at 09:00AM
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: Watching violent online pornography is linked to poorer sexual health
URL: https://www.psypost.org/watching-violent-online-pornography-is-linked-to-poorer-sexual-health/
Young adults who watch violent online pornography tend to report worse sexual well-being, lower empathy, and more acceptance of violence against women than those who watch nonviolent content. These patterns, which look different for men and women, suggest that the specific types of sexual media people consume might shape their interpersonal relationships and physical experiences. The research was published in the journal Behavioral Sciences.
The World Health Organization defines sexual health as a broad state of physical, emotional, and social well-being. This definition goes beyond the mere absence of disease to include psychosocial skills that help people form healthy relationships. Two of these foundational skills are empathy, which involves understanding and sharing the feelings of another person, and sexual assertiveness.
Sexual assertiveness refers to a person’s ability to communicate their desires, initiate wanted encounters, and refuse unwanted sexual activity. Higher levels of this skill protect against sexual coercion and encourage safer sexual practices. Empathy also plays a role in sexual health by fostering mutual satisfaction and reducing the likelihood of aggressive behaviors.
While people consume large amounts of online pornography, research on how different types of explicit media relate to sexual well-being remains mixed. Prior studies often grouped all pornography together, masking how specific content might correlate with different outcomes. Psychological models of media consumption suggest that the consequences of watching pornography depend heavily on the specific context and material viewed.
In recent years, highly accessible online platforms have exposed young viewers to increasingly extreme content during their formative years. To address the knowledge gap regarding specific content, public health researcher Belén Sanz-Barbero from Spain’s National School of Public Health and her colleagues investigated how different forms of violent pornography associate with various dimensions of sexual health.
The researchers organized a large online survey of 3,607 young adults living in Spain between the ages of 18 and 35. For their primary analysis, they isolated a subgroup of 1,985 individuals who reported being sexually active and having watched pornography in the past year. This final group included 1,249 men and 736 women.
The participants answered detailed questionnaires regarding their pornography viewing habits and sexual experiences. To avoid social desirability bias, the tendency for survey respondents to answer questions in a way that will be viewed favorably by others, the researchers avoided using extreme words like rape. Instead, they provided subtle descriptions of sexual encounters and asked participants to rate how often they watched those specific scenarios.
The researchers then categorized the participants based on the most extreme type of pornography they regularly consumed. The three categories were pornography with no explicit violence, pornography featuring degrading or humiliating acts without physical violence, and pornography featuring physical violence. Degrading content included scenes featuring insults, threats, or domination practices that did not inflict physical pain.
Physically violent content included depictions of nonconsensual acts, the use of force, or painful submission practices. The survey instrument also measured the participants’ empathy, sexual assertiveness, and acceptance of violence against women. Additional sections of the questionnaire asked respondents about their sexual satisfaction, their ability to reach orgasm, and whether they had been recently diagnosed with any sexually transmitted infections.
The researchers found that consuming violent pornography was widespread among the study participants. More than 63 percent of the men and nearly 51 percent of the women reported watching pornography that contained physical violence. Men who watched these physically violent videos scored lower on psychological tests measuring empathy and sexual assertiveness compared to men who watched nonviolent pornography.
Both men and women who watched physically violent pornography demonstrated a higher acceptance of violence against women. Men who watched degrading or humiliating content also showed this increased acceptance. The researchers noticed distinct differences between men and women regarding physical sexual function and interpersonal satisfaction.
Men who watched physically violent content were more likely to report enjoying and having fun during sexual activities than those watching nonviolent videos. At the same time, these men were more likely to report feeling discomfort during real world sexual encounters. They also experienced greater difficulty getting or maintaining an erection and were much more likely to use sexual enhancement drugs.
Past studies have shown that the prevalence of erectile dysfunction in men under 40 has increased in recent decades. The researchers proposed that unrealistic sexual fantasies created by violent pornography might cause feelings of distress or moral incongruence when they are not fulfilled in real life. This distress could ultimately interfere with physical sexual function and satisfaction.
For women, watching physically violent pornography was associated with a higher likelihood of struggling to reach orgasm when with a partner. However, these women did not report this same difficulty when experiencing sexual activity alone. The researchers proposed that unrealistic expectations created by violent media might make it harder for viewers to communicate their boundaries or achieve satisfaction with real partners.
The survey also tracked recent diagnoses of sexually transmitted infections like gonorrhea, human papillomavirus, and chlamydia. Individuals of both sexes who watched violent pornography reported higher rates of these recent infections. However, the differences were not statistically significant after the researchers adjusted the data for other demographic variables.
Because this research relied on a survey administered at a single point in time, it cannot prove that watching violent pornography causes these negative sexual health outcomes. The relationship might work in the opposite direction. For example, individuals who already struggle with low empathy or sexual dysfunction might seek out more extreme or violent material to achieve sexual arousal.
The psychological theory of empathy suggests that media consumers often identify with one specific actor in a scene, leading to an empathetic disconnection from the other people involved. It is possible that men with naturally lower empathy are drawn to media that allows them to disconnect from the experiences of women. Women might possess a greater emotional resilience to the effects of violent pornography due to different patterns of empathetic identification.
The survey also depended on participants accurately and honestly reporting their viewing habits. Even with built-in statistical adjustments for social desirability, people might naturally underreport socially unacceptable behaviors and overreport positive traits. The researchers also noted that their sample focused heavily on sexually active individuals, which might limit how well the findings apply to broader populations.
Future longitudinal studies tracking viewers over several years will help determine whether exposure to violent pornography directly alters psychosocial development. Until then, public health interventions targeting young adults could focus on building communication skills and critical thinking regarding the sexual scripts modeled in digital media. Recognizing violent pornography as an emerging factor in sexual health could help educators promote safer and more respectful relationships.
The findings offer a new perspective on how digital media habits align with physical and emotional well-being. The study, “Violent Content in Online Pornography Is Associated with Sexual Health of Women and Men,” was authored by Belén Sanz-Barbero, Vanesa Pérez-Martínez, Ana Rico, Laura Otero-García, Marta Fernández-López, Ariadna Cerdán-Torregrosa, and Carmen Vives-Cases.
URL: https://www.psypost.org/watching-violent-online-pornography-is-linked-to-poorer-sexual-health/
-------------------------------------------------
Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org
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-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #ViolentPornography #SexualHealth #Empathy #SexualAssertiveness # PornographyResearch #SexualWellBeing #MediaInfluence #HealthyRelationships #STIsAwareness #DigitalMediaEducation
-
DATE: September 5, 2026 at 09:00AM
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: Watching violent online pornography is linked to poorer sexual health
URL: https://www.psypost.org/watching-violent-online-pornography-is-linked-to-poorer-sexual-health/
Young adults who watch violent online pornography tend to report worse sexual well-being, lower empathy, and more acceptance of violence against women than those who watch nonviolent content. These patterns, which look different for men and women, suggest that the specific types of sexual media people consume might shape their interpersonal relationships and physical experiences. The research was published in the journal Behavioral Sciences.
The World Health Organization defines sexual health as a broad state of physical, emotional, and social well-being. This definition goes beyond the mere absence of disease to include psychosocial skills that help people form healthy relationships. Two of these foundational skills are empathy, which involves understanding and sharing the feelings of another person, and sexual assertiveness.
Sexual assertiveness refers to a person’s ability to communicate their desires, initiate wanted encounters, and refuse unwanted sexual activity. Higher levels of this skill protect against sexual coercion and encourage safer sexual practices. Empathy also plays a role in sexual health by fostering mutual satisfaction and reducing the likelihood of aggressive behaviors.
While people consume large amounts of online pornography, research on how different types of explicit media relate to sexual well-being remains mixed. Prior studies often grouped all pornography together, masking how specific content might correlate with different outcomes. Psychological models of media consumption suggest that the consequences of watching pornography depend heavily on the specific context and material viewed.
In recent years, highly accessible online platforms have exposed young viewers to increasingly extreme content during their formative years. To address the knowledge gap regarding specific content, public health researcher Belén Sanz-Barbero from Spain’s National School of Public Health and her colleagues investigated how different forms of violent pornography associate with various dimensions of sexual health.
The researchers organized a large online survey of 3,607 young adults living in Spain between the ages of 18 and 35. For their primary analysis, they isolated a subgroup of 1,985 individuals who reported being sexually active and having watched pornography in the past year. This final group included 1,249 men and 736 women.
The participants answered detailed questionnaires regarding their pornography viewing habits and sexual experiences. To avoid social desirability bias, the tendency for survey respondents to answer questions in a way that will be viewed favorably by others, the researchers avoided using extreme words like rape. Instead, they provided subtle descriptions of sexual encounters and asked participants to rate how often they watched those specific scenarios.
The researchers then categorized the participants based on the most extreme type of pornography they regularly consumed. The three categories were pornography with no explicit violence, pornography featuring degrading or humiliating acts without physical violence, and pornography featuring physical violence. Degrading content included scenes featuring insults, threats, or domination practices that did not inflict physical pain.
Physically violent content included depictions of nonconsensual acts, the use of force, or painful submission practices. The survey instrument also measured the participants’ empathy, sexual assertiveness, and acceptance of violence against women. Additional sections of the questionnaire asked respondents about their sexual satisfaction, their ability to reach orgasm, and whether they had been recently diagnosed with any sexually transmitted infections.
The researchers found that consuming violent pornography was widespread among the study participants. More than 63 percent of the men and nearly 51 percent of the women reported watching pornography that contained physical violence. Men who watched these physically violent videos scored lower on psychological tests measuring empathy and sexual assertiveness compared to men who watched nonviolent pornography.
Both men and women who watched physically violent pornography demonstrated a higher acceptance of violence against women. Men who watched degrading or humiliating content also showed this increased acceptance. The researchers noticed distinct differences between men and women regarding physical sexual function and interpersonal satisfaction.
Men who watched physically violent content were more likely to report enjoying and having fun during sexual activities than those watching nonviolent videos. At the same time, these men were more likely to report feeling discomfort during real world sexual encounters. They also experienced greater difficulty getting or maintaining an erection and were much more likely to use sexual enhancement drugs.
Past studies have shown that the prevalence of erectile dysfunction in men under 40 has increased in recent decades. The researchers proposed that unrealistic sexual fantasies created by violent pornography might cause feelings of distress or moral incongruence when they are not fulfilled in real life. This distress could ultimately interfere with physical sexual function and satisfaction.
For women, watching physically violent pornography was associated with a higher likelihood of struggling to reach orgasm when with a partner. However, these women did not report this same difficulty when experiencing sexual activity alone. The researchers proposed that unrealistic expectations created by violent media might make it harder for viewers to communicate their boundaries or achieve satisfaction with real partners.
The survey also tracked recent diagnoses of sexually transmitted infections like gonorrhea, human papillomavirus, and chlamydia. Individuals of both sexes who watched violent pornography reported higher rates of these recent infections. However, the differences were not statistically significant after the researchers adjusted the data for other demographic variables.
Because this research relied on a survey administered at a single point in time, it cannot prove that watching violent pornography causes these negative sexual health outcomes. The relationship might work in the opposite direction. For example, individuals who already struggle with low empathy or sexual dysfunction might seek out more extreme or violent material to achieve sexual arousal.
The psychological theory of empathy suggests that media consumers often identify with one specific actor in a scene, leading to an empathetic disconnection from the other people involved. It is possible that men with naturally lower empathy are drawn to media that allows them to disconnect from the experiences of women. Women might possess a greater emotional resilience to the effects of violent pornography due to different patterns of empathetic identification.
The survey also depended on participants accurately and honestly reporting their viewing habits. Even with built-in statistical adjustments for social desirability, people might naturally underreport socially unacceptable behaviors and overreport positive traits. The researchers also noted that their sample focused heavily on sexually active individuals, which might limit how well the findings apply to broader populations.
Future longitudinal studies tracking viewers over several years will help determine whether exposure to violent pornography directly alters psychosocial development. Until then, public health interventions targeting young adults could focus on building communication skills and critical thinking regarding the sexual scripts modeled in digital media. Recognizing violent pornography as an emerging factor in sexual health could help educators promote safer and more respectful relationships.
The findings offer a new perspective on how digital media habits align with physical and emotional well-being. The study, “Violent Content in Online Pornography Is Associated with Sexual Health of Women and Men,” was authored by Belén Sanz-Barbero, Vanesa Pérez-Martínez, Ana Rico, Laura Otero-García, Marta Fernández-López, Ariadna Cerdán-Torregrosa, and Carmen Vives-Cases.
URL: https://www.psypost.org/watching-violent-online-pornography-is-linked-to-poorer-sexual-health/
-------------------------------------------------
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-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #ViolentPornography #SexualHealth #Empathy #SexualAssertiveness # PornographyResearch #SexualWellBeing #MediaInfluence #HealthyRelationships #STIsAwareness #DigitalMediaEducation
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DATE: September 5, 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 map the brain pathway that links social isolation to increased alcohol consumption
A recent study in mice suggests that social isolation drives increased alcohol consumption by strengthening a specific neural pathway in the brain, though this effect appears to operate differently in males and females. The findings provide a biological mechanism for how negative social environments can heighten the risk of alcohol misuse. The research was published in Nature Neuroscience.
The basolateral amygdala is an almond-shaped structure deep in the brain that processes emotions and stress. The medial prefrontal cortex is a region at the front of the brain responsible for decision-making, executive control, and evaluating rewards. Researchers know that social isolation is a major risk factor for heavy drinking, and past work laid the foundation for understanding how the brain handles these specific stressors.
For example, a 2017 study showed that signals flowing from the amygdala to the prefrontal cortex guide decisions when animals face competing reward and threat cues. Building on this, a 2020 study found that stress physically strengthens the pathway connecting the amygdala to the prefrontal cortex, increasing anxiety-like behaviors. This progression led researchers to explore whether this specific communication highway, the pathway from the basolateral amygdala to the medial prefrontal cortex, drives isolation-induced alcohol misuse and whether the effects differ by sex.
The new research was led by Reesha R. Patel, an assistant professor at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, and Kay M. Tye, a professor at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. The scientists aimed to map exactly how social isolation alters this brain circuit to influence drinking habits.
“Social isolation is increasingly recognized as an important risk factor for problematic alcohol use, but we know surprisingly little about how social experience actually changes the brain in ways that can influence drinking,” Patel told PsyPost. “We wanted to move beyond the association between isolation and alcohol use and identify the specific neural circuit changes that could contribute to this vulnerability.”
The researchers began by observing 14 male and 11 female mice in a choice setup, where the animals had access to both water and a 15% alcohol solution. They tracked the animals’ drinking while group-housed and then over 11 days of social isolation.
The isolation produced opposite behavioral effects depending on the sex of the mouse. Isolated males progressively increased their alcohol intake, while isolated females drank less alcohol. The researchers also noted that an animal’s social rank influenced its habits, as subordinate mice of both sexes tended to drink more alcohol than dominant mice even before being isolated.
“One other interesting finding was that social rank also predicted how much the mice drank even before isolation,” Patel said. “That suggests that alcohol drinking is shaped not just by whether an animal is socially isolated, but also by its social experience more broadly. We’re interested in understanding how different aspects of the social environment influence the brain and drinking behavior.”
Next, the team examined the brain cells connecting the basolateral amygdala to the medial prefrontal cortex. They used a technique called patch-clamp electrophysiology, which uses tiny glass electrodes to measure the electrical activity of individual neurons. The electrical excitability of these specific neurons closely mirrored the drinking behaviors.
In males, social isolation increased the excitability of these connecting neurons, making them more likely to fire. In females, isolation decreased this excitability. Because only males reliably escalated their drinking during isolation, the researchers focused the rest of their experiments on male mice to isolate the biological mechanisms driving increased alcohol use.
To see how this circuit behaves in real time, the team used cellular-resolution calcium imaging. They implanted miniature microscopes to track the activity of specific neurons while the male mice participated in a cued drinking task, where a light signaled the availability of alcohol or water. The neurons strongly encoded and predicted alcohol drinking.
Higher electrical activity in this specific brain pathway was linked to a higher frequency of alcohol drinking bouts. The pathway did not show the same predictive relationship for water consumption. The scientists then tested whether activating this pathway could directly influence behavior.
They used optogenetics, a technique where neurons are genetically modified to respond to light. By shining a laser through an implanted fiber, they could manually turn on the pathway from the basolateral amygdala to the medial prefrontal cortex whenever a mouse licked the drinking spout. Activating the circuit specifically increased alcohol intake, prompting the mice to engage in longer drinking bouts and take more licks per bout.
This light stimulation did not affect how much water or sugar water the mice drank. To understand how this signal changes the brain’s broader evaluation of rewards, the team tracked the activity of downstream neurons in the medial prefrontal cortex. During social isolation, the prefrontal cortex became much more responsive to alcohol but less responsive to natural rewards like sugar water.
“One of many actually surprising findings was that isolation changed how the prefrontal cortex represented different rewards,” Patel noted. “That raises the possibility that social experience can alter the relative value the brain assigns to different rewards.”
When the researchers artificially stimulated the pathway in group-housed mice, the prefrontal cortex reacted exactly as it did in isolated mice, showing heightened responses to alcohol and dampened responses to sugar. Finally, the researchers used optogenetics to inhibit, or silence, the pathway in socially isolated male mice. Turning off this circuit reduced the number of alcohol drinking bouts the isolated mice initiated, without affecting their water consumption.
This indicates that this specific neural pathway actively drives the escalation in alcohol use following social isolation. “Social isolation does not simply make animals drink more — it changes how one specific amygdala-to-prefrontal pathway represents alcohol relative to natural rewards,” said Jun Wang, a professor in the Department of Neuroscience and Experimental Therapeutics at Texas A& M University Health Science Center, who was not involved in the research.
“That coupling is the striking part,” Wang told PsyPost. “It offers a circuit-level account of how a social risk factor gets converted into a change in what the brain treats as worth pursuing, rather than just a change in how much an animal consumes.”
“I think the biggest takeaway is that our social experiences can have very real effects on the brain,” Patel said. “Social isolation didn’t just change how much the mice drank, it changed the activity of a specific brain circuit that helped drive that increase in alcohol use. To me, that really emphasizes that our social environment is an important part of understanding vulnerability to things like excessive drinking.”
“The broader significance is that social isolation may not simply be a circumstance that accompanies increased alcohol use—it can produce biological changes in the brain that actively contribute to drinking behavior,” she explained. “Understanding those mechanisms could ultimately help explain why social isolation increases vulnerability to problematic alcohol use in some individuals and may point toward new ways of identifying or reducing that vulnerability.”
Wang noted that the study’s strength lies in pinning the behavioral change directly to this specific brain projection and demonstrating that it is both necessary and sufficient. “The sex difference is the most interesting extension,” he added. “Two opposite behavioral outcomes, one consistent circuit signature.”
He also pointed out that the social-rank findings are a “genuinely new addition, and a reminder that the relevant social variable is not only isolation.”
The findings are in line with research covered by PsyPost earlier this year, which found that social isolation increased alcohol intake and altered reward processing in the brain. However, that previous study examined the long-term effects of adolescent isolation in rats, whereas the new research focused on concurrent adult isolation in mice.
As with all research, there are some caveats to consider. Wang expressed reasonably high confidence in the findings for male mice due to the convergence of multiple methods, noting that “together they are difficult to explain away.” However, he pointed out that group sizes were typical for the field but relatively small, and that the experimental drinking model represents escalated voluntary intake, not addiction.
“Nothing here tests compulsive drinking, drinking despite negative consequences, or withdrawal, so ‘isolation causes alcohol use disorder’ is a step beyond the data,” Wang explained. Patel echoed this sentiment, emphasizing that the study relies on animal models, and human social dynamics involve far more complex psychological factors.
“I would be cautious about interpreting the study as showing that loneliness inevitably causes people to drink more,” Patel cautioned. “We experimentally manipulated social isolation in mice, which is not the same thing as the subjective experience of loneliness in humans, and we actually observed very different responses in males and females. What the study provides is evidence that social experience can directly alter neural circuits controlling alcohol-related behavior.”
The researchers and Wang both highlight the unresolved questions regarding female mice, as the exact biological reasons why female mice reduced their drinking during isolation remain unconfirmed. Wang noted that the female mice drank more at baseline, adding that “‘Males escalate, females do not’ is a statement about one mouse strain over about two weeks of isolation.” Because the mechanistic experiments were done only in males, the circuit’s exact role in females remains unknown.
The researchers note that females showed higher baseline excitability in this brain pathway compared to males, suggesting that sex-specific hormonal or physiological mechanisms dictate how these neurons adapt to stress. “One major question is why the same social experience produces such different adaptations across individuals and between males and females,” Patel said.
Wang agreed, emphasizing the need to causally test the pathway in females to see if its downstream consequences differ. He also suggested investigating which prefrontal output pathways actually carry the effect on drinking, and whether the behavioral and brain changes are reversible.
“Does returning animals to group housing normalize both the excitability change and the drinking, and is there a duration of isolation past which it does not?” Wang asked. “That question matters most for the human parallel.”
“We also want to understand the molecular mechanisms that make these circuits sensitive to social experience and whether the resulting neural changes can be reversed,” Patel added. “Ultimately, the broader goal is to understand why adverse social environments increase vulnerability to psychiatric and substance-use disorders in some individuals but not others.”
The study, “Social isolation recruits amygdala–medial prefrontal cortex projections to escalate alcohol drinking in male mice,” was authored by Reesha R. Patel, Kelly N. Kim, Makenzie Patarino, Rachelle Pamintuan, Felix H. Taschbach, Hao Li, Bitna Joo, Anna Pallé, Xianru Yu, Christopher R. Lee, Aniek van Hoek, Jesse White, Rogelio Castro, Christian Cazares, Raymundo L. Miranda, Caroline Jia, Jeremy Delahanty, Kanha Batra, Laurel R. Keyes, Avraham Libster, Romy Wichmann, Talmo D. Pereira, Marcus K. Benna, and Kay M. Tye.
-------------------------------------------------
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-
DATE: September 5, 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 map the brain pathway that links social isolation to increased alcohol consumption
A recent study in mice suggests that social isolation drives increased alcohol consumption by strengthening a specific neural pathway in the brain, though this effect appears to operate differently in males and females. The findings provide a biological mechanism for how negative social environments can heighten the risk of alcohol misuse. The research was published in Nature Neuroscience.
The basolateral amygdala is an almond-shaped structure deep in the brain that processes emotions and stress. The medial prefrontal cortex is a region at the front of the brain responsible for decision-making, executive control, and evaluating rewards. Researchers know that social isolation is a major risk factor for heavy drinking, and past work laid the foundation for understanding how the brain handles these specific stressors.
For example, a 2017 study showed that signals flowing from the amygdala to the prefrontal cortex guide decisions when animals face competing reward and threat cues. Building on this, a 2020 study found that stress physically strengthens the pathway connecting the amygdala to the prefrontal cortex, increasing anxiety-like behaviors. This progression led researchers to explore whether this specific communication highway, the pathway from the basolateral amygdala to the medial prefrontal cortex, drives isolation-induced alcohol misuse and whether the effects differ by sex.
The new research was led by Reesha R. Patel, an assistant professor at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, and Kay M. Tye, a professor at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. The scientists aimed to map exactly how social isolation alters this brain circuit to influence drinking habits.
“Social isolation is increasingly recognized as an important risk factor for problematic alcohol use, but we know surprisingly little about how social experience actually changes the brain in ways that can influence drinking,” Patel told PsyPost. “We wanted to move beyond the association between isolation and alcohol use and identify the specific neural circuit changes that could contribute to this vulnerability.”
The researchers began by observing 14 male and 11 female mice in a choice setup, where the animals had access to both water and a 15% alcohol solution. They tracked the animals’ drinking while group-housed and then over 11 days of social isolation.
The isolation produced opposite behavioral effects depending on the sex of the mouse. Isolated males progressively increased their alcohol intake, while isolated females drank less alcohol. The researchers also noted that an animal’s social rank influenced its habits, as subordinate mice of both sexes tended to drink more alcohol than dominant mice even before being isolated.
“One other interesting finding was that social rank also predicted how much the mice drank even before isolation,” Patel said. “That suggests that alcohol drinking is shaped not just by whether an animal is socially isolated, but also by its social experience more broadly. We’re interested in understanding how different aspects of the social environment influence the brain and drinking behavior.”
Next, the team examined the brain cells connecting the basolateral amygdala to the medial prefrontal cortex. They used a technique called patch-clamp electrophysiology, which uses tiny glass electrodes to measure the electrical activity of individual neurons. The electrical excitability of these specific neurons closely mirrored the drinking behaviors.
In males, social isolation increased the excitability of these connecting neurons, making them more likely to fire. In females, isolation decreased this excitability. Because only males reliably escalated their drinking during isolation, the researchers focused the rest of their experiments on male mice to isolate the biological mechanisms driving increased alcohol use.
To see how this circuit behaves in real time, the team used cellular-resolution calcium imaging. They implanted miniature microscopes to track the activity of specific neurons while the male mice participated in a cued drinking task, where a light signaled the availability of alcohol or water. The neurons strongly encoded and predicted alcohol drinking.
Higher electrical activity in this specific brain pathway was linked to a higher frequency of alcohol drinking bouts. The pathway did not show the same predictive relationship for water consumption. The scientists then tested whether activating this pathway could directly influence behavior.
They used optogenetics, a technique where neurons are genetically modified to respond to light. By shining a laser through an implanted fiber, they could manually turn on the pathway from the basolateral amygdala to the medial prefrontal cortex whenever a mouse licked the drinking spout. Activating the circuit specifically increased alcohol intake, prompting the mice to engage in longer drinking bouts and take more licks per bout.
This light stimulation did not affect how much water or sugar water the mice drank. To understand how this signal changes the brain’s broader evaluation of rewards, the team tracked the activity of downstream neurons in the medial prefrontal cortex. During social isolation, the prefrontal cortex became much more responsive to alcohol but less responsive to natural rewards like sugar water.
“One of many actually surprising findings was that isolation changed how the prefrontal cortex represented different rewards,” Patel noted. “That raises the possibility that social experience can alter the relative value the brain assigns to different rewards.”
When the researchers artificially stimulated the pathway in group-housed mice, the prefrontal cortex reacted exactly as it did in isolated mice, showing heightened responses to alcohol and dampened responses to sugar. Finally, the researchers used optogenetics to inhibit, or silence, the pathway in socially isolated male mice. Turning off this circuit reduced the number of alcohol drinking bouts the isolated mice initiated, without affecting their water consumption.
This indicates that this specific neural pathway actively drives the escalation in alcohol use following social isolation. “Social isolation does not simply make animals drink more — it changes how one specific amygdala-to-prefrontal pathway represents alcohol relative to natural rewards,” said Jun Wang, a professor in the Department of Neuroscience and Experimental Therapeutics at Texas A& M University Health Science Center, who was not involved in the research.
“That coupling is the striking part,” Wang told PsyPost. “It offers a circuit-level account of how a social risk factor gets converted into a change in what the brain treats as worth pursuing, rather than just a change in how much an animal consumes.”
“I think the biggest takeaway is that our social experiences can have very real effects on the brain,” Patel said. “Social isolation didn’t just change how much the mice drank, it changed the activity of a specific brain circuit that helped drive that increase in alcohol use. To me, that really emphasizes that our social environment is an important part of understanding vulnerability to things like excessive drinking.”
“The broader significance is that social isolation may not simply be a circumstance that accompanies increased alcohol use—it can produce biological changes in the brain that actively contribute to drinking behavior,” she explained. “Understanding those mechanisms could ultimately help explain why social isolation increases vulnerability to problematic alcohol use in some individuals and may point toward new ways of identifying or reducing that vulnerability.”
Wang noted that the study’s strength lies in pinning the behavioral change directly to this specific brain projection and demonstrating that it is both necessary and sufficient. “The sex difference is the most interesting extension,” he added. “Two opposite behavioral outcomes, one consistent circuit signature.”
He also pointed out that the social-rank findings are a “genuinely new addition, and a reminder that the relevant social variable is not only isolation.”
The findings are in line with research covered by PsyPost earlier this year, which found that social isolation increased alcohol intake and altered reward processing in the brain. However, that previous study examined the long-term effects of adolescent isolation in rats, whereas the new research focused on concurrent adult isolation in mice.
As with all research, there are some caveats to consider. Wang expressed reasonably high confidence in the findings for male mice due to the convergence of multiple methods, noting that “together they are difficult to explain away.” However, he pointed out that group sizes were typical for the field but relatively small, and that the experimental drinking model represents escalated voluntary intake, not addiction.
“Nothing here tests compulsive drinking, drinking despite negative consequences, or withdrawal, so ‘isolation causes alcohol use disorder’ is a step beyond the data,” Wang explained. Patel echoed this sentiment, emphasizing that the study relies on animal models, and human social dynamics involve far more complex psychological factors.
“I would be cautious about interpreting the study as showing that loneliness inevitably causes people to drink more,” Patel cautioned. “We experimentally manipulated social isolation in mice, which is not the same thing as the subjective experience of loneliness in humans, and we actually observed very different responses in males and females. What the study provides is evidence that social experience can directly alter neural circuits controlling alcohol-related behavior.”
The researchers and Wang both highlight the unresolved questions regarding female mice, as the exact biological reasons why female mice reduced their drinking during isolation remain unconfirmed. Wang noted that the female mice drank more at baseline, adding that “‘Males escalate, females do not’ is a statement about one mouse strain over about two weeks of isolation.” Because the mechanistic experiments were done only in males, the circuit’s exact role in females remains unknown.
The researchers note that females showed higher baseline excitability in this brain pathway compared to males, suggesting that sex-specific hormonal or physiological mechanisms dictate how these neurons adapt to stress. “One major question is why the same social experience produces such different adaptations across individuals and between males and females,” Patel said.
Wang agreed, emphasizing the need to causally test the pathway in females to see if its downstream consequences differ. He also suggested investigating which prefrontal output pathways actually carry the effect on drinking, and whether the behavioral and brain changes are reversible.
“Does returning animals to group housing normalize both the excitability change and the drinking, and is there a duration of isolation past which it does not?” Wang asked. “That question matters most for the human parallel.”
“We also want to understand the molecular mechanisms that make these circuits sensitive to social experience and whether the resulting neural changes can be reversed,” Patel added. “Ultimately, the broader goal is to understand why adverse social environments increase vulnerability to psychiatric and substance-use disorders in some individuals but not others.”
The study, “Social isolation recruits amygdala–medial prefrontal cortex projections to escalate alcohol drinking in male mice,” was authored by Reesha R. Patel, Kelly N. Kim, Makenzie Patarino, Rachelle Pamintuan, Felix H. Taschbach, Hao Li, Bitna Joo, Anna Pallé, Xianru Yu, Christopher R. Lee, Aniek van Hoek, Jesse White, Rogelio Castro, Christian Cazares, Raymundo L. Miranda, Caroline Jia, Jeremy Delahanty, Kanha Batra, Laurel R. Keyes, Avraham Libster, Romy Wichmann, Talmo D. Pereira, Marcus K. Benna, and Kay M. Tye.
-------------------------------------------------
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-
DATE: September 5, 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 map the brain pathway that links social isolation to increased alcohol consumption
A recent study in mice suggests that social isolation drives increased alcohol consumption by strengthening a specific neural pathway in the brain, though this effect appears to operate differently in males and females. The findings provide a biological mechanism for how negative social environments can heighten the risk of alcohol misuse. The research was published in Nature Neuroscience.
The basolateral amygdala is an almond-shaped structure deep in the brain that processes emotions and stress. The medial prefrontal cortex is a region at the front of the brain responsible for decision-making, executive control, and evaluating rewards. Researchers know that social isolation is a major risk factor for heavy drinking, and past work laid the foundation for understanding how the brain handles these specific stressors.
For example, a 2017 study showed that signals flowing from the amygdala to the prefrontal cortex guide decisions when animals face competing reward and threat cues. Building on this, a 2020 study found that stress physically strengthens the pathway connecting the amygdala to the prefrontal cortex, increasing anxiety-like behaviors. This progression led researchers to explore whether this specific communication highway, the pathway from the basolateral amygdala to the medial prefrontal cortex, drives isolation-induced alcohol misuse and whether the effects differ by sex.
The new research was led by Reesha R. Patel, an assistant professor at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, and Kay M. Tye, a professor at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. The scientists aimed to map exactly how social isolation alters this brain circuit to influence drinking habits.
“Social isolation is increasingly recognized as an important risk factor for problematic alcohol use, but we know surprisingly little about how social experience actually changes the brain in ways that can influence drinking,” Patel told PsyPost. “We wanted to move beyond the association between isolation and alcohol use and identify the specific neural circuit changes that could contribute to this vulnerability.”
The researchers began by observing 14 male and 11 female mice in a choice setup, where the animals had access to both water and a 15% alcohol solution. They tracked the animals’ drinking while group-housed and then over 11 days of social isolation.
The isolation produced opposite behavioral effects depending on the sex of the mouse. Isolated males progressively increased their alcohol intake, while isolated females drank less alcohol. The researchers also noted that an animal’s social rank influenced its habits, as subordinate mice of both sexes tended to drink more alcohol than dominant mice even before being isolated.
“One other interesting finding was that social rank also predicted how much the mice drank even before isolation,” Patel said. “That suggests that alcohol drinking is shaped not just by whether an animal is socially isolated, but also by its social experience more broadly. We’re interested in understanding how different aspects of the social environment influence the brain and drinking behavior.”
Next, the team examined the brain cells connecting the basolateral amygdala to the medial prefrontal cortex. They used a technique called patch-clamp electrophysiology, which uses tiny glass electrodes to measure the electrical activity of individual neurons. The electrical excitability of these specific neurons closely mirrored the drinking behaviors.
In males, social isolation increased the excitability of these connecting neurons, making them more likely to fire. In females, isolation decreased this excitability. Because only males reliably escalated their drinking during isolation, the researchers focused the rest of their experiments on male mice to isolate the biological mechanisms driving increased alcohol use.
To see how this circuit behaves in real time, the team used cellular-resolution calcium imaging. They implanted miniature microscopes to track the activity of specific neurons while the male mice participated in a cued drinking task, where a light signaled the availability of alcohol or water. The neurons strongly encoded and predicted alcohol drinking.
Higher electrical activity in this specific brain pathway was linked to a higher frequency of alcohol drinking bouts. The pathway did not show the same predictive relationship for water consumption. The scientists then tested whether activating this pathway could directly influence behavior.
They used optogenetics, a technique where neurons are genetically modified to respond to light. By shining a laser through an implanted fiber, they could manually turn on the pathway from the basolateral amygdala to the medial prefrontal cortex whenever a mouse licked the drinking spout. Activating the circuit specifically increased alcohol intake, prompting the mice to engage in longer drinking bouts and take more licks per bout.
This light stimulation did not affect how much water or sugar water the mice drank. To understand how this signal changes the brain’s broader evaluation of rewards, the team tracked the activity of downstream neurons in the medial prefrontal cortex. During social isolation, the prefrontal cortex became much more responsive to alcohol but less responsive to natural rewards like sugar water.
“One of many actually surprising findings was that isolation changed how the prefrontal cortex represented different rewards,” Patel noted. “That raises the possibility that social experience can alter the relative value the brain assigns to different rewards.”
When the researchers artificially stimulated the pathway in group-housed mice, the prefrontal cortex reacted exactly as it did in isolated mice, showing heightened responses to alcohol and dampened responses to sugar. Finally, the researchers used optogenetics to inhibit, or silence, the pathway in socially isolated male mice. Turning off this circuit reduced the number of alcohol drinking bouts the isolated mice initiated, without affecting their water consumption.
This indicates that this specific neural pathway actively drives the escalation in alcohol use following social isolation. “Social isolation does not simply make animals drink more — it changes how one specific amygdala-to-prefrontal pathway represents alcohol relative to natural rewards,” said Jun Wang, a professor in the Department of Neuroscience and Experimental Therapeutics at Texas A& M University Health Science Center, who was not involved in the research.
“That coupling is the striking part,” Wang told PsyPost. “It offers a circuit-level account of how a social risk factor gets converted into a change in what the brain treats as worth pursuing, rather than just a change in how much an animal consumes.”
“I think the biggest takeaway is that our social experiences can have very real effects on the brain,” Patel said. “Social isolation didn’t just change how much the mice drank, it changed the activity of a specific brain circuit that helped drive that increase in alcohol use. To me, that really emphasizes that our social environment is an important part of understanding vulnerability to things like excessive drinking.”
“The broader significance is that social isolation may not simply be a circumstance that accompanies increased alcohol use—it can produce biological changes in the brain that actively contribute to drinking behavior,” she explained. “Understanding those mechanisms could ultimately help explain why social isolation increases vulnerability to problematic alcohol use in some individuals and may point toward new ways of identifying or reducing that vulnerability.”
Wang noted that the study’s strength lies in pinning the behavioral change directly to this specific brain projection and demonstrating that it is both necessary and sufficient. “The sex difference is the most interesting extension,” he added. “Two opposite behavioral outcomes, one consistent circuit signature.”
He also pointed out that the social-rank findings are a “genuinely new addition, and a reminder that the relevant social variable is not only isolation.”
The findings are in line with research covered by PsyPost earlier this year, which found that social isolation increased alcohol intake and altered reward processing in the brain. However, that previous study examined the long-term effects of adolescent isolation in rats, whereas the new research focused on concurrent adult isolation in mice.
As with all research, there are some caveats to consider. Wang expressed reasonably high confidence in the findings for male mice due to the convergence of multiple methods, noting that “together they are difficult to explain away.” However, he pointed out that group sizes were typical for the field but relatively small, and that the experimental drinking model represents escalated voluntary intake, not addiction.
“Nothing here tests compulsive drinking, drinking despite negative consequences, or withdrawal, so ‘isolation causes alcohol use disorder’ is a step beyond the data,” Wang explained. Patel echoed this sentiment, emphasizing that the study relies on animal models, and human social dynamics involve far more complex psychological factors.
“I would be cautious about interpreting the study as showing that loneliness inevitably causes people to drink more,” Patel cautioned. “We experimentally manipulated social isolation in mice, which is not the same thing as the subjective experience of loneliness in humans, and we actually observed very different responses in males and females. What the study provides is evidence that social experience can directly alter neural circuits controlling alcohol-related behavior.”
The researchers and Wang both highlight the unresolved questions regarding female mice, as the exact biological reasons why female mice reduced their drinking during isolation remain unconfirmed. Wang noted that the female mice drank more at baseline, adding that “‘Males escalate, females do not’ is a statement about one mouse strain over about two weeks of isolation.” Because the mechanistic experiments were done only in males, the circuit’s exact role in females remains unknown.
The researchers note that females showed higher baseline excitability in this brain pathway compared to males, suggesting that sex-specific hormonal or physiological mechanisms dictate how these neurons adapt to stress. “One major question is why the same social experience produces such different adaptations across individuals and between males and females,” Patel said.
Wang agreed, emphasizing the need to causally test the pathway in females to see if its downstream consequences differ. He also suggested investigating which prefrontal output pathways actually carry the effect on drinking, and whether the behavioral and brain changes are reversible.
“Does returning animals to group housing normalize both the excitability change and the drinking, and is there a duration of isolation past which it does not?” Wang asked. “That question matters most for the human parallel.”
“We also want to understand the molecular mechanisms that make these circuits sensitive to social experience and whether the resulting neural changes can be reversed,” Patel added. “Ultimately, the broader goal is to understand why adverse social environments increase vulnerability to psychiatric and substance-use disorders in some individuals but not others.”
The study, “Social isolation recruits amygdala–medial prefrontal cortex projections to escalate alcohol drinking in male mice,” was authored by Reesha R. Patel, Kelly N. Kim, Makenzie Patarino, Rachelle Pamintuan, Felix H. Taschbach, Hao Li, Bitna Joo, Anna Pallé, Xianru Yu, Christopher R. Lee, Aniek van Hoek, Jesse White, Rogelio Castro, Christian Cazares, Raymundo L. Miranda, Caroline Jia, Jeremy Delahanty, Kanha Batra, Laurel R. Keyes, Avraham Libster, Romy Wichmann, Talmo D. Pereira, Marcus K. Benna, and Kay M. Tye.
-------------------------------------------------
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-------------------------------------------------
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-
DATE: September 5, 2026 at 07:00AM
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: Brain damage reveals how a specific region generates mind-wandering
URL: https://www.psypost.org/brain-damage-reveals-how-a-specific-region-generates-mind-wandering/
Damage to a specific area of the brain limits a person’s ability to let their mind wander, according to a small study. Researchers found that this frontal brain region is necessary for generating the internal thoughts and memories that pull our attention away from the present moment. The findings were published in the journal Neuropsychologia.
The human mind frequently detaches from the immediate environment to focus on internal matters, such as planning for the future or recalling past events. Psychologists refer to this phenomenon as stimulus-independent and task-unrelated thought. In everyday language, it is more commonly known as mind-wandering.
Brain imaging studies have linked mind-wandering to the default mode network. This is a group of interconnected brain regions that activate when a person is resting or engaged in internal mental processes. One specific region in this network is the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, an area located in the lower front of the brain.
Past research indicated that damage to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex reduces mind-wandering, but the exact mechanism remained elusive. Scientists debated whether this brain region actually generates the wandering thoughts, or if it simply allows a person to become aware that their mind has wandered. A team of researchers based in Italy, led by Elisa Ciaramelli of the University of Bologna, designed an experiment to test these competing ideas.
If the ventromedial prefrontal cortex only controls a person’s awareness of their thoughts, damage to the region would cause individuals to underreport all types of distractions. However, if the region is responsible for generating internal thoughts, patients would specifically lack mind-wandering while still noticing external distractions. The researchers recruited 42 participants for a small study to investigate this distinction.
The study sample included nine patients with localized damage to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex. The researchers also included a control group of 14 patients with brain damage in other areas, along with a second control group of 19 healthy adults.
In the first phase of the experiment, known as the standard condition, participants completed a repetitive attention task on a computer. They watched a screen and pressed a button every time a pattern of vertical lines appeared among frequent patterns of horizontal lines.
Roughly every 40 trials, the program paused and asked the participants to rate their attention. If participants reported that their attention had drifted away from the task, they had to categorize the nature of the distraction.
Participants noted whether their distraction was an internal thought, a thought related to the repetitive nature of the task itself, or an external distraction like a noise in the room. If they reported an internal thought, they also specified whether the mental image was focused on the past, the present, or the future.
The patients with damage to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex reported drastically fewer internal thoughts compared to both the healthy adults and the other brain-damaged patients. They specifically lacked wandering thoughts focused on the past and the future.
These patients experienced the same amount of task-related thoughts and external distractions as the other groups. This suggests that their brains could still lose focus on the main activity, but they lacked the internal mental content needed to drift into true mind-wandering.
In a separate phase of the experiment, called the cued condition, the researchers altered the repetitive line task. Random cue words like the word seaside occasionally appeared on the screen beneath the center fixation point.
These words were designed to act as subtle triggers for autobiographical memories and wandering thoughts. When the thought probes appeared in this version of the task, participants could report if their mind-wandering had been sparked by one of the specific cue words.
When provided with these external cues, patients with damage to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex still struggled to generate wandering thoughts. They reported fewer internal thoughts triggered by the cue words than the healthy adults did.
As in the first experiment, this reduction was isolated to internal mind-wandering. The patients continued to report typical levels of external distractions and thoughts regarding the test itself.
The combined results indicate that the ventromedial prefrontal cortex is necessary for the spontaneous construction of internal events. The researchers propose that without this brain region initiating personal memories and future projections, a person’s attention is less likely to turn inward.
This finding aligns with the idea that the ventromedial prefrontal cortex helps build the mental scenes that fuel our daydreams. Because the patients retained the ability to notice external distractions, their lack of mind-wandering cannot be explained by a general failure to monitor their own thoughts.
The small number of participants in the study limits the sensitivity of the statistical analysis, meaning subtle differences between the patient groups might have gone undetected. The study format also required participants to be self-aware enough to categorize their own thoughts when prompted by the computer.
Future research will need to measure instances where people spontaneously catch themselves daydreaming, rather than relying on external computer prompts. This would help researchers confirm that the reported lack of mind-wandering holds true across different methods of measuring human attention.
Researchers might also investigate how this specific type of brain damage impacts daily functioning. A reduced capacity for mind-wandering could limit a person’s ability to plan for the future, reflect on past experiences, and engage in creative problem solving.
The study, “vmPFC damage reduces mind-wandering, but not other classes of off-task thought,” was authored by Elisa Ciaramelli, Virginia Pollarini, Andrea Crisafulli, Alessia Ferretti, and Manila Vannucci.
URL: https://www.psypost.org/brain-damage-reveals-how-a-specific-region-generates-mind-wandering/
-------------------------------------------------
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
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#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #MindWandering #vmPFC #VentromedialPrefrontalCortex #BrainDamage #Neuroscience #DefaultModeNetwork #AutobiographicalMemory #InternalThoughts #FuturePlanning #CognitiveScience
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DATE: September 5, 2026 at 07:00AM
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: Brain damage reveals how a specific region generates mind-wandering
URL: https://www.psypost.org/brain-damage-reveals-how-a-specific-region-generates-mind-wandering/
Damage to a specific area of the brain limits a person’s ability to let their mind wander, according to a small study. Researchers found that this frontal brain region is necessary for generating the internal thoughts and memories that pull our attention away from the present moment. The findings were published in the journal Neuropsychologia.
The human mind frequently detaches from the immediate environment to focus on internal matters, such as planning for the future or recalling past events. Psychologists refer to this phenomenon as stimulus-independent and task-unrelated thought. In everyday language, it is more commonly known as mind-wandering.
Brain imaging studies have linked mind-wandering to the default mode network. This is a group of interconnected brain regions that activate when a person is resting or engaged in internal mental processes. One specific region in this network is the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, an area located in the lower front of the brain.
Past research indicated that damage to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex reduces mind-wandering, but the exact mechanism remained elusive. Scientists debated whether this brain region actually generates the wandering thoughts, or if it simply allows a person to become aware that their mind has wandered. A team of researchers based in Italy, led by Elisa Ciaramelli of the University of Bologna, designed an experiment to test these competing ideas.
If the ventromedial prefrontal cortex only controls a person’s awareness of their thoughts, damage to the region would cause individuals to underreport all types of distractions. However, if the region is responsible for generating internal thoughts, patients would specifically lack mind-wandering while still noticing external distractions. The researchers recruited 42 participants for a small study to investigate this distinction.
The study sample included nine patients with localized damage to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex. The researchers also included a control group of 14 patients with brain damage in other areas, along with a second control group of 19 healthy adults.
In the first phase of the experiment, known as the standard condition, participants completed a repetitive attention task on a computer. They watched a screen and pressed a button every time a pattern of vertical lines appeared among frequent patterns of horizontal lines.
Roughly every 40 trials, the program paused and asked the participants to rate their attention. If participants reported that their attention had drifted away from the task, they had to categorize the nature of the distraction.
Participants noted whether their distraction was an internal thought, a thought related to the repetitive nature of the task itself, or an external distraction like a noise in the room. If they reported an internal thought, they also specified whether the mental image was focused on the past, the present, or the future.
The patients with damage to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex reported drastically fewer internal thoughts compared to both the healthy adults and the other brain-damaged patients. They specifically lacked wandering thoughts focused on the past and the future.
These patients experienced the same amount of task-related thoughts and external distractions as the other groups. This suggests that their brains could still lose focus on the main activity, but they lacked the internal mental content needed to drift into true mind-wandering.
In a separate phase of the experiment, called the cued condition, the researchers altered the repetitive line task. Random cue words like the word seaside occasionally appeared on the screen beneath the center fixation point.
These words were designed to act as subtle triggers for autobiographical memories and wandering thoughts. When the thought probes appeared in this version of the task, participants could report if their mind-wandering had been sparked by one of the specific cue words.
When provided with these external cues, patients with damage to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex still struggled to generate wandering thoughts. They reported fewer internal thoughts triggered by the cue words than the healthy adults did.
As in the first experiment, this reduction was isolated to internal mind-wandering. The patients continued to report typical levels of external distractions and thoughts regarding the test itself.
The combined results indicate that the ventromedial prefrontal cortex is necessary for the spontaneous construction of internal events. The researchers propose that without this brain region initiating personal memories and future projections, a person’s attention is less likely to turn inward.
This finding aligns with the idea that the ventromedial prefrontal cortex helps build the mental scenes that fuel our daydreams. Because the patients retained the ability to notice external distractions, their lack of mind-wandering cannot be explained by a general failure to monitor their own thoughts.
The small number of participants in the study limits the sensitivity of the statistical analysis, meaning subtle differences between the patient groups might have gone undetected. The study format also required participants to be self-aware enough to categorize their own thoughts when prompted by the computer.
Future research will need to measure instances where people spontaneously catch themselves daydreaming, rather than relying on external computer prompts. This would help researchers confirm that the reported lack of mind-wandering holds true across different methods of measuring human attention.
Researchers might also investigate how this specific type of brain damage impacts daily functioning. A reduced capacity for mind-wandering could limit a person’s ability to plan for the future, reflect on past experiences, and engage in creative problem solving.
The study, “vmPFC damage reduces mind-wandering, but not other classes of off-task thought,” was authored by Elisa Ciaramelli, Virginia Pollarini, Andrea Crisafulli, Alessia Ferretti, and Manila Vannucci.
URL: https://www.psypost.org/brain-damage-reveals-how-a-specific-region-generates-mind-wandering/
-------------------------------------------------
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
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #MindWandering #vmPFC #VentromedialPrefrontalCortex #BrainDamage #Neuroscience #DefaultModeNetwork #AutobiographicalMemory #InternalThoughts #FuturePlanning #CognitiveScience
-
DATE: September 5, 2026 at 07:00AM
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: Brain damage reveals how a specific region generates mind-wandering
URL: https://www.psypost.org/brain-damage-reveals-how-a-specific-region-generates-mind-wandering/
Damage to a specific area of the brain limits a person’s ability to let their mind wander, according to a small study. Researchers found that this frontal brain region is necessary for generating the internal thoughts and memories that pull our attention away from the present moment. The findings were published in the journal Neuropsychologia.
The human mind frequently detaches from the immediate environment to focus on internal matters, such as planning for the future or recalling past events. Psychologists refer to this phenomenon as stimulus-independent and task-unrelated thought. In everyday language, it is more commonly known as mind-wandering.
Brain imaging studies have linked mind-wandering to the default mode network. This is a group of interconnected brain regions that activate when a person is resting or engaged in internal mental processes. One specific region in this network is the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, an area located in the lower front of the brain.
Past research indicated that damage to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex reduces mind-wandering, but the exact mechanism remained elusive. Scientists debated whether this brain region actually generates the wandering thoughts, or if it simply allows a person to become aware that their mind has wandered. A team of researchers based in Italy, led by Elisa Ciaramelli of the University of Bologna, designed an experiment to test these competing ideas.
If the ventromedial prefrontal cortex only controls a person’s awareness of their thoughts, damage to the region would cause individuals to underreport all types of distractions. However, if the region is responsible for generating internal thoughts, patients would specifically lack mind-wandering while still noticing external distractions. The researchers recruited 42 participants for a small study to investigate this distinction.
The study sample included nine patients with localized damage to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex. The researchers also included a control group of 14 patients with brain damage in other areas, along with a second control group of 19 healthy adults.
In the first phase of the experiment, known as the standard condition, participants completed a repetitive attention task on a computer. They watched a screen and pressed a button every time a pattern of vertical lines appeared among frequent patterns of horizontal lines.
Roughly every 40 trials, the program paused and asked the participants to rate their attention. If participants reported that their attention had drifted away from the task, they had to categorize the nature of the distraction.
Participants noted whether their distraction was an internal thought, a thought related to the repetitive nature of the task itself, or an external distraction like a noise in the room. If they reported an internal thought, they also specified whether the mental image was focused on the past, the present, or the future.
The patients with damage to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex reported drastically fewer internal thoughts compared to both the healthy adults and the other brain-damaged patients. They specifically lacked wandering thoughts focused on the past and the future.
These patients experienced the same amount of task-related thoughts and external distractions as the other groups. This suggests that their brains could still lose focus on the main activity, but they lacked the internal mental content needed to drift into true mind-wandering.
In a separate phase of the experiment, called the cued condition, the researchers altered the repetitive line task. Random cue words like the word seaside occasionally appeared on the screen beneath the center fixation point.
These words were designed to act as subtle triggers for autobiographical memories and wandering thoughts. When the thought probes appeared in this version of the task, participants could report if their mind-wandering had been sparked by one of the specific cue words.
When provided with these external cues, patients with damage to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex still struggled to generate wandering thoughts. They reported fewer internal thoughts triggered by the cue words than the healthy adults did.
As in the first experiment, this reduction was isolated to internal mind-wandering. The patients continued to report typical levels of external distractions and thoughts regarding the test itself.
The combined results indicate that the ventromedial prefrontal cortex is necessary for the spontaneous construction of internal events. The researchers propose that without this brain region initiating personal memories and future projections, a person’s attention is less likely to turn inward.
This finding aligns with the idea that the ventromedial prefrontal cortex helps build the mental scenes that fuel our daydreams. Because the patients retained the ability to notice external distractions, their lack of mind-wandering cannot be explained by a general failure to monitor their own thoughts.
The small number of participants in the study limits the sensitivity of the statistical analysis, meaning subtle differences between the patient groups might have gone undetected. The study format also required participants to be self-aware enough to categorize their own thoughts when prompted by the computer.
Future research will need to measure instances where people spontaneously catch themselves daydreaming, rather than relying on external computer prompts. This would help researchers confirm that the reported lack of mind-wandering holds true across different methods of measuring human attention.
Researchers might also investigate how this specific type of brain damage impacts daily functioning. A reduced capacity for mind-wandering could limit a person’s ability to plan for the future, reflect on past experiences, and engage in creative problem solving.
The study, “vmPFC damage reduces mind-wandering, but not other classes of off-task thought,” was authored by Elisa Ciaramelli, Virginia Pollarini, Andrea Crisafulli, Alessia Ferretti, and Manila Vannucci.
URL: https://www.psypost.org/brain-damage-reveals-how-a-specific-region-generates-mind-wandering/
-------------------------------------------------
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
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #MindWandering #vmPFC #VentromedialPrefrontalCortex #BrainDamage #Neuroscience #DefaultModeNetwork #AutobiographicalMemory #InternalThoughts #FuturePlanning #CognitiveScience