#counseling — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #counseling, aggregated by home.social.
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DATE: September 19, 2026 at 07:28AM
SOURCE: SOCIALPSYCHOLOGY.ORGTITLE: Google Says Gemini Hacked Real Systems, Mistaking Them for a Test
Source: Yahoo News - Top Headlines
Google on Friday disclosed the first known instance of its artificial intelligence software, Gemini, carrying out an undirected computer hack weeks after AI firms Anthropic and OpenAI reported their AI models went beyond the instructions of their human creators. Google said that in May its AI model gained access to three outside systems during a test by either guessing login information or using login credentials it found in a public repository.
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#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #GoogleGemini #AIHacking #AIsecurity #TechNews #Cybersecurity #ArtificialIntelligence #HackingIncident #LoginCredentials #PublicRepos #YahooNews
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DATE: September 19, 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: Memories of childhood scents associated with joy are encoded by neurons generated shortly after birth
A study published in PLOS Biology by Jules Dejou and colleagues shows that neurons developing around the time of birth in the olfactory bulb granule-cell layer (a region of the brain) are the ones encoding the memories of scents associated with joy in childhood. A separate primer by Chloé Guillaume and Elisa Galliano published in PLOS Biology discusses these results. In the study, juvenile mice exposed to attractive odors while in an enriched playful environment showed a preference for that odor in adulthood more than mice exposed to the same odor while in normal housing.
Memories evoked by odors are often unusually vivid and emotionally powerful. This is particularly the case when they originate in childhood. Compared with memories triggered by visual or auditory cues, autobiographical memories triggered by odors tend to come from earlier periods of life and are more often associated with positive emotions. Repeated exposure to the same odor in a consistent emotional context can gradually create strong associations that persist for many years. Such memories may be linked not to a specific reward, but to a broader sense of comfort, happiness, or well-being associated with familiar childhood experiences.
Olfaction is especially important early in life because it is functional from birth and can guide essential behaviors before other sensory systems are fully developed. The olfactory system also has unusually direct connections with brain regions involved in memory, reward, and emotion, including the amygdala, hippocampus, orbitofrontal cortex, and related limbic structures (a network of brain regions that control emotion and memory).
Odor information is initially processed in the olfactory bulb, where granule cells (a type of small neuron) and other interneurons (neurons that transmit signals between other neurons) help refine sensory signals before they are transmitted to higher brain regions. Many of these olfactory interneurons are generated early in life and can be shaped by early sensory experience, making them plausible substrates for long-lasting odor memories.
To identify the neurons responsible for encoding olfactory memories from childhood and to understand the neural mechanism that allows them to play an important role in forming a person’s identity, the study authors started with a survey involving 647 human participants. Participants were asked to recall an odorant that was significant in their childhood, going back as far as possible in time. They were then asked to rate the pleasantness and the presence of six basic emotions (happiness, surprise, fear, disgust, sadness, and anger) associated with that smell.
Results of this survey showed that the ratings were highest for positive emotions, namely happiness and pleasantness, followed by surprise. Ratings of negative emotions were lower. Participants were also asked how many times the event that led to their earlier odor memories occurred. Seventy-three percent of participants reported that the event occurred more than five times.
Finally, participants rated the hedonic value (the degree to which something is considered pleasant or unpleasant) of their childhood odorant, which they found to be predominantly pleasant. The authors used another dataset to see whether those smells are intrinsically pleasant or whether participants only perceived them that way. The results indicated that those smells do tend to be intrinsically pleasant, indicating that individuals prefer to make pleasant odors a part of their autobiographical memory.
Based on the human survey results, the researchers developed a mouse model. They divided 23-day-old (juvenile) mice into two groups. One group was exposed up to their 33rd day of life to an attractive odor such as limonene, citronellol, or camphor while the mice were in a positive, enriched, playful environment.
This pairing between the odor and the environment was repeated five times during the 10 days of the experiment. It was done every other day for 2 hours. The second, control group of mice was also exposed to the same odor, but in their ordinary housing. The study authors assessed the emotions of the mice by registering their ultrasonic vocalizations, with more numerous and higher frequency vocalizations indicating a more positive emotional state.
Later, when the mice were 2 months old (i.e., young adults), the study authors tested whether they showed a preference for that odor. The mice that learned to associate the odor with an enriched environment and positive emotions indeed showed a greater preference for it compared to mice that experienced it in their ordinary housing. The researchers observed that this memory recall relied on increased functional connectivity in the brain’s reward system.
Investigation of the neural basis of this smell memory found that neurons born around the first day of life in the olfactory bulb granule-cell layer tended to be particularly activated by the odor the mice learned to associate with positive emotions as juveniles. When these neurons were silenced using optogenetics (a biological technique that uses light to control neurons that have been genetically modified to express light-sensitive ion channels), the preference for the odor was reduced, suggesting that these neurons are a key part of the early memory recall mechanism.
However, by 6 months of age, that memory was gone, unless the mice were periodically re-exposed to the scent. In these older mice, memory persistence was no longer dependent on the neonatal-born granule cells. Instead, the persistence of the memory was associated with a large-scale reorganization of the brain’s functional networks, shifting away from the reward system to rely on strengthened connections within the olfactory-limbic system.
The study contributes to the scientific understanding of childhood odor memories and their role in overall psychological functioning. However, it should be noted that while the initial survey was conducted on humans, the experimental manipulations were conducted on mice. While mice and humans share many physiological similarities, they are still very different species, and the exact neural network mechanisms in humans might differ.
The primer, “Neurons generated shortly after birth encode the scent of early-life happiness,” was authored by Chloé Guillaume and Elisa Galliano. The paper, “Positive early-life olfactory memory is rooted in the olfactory bulb and triggers large-scale changes beyond the olfactory system,” was authored by Jules Dejou, Anna Athanassi, Théo Brunel, Marc Thevenet, Anne Didier, and Nathalie Mandairon.
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-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #childhoodolfactorymemories #neuroscience #olfactorybulb #earlylifejoy #neurondevelopment #odormemory #positivity #brainrewardsystem #optogenetics #animalstudies
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DATE: September 19, 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: Conspiracy theories appear to erode public faith in meritocracy
URL: https://www.psypost.org/conspiracy-theories-erode-public-faith-in-a-fair-society/
When people buy into conspiracy theories, their faith in the fairness of society begins to erode. New research published in Political Psychology shows that exposure to conspiratorial narratives directly reduces the belief that resources are distributed based on merit, equality, or need. The findings suggest that suspicions of hidden plots foster a deep distrust of institutions, coloring how individuals view the basic rules of social and economic life.
Meritocracy is the idea that society rewards talent and hard work. Many political leaders and cultural narratives lean heavily on this concept to motivate citizens and justify existing economic structures. Alongside equality and need, meritocracy forms the foundation of what psychologists call distributive justice. This term refers to the perceived fairness of how a community divides its wealth, opportunities, and resources.
Public perception of these justice principles dictates how well a society functions. When people believe the system is fair, they are more likely to cooperate and follow the rules. Alternatively, widespread perceptions of injustice can foster resentment and social instability.
Researchers have extensively studied how income disparities and social mobility affect these views. Little research has examined how conspiratorial thinking influences ideas about fairness. Conspiracy theories typically allege that malevolent, secretive groups are orchestrating events for their own benefit. Because these narratives frame elites as exploitative and corrupt, they naturally conflict with the notion of a fair society.
A team of researchers led by Qi Zhao, a psychologist at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, set out to test this dynamic. They wanted to know if believing in a conspiracy theory makes people less likely to view the world as fair. The team designed a combination of survey analyses and experiments to see if conspiratorial beliefs alter how people perceive the distribution of resources.
In their first study, the researchers analyzed data from the World Value Survey, a large international dataset. The sample included 90,837 participants across 68 different societies. The researchers looked at survey items measuring beliefs in election fraud conspiracies, such as the idea that rich people buy elections or that television news manipulates voters.
They compared these responses to a question asking whether hard work usually brings a better life. The results showed a consistent negative relationship between conspiracy beliefs and faith in meritocracy. People who endorsed election fraud narratives were less likely to believe that effort leads to success.
This pattern held true regardless of whether a country had a highly democratic government or an authoritarian one. The researchers also accounted for national differences in economic inequality, gross domestic product, and expert ratings of corruption. The link between conspiracy beliefs and diminished faith in meritocracy remained intact across these varied environments.
Because the survey could only show a correlation, the researchers conducted an experiment to test for a causal effect. They recruited 403 participants in the United States for an online study. Half of the participants read a news report about a fictional local government misusing public funds, accompanied by evidence supporting the conspiracy theory. The other half read the same report but with evidence refuting the allegations.
Afterward, participants rated their agreement with statements about how resources were handled in the fictional community. Those exposed to the supporting evidence reported lower belief in meritocracy. They also expressed less belief in the principles of equality, which assumes everyone gets an equal share, and need, which dictates that resources go to those who require them most.
The experiment demonstrated that adopting a conspiracy belief directly lowered perceptions of distributive justice. The researchers also tested potential psychological mechanisms behind this shift. They found that distrust in government acted as a primary bridge, explaining how exposure to the conspiracy theory led to lower ratings of fairness.
The researchers then replicated this experiment with 788 participants in China to see if the effect crossed cultural boundaries. Chinese culture traditionally places a stronger emphasis on equality and need compared to the merit-focused culture of the United States. The scenario in this experiment involved a local government colluding with the media to suppress negative news and control the public.
Just as in the American sample, participants who read evidence validating the conspiracy theory reported lower faith in all three justice principles. They were less likely to believe that the fictional society rewarded hard work, distributed resources equally, or helped those in need. Institutional distrust once again served as the psychological mechanism driving these negative perceptions.
To test whether these dynamics exist outside of civic government, the team conducted a final experiment focused on a corporate workplace. They recruited another 403 American participants and asked them to imagine working for an electronics company. The participants read a rumor that the company’s administration was deliberately hiding the presence of dangerous chemicals to avoid bad publicity.
Similar to the previous experiments, participants received information either confirming or debunking the corporate cover-up. Those in the confirmation group displayed a pronounced drop in their belief that the company operated fairly. They doubted that the administration rewarded good work, treated employees equally, or accommodated worker needs.
The researchers concluded that conspiracy theories degrade trust in administrative bodies, which in turn poisons the perception of fairness in an organizational setting. The effect was especially pronounced for the principles of equality and need. Meritocracy perceptions were also reduced, though they remained slightly more resilient, likely because performance-based rewards are deeply ingrained in corporate structures.
A few caveats apply to how these results translate to the real world. The experiments relied on fictional scenarios to manipulate beliefs, which might not perfectly mirror the deeply entrenched narratives people encounter online or in their communities. Real-world conspiracy theories often tie into long-standing political identities, making them harder to accept or reject based on a single piece of evidence.
The studies focused entirely on conspiracy theories involving powerful institutions like governments and corporate boards. It is unknown if conspiracies targeting marginalized groups or ordinary citizens would have the same effect on perceptions of societal fairness. Future research might explore whether narratives about less powerful groups also erode trust in the broader economic system.
Additionally, while the experiments showed that conspiracy beliefs cause a drop in perceived fairness, the reverse might also happen outside the laboratory. Experiencing genuine unfairness might make people more susceptible to conspiratorial thinking. Examining this cycle could help psychologists understand how institutional distrust deepens over time.
The study, “Not a real meritocracy? How conspiracy beliefs reduce perceived distributive justice,” was authored by Qi Zhao, Jan-Willem van Prooijen, and Giuliana Spadaro.
URL: https://www.psypost.org/conspiracy-theories-erode-public-faith-in-a-fair-society/
-------------------------------------------------
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 #ConspiracyTheories #Meritocracy #DistributiveJustice #FairnessPerception #InstitutionalTrust #PublicOpinion #SocialEquity #EconomicJustice #CivicKnowledge #MediaInfluence
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DATE: September 19, 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: Conspiracy theories appear to erode public faith in meritocracy
URL: https://www.psypost.org/conspiracy-theories-erode-public-faith-in-a-fair-society/
When people buy into conspiracy theories, their faith in the fairness of society begins to erode. New research published in Political Psychology shows that exposure to conspiratorial narratives directly reduces the belief that resources are distributed based on merit, equality, or need. The findings suggest that suspicions of hidden plots foster a deep distrust of institutions, coloring how individuals view the basic rules of social and economic life.
Meritocracy is the idea that society rewards talent and hard work. Many political leaders and cultural narratives lean heavily on this concept to motivate citizens and justify existing economic structures. Alongside equality and need, meritocracy forms the foundation of what psychologists call distributive justice. This term refers to the perceived fairness of how a community divides its wealth, opportunities, and resources.
Public perception of these justice principles dictates how well a society functions. When people believe the system is fair, they are more likely to cooperate and follow the rules. Alternatively, widespread perceptions of injustice can foster resentment and social instability.
Researchers have extensively studied how income disparities and social mobility affect these views. Little research has examined how conspiratorial thinking influences ideas about fairness. Conspiracy theories typically allege that malevolent, secretive groups are orchestrating events for their own benefit. Because these narratives frame elites as exploitative and corrupt, they naturally conflict with the notion of a fair society.
A team of researchers led by Qi Zhao, a psychologist at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, set out to test this dynamic. They wanted to know if believing in a conspiracy theory makes people less likely to view the world as fair. The team designed a combination of survey analyses and experiments to see if conspiratorial beliefs alter how people perceive the distribution of resources.
In their first study, the researchers analyzed data from the World Value Survey, a large international dataset. The sample included 90,837 participants across 68 different societies. The researchers looked at survey items measuring beliefs in election fraud conspiracies, such as the idea that rich people buy elections or that television news manipulates voters.
They compared these responses to a question asking whether hard work usually brings a better life. The results showed a consistent negative relationship between conspiracy beliefs and faith in meritocracy. People who endorsed election fraud narratives were less likely to believe that effort leads to success.
This pattern held true regardless of whether a country had a highly democratic government or an authoritarian one. The researchers also accounted for national differences in economic inequality, gross domestic product, and expert ratings of corruption. The link between conspiracy beliefs and diminished faith in meritocracy remained intact across these varied environments.
Because the survey could only show a correlation, the researchers conducted an experiment to test for a causal effect. They recruited 403 participants in the United States for an online study. Half of the participants read a news report about a fictional local government misusing public funds, accompanied by evidence supporting the conspiracy theory. The other half read the same report but with evidence refuting the allegations.
Afterward, participants rated their agreement with statements about how resources were handled in the fictional community. Those exposed to the supporting evidence reported lower belief in meritocracy. They also expressed less belief in the principles of equality, which assumes everyone gets an equal share, and need, which dictates that resources go to those who require them most.
The experiment demonstrated that adopting a conspiracy belief directly lowered perceptions of distributive justice. The researchers also tested potential psychological mechanisms behind this shift. They found that distrust in government acted as a primary bridge, explaining how exposure to the conspiracy theory led to lower ratings of fairness.
The researchers then replicated this experiment with 788 participants in China to see if the effect crossed cultural boundaries. Chinese culture traditionally places a stronger emphasis on equality and need compared to the merit-focused culture of the United States. The scenario in this experiment involved a local government colluding with the media to suppress negative news and control the public.
Just as in the American sample, participants who read evidence validating the conspiracy theory reported lower faith in all three justice principles. They were less likely to believe that the fictional society rewarded hard work, distributed resources equally, or helped those in need. Institutional distrust once again served as the psychological mechanism driving these negative perceptions.
To test whether these dynamics exist outside of civic government, the team conducted a final experiment focused on a corporate workplace. They recruited another 403 American participants and asked them to imagine working for an electronics company. The participants read a rumor that the company’s administration was deliberately hiding the presence of dangerous chemicals to avoid bad publicity.
Similar to the previous experiments, participants received information either confirming or debunking the corporate cover-up. Those in the confirmation group displayed a pronounced drop in their belief that the company operated fairly. They doubted that the administration rewarded good work, treated employees equally, or accommodated worker needs.
The researchers concluded that conspiracy theories degrade trust in administrative bodies, which in turn poisons the perception of fairness in an organizational setting. The effect was especially pronounced for the principles of equality and need. Meritocracy perceptions were also reduced, though they remained slightly more resilient, likely because performance-based rewards are deeply ingrained in corporate structures.
A few caveats apply to how these results translate to the real world. The experiments relied on fictional scenarios to manipulate beliefs, which might not perfectly mirror the deeply entrenched narratives people encounter online or in their communities. Real-world conspiracy theories often tie into long-standing political identities, making them harder to accept or reject based on a single piece of evidence.
The studies focused entirely on conspiracy theories involving powerful institutions like governments and corporate boards. It is unknown if conspiracies targeting marginalized groups or ordinary citizens would have the same effect on perceptions of societal fairness. Future research might explore whether narratives about less powerful groups also erode trust in the broader economic system.
Additionally, while the experiments showed that conspiracy beliefs cause a drop in perceived fairness, the reverse might also happen outside the laboratory. Experiencing genuine unfairness might make people more susceptible to conspiratorial thinking. Examining this cycle could help psychologists understand how institutional distrust deepens over time.
The study, “Not a real meritocracy? How conspiracy beliefs reduce perceived distributive justice,” was authored by Qi Zhao, Jan-Willem van Prooijen, and Giuliana Spadaro.
URL: https://www.psypost.org/conspiracy-theories-erode-public-faith-in-a-fair-society/
-------------------------------------------------
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 #ConspiracyTheories #Meritocracy #DistributiveJustice #FairnessPerception #InstitutionalTrust #PublicOpinion #SocialEquity #EconomicJustice #CivicKnowledge #MediaInfluence
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DATE: September 19, 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: Conspiracy theories appear to erode public faith in meritocracy
URL: https://www.psypost.org/conspiracy-theories-erode-public-faith-in-a-fair-society/
When people buy into conspiracy theories, their faith in the fairness of society begins to erode. New research published in Political Psychology shows that exposure to conspiratorial narratives directly reduces the belief that resources are distributed based on merit, equality, or need. The findings suggest that suspicions of hidden plots foster a deep distrust of institutions, coloring how individuals view the basic rules of social and economic life.
Meritocracy is the idea that society rewards talent and hard work. Many political leaders and cultural narratives lean heavily on this concept to motivate citizens and justify existing economic structures. Alongside equality and need, meritocracy forms the foundation of what psychologists call distributive justice. This term refers to the perceived fairness of how a community divides its wealth, opportunities, and resources.
Public perception of these justice principles dictates how well a society functions. When people believe the system is fair, they are more likely to cooperate and follow the rules. Alternatively, widespread perceptions of injustice can foster resentment and social instability.
Researchers have extensively studied how income disparities and social mobility affect these views. Little research has examined how conspiratorial thinking influences ideas about fairness. Conspiracy theories typically allege that malevolent, secretive groups are orchestrating events for their own benefit. Because these narratives frame elites as exploitative and corrupt, they naturally conflict with the notion of a fair society.
A team of researchers led by Qi Zhao, a psychologist at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, set out to test this dynamic. They wanted to know if believing in a conspiracy theory makes people less likely to view the world as fair. The team designed a combination of survey analyses and experiments to see if conspiratorial beliefs alter how people perceive the distribution of resources.
In their first study, the researchers analyzed data from the World Value Survey, a large international dataset. The sample included 90,837 participants across 68 different societies. The researchers looked at survey items measuring beliefs in election fraud conspiracies, such as the idea that rich people buy elections or that television news manipulates voters.
They compared these responses to a question asking whether hard work usually brings a better life. The results showed a consistent negative relationship between conspiracy beliefs and faith in meritocracy. People who endorsed election fraud narratives were less likely to believe that effort leads to success.
This pattern held true regardless of whether a country had a highly democratic government or an authoritarian one. The researchers also accounted for national differences in economic inequality, gross domestic product, and expert ratings of corruption. The link between conspiracy beliefs and diminished faith in meritocracy remained intact across these varied environments.
Because the survey could only show a correlation, the researchers conducted an experiment to test for a causal effect. They recruited 403 participants in the United States for an online study. Half of the participants read a news report about a fictional local government misusing public funds, accompanied by evidence supporting the conspiracy theory. The other half read the same report but with evidence refuting the allegations.
Afterward, participants rated their agreement with statements about how resources were handled in the fictional community. Those exposed to the supporting evidence reported lower belief in meritocracy. They also expressed less belief in the principles of equality, which assumes everyone gets an equal share, and need, which dictates that resources go to those who require them most.
The experiment demonstrated that adopting a conspiracy belief directly lowered perceptions of distributive justice. The researchers also tested potential psychological mechanisms behind this shift. They found that distrust in government acted as a primary bridge, explaining how exposure to the conspiracy theory led to lower ratings of fairness.
The researchers then replicated this experiment with 788 participants in China to see if the effect crossed cultural boundaries. Chinese culture traditionally places a stronger emphasis on equality and need compared to the merit-focused culture of the United States. The scenario in this experiment involved a local government colluding with the media to suppress negative news and control the public.
Just as in the American sample, participants who read evidence validating the conspiracy theory reported lower faith in all three justice principles. They were less likely to believe that the fictional society rewarded hard work, distributed resources equally, or helped those in need. Institutional distrust once again served as the psychological mechanism driving these negative perceptions.
To test whether these dynamics exist outside of civic government, the team conducted a final experiment focused on a corporate workplace. They recruited another 403 American participants and asked them to imagine working for an electronics company. The participants read a rumor that the company’s administration was deliberately hiding the presence of dangerous chemicals to avoid bad publicity.
Similar to the previous experiments, participants received information either confirming or debunking the corporate cover-up. Those in the confirmation group displayed a pronounced drop in their belief that the company operated fairly. They doubted that the administration rewarded good work, treated employees equally, or accommodated worker needs.
The researchers concluded that conspiracy theories degrade trust in administrative bodies, which in turn poisons the perception of fairness in an organizational setting. The effect was especially pronounced for the principles of equality and need. Meritocracy perceptions were also reduced, though they remained slightly more resilient, likely because performance-based rewards are deeply ingrained in corporate structures.
A few caveats apply to how these results translate to the real world. The experiments relied on fictional scenarios to manipulate beliefs, which might not perfectly mirror the deeply entrenched narratives people encounter online or in their communities. Real-world conspiracy theories often tie into long-standing political identities, making them harder to accept or reject based on a single piece of evidence.
The studies focused entirely on conspiracy theories involving powerful institutions like governments and corporate boards. It is unknown if conspiracies targeting marginalized groups or ordinary citizens would have the same effect on perceptions of societal fairness. Future research might explore whether narratives about less powerful groups also erode trust in the broader economic system.
Additionally, while the experiments showed that conspiracy beliefs cause a drop in perceived fairness, the reverse might also happen outside the laboratory. Experiencing genuine unfairness might make people more susceptible to conspiratorial thinking. Examining this cycle could help psychologists understand how institutional distrust deepens over time.
The study, “Not a real meritocracy? How conspiracy beliefs reduce perceived distributive justice,” was authored by Qi Zhao, Jan-Willem van Prooijen, and Giuliana Spadaro.
URL: https://www.psypost.org/conspiracy-theories-erode-public-faith-in-a-fair-society/
-------------------------------------------------
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 #ConspiracyTheories #Meritocracy #DistributiveJustice #FairnessPerception #InstitutionalTrust #PublicOpinion #SocialEquity #EconomicJustice #CivicKnowledge #MediaInfluence
-
DATE: September 19, 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: Conspiracy theories appear to erode public faith in meritocracy
URL: https://www.psypost.org/conspiracy-theories-erode-public-faith-in-a-fair-society/
When people buy into conspiracy theories, their faith in the fairness of society begins to erode. New research published in Political Psychology shows that exposure to conspiratorial narratives directly reduces the belief that resources are distributed based on merit, equality, or need. The findings suggest that suspicions of hidden plots foster a deep distrust of institutions, coloring how individuals view the basic rules of social and economic life.
Meritocracy is the idea that society rewards talent and hard work. Many political leaders and cultural narratives lean heavily on this concept to motivate citizens and justify existing economic structures. Alongside equality and need, meritocracy forms the foundation of what psychologists call distributive justice. This term refers to the perceived fairness of how a community divides its wealth, opportunities, and resources.
Public perception of these justice principles dictates how well a society functions. When people believe the system is fair, they are more likely to cooperate and follow the rules. Alternatively, widespread perceptions of injustice can foster resentment and social instability.
Researchers have extensively studied how income disparities and social mobility affect these views. Little research has examined how conspiratorial thinking influences ideas about fairness. Conspiracy theories typically allege that malevolent, secretive groups are orchestrating events for their own benefit. Because these narratives frame elites as exploitative and corrupt, they naturally conflict with the notion of a fair society.
A team of researchers led by Qi Zhao, a psychologist at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, set out to test this dynamic. They wanted to know if believing in a conspiracy theory makes people less likely to view the world as fair. The team designed a combination of survey analyses and experiments to see if conspiratorial beliefs alter how people perceive the distribution of resources.
In their first study, the researchers analyzed data from the World Value Survey, a large international dataset. The sample included 90,837 participants across 68 different societies. The researchers looked at survey items measuring beliefs in election fraud conspiracies, such as the idea that rich people buy elections or that television news manipulates voters.
They compared these responses to a question asking whether hard work usually brings a better life. The results showed a consistent negative relationship between conspiracy beliefs and faith in meritocracy. People who endorsed election fraud narratives were less likely to believe that effort leads to success.
This pattern held true regardless of whether a country had a highly democratic government or an authoritarian one. The researchers also accounted for national differences in economic inequality, gross domestic product, and expert ratings of corruption. The link between conspiracy beliefs and diminished faith in meritocracy remained intact across these varied environments.
Because the survey could only show a correlation, the researchers conducted an experiment to test for a causal effect. They recruited 403 participants in the United States for an online study. Half of the participants read a news report about a fictional local government misusing public funds, accompanied by evidence supporting the conspiracy theory. The other half read the same report but with evidence refuting the allegations.
Afterward, participants rated their agreement with statements about how resources were handled in the fictional community. Those exposed to the supporting evidence reported lower belief in meritocracy. They also expressed less belief in the principles of equality, which assumes everyone gets an equal share, and need, which dictates that resources go to those who require them most.
The experiment demonstrated that adopting a conspiracy belief directly lowered perceptions of distributive justice. The researchers also tested potential psychological mechanisms behind this shift. They found that distrust in government acted as a primary bridge, explaining how exposure to the conspiracy theory led to lower ratings of fairness.
The researchers then replicated this experiment with 788 participants in China to see if the effect crossed cultural boundaries. Chinese culture traditionally places a stronger emphasis on equality and need compared to the merit-focused culture of the United States. The scenario in this experiment involved a local government colluding with the media to suppress negative news and control the public.
Just as in the American sample, participants who read evidence validating the conspiracy theory reported lower faith in all three justice principles. They were less likely to believe that the fictional society rewarded hard work, distributed resources equally, or helped those in need. Institutional distrust once again served as the psychological mechanism driving these negative perceptions.
To test whether these dynamics exist outside of civic government, the team conducted a final experiment focused on a corporate workplace. They recruited another 403 American participants and asked them to imagine working for an electronics company. The participants read a rumor that the company’s administration was deliberately hiding the presence of dangerous chemicals to avoid bad publicity.
Similar to the previous experiments, participants received information either confirming or debunking the corporate cover-up. Those in the confirmation group displayed a pronounced drop in their belief that the company operated fairly. They doubted that the administration rewarded good work, treated employees equally, or accommodated worker needs.
The researchers concluded that conspiracy theories degrade trust in administrative bodies, which in turn poisons the perception of fairness in an organizational setting. The effect was especially pronounced for the principles of equality and need. Meritocracy perceptions were also reduced, though they remained slightly more resilient, likely because performance-based rewards are deeply ingrained in corporate structures.
A few caveats apply to how these results translate to the real world. The experiments relied on fictional scenarios to manipulate beliefs, which might not perfectly mirror the deeply entrenched narratives people encounter online or in their communities. Real-world conspiracy theories often tie into long-standing political identities, making them harder to accept or reject based on a single piece of evidence.
The studies focused entirely on conspiracy theories involving powerful institutions like governments and corporate boards. It is unknown if conspiracies targeting marginalized groups or ordinary citizens would have the same effect on perceptions of societal fairness. Future research might explore whether narratives about less powerful groups also erode trust in the broader economic system.
Additionally, while the experiments showed that conspiracy beliefs cause a drop in perceived fairness, the reverse might also happen outside the laboratory. Experiencing genuine unfairness might make people more susceptible to conspiratorial thinking. Examining this cycle could help psychologists understand how institutional distrust deepens over time.
The study, “Not a real meritocracy? How conspiracy beliefs reduce perceived distributive justice,” was authored by Qi Zhao, Jan-Willem van Prooijen, and Giuliana Spadaro.
URL: https://www.psypost.org/conspiracy-theories-erode-public-faith-in-a-fair-society/
-------------------------------------------------
Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org
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DATE: September 19, 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: Mass shootings and suicides share an unsettling seasonal rhythm, new study finds
A recent analysis of public health and crime data found that mass shootings and deaths by suicide in the United States share a nearly identical seasonal pattern, with both events peaking in mid-summer and reaching their lowest points in mid-winter. This parallel timing provides evidence for the idea that many mass shootings may be driven by similar underlying psychological forces as suicides, particularly severe and violent distress. The findings were published in Journal of Biological Rhythms.
Mass shootings (defined in this context as incidents where four or more people, not counting the shooter, are killed or injured by a firearm) have become increasingly frequent in the United States. To better prevent these tragedies, public health experts are looking for patterns that might explain when and why they happen. One emerging idea is that many mass shooters view their attacks as a final, suicidal act.
“The study was designed to explore whether epidemiological trends align with evidence from case series investigations that led to the hypothesis proposed by mass shootings researchers that many mass shootings are both homicidal and suicidal, designed as final acts,” said Mark É. Czeisler, a clinical fellow in medicine and resident physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School.
For centuries, the seasonality of mood and suicide has presented a paradox to medical professionals. While depression is known to be most severe during the shorter, darker days of winter, suicide deaths actually follow the opposite pattern. A 2019 study of psychiatric patients indicated that highly lethal suicide attempts tend to peak during the summer months when sunlight exposure is highest. In contrast, less severe suicide attempts and general depression do not follow this summer-peaking trend.
“Seasonality has long been recognized in suicide, and deaths by suicide are lowest in winter and higher in late spring and summer,” Czeisler told PsyPost. “This raised the question: if a subset of mass shootings involves an element of suicidality, do they share the same seasonal rhythm?”
There are also demographic similarities between the two types of violence. According to a 2024 review of mass shooting epidemiology, the vast majority of mass shooters are adult men, a group that also experiences the highest rates of suicide mortality. Building on these connections, Czeisler and co-author Charles A. Czeisler wanted to see if mass shootings follow the same summer-peaking seasonal rhythm as highly lethal suicide attempts.
To conduct the analysis, the research team evaluated national data spanning from January 1, 2014, to October 31, 2021. They sourced mass shooting records from the Gun Violence Archive, a comprehensive database that aggregates information from law enforcement, government, and media reports. Information on suicide deaths was obtained from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention mortality databases.
In total, the researchers evaluated 3,305 mass shootings and 360,827 deaths by suicide that occurred over the nearly eight-year study period. To ensure accuracy, they standardized the length of each month and used statistical models to separate seasonal fluctuations from long-term upward or downward trends in the data. This approach allowed them to isolate the natural rhythmic ebb and flow of these events across the calendar year.
The analysis found that both mass shootings and deaths by suicide exhibit a highly synchronized seasonal rhythm, with both consistently peaking in mid-summer and dropping to their lowest levels in mid-winter. The models estimated that suicide deaths reached their annual peak around June 23, while mass shootings peaked just days later, around July 3. During the months of June, July, and August, the average number of both mass shootings and suicides was elevated compared to the rest of the year, while December, January, and February saw the lowest numbers.
The magnitude of the summer increase was vast, particularly for mass shootings. Comparing the summer peak to the winter low, the researchers estimated a 613 percent relative increase in mass shootings. In absolute terms, this meant an increase from about 4.4 mass shootings per standardized month at the winter low to 31.3 mass shootings per month at the summer peak. Suicide deaths showed a 12 percent relative increase, rising from a winter low of roughly 3,439 deaths per month to a summer high of 3,845 deaths per month.
When looking at individual years, the researchers noted that this seasonal pattern remained largely stable from 2014 through 2019. In 2020, the seasonal spike in mass shootings became even more pronounced, while the summer peak in suicides was smaller than usual. The authors suggest the widespread social disruptions and acute stress of the early COVID-19 pandemic may have influenced these 2020 fluctuations, altering typical patterns of both self-directed and externally directed violence.
“Both mass shootings and suicide deaths exhibited clear seasonality, with closely aligned seasonal peaks and troughs that peaked in mid-summer and bottomed out in mid-winter,” Czeisler explained. “In other words, mass shootings and suicides tend to rise and fall together across seasons.”
“This finding does NOT demonstrate that suicides cause mass shootings, or that mass shootings cause suicides,” he noted. “The synchronization is consistent with the hypothesis that many mass shootings are externally directed manifestations of suicidality, but our study does not test or prove that mechanism.”
The synchronous timing of these events provides evidence for the theory that mass shootings and high-lethality suicides share underlying psychological and environmental triggers. The combination of summertime social demands, higher temperatures, and biological changes in impulsivity or irritability may collectively increase the risk of extreme violence in vulnerable individuals. By identifying this shared summer peak, the researchers hope to guide public health officials to expand mental health resources and violence prevention programs during the warmer months when the need is greatest.
“Even without fully understanding the underlying causes, recognizing that both mass shootings and suicide deaths consistently increase in mid-summer may help inform preparedness,” Czeisler said. “Health systems, crisis services, and trauma centers can anticipate times of increased demand for mental health and firearm-related injury care.”
“Similarly, public health agencies and community organizations could intensify firearm safety, safe storage, and suicide prevention efforts in late spring, ahead of the seasonal peak,” he added.
As with all research, there are a few things to keep in mind. The study highlights a shared timeline but cannot establish exactly why summer brings about this increase in violence. Because there is currently no official national database for mass shootings, the researchers relied on an independent repository, meaning the exact number of incidents could vary slightly depending on how a mass shooting is defined. Additionally, the suicide data for 2021 was provisional and might represent an undercount due to reporting lags.
“Studies designed to investigate potential mechanisms could further examine seasonality across demographic groups and environmental contexts, including comparisons between the Northern and Southern Hemispheres, where seasonal patterns are reversed,” Czeisler said of future research directions. “Fortunately, mass shootings remain sufficiently rare outside the United States to preclude robust regional comparisons at present.”
The study, “Seasonality of Mass Shooting Events and Deaths by Suicide in the United States, 2014 to 2021,” was authored by Mark É. Czeisler and Charles A. Czeisler.
-------------------------------------------------
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 #Seasonality #MassShootings #SuicidePrevention #PublicHealth #MentalHealthAwareness #ViolencePrevention #SummerPeak #PublicHealthData #ViolenceResearch #CzeislerStudy
-
DATE: September 19, 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: Mass shootings and suicides share an unsettling seasonal rhythm, new study finds
A recent analysis of public health and crime data found that mass shootings and deaths by suicide in the United States share a nearly identical seasonal pattern, with both events peaking in mid-summer and reaching their lowest points in mid-winter. This parallel timing provides evidence for the idea that many mass shootings may be driven by similar underlying psychological forces as suicides, particularly severe and violent distress. The findings were published in Journal of Biological Rhythms.
Mass shootings (defined in this context as incidents where four or more people, not counting the shooter, are killed or injured by a firearm) have become increasingly frequent in the United States. To better prevent these tragedies, public health experts are looking for patterns that might explain when and why they happen. One emerging idea is that many mass shooters view their attacks as a final, suicidal act.
“The study was designed to explore whether epidemiological trends align with evidence from case series investigations that led to the hypothesis proposed by mass shootings researchers that many mass shootings are both homicidal and suicidal, designed as final acts,” said Mark É. Czeisler, a clinical fellow in medicine and resident physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School.
For centuries, the seasonality of mood and suicide has presented a paradox to medical professionals. While depression is known to be most severe during the shorter, darker days of winter, suicide deaths actually follow the opposite pattern. A 2019 study of psychiatric patients indicated that highly lethal suicide attempts tend to peak during the summer months when sunlight exposure is highest. In contrast, less severe suicide attempts and general depression do not follow this summer-peaking trend.
“Seasonality has long been recognized in suicide, and deaths by suicide are lowest in winter and higher in late spring and summer,” Czeisler told PsyPost. “This raised the question: if a subset of mass shootings involves an element of suicidality, do they share the same seasonal rhythm?”
There are also demographic similarities between the two types of violence. According to a 2024 review of mass shooting epidemiology, the vast majority of mass shooters are adult men, a group that also experiences the highest rates of suicide mortality. Building on these connections, Czeisler and co-author Charles A. Czeisler wanted to see if mass shootings follow the same summer-peaking seasonal rhythm as highly lethal suicide attempts.
To conduct the analysis, the research team evaluated national data spanning from January 1, 2014, to October 31, 2021. They sourced mass shooting records from the Gun Violence Archive, a comprehensive database that aggregates information from law enforcement, government, and media reports. Information on suicide deaths was obtained from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention mortality databases.
In total, the researchers evaluated 3,305 mass shootings and 360,827 deaths by suicide that occurred over the nearly eight-year study period. To ensure accuracy, they standardized the length of each month and used statistical models to separate seasonal fluctuations from long-term upward or downward trends in the data. This approach allowed them to isolate the natural rhythmic ebb and flow of these events across the calendar year.
The analysis found that both mass shootings and deaths by suicide exhibit a highly synchronized seasonal rhythm, with both consistently peaking in mid-summer and dropping to their lowest levels in mid-winter. The models estimated that suicide deaths reached their annual peak around June 23, while mass shootings peaked just days later, around July 3. During the months of June, July, and August, the average number of both mass shootings and suicides was elevated compared to the rest of the year, while December, January, and February saw the lowest numbers.
The magnitude of the summer increase was vast, particularly for mass shootings. Comparing the summer peak to the winter low, the researchers estimated a 613 percent relative increase in mass shootings. In absolute terms, this meant an increase from about 4.4 mass shootings per standardized month at the winter low to 31.3 mass shootings per month at the summer peak. Suicide deaths showed a 12 percent relative increase, rising from a winter low of roughly 3,439 deaths per month to a summer high of 3,845 deaths per month.
When looking at individual years, the researchers noted that this seasonal pattern remained largely stable from 2014 through 2019. In 2020, the seasonal spike in mass shootings became even more pronounced, while the summer peak in suicides was smaller than usual. The authors suggest the widespread social disruptions and acute stress of the early COVID-19 pandemic may have influenced these 2020 fluctuations, altering typical patterns of both self-directed and externally directed violence.
“Both mass shootings and suicide deaths exhibited clear seasonality, with closely aligned seasonal peaks and troughs that peaked in mid-summer and bottomed out in mid-winter,” Czeisler explained. “In other words, mass shootings and suicides tend to rise and fall together across seasons.”
“This finding does NOT demonstrate that suicides cause mass shootings, or that mass shootings cause suicides,” he noted. “The synchronization is consistent with the hypothesis that many mass shootings are externally directed manifestations of suicidality, but our study does not test or prove that mechanism.”
The synchronous timing of these events provides evidence for the theory that mass shootings and high-lethality suicides share underlying psychological and environmental triggers. The combination of summertime social demands, higher temperatures, and biological changes in impulsivity or irritability may collectively increase the risk of extreme violence in vulnerable individuals. By identifying this shared summer peak, the researchers hope to guide public health officials to expand mental health resources and violence prevention programs during the warmer months when the need is greatest.
“Even without fully understanding the underlying causes, recognizing that both mass shootings and suicide deaths consistently increase in mid-summer may help inform preparedness,” Czeisler said. “Health systems, crisis services, and trauma centers can anticipate times of increased demand for mental health and firearm-related injury care.”
“Similarly, public health agencies and community organizations could intensify firearm safety, safe storage, and suicide prevention efforts in late spring, ahead of the seasonal peak,” he added.
As with all research, there are a few things to keep in mind. The study highlights a shared timeline but cannot establish exactly why summer brings about this increase in violence. Because there is currently no official national database for mass shootings, the researchers relied on an independent repository, meaning the exact number of incidents could vary slightly depending on how a mass shooting is defined. Additionally, the suicide data for 2021 was provisional and might represent an undercount due to reporting lags.
“Studies designed to investigate potential mechanisms could further examine seasonality across demographic groups and environmental contexts, including comparisons between the Northern and Southern Hemispheres, where seasonal patterns are reversed,” Czeisler said of future research directions. “Fortunately, mass shootings remain sufficiently rare outside the United States to preclude robust regional comparisons at present.”
The study, “Seasonality of Mass Shooting Events and Deaths by Suicide in the United States, 2014 to 2021,” was authored by Mark É. Czeisler and Charles A. Czeisler.
-------------------------------------------------
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 #Seasonality #MassShootings #SuicidePrevention #PublicHealth #MentalHealthAwareness #ViolencePrevention #SummerPeak #PublicHealthData #ViolenceResearch #CzeislerStudy
-
DATE: September 19, 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: Mass shootings and suicides share an unsettling seasonal rhythm, new study finds
A recent analysis of public health and crime data found that mass shootings and deaths by suicide in the United States share a nearly identical seasonal pattern, with both events peaking in mid-summer and reaching their lowest points in mid-winter. This parallel timing provides evidence for the idea that many mass shootings may be driven by similar underlying psychological forces as suicides, particularly severe and violent distress. The findings were published in Journal of Biological Rhythms.
Mass shootings (defined in this context as incidents where four or more people, not counting the shooter, are killed or injured by a firearm) have become increasingly frequent in the United States. To better prevent these tragedies, public health experts are looking for patterns that might explain when and why they happen. One emerging idea is that many mass shooters view their attacks as a final, suicidal act.
“The study was designed to explore whether epidemiological trends align with evidence from case series investigations that led to the hypothesis proposed by mass shootings researchers that many mass shootings are both homicidal and suicidal, designed as final acts,” said Mark É. Czeisler, a clinical fellow in medicine and resident physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School.
For centuries, the seasonality of mood and suicide has presented a paradox to medical professionals. While depression is known to be most severe during the shorter, darker days of winter, suicide deaths actually follow the opposite pattern. A 2019 study of psychiatric patients indicated that highly lethal suicide attempts tend to peak during the summer months when sunlight exposure is highest. In contrast, less severe suicide attempts and general depression do not follow this summer-peaking trend.
“Seasonality has long been recognized in suicide, and deaths by suicide are lowest in winter and higher in late spring and summer,” Czeisler told PsyPost. “This raised the question: if a subset of mass shootings involves an element of suicidality, do they share the same seasonal rhythm?”
There are also demographic similarities between the two types of violence. According to a 2024 review of mass shooting epidemiology, the vast majority of mass shooters are adult men, a group that also experiences the highest rates of suicide mortality. Building on these connections, Czeisler and co-author Charles A. Czeisler wanted to see if mass shootings follow the same summer-peaking seasonal rhythm as highly lethal suicide attempts.
To conduct the analysis, the research team evaluated national data spanning from January 1, 2014, to October 31, 2021. They sourced mass shooting records from the Gun Violence Archive, a comprehensive database that aggregates information from law enforcement, government, and media reports. Information on suicide deaths was obtained from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention mortality databases.
In total, the researchers evaluated 3,305 mass shootings and 360,827 deaths by suicide that occurred over the nearly eight-year study period. To ensure accuracy, they standardized the length of each month and used statistical models to separate seasonal fluctuations from long-term upward or downward trends in the data. This approach allowed them to isolate the natural rhythmic ebb and flow of these events across the calendar year.
The analysis found that both mass shootings and deaths by suicide exhibit a highly synchronized seasonal rhythm, with both consistently peaking in mid-summer and dropping to their lowest levels in mid-winter. The models estimated that suicide deaths reached their annual peak around June 23, while mass shootings peaked just days later, around July 3. During the months of June, July, and August, the average number of both mass shootings and suicides was elevated compared to the rest of the year, while December, January, and February saw the lowest numbers.
The magnitude of the summer increase was vast, particularly for mass shootings. Comparing the summer peak to the winter low, the researchers estimated a 613 percent relative increase in mass shootings. In absolute terms, this meant an increase from about 4.4 mass shootings per standardized month at the winter low to 31.3 mass shootings per month at the summer peak. Suicide deaths showed a 12 percent relative increase, rising from a winter low of roughly 3,439 deaths per month to a summer high of 3,845 deaths per month.
When looking at individual years, the researchers noted that this seasonal pattern remained largely stable from 2014 through 2019. In 2020, the seasonal spike in mass shootings became even more pronounced, while the summer peak in suicides was smaller than usual. The authors suggest the widespread social disruptions and acute stress of the early COVID-19 pandemic may have influenced these 2020 fluctuations, altering typical patterns of both self-directed and externally directed violence.
“Both mass shootings and suicide deaths exhibited clear seasonality, with closely aligned seasonal peaks and troughs that peaked in mid-summer and bottomed out in mid-winter,” Czeisler explained. “In other words, mass shootings and suicides tend to rise and fall together across seasons.”
“This finding does NOT demonstrate that suicides cause mass shootings, or that mass shootings cause suicides,” he noted. “The synchronization is consistent with the hypothesis that many mass shootings are externally directed manifestations of suicidality, but our study does not test or prove that mechanism.”
The synchronous timing of these events provides evidence for the theory that mass shootings and high-lethality suicides share underlying psychological and environmental triggers. The combination of summertime social demands, higher temperatures, and biological changes in impulsivity or irritability may collectively increase the risk of extreme violence in vulnerable individuals. By identifying this shared summer peak, the researchers hope to guide public health officials to expand mental health resources and violence prevention programs during the warmer months when the need is greatest.
“Even without fully understanding the underlying causes, recognizing that both mass shootings and suicide deaths consistently increase in mid-summer may help inform preparedness,” Czeisler said. “Health systems, crisis services, and trauma centers can anticipate times of increased demand for mental health and firearm-related injury care.”
“Similarly, public health agencies and community organizations could intensify firearm safety, safe storage, and suicide prevention efforts in late spring, ahead of the seasonal peak,” he added.
As with all research, there are a few things to keep in mind. The study highlights a shared timeline but cannot establish exactly why summer brings about this increase in violence. Because there is currently no official national database for mass shootings, the researchers relied on an independent repository, meaning the exact number of incidents could vary slightly depending on how a mass shooting is defined. Additionally, the suicide data for 2021 was provisional and might represent an undercount due to reporting lags.
“Studies designed to investigate potential mechanisms could further examine seasonality across demographic groups and environmental contexts, including comparisons between the Northern and Southern Hemispheres, where seasonal patterns are reversed,” Czeisler said of future research directions. “Fortunately, mass shootings remain sufficiently rare outside the United States to preclude robust regional comparisons at present.”
The study, “Seasonality of Mass Shooting Events and Deaths by Suicide in the United States, 2014 to 2021,” was authored by Mark É. Czeisler and Charles A. Czeisler.
-------------------------------------------------
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 #Seasonality #MassShootings #SuicidePrevention #PublicHealth #MentalHealthAwareness #ViolencePrevention #SummerPeak #PublicHealthData #ViolenceResearch #CzeislerStudy
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DATE: September 19, 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: Puberty, pregnancy, and menopause are accompanied by distinct patterns of brain plasticity
A new study indicates that puberty and pregnancy are associated with similar patterns of widespread structural change in the female brain, primarily marked by reductions in gray matter. The research also suggests that the menopausal transition presents a distinctly different pattern characterized by a pause in typical age-related brain changes rather than an acceleration. The findings were published in Nature Communications.
The human brain processes information using gray matter, which is the tissue consisting mainly of nerve cell bodies and branching dendrites. A large portion of this tissue makes up the cerebral cortex, the wrinkled outer layer of the brain responsible for high-level functions like memory, emotion, and perception. Across the lifespan, the female brain typically experiences three major hormonal transitions: puberty, pregnancy, and menopause.
These major life periods involve substantial shifts in sex steroid hormones like estrogen and progesterone. Because these hormones bind to receptors distributed throughout the brain, they can influence the brain’s physical structure. Previous longitudinal brain imaging studies have established that both puberty and pregnancy coincide with distinct structural remodeling. For example, a study covered by PsyPost in 2023 indicated that more advanced pubertal development in adolescent females predicts longitudinal shifts in the size and thickness of the cerebral cortex.
While researchers have extensively documented brain changes related to puberty and pregnancy, the menopausal transition has received far less attention. Previous studies on menopause have mostly examined isolated brain regions or compared different groups of women at a single point in time. It has remained unknown whether these three major life events share a common biological blueprint for brain remodeling or if each involves completely independent changes. The research, led by Sophie R. van ‘t Hof of the Pregnancy Brain Lab at Amsterdam University Medical Center, aimed to compare brain structural changes across all three events.
“What we saw in our previous work was that there was a similar gray matter loss during puberty and pregnancy,” van ‘t Hof told PsyPost. “That was interesting, as when we found the gray matter reduction during pregnancy, people often assumed it as something bad.”
“But during puberty, when this also happens, this is an optimization of the brain,” she continued. “That shifted the field to also adopt ‘neural fine-tuning’ during pregnancy, now the main hypothesis of our lab, that the brain changes during pregnancy are not inherently bad, but adaptive.”
By applying identical analytical methods to longitudinal data from three separate groups of women, the scientists sought to map out shared and distinct patterns of brain plasticity. “What we wanted to know here, although we know both show gray matter reduction, is whether pregnancy is the same as puberty or whether we also see differences,” van ‘t Hof explained.
The scientists analyzed magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data from 1,095 participants, tracking changes in gray matter volume over time. The analysis was divided into three distinct cohorts representing puberty, pregnancy, and menopause. To isolate changes specifically tied to the hormonal transitions, the researchers included age-matched control groups of participants who were not actively transitioning during the study period.
In the puberty cohort, the researchers analyzed data from 142 girls. Based on self-reports of menarche, or a girl’s first menstruation, participants were categorized into three groups. These included a stable pre-menarche group of 49 girls, a transitioning group of 34 girls, and a stable post-menarche group of 59 girls.
The MRI scans indicated that girls transitioning through menarche experienced accelerated reductions in total and cortical gray matter, shrinking at a rate of 0.13 percent and 0.16 percent per month, respectively. Neither of the stable control groups showed similar monthly changes in cortical volume. In deeper brain regions, known as subcortical structures, the stable pre-menarche group showed a steady volume increase. This growth appeared to halt once girls transitioned through menarche.
The pregnancy cohort included 110 women. This cohort was divided into 40 women transitioning through a first pregnancy, 30 women transitioning through a second pregnancy, and a control group of 40 nulliparous women, meaning they had never given birth. Similar to the puberty group, women transitioning through both first and second pregnancies showed distinct reductions in cortical gray matter volume, shrinking by about 0.12 percent per month. The nulliparous control group did not display these reductions.
The data also indicated that these pregnancy-related changes were largely consistent regardless of whether it was a woman’s first or second child. These findings are in line with research covered by PsyPost in 2024 and in 2025, which found that pregnancy is associated with widespread reductions in cortical gray matter volume.
“As we see increases in sex hormones during puberty and pregnancy, and those changes have been linked in previous work with the gray matter reduction, we wanted to know, during menopause, when sex hormones decrease, what happens to the gray matter?” van ‘t Hof said. “No one had looked at the whole brain changes from pre- to post-menopause before. So that is what we did.”
The menopause cohort utilized data from the UK Biobank, involving 843 women. Participants were categorized based on whether their menstrual periods had stopped. The cohort featured 120 women transitioning from pre-menopause to post-menopause between scans, along with two stable control groups: 49 premenopausal women and 674 postmenopausal women.
The findings in the menopause cohort stood in stark contrast to the other two groups. The stable premenopausal and postmenopausal control groups showed typical aging-related brain shrinkage, losing around 0.025 to 0.033 percent of their cortical gray matter per month. However, women actively transitioning through menopause showed no statistically significant reduction in gray matter volume. Instead of accelerating brain changes, the transition appeared to temporarily pause typical age-related volume loss.
“During the whole adult life, the gray matter decreases a little bit, that is known,” van ‘t Hof pointed out. “This is also what we saw in our control groups. However, during menopause, we saw a pause in the decrease. So that follows the same theoretical line as sketched here above, a decrease in sex hormones leads to the opposite. Not an increase in gray matter, but a pause in the decrease.”
“Now what this means is really hard to say,” she noted. “For puberty and pregnancy we have more hypotheses, brain changes seem to have a specific function. But for menopause we don’t know yet. We are the first study to look at the brain this way during menopause, so we need a lot more research, linking it to hormones, to cognition, to mental health etc. before we can say anything about what this pause in brain change means.”
The menopause findings provide an interesting contrast to prior work. The new data stands in tension with a study covered by PsyPost in 2026, which found that post-menopausal women exhibited reduced gray matter volume compared to pre-menopausal women. It is worth noting that the earlier study compared pre- and post-menopausal women cross-sectionally at a single point in time across specific regions, whereas the new study tracked whole-brain cortical gray matter continuously over time.
When comparing the specific regions of the brain affected across all three cohorts, the researchers found both overlap and divergence. In 34 regions of the cerebral cortex, primarily higher-order areas involved in complex thought and memory, puberty and pregnancy were associated with highly similar rates of gray matter reduction. Other areas of the brain displayed a stepwise pattern.
In 33 regions, primarily related to sensory processing and movement, pubertal transition coincided with the largest gray matter decline. Pregnancy coincided with a moderate decline in these areas, and menopause was associated with the least. A small cluster of brain regions, including areas involved in emotion and internal bodily sensations, showed strong declines only during puberty.
“This is a much-needed piece of work,” Susana Carmona, who was not involved in the study, told PsyPost. “Sophie van ‘t Hof, Elseline Hoekzema and colleagues have carried out a study that had long been awaited: a study comparing the three neuroendocrine transitions that most women go through over the course of their lives: puberty, pregnancy and menopause.”
Carmona, the head of the Neuromaternal Research Group at Instituto de Investigación Sanitaria Gregorio Marañón, chief scientific officer for Maternal Brain Health at the Ann S. Bowers Women’s Brain Health Initiative, and author of A Mother’s Brain: The New Science of the Neuro-Maternal Revolution, noted that these stages have been historically under-researched. “The study corroborates and refines the parallelism between pregnancy and puberty described previously,” she added. “The major novelty is that it incorporates the third transition, menopause, a stage that until relatively recently was not even mentioned.”
As with all research, there are some caveats to consider. “A common misinterpretation that I still hear from journalists now, is that a reduction in gray matter is a bad thing,” van ‘t Hof cautioned. “We don’t know, in some cases it might, in some cases it might not.”
The researchers calculated changes using a monthly rate, which averages out the brain’s structural changes over the period between scans. This approach might smooth over more rapid bursts of brain plasticity that could occur during specific months of pregnancy or puberty. The study also relied on single, self-reported questions to determine the onset of menarche and menopause.
Carmona pointed out that this limits the findings, as puberty and menopause are not as clearly bounded in time as pregnancy. “Menarche is preceded by pubertal changes that are already remodeling the brain and that do not end with the arrival of the first period,” she explained. “And menopause, medically defined as a year without menstruation, comes after several years of perimenopause during which the dialogue between the ovary and the brain is already readjusting to the progressive decline of the ovarian reserve.”
“Capturing such a long, gradual transition with a single self-reported item is difficult, and this is why the menopause part is best read as a valuable first step rather than the last word,” Carmona said.
Additionally, the researchers lacked harmonized data across the three groups regarding hormone levels, stress, or the use of hormonal contraceptives, any of which could influence brain structure.
“The hormonal directionality (an increase in puberty and pregnancy, a decrease in menopause) is inferred from typical endocrine profiles, but is neither measured nor directly related to individual brain change,” Carmona noted. “The next step is to build well-characterized longitudinal databases of the three stages that also gather variables that may be modulating them, such as hormonal variables, pubertal and menopausal staging, and hormonal treatments.”
Finally, the three cohorts were scanned using different MRI machines. To account for this hardware difference, the researchers focused on the relative change between transitioning and control groups within each cohort before making broad comparisons. Even so, variations in scanner hardware can influence precise measurements. Direct numerical comparisons across the different life stages should be interpreted cautiously.
Looking ahead, the research team plans to investigate the downstream effects of these structural shifts. “Our long-term goal differs a bit for each transition phase,” van ‘t Hof explained. “We are really doing the groundwork, fundamental research, and we need to build further on this. For menopause, we are really at the beginning, so we need to know a lot more, using these longitudinal designs with many more variables.”
“For pregnancy, we know the structural brain changes now, they have been replicated several times, and now we really want to know what that means. So we are looking at brain functioning and the link of brain changes with mental health,” she said. “For puberty, the field is a lot more established, and now the group we work with on this paper focuses on social belonging and well-being, and resilience in this group.”
The study, “Puberty, pregnancy, and menopause show shared and distinct structural changes across the lifespan,” was authored by Sophie R. van ‘t Hof, Marieke G. N. Bos, Milou Straathof, Eveline A. Crone, and Elseline A. Hoekzema.
-------------------------------------------------
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 #PubertyBrain #PregnancyBrain #MenopausePause #BrainPlasticity #GrayMatterChanges #CorticalVolume #HormonesAndBrain #FemaleNeuro science #LifespanBrain #NatureCommunications
-
DATE: September 19, 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: Puberty, pregnancy, and menopause are accompanied by distinct patterns of brain plasticity
A new study indicates that puberty and pregnancy are associated with similar patterns of widespread structural change in the female brain, primarily marked by reductions in gray matter. The research also suggests that the menopausal transition presents a distinctly different pattern characterized by a pause in typical age-related brain changes rather than an acceleration. The findings were published in Nature Communications.
The human brain processes information using gray matter, which is the tissue consisting mainly of nerve cell bodies and branching dendrites. A large portion of this tissue makes up the cerebral cortex, the wrinkled outer layer of the brain responsible for high-level functions like memory, emotion, and perception. Across the lifespan, the female brain typically experiences three major hormonal transitions: puberty, pregnancy, and menopause.
These major life periods involve substantial shifts in sex steroid hormones like estrogen and progesterone. Because these hormones bind to receptors distributed throughout the brain, they can influence the brain’s physical structure. Previous longitudinal brain imaging studies have established that both puberty and pregnancy coincide with distinct structural remodeling. For example, a study covered by PsyPost in 2023 indicated that more advanced pubertal development in adolescent females predicts longitudinal shifts in the size and thickness of the cerebral cortex.
While researchers have extensively documented brain changes related to puberty and pregnancy, the menopausal transition has received far less attention. Previous studies on menopause have mostly examined isolated brain regions or compared different groups of women at a single point in time. It has remained unknown whether these three major life events share a common biological blueprint for brain remodeling or if each involves completely independent changes. The research, led by Sophie R. van ‘t Hof of the Pregnancy Brain Lab at Amsterdam University Medical Center, aimed to compare brain structural changes across all three events.
“What we saw in our previous work was that there was a similar gray matter loss during puberty and pregnancy,” van ‘t Hof told PsyPost. “That was interesting, as when we found the gray matter reduction during pregnancy, people often assumed it as something bad.”
“But during puberty, when this also happens, this is an optimization of the brain,” she continued. “That shifted the field to also adopt ‘neural fine-tuning’ during pregnancy, now the main hypothesis of our lab, that the brain changes during pregnancy are not inherently bad, but adaptive.”
By applying identical analytical methods to longitudinal data from three separate groups of women, the scientists sought to map out shared and distinct patterns of brain plasticity. “What we wanted to know here, although we know both show gray matter reduction, is whether pregnancy is the same as puberty or whether we also see differences,” van ‘t Hof explained.
The scientists analyzed magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data from 1,095 participants, tracking changes in gray matter volume over time. The analysis was divided into three distinct cohorts representing puberty, pregnancy, and menopause. To isolate changes specifically tied to the hormonal transitions, the researchers included age-matched control groups of participants who were not actively transitioning during the study period.
In the puberty cohort, the researchers analyzed data from 142 girls. Based on self-reports of menarche, or a girl’s first menstruation, participants were categorized into three groups. These included a stable pre-menarche group of 49 girls, a transitioning group of 34 girls, and a stable post-menarche group of 59 girls.
The MRI scans indicated that girls transitioning through menarche experienced accelerated reductions in total and cortical gray matter, shrinking at a rate of 0.13 percent and 0.16 percent per month, respectively. Neither of the stable control groups showed similar monthly changes in cortical volume. In deeper brain regions, known as subcortical structures, the stable pre-menarche group showed a steady volume increase. This growth appeared to halt once girls transitioned through menarche.
The pregnancy cohort included 110 women. This cohort was divided into 40 women transitioning through a first pregnancy, 30 women transitioning through a second pregnancy, and a control group of 40 nulliparous women, meaning they had never given birth. Similar to the puberty group, women transitioning through both first and second pregnancies showed distinct reductions in cortical gray matter volume, shrinking by about 0.12 percent per month. The nulliparous control group did not display these reductions.
The data also indicated that these pregnancy-related changes were largely consistent regardless of whether it was a woman’s first or second child. These findings are in line with research covered by PsyPost in 2024 and in 2025, which found that pregnancy is associated with widespread reductions in cortical gray matter volume.
“As we see increases in sex hormones during puberty and pregnancy, and those changes have been linked in previous work with the gray matter reduction, we wanted to know, during menopause, when sex hormones decrease, what happens to the gray matter?” van ‘t Hof said. “No one had looked at the whole brain changes from pre- to post-menopause before. So that is what we did.”
The menopause cohort utilized data from the UK Biobank, involving 843 women. Participants were categorized based on whether their menstrual periods had stopped. The cohort featured 120 women transitioning from pre-menopause to post-menopause between scans, along with two stable control groups: 49 premenopausal women and 674 postmenopausal women.
The findings in the menopause cohort stood in stark contrast to the other two groups. The stable premenopausal and postmenopausal control groups showed typical aging-related brain shrinkage, losing around 0.025 to 0.033 percent of their cortical gray matter per month. However, women actively transitioning through menopause showed no statistically significant reduction in gray matter volume. Instead of accelerating brain changes, the transition appeared to temporarily pause typical age-related volume loss.
“During the whole adult life, the gray matter decreases a little bit, that is known,” van ‘t Hof pointed out. “This is also what we saw in our control groups. However, during menopause, we saw a pause in the decrease. So that follows the same theoretical line as sketched here above, a decrease in sex hormones leads to the opposite. Not an increase in gray matter, but a pause in the decrease.”
“Now what this means is really hard to say,” she noted. “For puberty and pregnancy we have more hypotheses, brain changes seem to have a specific function. But for menopause we don’t know yet. We are the first study to look at the brain this way during menopause, so we need a lot more research, linking it to hormones, to cognition, to mental health etc. before we can say anything about what this pause in brain change means.”
The menopause findings provide an interesting contrast to prior work. The new data stands in tension with a study covered by PsyPost in 2026, which found that post-menopausal women exhibited reduced gray matter volume compared to pre-menopausal women. It is worth noting that the earlier study compared pre- and post-menopausal women cross-sectionally at a single point in time across specific regions, whereas the new study tracked whole-brain cortical gray matter continuously over time.
When comparing the specific regions of the brain affected across all three cohorts, the researchers found both overlap and divergence. In 34 regions of the cerebral cortex, primarily higher-order areas involved in complex thought and memory, puberty and pregnancy were associated with highly similar rates of gray matter reduction. Other areas of the brain displayed a stepwise pattern.
In 33 regions, primarily related to sensory processing and movement, pubertal transition coincided with the largest gray matter decline. Pregnancy coincided with a moderate decline in these areas, and menopause was associated with the least. A small cluster of brain regions, including areas involved in emotion and internal bodily sensations, showed strong declines only during puberty.
“This is a much-needed piece of work,” Susana Carmona, who was not involved in the study, told PsyPost. “Sophie van ‘t Hof, Elseline Hoekzema and colleagues have carried out a study that had long been awaited: a study comparing the three neuroendocrine transitions that most women go through over the course of their lives: puberty, pregnancy and menopause.”
Carmona, the head of the Neuromaternal Research Group at Instituto de Investigación Sanitaria Gregorio Marañón, chief scientific officer for Maternal Brain Health at the Ann S. Bowers Women’s Brain Health Initiative, and author of A Mother’s Brain: The New Science of the Neuro-Maternal Revolution, noted that these stages have been historically under-researched. “The study corroborates and refines the parallelism between pregnancy and puberty described previously,” she added. “The major novelty is that it incorporates the third transition, menopause, a stage that until relatively recently was not even mentioned.”
As with all research, there are some caveats to consider. “A common misinterpretation that I still hear from journalists now, is that a reduction in gray matter is a bad thing,” van ‘t Hof cautioned. “We don’t know, in some cases it might, in some cases it might not.”
The researchers calculated changes using a monthly rate, which averages out the brain’s structural changes over the period between scans. This approach might smooth over more rapid bursts of brain plasticity that could occur during specific months of pregnancy or puberty. The study also relied on single, self-reported questions to determine the onset of menarche and menopause.
Carmona pointed out that this limits the findings, as puberty and menopause are not as clearly bounded in time as pregnancy. “Menarche is preceded by pubertal changes that are already remodeling the brain and that do not end with the arrival of the first period,” she explained. “And menopause, medically defined as a year without menstruation, comes after several years of perimenopause during which the dialogue between the ovary and the brain is already readjusting to the progressive decline of the ovarian reserve.”
“Capturing such a long, gradual transition with a single self-reported item is difficult, and this is why the menopause part is best read as a valuable first step rather than the last word,” Carmona said.
Additionally, the researchers lacked harmonized data across the three groups regarding hormone levels, stress, or the use of hormonal contraceptives, any of which could influence brain structure.
“The hormonal directionality (an increase in puberty and pregnancy, a decrease in menopause) is inferred from typical endocrine profiles, but is neither measured nor directly related to individual brain change,” Carmona noted. “The next step is to build well-characterized longitudinal databases of the three stages that also gather variables that may be modulating them, such as hormonal variables, pubertal and menopausal staging, and hormonal treatments.”
Finally, the three cohorts were scanned using different MRI machines. To account for this hardware difference, the researchers focused on the relative change between transitioning and control groups within each cohort before making broad comparisons. Even so, variations in scanner hardware can influence precise measurements. Direct numerical comparisons across the different life stages should be interpreted cautiously.
Looking ahead, the research team plans to investigate the downstream effects of these structural shifts. “Our long-term goal differs a bit for each transition phase,” van ‘t Hof explained. “We are really doing the groundwork, fundamental research, and we need to build further on this. For menopause, we are really at the beginning, so we need to know a lot more, using these longitudinal designs with many more variables.”
“For pregnancy, we know the structural brain changes now, they have been replicated several times, and now we really want to know what that means. So we are looking at brain functioning and the link of brain changes with mental health,” she said. “For puberty, the field is a lot more established, and now the group we work with on this paper focuses on social belonging and well-being, and resilience in this group.”
The study, “Puberty, pregnancy, and menopause show shared and distinct structural changes across the lifespan,” was authored by Sophie R. van ‘t Hof, Marieke G. N. Bos, Milou Straathof, Eveline A. Crone, and Elseline A. Hoekzema.
-------------------------------------------------
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-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #PubertyBrain #PregnancyBrain #MenopausePause #BrainPlasticity #GrayMatterChanges #CorticalVolume #HormonesAndBrain #FemaleNeuro science #LifespanBrain #NatureCommunications
-
DATE: September 19, 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: Puberty, pregnancy, and menopause are accompanied by distinct patterns of brain plasticity
A new study indicates that puberty and pregnancy are associated with similar patterns of widespread structural change in the female brain, primarily marked by reductions in gray matter. The research also suggests that the menopausal transition presents a distinctly different pattern characterized by a pause in typical age-related brain changes rather than an acceleration. The findings were published in Nature Communications.
The human brain processes information using gray matter, which is the tissue consisting mainly of nerve cell bodies and branching dendrites. A large portion of this tissue makes up the cerebral cortex, the wrinkled outer layer of the brain responsible for high-level functions like memory, emotion, and perception. Across the lifespan, the female brain typically experiences three major hormonal transitions: puberty, pregnancy, and menopause.
These major life periods involve substantial shifts in sex steroid hormones like estrogen and progesterone. Because these hormones bind to receptors distributed throughout the brain, they can influence the brain’s physical structure. Previous longitudinal brain imaging studies have established that both puberty and pregnancy coincide with distinct structural remodeling. For example, a study covered by PsyPost in 2023 indicated that more advanced pubertal development in adolescent females predicts longitudinal shifts in the size and thickness of the cerebral cortex.
While researchers have extensively documented brain changes related to puberty and pregnancy, the menopausal transition has received far less attention. Previous studies on menopause have mostly examined isolated brain regions or compared different groups of women at a single point in time. It has remained unknown whether these three major life events share a common biological blueprint for brain remodeling or if each involves completely independent changes. The research, led by Sophie R. van ‘t Hof of the Pregnancy Brain Lab at Amsterdam University Medical Center, aimed to compare brain structural changes across all three events.
“What we saw in our previous work was that there was a similar gray matter loss during puberty and pregnancy,” van ‘t Hof told PsyPost. “That was interesting, as when we found the gray matter reduction during pregnancy, people often assumed it as something bad.”
“But during puberty, when this also happens, this is an optimization of the brain,” she continued. “That shifted the field to also adopt ‘neural fine-tuning’ during pregnancy, now the main hypothesis of our lab, that the brain changes during pregnancy are not inherently bad, but adaptive.”
By applying identical analytical methods to longitudinal data from three separate groups of women, the scientists sought to map out shared and distinct patterns of brain plasticity. “What we wanted to know here, although we know both show gray matter reduction, is whether pregnancy is the same as puberty or whether we also see differences,” van ‘t Hof explained.
The scientists analyzed magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data from 1,095 participants, tracking changes in gray matter volume over time. The analysis was divided into three distinct cohorts representing puberty, pregnancy, and menopause. To isolate changes specifically tied to the hormonal transitions, the researchers included age-matched control groups of participants who were not actively transitioning during the study period.
In the puberty cohort, the researchers analyzed data from 142 girls. Based on self-reports of menarche, or a girl’s first menstruation, participants were categorized into three groups. These included a stable pre-menarche group of 49 girls, a transitioning group of 34 girls, and a stable post-menarche group of 59 girls.
The MRI scans indicated that girls transitioning through menarche experienced accelerated reductions in total and cortical gray matter, shrinking at a rate of 0.13 percent and 0.16 percent per month, respectively. Neither of the stable control groups showed similar monthly changes in cortical volume. In deeper brain regions, known as subcortical structures, the stable pre-menarche group showed a steady volume increase. This growth appeared to halt once girls transitioned through menarche.
The pregnancy cohort included 110 women. This cohort was divided into 40 women transitioning through a first pregnancy, 30 women transitioning through a second pregnancy, and a control group of 40 nulliparous women, meaning they had never given birth. Similar to the puberty group, women transitioning through both first and second pregnancies showed distinct reductions in cortical gray matter volume, shrinking by about 0.12 percent per month. The nulliparous control group did not display these reductions.
The data also indicated that these pregnancy-related changes were largely consistent regardless of whether it was a woman’s first or second child. These findings are in line with research covered by PsyPost in 2024 and in 2025, which found that pregnancy is associated with widespread reductions in cortical gray matter volume.
“As we see increases in sex hormones during puberty and pregnancy, and those changes have been linked in previous work with the gray matter reduction, we wanted to know, during menopause, when sex hormones decrease, what happens to the gray matter?” van ‘t Hof said. “No one had looked at the whole brain changes from pre- to post-menopause before. So that is what we did.”
The menopause cohort utilized data from the UK Biobank, involving 843 women. Participants were categorized based on whether their menstrual periods had stopped. The cohort featured 120 women transitioning from pre-menopause to post-menopause between scans, along with two stable control groups: 49 premenopausal women and 674 postmenopausal women.
The findings in the menopause cohort stood in stark contrast to the other two groups. The stable premenopausal and postmenopausal control groups showed typical aging-related brain shrinkage, losing around 0.025 to 0.033 percent of their cortical gray matter per month. However, women actively transitioning through menopause showed no statistically significant reduction in gray matter volume. Instead of accelerating brain changes, the transition appeared to temporarily pause typical age-related volume loss.
“During the whole adult life, the gray matter decreases a little bit, that is known,” van ‘t Hof pointed out. “This is also what we saw in our control groups. However, during menopause, we saw a pause in the decrease. So that follows the same theoretical line as sketched here above, a decrease in sex hormones leads to the opposite. Not an increase in gray matter, but a pause in the decrease.”
“Now what this means is really hard to say,” she noted. “For puberty and pregnancy we have more hypotheses, brain changes seem to have a specific function. But for menopause we don’t know yet. We are the first study to look at the brain this way during menopause, so we need a lot more research, linking it to hormones, to cognition, to mental health etc. before we can say anything about what this pause in brain change means.”
The menopause findings provide an interesting contrast to prior work. The new data stands in tension with a study covered by PsyPost in 2026, which found that post-menopausal women exhibited reduced gray matter volume compared to pre-menopausal women. It is worth noting that the earlier study compared pre- and post-menopausal women cross-sectionally at a single point in time across specific regions, whereas the new study tracked whole-brain cortical gray matter continuously over time.
When comparing the specific regions of the brain affected across all three cohorts, the researchers found both overlap and divergence. In 34 regions of the cerebral cortex, primarily higher-order areas involved in complex thought and memory, puberty and pregnancy were associated with highly similar rates of gray matter reduction. Other areas of the brain displayed a stepwise pattern.
In 33 regions, primarily related to sensory processing and movement, pubertal transition coincided with the largest gray matter decline. Pregnancy coincided with a moderate decline in these areas, and menopause was associated with the least. A small cluster of brain regions, including areas involved in emotion and internal bodily sensations, showed strong declines only during puberty.
“This is a much-needed piece of work,” Susana Carmona, who was not involved in the study, told PsyPost. “Sophie van ‘t Hof, Elseline Hoekzema and colleagues have carried out a study that had long been awaited: a study comparing the three neuroendocrine transitions that most women go through over the course of their lives: puberty, pregnancy and menopause.”
Carmona, the head of the Neuromaternal Research Group at Instituto de Investigación Sanitaria Gregorio Marañón, chief scientific officer for Maternal Brain Health at the Ann S. Bowers Women’s Brain Health Initiative, and author of A Mother’s Brain: The New Science of the Neuro-Maternal Revolution, noted that these stages have been historically under-researched. “The study corroborates and refines the parallelism between pregnancy and puberty described previously,” she added. “The major novelty is that it incorporates the third transition, menopause, a stage that until relatively recently was not even mentioned.”
As with all research, there are some caveats to consider. “A common misinterpretation that I still hear from journalists now, is that a reduction in gray matter is a bad thing,” van ‘t Hof cautioned. “We don’t know, in some cases it might, in some cases it might not.”
The researchers calculated changes using a monthly rate, which averages out the brain’s structural changes over the period between scans. This approach might smooth over more rapid bursts of brain plasticity that could occur during specific months of pregnancy or puberty. The study also relied on single, self-reported questions to determine the onset of menarche and menopause.
Carmona pointed out that this limits the findings, as puberty and menopause are not as clearly bounded in time as pregnancy. “Menarche is preceded by pubertal changes that are already remodeling the brain and that do not end with the arrival of the first period,” she explained. “And menopause, medically defined as a year without menstruation, comes after several years of perimenopause during which the dialogue between the ovary and the brain is already readjusting to the progressive decline of the ovarian reserve.”
“Capturing such a long, gradual transition with a single self-reported item is difficult, and this is why the menopause part is best read as a valuable first step rather than the last word,” Carmona said.
Additionally, the researchers lacked harmonized data across the three groups regarding hormone levels, stress, or the use of hormonal contraceptives, any of which could influence brain structure.
“The hormonal directionality (an increase in puberty and pregnancy, a decrease in menopause) is inferred from typical endocrine profiles, but is neither measured nor directly related to individual brain change,” Carmona noted. “The next step is to build well-characterized longitudinal databases of the three stages that also gather variables that may be modulating them, such as hormonal variables, pubertal and menopausal staging, and hormonal treatments.”
Finally, the three cohorts were scanned using different MRI machines. To account for this hardware difference, the researchers focused on the relative change between transitioning and control groups within each cohort before making broad comparisons. Even so, variations in scanner hardware can influence precise measurements. Direct numerical comparisons across the different life stages should be interpreted cautiously.
Looking ahead, the research team plans to investigate the downstream effects of these structural shifts. “Our long-term goal differs a bit for each transition phase,” van ‘t Hof explained. “We are really doing the groundwork, fundamental research, and we need to build further on this. For menopause, we are really at the beginning, so we need to know a lot more, using these longitudinal designs with many more variables.”
“For pregnancy, we know the structural brain changes now, they have been replicated several times, and now we really want to know what that means. So we are looking at brain functioning and the link of brain changes with mental health,” she said. “For puberty, the field is a lot more established, and now the group we work with on this paper focuses on social belonging and well-being, and resilience in this group.”
The study, “Puberty, pregnancy, and menopause show shared and distinct structural changes across the lifespan,” was authored by Sophie R. van ‘t Hof, Marieke G. N. Bos, Milou Straathof, Eveline A. Crone, and Elseline A. Hoekzema.
-------------------------------------------------
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 #PubertyBrain #PregnancyBrain #MenopausePause #BrainPlasticity #GrayMatterChanges #CorticalVolume #HormonesAndBrain #FemaleNeuro science #LifespanBrain #NatureCommunications
-
DATE: September 19, 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: What neuroscientists thought was a biological signature for IQ might actually be socioeconomic privilege
A child’s neighborhood and socioeconomic background appear to shape the function and structure of their developing brain more powerfully than any other behavioral or environmental factor. Brain activity patterns previously thought to represent innate intelligence are actually a reflection of socioeconomic status, likely driven by environmental stressors like sleep deprivation, according to findings published in the journal Science.
For years, neuroscientists have mapped single human traits to brain imaging data. Researchers typically look for the biological basis of a specific cognitive ability, such as intelligence quotient, or a clinical symptom, like anxiety. They compare these traits against physical brain measurements to find overlapping physiological patterns.
However, the environment in which a person grows up exerts an enormous influence on their physical and cognitive development. A team led by Scott Marek, a researcher at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, wanted to evaluate how a vast array of different lifestyle, environmental, and cognitive variables relate to brain biology simultaneously. By looking at hundreds of factors at once, the researchers could determine which aspects of a child’s life are most strongly tied to brain organization.
The researchers utilized data from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study. This massive project tracked the development of thousands of nine and ten year old children across the United States. The team analyzed two common brain measurements taken via magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI.
The first measurement was resting-state functional connectivity, which maps how different regions of the brain communicate. It works by tracking spontaneous blood flow while a person is resting, revealing which brain networks naturally fire together. The second measurement was cortical thickness, which measures the physical depth of the brain’s outer layer of gray matter.
The team took these brain scans and compared them against 649 different non-imaging variables, evaluating the strength of the association for each one. These variables spanned a dozen categories, including physical health, parenting, personality, substance use, and social adjustment.
Out of all 649 variables, socioeconomic measures exhibited the strongest and most reliable associations with the children’s brain data. The single most powerful association was linked to the socioeconomic opportunities afforded by the child’s home zip code. This metric captures neighborhood-level factors like school quality, environmental toxins, and access to resources.
Other highly ranked variables included sleep duration and the amount of time children spent on screens. Traditional metrics of cognition and overall mental health symptoms ranked much lower on the list.
The researchers then mapped out exactly where these socioeconomic associations appeared in the physical brain. They found that socioeconomic status was strongly linked to differences in the primary motor and sensory regions. These are areas of the brain that process physical movement and immediate sensory input.
To understand what this specific biological pattern meant, the team compared it to established reference maps of the brain. They looked at positron emission tomography scans tracking neurotransmitters, brainwave recordings monitoring sleep patterns, and imaging that captured the physical effects of task-based reasoning.
The socioeconomic brain pattern closely matched the biological signatures of physiological arousal, sleep deprivation, stress, and the effects of stimulant medications. The pattern did not map onto the frontal and parietal cortices. These are the associative regions of the brain known to handle higher-order cognitive tasks, such as logic, mathematics, and complex thought.
The team noticed an unexpected similarity when they looked at the brain map for intelligence quotient, or IQ. The physical pattern associated with IQ scores was nearly identical to the socioeconomic pattern. It was concentrated in the exact same motor and sensory regions, completely bypassing the brain areas actually responsible for complex reasoning.
Suspecting a mathematical overlap, the researchers adjusted their data to remove the statistical influence of socioeconomic status from the test scores. After this adjustment, the strong associations between the brain and IQ scores largely vanished. The faint pattern that remained shifted away from the sensory and arousal regions and looked slightly more aligned with known cognitive networks.
The researchers tested this overlap further using multivariate analysis, an advanced machine learning technique. They trained computer models to predict a child’s IQ score based entirely on their brain connectivity patterns. The team manipulated the data fed into the models, restricting some training sets to only include children from high socioeconomic backgrounds.
When the models were trained exclusively on affluent children, they completely failed to predict test scores in a new, separate group of participants. The predictive models only worked when the training data included children from neighborhoods with lower socioeconomic status. The researchers concluded that the algorithm was engaging in shortcut learning.
Shortcut learning happens when a computer model relies on a secondary, background variable instead of the intended target. In this case, the algorithm was not detecting a biological signature for intelligence. It was simply detecting the socioeconomic status of the child, which happened to correlate with their test scores.
These population-level associations observe data across large groups at a single moment in time. Group averages cannot predict the future outcomes or cognitive potential of an individual child. Socioeconomic opportunity only explained about 16 percent of the total differences seen across the children’s brain scans, meaning many other biological and environmental factors contribute to human development.
The findings do challenge the notion that IQ scores measure a fixed, essentialized biological trait. The results suggest that past studies linking brain networks to intelligence were likely documenting the physiological toll of environmental stressors.
Future longitudinal research is needed to track these developmental pathways as children age. Researchers might also investigate whether interventions focused on sleep quality and stress reduction can positively influence brain development in under-resourced communities.
The study, “Patterns of brain-wide associations reflect socioeconomics,” was authored by Scott Marek, Meghan Rose Donohue, Nicole R. Karcher, Caroline P. Hoyniak, Roselyne J. Chauvin, Ashley C. Meyer, John Miller, Andrew N. Van, Anxu Wang, Noah J. Baden, Vahdeta Suljic, Kristen M. Scheidter, Julia Monk, Forrest I. Whiting, Nadeshka J. Ramirez-Perez, Samuel R. Krimmel, Athanasia Metoki, Sarah E. Paul, Aaron J. Gorelik, Timothy J. Hendrickson, Stephen M. Malone, Rebecca F. Schwarzlose, Carlos Cardenas-Iniguez, Megan M. Herting, Steven E. Petersen, Joan Luby, Anita C. Randolph, Michael J. Shanahan, Eric Turkheimer, Benjamin P. Kay, Evan M. Gordon, Timothy O. Laumann, Deanna M. Barch, Damien A. Fair, Brenden Tervo-Clemmens, and Nico U. F. Dosenbach.
-------------------------------------------------
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-------------------------------------------------
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-
DATE: September 19, 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: What neuroscientists thought was a biological signature for IQ might actually be socioeconomic privilege
A child’s neighborhood and socioeconomic background appear to shape the function and structure of their developing brain more powerfully than any other behavioral or environmental factor. Brain activity patterns previously thought to represent innate intelligence are actually a reflection of socioeconomic status, likely driven by environmental stressors like sleep deprivation, according to findings published in the journal Science.
For years, neuroscientists have mapped single human traits to brain imaging data. Researchers typically look for the biological basis of a specific cognitive ability, such as intelligence quotient, or a clinical symptom, like anxiety. They compare these traits against physical brain measurements to find overlapping physiological patterns.
However, the environment in which a person grows up exerts an enormous influence on their physical and cognitive development. A team led by Scott Marek, a researcher at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, wanted to evaluate how a vast array of different lifestyle, environmental, and cognitive variables relate to brain biology simultaneously. By looking at hundreds of factors at once, the researchers could determine which aspects of a child’s life are most strongly tied to brain organization.
The researchers utilized data from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study. This massive project tracked the development of thousands of nine and ten year old children across the United States. The team analyzed two common brain measurements taken via magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI.
The first measurement was resting-state functional connectivity, which maps how different regions of the brain communicate. It works by tracking spontaneous blood flow while a person is resting, revealing which brain networks naturally fire together. The second measurement was cortical thickness, which measures the physical depth of the brain’s outer layer of gray matter.
The team took these brain scans and compared them against 649 different non-imaging variables, evaluating the strength of the association for each one. These variables spanned a dozen categories, including physical health, parenting, personality, substance use, and social adjustment.
Out of all 649 variables, socioeconomic measures exhibited the strongest and most reliable associations with the children’s brain data. The single most powerful association was linked to the socioeconomic opportunities afforded by the child’s home zip code. This metric captures neighborhood-level factors like school quality, environmental toxins, and access to resources.
Other highly ranked variables included sleep duration and the amount of time children spent on screens. Traditional metrics of cognition and overall mental health symptoms ranked much lower on the list.
The researchers then mapped out exactly where these socioeconomic associations appeared in the physical brain. They found that socioeconomic status was strongly linked to differences in the primary motor and sensory regions. These are areas of the brain that process physical movement and immediate sensory input.
To understand what this specific biological pattern meant, the team compared it to established reference maps of the brain. They looked at positron emission tomography scans tracking neurotransmitters, brainwave recordings monitoring sleep patterns, and imaging that captured the physical effects of task-based reasoning.
The socioeconomic brain pattern closely matched the biological signatures of physiological arousal, sleep deprivation, stress, and the effects of stimulant medications. The pattern did not map onto the frontal and parietal cortices. These are the associative regions of the brain known to handle higher-order cognitive tasks, such as logic, mathematics, and complex thought.
The team noticed an unexpected similarity when they looked at the brain map for intelligence quotient, or IQ. The physical pattern associated with IQ scores was nearly identical to the socioeconomic pattern. It was concentrated in the exact same motor and sensory regions, completely bypassing the brain areas actually responsible for complex reasoning.
Suspecting a mathematical overlap, the researchers adjusted their data to remove the statistical influence of socioeconomic status from the test scores. After this adjustment, the strong associations between the brain and IQ scores largely vanished. The faint pattern that remained shifted away from the sensory and arousal regions and looked slightly more aligned with known cognitive networks.
The researchers tested this overlap further using multivariate analysis, an advanced machine learning technique. They trained computer models to predict a child’s IQ score based entirely on their brain connectivity patterns. The team manipulated the data fed into the models, restricting some training sets to only include children from high socioeconomic backgrounds.
When the models were trained exclusively on affluent children, they completely failed to predict test scores in a new, separate group of participants. The predictive models only worked when the training data included children from neighborhoods with lower socioeconomic status. The researchers concluded that the algorithm was engaging in shortcut learning.
Shortcut learning happens when a computer model relies on a secondary, background variable instead of the intended target. In this case, the algorithm was not detecting a biological signature for intelligence. It was simply detecting the socioeconomic status of the child, which happened to correlate with their test scores.
These population-level associations observe data across large groups at a single moment in time. Group averages cannot predict the future outcomes or cognitive potential of an individual child. Socioeconomic opportunity only explained about 16 percent of the total differences seen across the children’s brain scans, meaning many other biological and environmental factors contribute to human development.
The findings do challenge the notion that IQ scores measure a fixed, essentialized biological trait. The results suggest that past studies linking brain networks to intelligence were likely documenting the physiological toll of environmental stressors.
Future longitudinal research is needed to track these developmental pathways as children age. Researchers might also investigate whether interventions focused on sleep quality and stress reduction can positively influence brain development in under-resourced communities.
The study, “Patterns of brain-wide associations reflect socioeconomics,” was authored by Scott Marek, Meghan Rose Donohue, Nicole R. Karcher, Caroline P. Hoyniak, Roselyne J. Chauvin, Ashley C. Meyer, John Miller, Andrew N. Van, Anxu Wang, Noah J. Baden, Vahdeta Suljic, Kristen M. Scheidter, Julia Monk, Forrest I. Whiting, Nadeshka J. Ramirez-Perez, Samuel R. Krimmel, Athanasia Metoki, Sarah E. Paul, Aaron J. Gorelik, Timothy J. Hendrickson, Stephen M. Malone, Rebecca F. Schwarzlose, Carlos Cardenas-Iniguez, Megan M. Herting, Steven E. Petersen, Joan Luby, Anita C. Randolph, Michael J. Shanahan, Eric Turkheimer, Benjamin P. Kay, Evan M. Gordon, Timothy O. Laumann, Deanna M. Barch, Damien A. Fair, Brenden Tervo-Clemmens, and Nico U. F. Dosenbach.
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DATE: September 18, 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: Watering plants lowers blood pressure and anxiety in older adults
URL: https://www.psypost.org/watering-plants-lowers-blood-pressure-and-anxiety-in-older-adults/
Watering indoor plants for just 10 minutes can lower blood pressure and boost feelings of relaxation in older adults. A recent trial compared this simple gardening task to playing a computer card game and found that tending to plants provided measurable physical and mental health benefits. The research was published in the Hong Kong Journal of Occupational Therapy.
As people age, maintaining mental and physical health often requires engaging in structured leisure activities. Occupational therapists frequently recommend non-pharmacological interventions to help older adults manage stress and preserve their motor skills. One popular approach is horticultural therapy, a practice that incorporates gardening tasks to promote holistic well-being. Interacting with plants provides sensory stimulation and offers a gentle form of physical exercise.
Past research has linked gardening to improved self-esteem, better hand coordination, and reduced feelings of isolation in older populations. To measure these benefits, scientists have traditionally relied on self-reported surveys or basic physical metrics like heart rate monitors. Recent advances in wearable technology now allow researchers to directly monitor electrical brain activity during these tasks.
Researchers Li Xiaoyi of the Henan Institute of Science and Technology and Ahmad Hassan of Tongji University wanted to observe exactly how the brain and body respond to a brief gardening exercise. Working with colleagues Jiang Tao and Zhang Deshun, they designed an experiment to compare plant care with a digital leisure activity. They hypothesized that interacting with live plants would yield unique physiological benefits.
The researchers recruited 100 older women living in a nursing care facility in Shanghai, China. The participants had an average age of 68 and were in good physical health with no cognitive impairments. The experiment took place in a quiet, temperature-controlled room to minimize outside distractions and maintain a consistent environment.
The team set up a crossover trial, an experimental design where all participants eventually complete both activities being tested. On the first day, half of the women spent 10 minutes watering 15 small indoor potted plants by hand. The other half spent 10 minutes playing a digital game of Klondike Solitaire on a computer. The following day, the two groups switched tasks.
Before and after each session, the researchers measured the participants’ blood pressure using a standard blood pressure cuff. They also utilized an electroencephalogram, commonly known as an EEG, to continuously record brain activity. Participants wore a specialized headband equipped with dry sensors that rest on the forehead. These sensors detect the faint electrical signals produced by brain cells communicating with one another.
The headset specifically monitored the frontal lobe, a brain region heavily involved in attention, memory, and emotional regulation. The researchers focused their analysis on two distinct types of brain frequencies: alpha waves and beta waves. Alpha waves are relatively slow electrical patterns that typically appear when a person is in a relaxed, peaceful state. Beta waves are faster and generally emerge when a person is actively concentrating, alert, or anxious.
Alongside the physical sensors, the participants completed two standardized questionnaires to assess their subjective emotional states. One survey measured their current anxiety levels using a numerical scale. The other asked them to rate their immediate feelings between opposing concepts, such as feeling comfortable versus uncomfortable.
The physiological data revealed distinct physical responses to the two activities. Watering the indoor plants prompted immediate drops in both systolic and diastolic blood pressure. Systolic pressure measures the force of blood against artery walls during a heartbeat, while diastolic pressure measures the resting force between beats. A reduction in both metrics indicates a calming effect on the autonomic nervous system, which controls involuntary bodily functions.
Playing the computer game did not produce these relaxing physical changes. The heart rate of the participants remained relatively stable across both activities, showing no statistical difference in pulse. The most notable differences emerged in the electrical activity of the brain.
During the first few minutes of the plant-watering task, the women experienced a surge in alpha wave activity. This initial spike suggests that interacting with the plants fostered immediate mental relaxation. During the same period, their high beta wave activity also increased, pointing to a state of heightened attentiveness.
Experiencing both increased alpha and beta waves suggests the participants were in a state of alert relaxation. They were calm but fully engaged with the task of watering the plants. In contrast, the women who played the computer game showed decreased alpha and beta activity. This opposing brainwave pattern is often associated with mental fatigue, boredom, or stress.
Across the entire 10-minute session, the overall increase in alpha waves for the gardening group was not statistically significant. However, the overall beta wave increase remained substantial for the duration of the task. The EEG headsets also calculated a proprietary meditation score, which rose notably during the plant-watering task compared to the computer game.
The subjective survey results mirrored the objective physical measurements. After tending to the plants, participants reported lower overall anxiety scores on their questionnaires. They also rated themselves as feeling much more comfortable, natural, and relaxed than they did after playing the computer game.
While the results highlight the potential benefits of brief interactions with nature, the study design has limitations. The experiment only tested a single 10-minute session using one specific type of indoor potted plant. The effects of longer gardening sessions, different types of plants, or outdoor environments remain unknown.
The demographic makeup of the study was also highly specific, focusing entirely on a single group. All participants were older women living in one nursing facility in China. The psychological and physical responses to gardening might differ across different age groups, genders, and cultural backgrounds. Future trials involving diverse populations would help clarify how broadly these benefits apply to the general public.
The study, “Psychological and physiological benefits of horticultural therapy for Chinese older adults,” was authored by Li Xiaoyi, Ahmad Hassan, Jiang Tao, and Zhang Deshun.
URL: https://www.psypost.org/watering-plants-lowers-blood-pressure-and-anxiety-in-older-adults/
-------------------------------------------------
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#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #horticulturaltherapy #indoorplants #bloodpressure #anxietyrelief #olderadults #gardeningbenefits #mindbodyconnection #alphawaves #betawaves #wellbeing
-
DATE: September 18, 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: Watering plants lowers blood pressure and anxiety in older adults
URL: https://www.psypost.org/watering-plants-lowers-blood-pressure-and-anxiety-in-older-adults/
Watering indoor plants for just 10 minutes can lower blood pressure and boost feelings of relaxation in older adults. A recent trial compared this simple gardening task to playing a computer card game and found that tending to plants provided measurable physical and mental health benefits. The research was published in the Hong Kong Journal of Occupational Therapy.
As people age, maintaining mental and physical health often requires engaging in structured leisure activities. Occupational therapists frequently recommend non-pharmacological interventions to help older adults manage stress and preserve their motor skills. One popular approach is horticultural therapy, a practice that incorporates gardening tasks to promote holistic well-being. Interacting with plants provides sensory stimulation and offers a gentle form of physical exercise.
Past research has linked gardening to improved self-esteem, better hand coordination, and reduced feelings of isolation in older populations. To measure these benefits, scientists have traditionally relied on self-reported surveys or basic physical metrics like heart rate monitors. Recent advances in wearable technology now allow researchers to directly monitor electrical brain activity during these tasks.
Researchers Li Xiaoyi of the Henan Institute of Science and Technology and Ahmad Hassan of Tongji University wanted to observe exactly how the brain and body respond to a brief gardening exercise. Working with colleagues Jiang Tao and Zhang Deshun, they designed an experiment to compare plant care with a digital leisure activity. They hypothesized that interacting with live plants would yield unique physiological benefits.
The researchers recruited 100 older women living in a nursing care facility in Shanghai, China. The participants had an average age of 68 and were in good physical health with no cognitive impairments. The experiment took place in a quiet, temperature-controlled room to minimize outside distractions and maintain a consistent environment.
The team set up a crossover trial, an experimental design where all participants eventually complete both activities being tested. On the first day, half of the women spent 10 minutes watering 15 small indoor potted plants by hand. The other half spent 10 minutes playing a digital game of Klondike Solitaire on a computer. The following day, the two groups switched tasks.
Before and after each session, the researchers measured the participants’ blood pressure using a standard blood pressure cuff. They also utilized an electroencephalogram, commonly known as an EEG, to continuously record brain activity. Participants wore a specialized headband equipped with dry sensors that rest on the forehead. These sensors detect the faint electrical signals produced by brain cells communicating with one another.
The headset specifically monitored the frontal lobe, a brain region heavily involved in attention, memory, and emotional regulation. The researchers focused their analysis on two distinct types of brain frequencies: alpha waves and beta waves. Alpha waves are relatively slow electrical patterns that typically appear when a person is in a relaxed, peaceful state. Beta waves are faster and generally emerge when a person is actively concentrating, alert, or anxious.
Alongside the physical sensors, the participants completed two standardized questionnaires to assess their subjective emotional states. One survey measured their current anxiety levels using a numerical scale. The other asked them to rate their immediate feelings between opposing concepts, such as feeling comfortable versus uncomfortable.
The physiological data revealed distinct physical responses to the two activities. Watering the indoor plants prompted immediate drops in both systolic and diastolic blood pressure. Systolic pressure measures the force of blood against artery walls during a heartbeat, while diastolic pressure measures the resting force between beats. A reduction in both metrics indicates a calming effect on the autonomic nervous system, which controls involuntary bodily functions.
Playing the computer game did not produce these relaxing physical changes. The heart rate of the participants remained relatively stable across both activities, showing no statistical difference in pulse. The most notable differences emerged in the electrical activity of the brain.
During the first few minutes of the plant-watering task, the women experienced a surge in alpha wave activity. This initial spike suggests that interacting with the plants fostered immediate mental relaxation. During the same period, their high beta wave activity also increased, pointing to a state of heightened attentiveness.
Experiencing both increased alpha and beta waves suggests the participants were in a state of alert relaxation. They were calm but fully engaged with the task of watering the plants. In contrast, the women who played the computer game showed decreased alpha and beta activity. This opposing brainwave pattern is often associated with mental fatigue, boredom, or stress.
Across the entire 10-minute session, the overall increase in alpha waves for the gardening group was not statistically significant. However, the overall beta wave increase remained substantial for the duration of the task. The EEG headsets also calculated a proprietary meditation score, which rose notably during the plant-watering task compared to the computer game.
The subjective survey results mirrored the objective physical measurements. After tending to the plants, participants reported lower overall anxiety scores on their questionnaires. They also rated themselves as feeling much more comfortable, natural, and relaxed than they did after playing the computer game.
While the results highlight the potential benefits of brief interactions with nature, the study design has limitations. The experiment only tested a single 10-minute session using one specific type of indoor potted plant. The effects of longer gardening sessions, different types of plants, or outdoor environments remain unknown.
The demographic makeup of the study was also highly specific, focusing entirely on a single group. All participants were older women living in one nursing facility in China. The psychological and physical responses to gardening might differ across different age groups, genders, and cultural backgrounds. Future trials involving diverse populations would help clarify how broadly these benefits apply to the general public.
The study, “Psychological and physiological benefits of horticultural therapy for Chinese older adults,” was authored by Li Xiaoyi, Ahmad Hassan, Jiang Tao, and Zhang Deshun.
URL: https://www.psypost.org/watering-plants-lowers-blood-pressure-and-anxiety-in-older-adults/
-------------------------------------------------
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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 #horticulturaltherapy #indoorplants #bloodpressure #anxietyrelief #olderadults #gardeningbenefits #mindbodyconnection #alphawaves #betawaves #wellbeing
-
DATE: September 18, 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: Watering plants lowers blood pressure and anxiety in older adults
URL: https://www.psypost.org/watering-plants-lowers-blood-pressure-and-anxiety-in-older-adults/
Watering indoor plants for just 10 minutes can lower blood pressure and boost feelings of relaxation in older adults. A recent trial compared this simple gardening task to playing a computer card game and found that tending to plants provided measurable physical and mental health benefits. The research was published in the Hong Kong Journal of Occupational Therapy.
As people age, maintaining mental and physical health often requires engaging in structured leisure activities. Occupational therapists frequently recommend non-pharmacological interventions to help older adults manage stress and preserve their motor skills. One popular approach is horticultural therapy, a practice that incorporates gardening tasks to promote holistic well-being. Interacting with plants provides sensory stimulation and offers a gentle form of physical exercise.
Past research has linked gardening to improved self-esteem, better hand coordination, and reduced feelings of isolation in older populations. To measure these benefits, scientists have traditionally relied on self-reported surveys or basic physical metrics like heart rate monitors. Recent advances in wearable technology now allow researchers to directly monitor electrical brain activity during these tasks.
Researchers Li Xiaoyi of the Henan Institute of Science and Technology and Ahmad Hassan of Tongji University wanted to observe exactly how the brain and body respond to a brief gardening exercise. Working with colleagues Jiang Tao and Zhang Deshun, they designed an experiment to compare plant care with a digital leisure activity. They hypothesized that interacting with live plants would yield unique physiological benefits.
The researchers recruited 100 older women living in a nursing care facility in Shanghai, China. The participants had an average age of 68 and were in good physical health with no cognitive impairments. The experiment took place in a quiet, temperature-controlled room to minimize outside distractions and maintain a consistent environment.
The team set up a crossover trial, an experimental design where all participants eventually complete both activities being tested. On the first day, half of the women spent 10 minutes watering 15 small indoor potted plants by hand. The other half spent 10 minutes playing a digital game of Klondike Solitaire on a computer. The following day, the two groups switched tasks.
Before and after each session, the researchers measured the participants’ blood pressure using a standard blood pressure cuff. They also utilized an electroencephalogram, commonly known as an EEG, to continuously record brain activity. Participants wore a specialized headband equipped with dry sensors that rest on the forehead. These sensors detect the faint electrical signals produced by brain cells communicating with one another.
The headset specifically monitored the frontal lobe, a brain region heavily involved in attention, memory, and emotional regulation. The researchers focused their analysis on two distinct types of brain frequencies: alpha waves and beta waves. Alpha waves are relatively slow electrical patterns that typically appear when a person is in a relaxed, peaceful state. Beta waves are faster and generally emerge when a person is actively concentrating, alert, or anxious.
Alongside the physical sensors, the participants completed two standardized questionnaires to assess their subjective emotional states. One survey measured their current anxiety levels using a numerical scale. The other asked them to rate their immediate feelings between opposing concepts, such as feeling comfortable versus uncomfortable.
The physiological data revealed distinct physical responses to the two activities. Watering the indoor plants prompted immediate drops in both systolic and diastolic blood pressure. Systolic pressure measures the force of blood against artery walls during a heartbeat, while diastolic pressure measures the resting force between beats. A reduction in both metrics indicates a calming effect on the autonomic nervous system, which controls involuntary bodily functions.
Playing the computer game did not produce these relaxing physical changes. The heart rate of the participants remained relatively stable across both activities, showing no statistical difference in pulse. The most notable differences emerged in the electrical activity of the brain.
During the first few minutes of the plant-watering task, the women experienced a surge in alpha wave activity. This initial spike suggests that interacting with the plants fostered immediate mental relaxation. During the same period, their high beta wave activity also increased, pointing to a state of heightened attentiveness.
Experiencing both increased alpha and beta waves suggests the participants were in a state of alert relaxation. They were calm but fully engaged with the task of watering the plants. In contrast, the women who played the computer game showed decreased alpha and beta activity. This opposing brainwave pattern is often associated with mental fatigue, boredom, or stress.
Across the entire 10-minute session, the overall increase in alpha waves for the gardening group was not statistically significant. However, the overall beta wave increase remained substantial for the duration of the task. The EEG headsets also calculated a proprietary meditation score, which rose notably during the plant-watering task compared to the computer game.
The subjective survey results mirrored the objective physical measurements. After tending to the plants, participants reported lower overall anxiety scores on their questionnaires. They also rated themselves as feeling much more comfortable, natural, and relaxed than they did after playing the computer game.
While the results highlight the potential benefits of brief interactions with nature, the study design has limitations. The experiment only tested a single 10-minute session using one specific type of indoor potted plant. The effects of longer gardening sessions, different types of plants, or outdoor environments remain unknown.
The demographic makeup of the study was also highly specific, focusing entirely on a single group. All participants were older women living in one nursing facility in China. The psychological and physical responses to gardening might differ across different age groups, genders, and cultural backgrounds. Future trials involving diverse populations would help clarify how broadly these benefits apply to the general public.
The study, “Psychological and physiological benefits of horticultural therapy for Chinese older adults,” was authored by Li Xiaoyi, Ahmad Hassan, Jiang Tao, and Zhang Deshun.
URL: https://www.psypost.org/watering-plants-lowers-blood-pressure-and-anxiety-in-older-adults/
-------------------------------------------------
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-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #horticulturaltherapy #indoorplants #bloodpressure #anxietyrelief #olderadults #gardeningbenefits #mindbodyconnection #alphawaves #betawaves #wellbeing
-
DATE: September 18, 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: Do antidepressants actually alter brain structure? A massive neuroscience study weighs in
A massive brain imaging study has found that subtle differences in the brain structure of people taking antidepressants are largely explained by the severity of their depression, rather than the medications themselves. The research also suggests that the relationship between depression, medication use, and brain anatomy changes across a person’s lifespan, with younger patients showing distinct structural patterns. The findings were published in Molecular Psychiatry.
Major depressive disorder is a severe and persistent form of depression that ranks among the leading causes of disability worldwide. To treat it, doctors frequently prescribe antidepressant medications, yet the exact biological mechanisms by which these drugs alter the brain remain somewhat elusive.
A 2006 theoretical framework proposed that chronic stress and depression might damage brain cells, and that antidepressants could stimulate the growth of new cells in deep brain regions. Supporting this idea, a study covered by PsyPost in 2026 indicated that treatments like duloxetine could help normalize the microscopic structure of brain tissue in depressed patients, whereas those given a placebo saw their brain tissue drift further from healthy levels.
To investigate these effects on a larger scale, researchers needed massive datasets. In prior work, the ENIGMA consortium, an international network of brain researchers, mapped how depression physically alters the brain. For instance, a 2015 study from the group found that people with major depression tend to have a smaller hippocampus, which is a seahorse-shaped structure deep in the brain that plays a primary role in memory and emotion.
Building on this lineage, researchers analyzed data from this same international network to see if antidepressant use actually counteracts these structural brain changes, and whether those effects differ depending on a patient’s age and sex.
“In several of our previous large international ENIGMA studies of depression, we kept seeing an intriguing pattern: the most widespread brain differences were often found in people with depression who were taking antidepressants at the time of their brain scan,” Lianne Schmaal, head of Mood & Anxiety Disorders Research and chair of the ENIGMA MDD consortium at Orygen and the Centre for Youth Mental Health at The University of Melbourne, told PsyPost.
“We wanted to understand that pattern better,” Schmaal explained. “Our earlier studies did not have sufficiently detailed information about how long people had been taking antidepressants or which type they were taking, and they could not tell us whether the differences we observed were related to the medication itself or to the reasons people were taking medication in the first place.”
To answer these questions, Schmaal, lead author Chaira Serrarens, and their colleagues pooled data from 32 different international cohorts, yielding a total sample of 8,696 individuals. This massive group was divided into three categories: 2,076 people with major depressive disorder who were currently taking antidepressants, 1,495 people with the disorder who were not taking antidepressants, and 5,125 healthy controls with no history of the condition.
“One of the strengths of this study is its scale,” Schmaal said. “By bringing together almost 8,700 people from 32 research cohorts around the world and analyzing their brain scans using harmonized methods, we could identify subtle patterns that smaller studies would struggle to detect reliably.”
All participants underwent structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), a technique that uses strong magnetic fields and radio waves to create highly detailed, three-dimensional pictures of brain anatomy. The researchers processed these brain scans using automated software to measure three main things. First, they measured the thickness of the cerebral cortex, which is the wrinkled outer layer of the brain responsible for higher-level thinking and processing. Second, they measured the total surface area of this outer layer. Third, they measured the volume of subcortical structures, which are the specialized hubs located deep beneath the outer cortex.
To ensure a fair comparison, the statistical models accounted for the participants’ age, sex, and total head size. The researchers also gathered clinical data from the depressed patients, including the severity of their current symptoms based on standard psychological questionnaires, their number of past depressive episodes, and, for a smaller subset, the specific type of antidepressant they were taking.
The brain scans revealed a complex relationship between age, medication status, and brain structure. For example, younger individuals in the medicated group (those under 50 years old) showed a thinner middle temporal gyrus compared to both the unmedicated patients and the healthy controls. The middle temporal gyrus is a ridge on the side of the brain involved in processing sensory information and emotional cues. In older individuals, this difference between the groups disappeared, with the lines crossing over around age 50.
“One of the most interesting findings was that age seemed to matter,” Schmaal noted. “Some of the differences associated with antidepressant use were most apparent in younger people and were not seen in the same way in older adults. That suggests we should not necessarily assume that the relationship between antidepressant treatment and the brain is the same across the lifespan.”
When looking at the overall effects of medication regardless of age, the researchers found that patients currently taking antidepressants had a smaller hippocampus and a thinner inferior temporal gyrus compared to patients who were not taking the drugs. The researchers ran extra tests to see if these differences were simply due to the medicated patients having a longer or more stubborn history of depression. The structural differences held true even when adjusting for the number of past depressive episodes or whether the patient was currently in remission.
However, the researchers caution that these alterations are not glaringly obvious on an individual level. “The differences were small,” Schmaal told PsyPost. “They are detectable because we were able to combine data from thousands of people, but they are nowhere near large enough to look at an individual person’s brain scan and determine whether they have taken antidepressants, or to use these measures in clinical decision-making.”
The differences between the medicated and unmedicated groups also vanished when the researchers accounted for the severity of current depressive symptoms. The people in the medicated group generally reported feeling worse at the time of the scan than the unmedicated group. This indicates that the structural differences in the temporal lobe and hippocampus might be tied more to how severely depressed a person is currently feeling, rather than being a direct physical result of the medication itself.
“We tried to account for factors such as current symptoms, number of previous depressive episodes and whether someone had recurrent depression, but it is impossible to completely separate medication use from illness severity in this kind of study,” Schmaal explained.
“Despite exploring every possible difference between those taking and those not taking antidepressants, there were only very small differences in very few brain areas which disappeared when taking into account other important differences between these groups,” Roland Zahn, a professor of Mood Disorders and Cognitive Neuroscience at King’s College London’s Centre for Affective Disorders who was not involved in the research, told PsyPost.
Zahn, who also serves as co-programme lead for the MSc Affective Disorders and shares research updates via his lab blog, added: “One important difference between the groups was that people taking antidepressants had much higher levels of depressive symptoms as measured on a gold standard observer-rated scale known to correlate with subtle changes in brain structure from other studies. When accounting for this crucial difference between the groups, the subtle differences in thickness of some of the brain areas in those taking antidepressants disappeared.”
The study also highlighted brain changes that seem driven by the depression diagnosis itself rather than the medication. Younger patients with depression, regardless of whether they took medication, had a smaller thalamus compared to healthy controls. The thalamus acts as a central relay station for sensory and motor signals in the brain. These younger patients also exhibited a thinner cortex in several regions across the frontal, occipital, and parietal lobes when compared to healthy individuals, a gap that was not present in the older participants.
In a smaller exploratory analysis, the researchers looked at specific types of antidepressants, comparing selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors (SNRIs), and mirtazapine. They found an age-specific pattern here as well. Older adults (over the age of 40) taking mirtazapine had a thicker rostral anterior cingulate cortex compared to older adults taking SSRIs or SNRIs.
This brain region sits in the frontal lobe and is heavily involved in emotional regulation and reward processing. The authors suggest that mirtazapine might trigger a distinct neuroplastic response in this area, though they also note that mirtazapine is often prescribed for specific symptoms like insomnia or after other drugs have failed, which might influence the results.
“The authors acknowledge that they cannot establish causal relationships and particularly their comparison of different antidepressants is exploratory and based on a much smaller group, based on a single time point,” Zahn noted. “The problem is that there are several factors influencing the reason why someone is taking one antidepressant rather than another and the authors acknowledge, they were not able to account for that as this is a large study with limited clinical background information.”
The researchers also investigated how long patients had been on their current medication, finding no clear association between duration of use and structural changes. “We also did not find evidence that a longer duration of current antidepressant use was associated with greater brain differences,” Schmaal said. “That is reassuring in one sense, but it needs to be interpreted cautiously because detailed information on duration was available for only a subset of participants, and importantly we did not have people’s complete lifetime history of antidepressant exposure.”
The findings are in tension with research covered by PsyPost earlier this year, which found that patients taking the antidepressant escitalopram experienced increases in right hippocampal volume during their treatment. Both studies measure hippocampal volume via MRI in depressed patients taking antidepressants, but that earlier study tracked longitudinal within-person volume changes over weeks of treatment, whereas the new study assessed cross-sectional volume differences between different groups of medicated and unmedicated patients at a single point in time.
However, the ENIGMA study’s immense size adds significant weight to its findings. “This is a very important study in that it was able to merge data from thousands of people and therefore had the ability to detect very small differences,” Zahn said. “It thereby challenged findings from non-human animals as well as findings in smaller studies.”
As with all research, there are a few things to keep in mind. The study relies on a cross-sectional design, meaning the participants were only scanned once. Because the researchers did not track the same individuals over time, they cannot definitively say whether the antidepressants caused the observed brain differences, or if people with certain brain shapes and symptom severities are simply more likely to be prescribed antidepressants.
“The main misinterpretation I would want to avoid is that this study shows antidepressants cause the brain to shrink or cause brain damage. It does not,” Schmaal said. “Imagine taking a photograph of two groups of people today: one group taking antidepressants and another group not taking them. Even if their brains differ on average, that photograph cannot tell you what caused the difference or what their brains looked like before treatment.”
Zahn echoed this caution, emphasizing that brain anatomy is highly variable. “It is also important to note that the structure of our brains constantly changes and the biggest driver of such change is age,” he said. “It is also important to note that large individual differences in brain structure exist with little impact on functioning.”
Because of this limitation, the findings should not alter how patients currently manage their condition. “That is why these results should not be used to make decisions about starting or stopping antidepressants,” Schmaal added. “Those decisions need to be based on the balance of benefits and risks for an individual person and discussed with their treating clinician.”
The researchers also lacked data on the participants’ lifetime history of medication use, meaning some people in the “unmedicated” group might have taken antidepressants in the past. Other factors that shape brain anatomy over a lifespan, such as education, lifestyle habits, or early signs of neurodegenerative diseases in older adults, could not be fully accounted for across all 32 international sites.
“The next critical step is longitudinal research,” Schmaal told PsyPost. “Ideally, we need to follow people from before, or very soon after, they first start an antidepressant and repeatedly assess both their mental health and their brain over several years.”
“The next step as the authors acknowledge is to investigate multiple time points in datasets which contain more detail about other relevant factors, such as other conditions, and response to previous treatments,” Zahn added.
“Ultimately, the goal is not simply to ask whether antidepressants affect the brain,” Schmaal concluded. “We want to understand how they affect the developing and adult brain, whether those effects differ between individuals and across different ages, and whether any brain changes relate to treatment benefit, side effects or longer-term outcomes.”
The study, “Regional brain morphology and current antidepressant use: findings from 32 international cohorts from the ENIGMA major depressive disorder working group,” was authored by Chaira Serrarens, Yara J. Toenders, Elena Pozzi, André Aleman, Nina Alexander, Zeynep Başgöze, Vladimir Belov, Klaus Berger, Katharina Brosch, Robin Bülow, Geraldo Filho Busatto, Liliana P. Capitão, Colm G. Connolly, Baptiste Couvy-Duchesne, Kathryn R. Cullen, Udo Dannlowski, Christopher G. Davey, Greig I. de Zubicaray, Danai Dima, Katharina Dohm, Verena Enneking, Tracy Erwin-Grabner, Ulrika Evermann, Cynthia H. Y. Fu, Paola Fuentes-Claramonte, Beata R. Godlewska, Ali Saffet Gonul, Ian H. Gotlib, Roberto Goya-Maldonado, Hans J. Grabe, Nynke A. Groenewold, Dominik Grotegerd, Oliver Gruber, Tim Hahn, Geoffrey Hall, Ben J. Harrison, Walter Heindel, Marco Hermesdorf, Tiffany C. Ho, Naho Ichikawa, Eri Itai, Neda Jahanshad, Hamidreza Jamalabadi, Alec J. Jamieson, Andreas Jansen, Tilo Kircher, Bonnie Klimes-Dougan, Bernd Krämer, Axel Krug, Thomas M. Lancaster, Elisabeth J. Leehr, Meng Li, David E. J. Linden, Frank MacMaster, Katie L. McMahon, Sarah E. Medland, David M. A. Mehler, Susanne Meinert, Benson Mwangi, Igor Nenadić, Go Okada, Yasumasa Okamoto, Nils Opel, Julia-Katharina Pfarr, Edith Pomarol-Clotet, Maria J. Portella, Ronny Redlich, Liesbeth Reneman, Jonathan Repple, Kai Ringwald, Elena Rodriguez-Cano, Pedro G. P. Rosa, Matthew D. Sacchet, Philipp G. Sämann, Raymond Salvador, Anouk Schrantee, Hotaka Shinzato, Kang Sim, Egle Simulionyte, Jair C. Soares, Dan J. Stein, Frederike Stein, Benjamin Straube, Lachlan T. Strike, Florian Thomas-Odenthal, Sophia I. Thomopoulos, Paul M. Thompson, Marie-Jose van Tol, Paula Usemann, Aslihan Uyar, Nic van der Wee, Steven van der Werff, Yolanda Vives-Gilabert, Henry Völzke, Martin Walter, Sarah Whittle, Katharina Wittfeld, Adrian Wroblewski, Mon-Ju Wu, Tony T. Yang, Giovana B. Zunta-Soares, Dick J. Veltman, Lianne Schmaal, and Laura S. van Velzen.
-------------------------------------------------
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-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #antidepressants #brainstructure #ENIGMA #MDD #hippocampus #neuroimaging #MolecularPsychiatry #depressionresearch #lifespan #neuroplasticity
-
DATE: September 18, 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: Do antidepressants actually alter brain structure? A massive neuroscience study weighs in
A massive brain imaging study has found that subtle differences in the brain structure of people taking antidepressants are largely explained by the severity of their depression, rather than the medications themselves. The research also suggests that the relationship between depression, medication use, and brain anatomy changes across a person’s lifespan, with younger patients showing distinct structural patterns. The findings were published in Molecular Psychiatry.
Major depressive disorder is a severe and persistent form of depression that ranks among the leading causes of disability worldwide. To treat it, doctors frequently prescribe antidepressant medications, yet the exact biological mechanisms by which these drugs alter the brain remain somewhat elusive.
A 2006 theoretical framework proposed that chronic stress and depression might damage brain cells, and that antidepressants could stimulate the growth of new cells in deep brain regions. Supporting this idea, a study covered by PsyPost in 2026 indicated that treatments like duloxetine could help normalize the microscopic structure of brain tissue in depressed patients, whereas those given a placebo saw their brain tissue drift further from healthy levels.
To investigate these effects on a larger scale, researchers needed massive datasets. In prior work, the ENIGMA consortium, an international network of brain researchers, mapped how depression physically alters the brain. For instance, a 2015 study from the group found that people with major depression tend to have a smaller hippocampus, which is a seahorse-shaped structure deep in the brain that plays a primary role in memory and emotion.
Building on this lineage, researchers analyzed data from this same international network to see if antidepressant use actually counteracts these structural brain changes, and whether those effects differ depending on a patient’s age and sex.
“In several of our previous large international ENIGMA studies of depression, we kept seeing an intriguing pattern: the most widespread brain differences were often found in people with depression who were taking antidepressants at the time of their brain scan,” Lianne Schmaal, head of Mood & Anxiety Disorders Research and chair of the ENIGMA MDD consortium at Orygen and the Centre for Youth Mental Health at The University of Melbourne, told PsyPost.
“We wanted to understand that pattern better,” Schmaal explained. “Our earlier studies did not have sufficiently detailed information about how long people had been taking antidepressants or which type they were taking, and they could not tell us whether the differences we observed were related to the medication itself or to the reasons people were taking medication in the first place.”
To answer these questions, Schmaal, lead author Chaira Serrarens, and their colleagues pooled data from 32 different international cohorts, yielding a total sample of 8,696 individuals. This massive group was divided into three categories: 2,076 people with major depressive disorder who were currently taking antidepressants, 1,495 people with the disorder who were not taking antidepressants, and 5,125 healthy controls with no history of the condition.
“One of the strengths of this study is its scale,” Schmaal said. “By bringing together almost 8,700 people from 32 research cohorts around the world and analyzing their brain scans using harmonized methods, we could identify subtle patterns that smaller studies would struggle to detect reliably.”
All participants underwent structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), a technique that uses strong magnetic fields and radio waves to create highly detailed, three-dimensional pictures of brain anatomy. The researchers processed these brain scans using automated software to measure three main things. First, they measured the thickness of the cerebral cortex, which is the wrinkled outer layer of the brain responsible for higher-level thinking and processing. Second, they measured the total surface area of this outer layer. Third, they measured the volume of subcortical structures, which are the specialized hubs located deep beneath the outer cortex.
To ensure a fair comparison, the statistical models accounted for the participants’ age, sex, and total head size. The researchers also gathered clinical data from the depressed patients, including the severity of their current symptoms based on standard psychological questionnaires, their number of past depressive episodes, and, for a smaller subset, the specific type of antidepressant they were taking.
The brain scans revealed a complex relationship between age, medication status, and brain structure. For example, younger individuals in the medicated group (those under 50 years old) showed a thinner middle temporal gyrus compared to both the unmedicated patients and the healthy controls. The middle temporal gyrus is a ridge on the side of the brain involved in processing sensory information and emotional cues. In older individuals, this difference between the groups disappeared, with the lines crossing over around age 50.
“One of the most interesting findings was that age seemed to matter,” Schmaal noted. “Some of the differences associated with antidepressant use were most apparent in younger people and were not seen in the same way in older adults. That suggests we should not necessarily assume that the relationship between antidepressant treatment and the brain is the same across the lifespan.”
When looking at the overall effects of medication regardless of age, the researchers found that patients currently taking antidepressants had a smaller hippocampus and a thinner inferior temporal gyrus compared to patients who were not taking the drugs. The researchers ran extra tests to see if these differences were simply due to the medicated patients having a longer or more stubborn history of depression. The structural differences held true even when adjusting for the number of past depressive episodes or whether the patient was currently in remission.
However, the researchers caution that these alterations are not glaringly obvious on an individual level. “The differences were small,” Schmaal told PsyPost. “They are detectable because we were able to combine data from thousands of people, but they are nowhere near large enough to look at an individual person’s brain scan and determine whether they have taken antidepressants, or to use these measures in clinical decision-making.”
The differences between the medicated and unmedicated groups also vanished when the researchers accounted for the severity of current depressive symptoms. The people in the medicated group generally reported feeling worse at the time of the scan than the unmedicated group. This indicates that the structural differences in the temporal lobe and hippocampus might be tied more to how severely depressed a person is currently feeling, rather than being a direct physical result of the medication itself.
“We tried to account for factors such as current symptoms, number of previous depressive episodes and whether someone had recurrent depression, but it is impossible to completely separate medication use from illness severity in this kind of study,” Schmaal explained.
“Despite exploring every possible difference between those taking and those not taking antidepressants, there were only very small differences in very few brain areas which disappeared when taking into account other important differences between these groups,” Roland Zahn, a professor of Mood Disorders and Cognitive Neuroscience at King’s College London’s Centre for Affective Disorders who was not involved in the research, told PsyPost.
Zahn, who also serves as co-programme lead for the MSc Affective Disorders and shares research updates via his lab blog, added: “One important difference between the groups was that people taking antidepressants had much higher levels of depressive symptoms as measured on a gold standard observer-rated scale known to correlate with subtle changes in brain structure from other studies. When accounting for this crucial difference between the groups, the subtle differences in thickness of some of the brain areas in those taking antidepressants disappeared.”
The study also highlighted brain changes that seem driven by the depression diagnosis itself rather than the medication. Younger patients with depression, regardless of whether they took medication, had a smaller thalamus compared to healthy controls. The thalamus acts as a central relay station for sensory and motor signals in the brain. These younger patients also exhibited a thinner cortex in several regions across the frontal, occipital, and parietal lobes when compared to healthy individuals, a gap that was not present in the older participants.
In a smaller exploratory analysis, the researchers looked at specific types of antidepressants, comparing selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors (SNRIs), and mirtazapine. They found an age-specific pattern here as well. Older adults (over the age of 40) taking mirtazapine had a thicker rostral anterior cingulate cortex compared to older adults taking SSRIs or SNRIs.
This brain region sits in the frontal lobe and is heavily involved in emotional regulation and reward processing. The authors suggest that mirtazapine might trigger a distinct neuroplastic response in this area, though they also note that mirtazapine is often prescribed for specific symptoms like insomnia or after other drugs have failed, which might influence the results.
“The authors acknowledge that they cannot establish causal relationships and particularly their comparison of different antidepressants is exploratory and based on a much smaller group, based on a single time point,” Zahn noted. “The problem is that there are several factors influencing the reason why someone is taking one antidepressant rather than another and the authors acknowledge, they were not able to account for that as this is a large study with limited clinical background information.”
The researchers also investigated how long patients had been on their current medication, finding no clear association between duration of use and structural changes. “We also did not find evidence that a longer duration of current antidepressant use was associated with greater brain differences,” Schmaal said. “That is reassuring in one sense, but it needs to be interpreted cautiously because detailed information on duration was available for only a subset of participants, and importantly we did not have people’s complete lifetime history of antidepressant exposure.”
The findings are in tension with research covered by PsyPost earlier this year, which found that patients taking the antidepressant escitalopram experienced increases in right hippocampal volume during their treatment. Both studies measure hippocampal volume via MRI in depressed patients taking antidepressants, but that earlier study tracked longitudinal within-person volume changes over weeks of treatment, whereas the new study assessed cross-sectional volume differences between different groups of medicated and unmedicated patients at a single point in time.
However, the ENIGMA study’s immense size adds significant weight to its findings. “This is a very important study in that it was able to merge data from thousands of people and therefore had the ability to detect very small differences,” Zahn said. “It thereby challenged findings from non-human animals as well as findings in smaller studies.”
As with all research, there are a few things to keep in mind. The study relies on a cross-sectional design, meaning the participants were only scanned once. Because the researchers did not track the same individuals over time, they cannot definitively say whether the antidepressants caused the observed brain differences, or if people with certain brain shapes and symptom severities are simply more likely to be prescribed antidepressants.
“The main misinterpretation I would want to avoid is that this study shows antidepressants cause the brain to shrink or cause brain damage. It does not,” Schmaal said. “Imagine taking a photograph of two groups of people today: one group taking antidepressants and another group not taking them. Even if their brains differ on average, that photograph cannot tell you what caused the difference or what their brains looked like before treatment.”
Zahn echoed this caution, emphasizing that brain anatomy is highly variable. “It is also important to note that the structure of our brains constantly changes and the biggest driver of such change is age,” he said. “It is also important to note that large individual differences in brain structure exist with little impact on functioning.”
Because of this limitation, the findings should not alter how patients currently manage their condition. “That is why these results should not be used to make decisions about starting or stopping antidepressants,” Schmaal added. “Those decisions need to be based on the balance of benefits and risks for an individual person and discussed with their treating clinician.”
The researchers also lacked data on the participants’ lifetime history of medication use, meaning some people in the “unmedicated” group might have taken antidepressants in the past. Other factors that shape brain anatomy over a lifespan, such as education, lifestyle habits, or early signs of neurodegenerative diseases in older adults, could not be fully accounted for across all 32 international sites.
“The next critical step is longitudinal research,” Schmaal told PsyPost. “Ideally, we need to follow people from before, or very soon after, they first start an antidepressant and repeatedly assess both their mental health and their brain over several years.”
“The next step as the authors acknowledge is to investigate multiple time points in datasets which contain more detail about other relevant factors, such as other conditions, and response to previous treatments,” Zahn added.
“Ultimately, the goal is not simply to ask whether antidepressants affect the brain,” Schmaal concluded. “We want to understand how they affect the developing and adult brain, whether those effects differ between individuals and across different ages, and whether any brain changes relate to treatment benefit, side effects or longer-term outcomes.”
The study, “Regional brain morphology and current antidepressant use: findings from 32 international cohorts from the ENIGMA major depressive disorder working group,” was authored by Chaira Serrarens, Yara J. Toenders, Elena Pozzi, André Aleman, Nina Alexander, Zeynep Başgöze, Vladimir Belov, Klaus Berger, Katharina Brosch, Robin Bülow, Geraldo Filho Busatto, Liliana P. Capitão, Colm G. Connolly, Baptiste Couvy-Duchesne, Kathryn R. Cullen, Udo Dannlowski, Christopher G. Davey, Greig I. de Zubicaray, Danai Dima, Katharina Dohm, Verena Enneking, Tracy Erwin-Grabner, Ulrika Evermann, Cynthia H. Y. Fu, Paola Fuentes-Claramonte, Beata R. Godlewska, Ali Saffet Gonul, Ian H. Gotlib, Roberto Goya-Maldonado, Hans J. Grabe, Nynke A. Groenewold, Dominik Grotegerd, Oliver Gruber, Tim Hahn, Geoffrey Hall, Ben J. Harrison, Walter Heindel, Marco Hermesdorf, Tiffany C. Ho, Naho Ichikawa, Eri Itai, Neda Jahanshad, Hamidreza Jamalabadi, Alec J. Jamieson, Andreas Jansen, Tilo Kircher, Bonnie Klimes-Dougan, Bernd Krämer, Axel Krug, Thomas M. Lancaster, Elisabeth J. Leehr, Meng Li, David E. J. Linden, Frank MacMaster, Katie L. McMahon, Sarah E. Medland, David M. A. Mehler, Susanne Meinert, Benson Mwangi, Igor Nenadić, Go Okada, Yasumasa Okamoto, Nils Opel, Julia-Katharina Pfarr, Edith Pomarol-Clotet, Maria J. Portella, Ronny Redlich, Liesbeth Reneman, Jonathan Repple, Kai Ringwald, Elena Rodriguez-Cano, Pedro G. P. Rosa, Matthew D. Sacchet, Philipp G. Sämann, Raymond Salvador, Anouk Schrantee, Hotaka Shinzato, Kang Sim, Egle Simulionyte, Jair C. Soares, Dan J. Stein, Frederike Stein, Benjamin Straube, Lachlan T. Strike, Florian Thomas-Odenthal, Sophia I. Thomopoulos, Paul M. Thompson, Marie-Jose van Tol, Paula Usemann, Aslihan Uyar, Nic van der Wee, Steven van der Werff, Yolanda Vives-Gilabert, Henry Völzke, Martin Walter, Sarah Whittle, Katharina Wittfeld, Adrian Wroblewski, Mon-Ju Wu, Tony T. Yang, Giovana B. Zunta-Soares, Dick J. Veltman, Lianne Schmaal, and Laura S. van Velzen.
-------------------------------------------------
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 #antidepressants #brainstructure #ENIGMA #MDD #hippocampus #neuroimaging #MolecularPsychiatry #depressionresearch #lifespan #neuroplasticity
-
DATE: September 18, 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: Do antidepressants actually alter brain structure? A massive neuroscience study weighs in
A massive brain imaging study has found that subtle differences in the brain structure of people taking antidepressants are largely explained by the severity of their depression, rather than the medications themselves. The research also suggests that the relationship between depression, medication use, and brain anatomy changes across a person’s lifespan, with younger patients showing distinct structural patterns. The findings were published in Molecular Psychiatry.
Major depressive disorder is a severe and persistent form of depression that ranks among the leading causes of disability worldwide. To treat it, doctors frequently prescribe antidepressant medications, yet the exact biological mechanisms by which these drugs alter the brain remain somewhat elusive.
A 2006 theoretical framework proposed that chronic stress and depression might damage brain cells, and that antidepressants could stimulate the growth of new cells in deep brain regions. Supporting this idea, a study covered by PsyPost in 2026 indicated that treatments like duloxetine could help normalize the microscopic structure of brain tissue in depressed patients, whereas those given a placebo saw their brain tissue drift further from healthy levels.
To investigate these effects on a larger scale, researchers needed massive datasets. In prior work, the ENIGMA consortium, an international network of brain researchers, mapped how depression physically alters the brain. For instance, a 2015 study from the group found that people with major depression tend to have a smaller hippocampus, which is a seahorse-shaped structure deep in the brain that plays a primary role in memory and emotion.
Building on this lineage, researchers analyzed data from this same international network to see if antidepressant use actually counteracts these structural brain changes, and whether those effects differ depending on a patient’s age and sex.
“In several of our previous large international ENIGMA studies of depression, we kept seeing an intriguing pattern: the most widespread brain differences were often found in people with depression who were taking antidepressants at the time of their brain scan,” Lianne Schmaal, head of Mood & Anxiety Disorders Research and chair of the ENIGMA MDD consortium at Orygen and the Centre for Youth Mental Health at The University of Melbourne, told PsyPost.
“We wanted to understand that pattern better,” Schmaal explained. “Our earlier studies did not have sufficiently detailed information about how long people had been taking antidepressants or which type they were taking, and they could not tell us whether the differences we observed were related to the medication itself or to the reasons people were taking medication in the first place.”
To answer these questions, Schmaal, lead author Chaira Serrarens, and their colleagues pooled data from 32 different international cohorts, yielding a total sample of 8,696 individuals. This massive group was divided into three categories: 2,076 people with major depressive disorder who were currently taking antidepressants, 1,495 people with the disorder who were not taking antidepressants, and 5,125 healthy controls with no history of the condition.
“One of the strengths of this study is its scale,” Schmaal said. “By bringing together almost 8,700 people from 32 research cohorts around the world and analyzing their brain scans using harmonized methods, we could identify subtle patterns that smaller studies would struggle to detect reliably.”
All participants underwent structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), a technique that uses strong magnetic fields and radio waves to create highly detailed, three-dimensional pictures of brain anatomy. The researchers processed these brain scans using automated software to measure three main things. First, they measured the thickness of the cerebral cortex, which is the wrinkled outer layer of the brain responsible for higher-level thinking and processing. Second, they measured the total surface area of this outer layer. Third, they measured the volume of subcortical structures, which are the specialized hubs located deep beneath the outer cortex.
To ensure a fair comparison, the statistical models accounted for the participants’ age, sex, and total head size. The researchers also gathered clinical data from the depressed patients, including the severity of their current symptoms based on standard psychological questionnaires, their number of past depressive episodes, and, for a smaller subset, the specific type of antidepressant they were taking.
The brain scans revealed a complex relationship between age, medication status, and brain structure. For example, younger individuals in the medicated group (those under 50 years old) showed a thinner middle temporal gyrus compared to both the unmedicated patients and the healthy controls. The middle temporal gyrus is a ridge on the side of the brain involved in processing sensory information and emotional cues. In older individuals, this difference between the groups disappeared, with the lines crossing over around age 50.
“One of the most interesting findings was that age seemed to matter,” Schmaal noted. “Some of the differences associated with antidepressant use were most apparent in younger people and were not seen in the same way in older adults. That suggests we should not necessarily assume that the relationship between antidepressant treatment and the brain is the same across the lifespan.”
When looking at the overall effects of medication regardless of age, the researchers found that patients currently taking antidepressants had a smaller hippocampus and a thinner inferior temporal gyrus compared to patients who were not taking the drugs. The researchers ran extra tests to see if these differences were simply due to the medicated patients having a longer or more stubborn history of depression. The structural differences held true even when adjusting for the number of past depressive episodes or whether the patient was currently in remission.
However, the researchers caution that these alterations are not glaringly obvious on an individual level. “The differences were small,” Schmaal told PsyPost. “They are detectable because we were able to combine data from thousands of people, but they are nowhere near large enough to look at an individual person’s brain scan and determine whether they have taken antidepressants, or to use these measures in clinical decision-making.”
The differences between the medicated and unmedicated groups also vanished when the researchers accounted for the severity of current depressive symptoms. The people in the medicated group generally reported feeling worse at the time of the scan than the unmedicated group. This indicates that the structural differences in the temporal lobe and hippocampus might be tied more to how severely depressed a person is currently feeling, rather than being a direct physical result of the medication itself.
“We tried to account for factors such as current symptoms, number of previous depressive episodes and whether someone had recurrent depression, but it is impossible to completely separate medication use from illness severity in this kind of study,” Schmaal explained.
“Despite exploring every possible difference between those taking and those not taking antidepressants, there were only very small differences in very few brain areas which disappeared when taking into account other important differences between these groups,” Roland Zahn, a professor of Mood Disorders and Cognitive Neuroscience at King’s College London’s Centre for Affective Disorders who was not involved in the research, told PsyPost.
Zahn, who also serves as co-programme lead for the MSc Affective Disorders and shares research updates via his lab blog, added: “One important difference between the groups was that people taking antidepressants had much higher levels of depressive symptoms as measured on a gold standard observer-rated scale known to correlate with subtle changes in brain structure from other studies. When accounting for this crucial difference between the groups, the subtle differences in thickness of some of the brain areas in those taking antidepressants disappeared.”
The study also highlighted brain changes that seem driven by the depression diagnosis itself rather than the medication. Younger patients with depression, regardless of whether they took medication, had a smaller thalamus compared to healthy controls. The thalamus acts as a central relay station for sensory and motor signals in the brain. These younger patients also exhibited a thinner cortex in several regions across the frontal, occipital, and parietal lobes when compared to healthy individuals, a gap that was not present in the older participants.
In a smaller exploratory analysis, the researchers looked at specific types of antidepressants, comparing selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors (SNRIs), and mirtazapine. They found an age-specific pattern here as well. Older adults (over the age of 40) taking mirtazapine had a thicker rostral anterior cingulate cortex compared to older adults taking SSRIs or SNRIs.
This brain region sits in the frontal lobe and is heavily involved in emotional regulation and reward processing. The authors suggest that mirtazapine might trigger a distinct neuroplastic response in this area, though they also note that mirtazapine is often prescribed for specific symptoms like insomnia or after other drugs have failed, which might influence the results.
“The authors acknowledge that they cannot establish causal relationships and particularly their comparison of different antidepressants is exploratory and based on a much smaller group, based on a single time point,” Zahn noted. “The problem is that there are several factors influencing the reason why someone is taking one antidepressant rather than another and the authors acknowledge, they were not able to account for that as this is a large study with limited clinical background information.”
The researchers also investigated how long patients had been on their current medication, finding no clear association between duration of use and structural changes. “We also did not find evidence that a longer duration of current antidepressant use was associated with greater brain differences,” Schmaal said. “That is reassuring in one sense, but it needs to be interpreted cautiously because detailed information on duration was available for only a subset of participants, and importantly we did not have people’s complete lifetime history of antidepressant exposure.”
The findings are in tension with research covered by PsyPost earlier this year, which found that patients taking the antidepressant escitalopram experienced increases in right hippocampal volume during their treatment. Both studies measure hippocampal volume via MRI in depressed patients taking antidepressants, but that earlier study tracked longitudinal within-person volume changes over weeks of treatment, whereas the new study assessed cross-sectional volume differences between different groups of medicated and unmedicated patients at a single point in time.
However, the ENIGMA study’s immense size adds significant weight to its findings. “This is a very important study in that it was able to merge data from thousands of people and therefore had the ability to detect very small differences,” Zahn said. “It thereby challenged findings from non-human animals as well as findings in smaller studies.”
As with all research, there are a few things to keep in mind. The study relies on a cross-sectional design, meaning the participants were only scanned once. Because the researchers did not track the same individuals over time, they cannot definitively say whether the antidepressants caused the observed brain differences, or if people with certain brain shapes and symptom severities are simply more likely to be prescribed antidepressants.
“The main misinterpretation I would want to avoid is that this study shows antidepressants cause the brain to shrink or cause brain damage. It does not,” Schmaal said. “Imagine taking a photograph of two groups of people today: one group taking antidepressants and another group not taking them. Even if their brains differ on average, that photograph cannot tell you what caused the difference or what their brains looked like before treatment.”
Zahn echoed this caution, emphasizing that brain anatomy is highly variable. “It is also important to note that the structure of our brains constantly changes and the biggest driver of such change is age,” he said. “It is also important to note that large individual differences in brain structure exist with little impact on functioning.”
Because of this limitation, the findings should not alter how patients currently manage their condition. “That is why these results should not be used to make decisions about starting or stopping antidepressants,” Schmaal added. “Those decisions need to be based on the balance of benefits and risks for an individual person and discussed with their treating clinician.”
The researchers also lacked data on the participants’ lifetime history of medication use, meaning some people in the “unmedicated” group might have taken antidepressants in the past. Other factors that shape brain anatomy over a lifespan, such as education, lifestyle habits, or early signs of neurodegenerative diseases in older adults, could not be fully accounted for across all 32 international sites.
“The next critical step is longitudinal research,” Schmaal told PsyPost. “Ideally, we need to follow people from before, or very soon after, they first start an antidepressant and repeatedly assess both their mental health and their brain over several years.”
“The next step as the authors acknowledge is to investigate multiple time points in datasets which contain more detail about other relevant factors, such as other conditions, and response to previous treatments,” Zahn added.
“Ultimately, the goal is not simply to ask whether antidepressants affect the brain,” Schmaal concluded. “We want to understand how they affect the developing and adult brain, whether those effects differ between individuals and across different ages, and whether any brain changes relate to treatment benefit, side effects or longer-term outcomes.”
The study, “Regional brain morphology and current antidepressant use: findings from 32 international cohorts from the ENIGMA major depressive disorder working group,” was authored by Chaira Serrarens, Yara J. Toenders, Elena Pozzi, André Aleman, Nina Alexander, Zeynep Başgöze, Vladimir Belov, Klaus Berger, Katharina Brosch, Robin Bülow, Geraldo Filho Busatto, Liliana P. Capitão, Colm G. Connolly, Baptiste Couvy-Duchesne, Kathryn R. Cullen, Udo Dannlowski, Christopher G. Davey, Greig I. de Zubicaray, Danai Dima, Katharina Dohm, Verena Enneking, Tracy Erwin-Grabner, Ulrika Evermann, Cynthia H. Y. Fu, Paola Fuentes-Claramonte, Beata R. Godlewska, Ali Saffet Gonul, Ian H. Gotlib, Roberto Goya-Maldonado, Hans J. Grabe, Nynke A. Groenewold, Dominik Grotegerd, Oliver Gruber, Tim Hahn, Geoffrey Hall, Ben J. Harrison, Walter Heindel, Marco Hermesdorf, Tiffany C. Ho, Naho Ichikawa, Eri Itai, Neda Jahanshad, Hamidreza Jamalabadi, Alec J. Jamieson, Andreas Jansen, Tilo Kircher, Bonnie Klimes-Dougan, Bernd Krämer, Axel Krug, Thomas M. Lancaster, Elisabeth J. Leehr, Meng Li, David E. J. Linden, Frank MacMaster, Katie L. McMahon, Sarah E. Medland, David M. A. Mehler, Susanne Meinert, Benson Mwangi, Igor Nenadić, Go Okada, Yasumasa Okamoto, Nils Opel, Julia-Katharina Pfarr, Edith Pomarol-Clotet, Maria J. Portella, Ronny Redlich, Liesbeth Reneman, Jonathan Repple, Kai Ringwald, Elena Rodriguez-Cano, Pedro G. P. Rosa, Matthew D. Sacchet, Philipp G. Sämann, Raymond Salvador, Anouk Schrantee, Hotaka Shinzato, Kang Sim, Egle Simulionyte, Jair C. Soares, Dan J. Stein, Frederike Stein, Benjamin Straube, Lachlan T. Strike, Florian Thomas-Odenthal, Sophia I. Thomopoulos, Paul M. Thompson, Marie-Jose van Tol, Paula Usemann, Aslihan Uyar, Nic van der Wee, Steven van der Werff, Yolanda Vives-Gilabert, Henry Völzke, Martin Walter, Sarah Whittle, Katharina Wittfeld, Adrian Wroblewski, Mon-Ju Wu, Tony T. Yang, Giovana B. Zunta-Soares, Dick J. Veltman, Lianne Schmaal, and Laura S. van Velzen.
-------------------------------------------------
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 #antidepressants #brainstructure #ENIGMA #MDD #hippocampus #neuroimaging #MolecularPsychiatry #depressionresearch #lifespan #neuroplasticity
-
DATE: September 18, 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: Lithium supplementation does not slow cognitive decline in Alzheimer’s disease, meta-analysis finds
A recent meta-analysis evaluating the cognitive effects of lithium supplementation in older adults found that the mineral does not slow cognitive decline in individuals with Alzheimer’s disease or mild cognitive impairment. The research provides evidence that commonly prescribed forms of lithium are not effective at preserving memory and thinking skills in this population. The findings were published in the Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews.
Alzheimer’s disease is a progressive condition of the brain where brain cells gradually degrade and die, leading to worsening memory, confusion, and an inability to perform daily tasks. The disease is characterized by the accumulation of harmful proteins in the brain, namely amyloid-beta plaques and tau tangles, which disrupt cell communication and cause inflammation. Before a person develops full Alzheimer’s disease, they often experience mild cognitive impairment, an intermediate stage of memory loss that is noticeable but does not completely disrupt everyday life. Finding treatments that can halt or slow this progression from early memory loss to severe dementia is a major priority in medical science.
One substance that has attracted attention as a potential treatment is lithium. Lithium is a naturally occurring mineral that is most commonly formulated as a medication, such as lithium carbonate, to stabilize mood in people with bipolar disorder. In recent years, laboratory experiments have suggested that lithium might also protect brain cells from the damage seen in Alzheimer’s disease by blocking specific enzymes that lead to protein buildup.
A series of small clinical trials and earlier pooled reviews yielded mixed evidence on whether lithium can actually slow cognitive decline in humans. For example, a 2009 clinical trial investigated whether a short course of lithium could alter disease markers and slow mental decline in patients with Alzheimer’s, but it found no major benefit.
A few years later, a 2011 clinical trial indicated that long-term, low-dose lithium treatment helped stabilize memory and thinking in patients with mild cognitive impairment. Trying to make sense of these varying outcomes, a 2015 meta-analysis combined the results of these early clinical trials, yielding intriguing but still inconclusive evidence about the mineral’s protective effects.
This conflicting background set the stage for an updated analysis of lithium’s therapeutic value in Alzheimer’s disease. The research team, led by Taro Kishi of the Fujita Health University School of Medicine, wanted to incorporate the most recent clinical trials into a single, comprehensive statistical model to see if lithium offers any reliable cognitive benefits for people with mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer’s disease.
To explore this question, the scientists utilized a meta-analysis, which is a statistical method that pools data from multiple independent studies to identify broader trends that a single study might miss. The researchers searched major scientific databases for randomized, placebo-controlled trials that tested lithium supplementation in individuals diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment or Alzheimer’s disease. In these types of trials, one group of patients receives the active medication while another receives an inactive dummy pill, allowing researchers to isolate the effects of the drug.
The final analysis included six clinical trials with a total of 435 participants. Two of the trials focused exclusively on patients with mild cognitive impairment, while the others included patients with various stages of Alzheimer’s disease. The length of the studies varied, with some tracking patients for just 10 weeks and others following them for up to two years. The types of lithium used in these trials were mostly inorganic salts, predominantly lithium carbonate, though some used lithium sulfate or lithium gluconate.
To measure cognitive changes, the original studies used standardized tests such as the Alzheimer’s Disease Assessment Scale-Cognitive Subscale and the Mini-Mental State Examination. These tools are questionnaires and tasks designed to evaluate memory, language, attention, and basic problem-solving skills. The research team compared the cognitive test scores of the patients who took lithium with those who took a placebo to determine if the mineral slowed their rate of mental decline.
The researchers found that lithium supplementation was not better than a placebo at preserving cognitive function. When combining the data from all six studies, the difference in cognitive test scores between the lithium group and the placebo group was not statistically significant. The patients taking lithium experienced a similar rate of memory and thinking decline as those who did not receive the treatment.
The team also looked at secondary outcomes, including behavioral symptoms like agitation and aggression, which are common in advancing Alzheimer’s disease. Once again, the results were not statistically significant; lithium did not improve behavioral symptoms better than a placebo. Similarly, the rates of people dropping out of the studies or experiencing adverse side effects were roughly equal between the lithium and placebo groups.
To ensure they were not missing specific scenarios where lithium might work, the scientists performed several subgroup analyses. They checked whether the results differed depending on the patient’s diagnosis, the length of the study, the dose of lithium, or the specific formulation used. In all of these categories, lithium consistently failed to show an advantage over the placebo.
These findings are in line with research covered by PsyPost in May 2026, which found that lithium chloride treatment reduced harmful protein activity and altered brain signaling. However, the new meta-analysis evaluated clinical cognitive outcomes in human patients rather than molecular and cellular changes in laboratory cell cultures.
The results also offer interesting context for another study covered by PsyPost in September 2025. That study, which used mouse models rather than human clinical trials, found that treatment with a specific organic salt called lithium orotate prevented harmful protein accumulation and improved memory. While those animal and cellular studies suggest lithium has biological effects on Alzheimer’s mechanisms, the new study indicates that the specific inorganic lithium salts commonly used in human clinical trials, such as lithium carbonate, do not translate into measurable cognitive benefits for human patients.
As with all research, there are some caveats to consider. The meta-analysis was based on a relatively small number of studies and a modest total of 435 participants, which limits the statistical power of the analysis. A larger pool of data might be needed to detect very subtle effects. There are also a few things to keep in mind regarding the participants themselves. In the older trials, patients with mild cognitive impairment were diagnosed based on clinical symptoms rather than modern biological markers like brain scans or spinal fluid tests. This means some participants might have had memory issues caused by conditions other than early Alzheimer’s disease.
Additionally, the patients in these trials were often taking standard anti-dementia medications alongside the lithium or placebo. The types and combinations of these medications varied across the studies, which might have influenced the outcomes. Finally, the analysis focused heavily on inorganic lithium salts like lithium carbonate and lithium sulfate. Some researchers suggest that organic salts like lithium orotate might enter brain cells more efficiently and with fewer side effects, but human clinical trials testing lithium orotate for Alzheimer’s disease are currently lacking.
The study, “Lithium for Alzheimer’s disease: Insights from a meta-analysis,” was authored by Taro Kishi, Shinji Matsunaga, Youichi Saito, and Nakao Iwata.
-------------------------------------------------
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 #LithiumAlzheimersNo Benefit #AlzheimersDisease #CognitiveDecline #MildCognitiveImpairment #LithiumSupplementation #NeuroscienceResearch #ClinicalTrials #MetaAnalysis #AlzheimersTreatment #BrainHealth
-
DATE: September 18, 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: Lithium supplementation does not slow cognitive decline in Alzheimer’s disease, meta-analysis finds
A recent meta-analysis evaluating the cognitive effects of lithium supplementation in older adults found that the mineral does not slow cognitive decline in individuals with Alzheimer’s disease or mild cognitive impairment. The research provides evidence that commonly prescribed forms of lithium are not effective at preserving memory and thinking skills in this population. The findings were published in the Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews.
Alzheimer’s disease is a progressive condition of the brain where brain cells gradually degrade and die, leading to worsening memory, confusion, and an inability to perform daily tasks. The disease is characterized by the accumulation of harmful proteins in the brain, namely amyloid-beta plaques and tau tangles, which disrupt cell communication and cause inflammation. Before a person develops full Alzheimer’s disease, they often experience mild cognitive impairment, an intermediate stage of memory loss that is noticeable but does not completely disrupt everyday life. Finding treatments that can halt or slow this progression from early memory loss to severe dementia is a major priority in medical science.
One substance that has attracted attention as a potential treatment is lithium. Lithium is a naturally occurring mineral that is most commonly formulated as a medication, such as lithium carbonate, to stabilize mood in people with bipolar disorder. In recent years, laboratory experiments have suggested that lithium might also protect brain cells from the damage seen in Alzheimer’s disease by blocking specific enzymes that lead to protein buildup.
A series of small clinical trials and earlier pooled reviews yielded mixed evidence on whether lithium can actually slow cognitive decline in humans. For example, a 2009 clinical trial investigated whether a short course of lithium could alter disease markers and slow mental decline in patients with Alzheimer’s, but it found no major benefit.
A few years later, a 2011 clinical trial indicated that long-term, low-dose lithium treatment helped stabilize memory and thinking in patients with mild cognitive impairment. Trying to make sense of these varying outcomes, a 2015 meta-analysis combined the results of these early clinical trials, yielding intriguing but still inconclusive evidence about the mineral’s protective effects.
This conflicting background set the stage for an updated analysis of lithium’s therapeutic value in Alzheimer’s disease. The research team, led by Taro Kishi of the Fujita Health University School of Medicine, wanted to incorporate the most recent clinical trials into a single, comprehensive statistical model to see if lithium offers any reliable cognitive benefits for people with mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer’s disease.
To explore this question, the scientists utilized a meta-analysis, which is a statistical method that pools data from multiple independent studies to identify broader trends that a single study might miss. The researchers searched major scientific databases for randomized, placebo-controlled trials that tested lithium supplementation in individuals diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment or Alzheimer’s disease. In these types of trials, one group of patients receives the active medication while another receives an inactive dummy pill, allowing researchers to isolate the effects of the drug.
The final analysis included six clinical trials with a total of 435 participants. Two of the trials focused exclusively on patients with mild cognitive impairment, while the others included patients with various stages of Alzheimer’s disease. The length of the studies varied, with some tracking patients for just 10 weeks and others following them for up to two years. The types of lithium used in these trials were mostly inorganic salts, predominantly lithium carbonate, though some used lithium sulfate or lithium gluconate.
To measure cognitive changes, the original studies used standardized tests such as the Alzheimer’s Disease Assessment Scale-Cognitive Subscale and the Mini-Mental State Examination. These tools are questionnaires and tasks designed to evaluate memory, language, attention, and basic problem-solving skills. The research team compared the cognitive test scores of the patients who took lithium with those who took a placebo to determine if the mineral slowed their rate of mental decline.
The researchers found that lithium supplementation was not better than a placebo at preserving cognitive function. When combining the data from all six studies, the difference in cognitive test scores between the lithium group and the placebo group was not statistically significant. The patients taking lithium experienced a similar rate of memory and thinking decline as those who did not receive the treatment.
The team also looked at secondary outcomes, including behavioral symptoms like agitation and aggression, which are common in advancing Alzheimer’s disease. Once again, the results were not statistically significant; lithium did not improve behavioral symptoms better than a placebo. Similarly, the rates of people dropping out of the studies or experiencing adverse side effects were roughly equal between the lithium and placebo groups.
To ensure they were not missing specific scenarios where lithium might work, the scientists performed several subgroup analyses. They checked whether the results differed depending on the patient’s diagnosis, the length of the study, the dose of lithium, or the specific formulation used. In all of these categories, lithium consistently failed to show an advantage over the placebo.
These findings are in line with research covered by PsyPost in May 2026, which found that lithium chloride treatment reduced harmful protein activity and altered brain signaling. However, the new meta-analysis evaluated clinical cognitive outcomes in human patients rather than molecular and cellular changes in laboratory cell cultures.
The results also offer interesting context for another study covered by PsyPost in September 2025. That study, which used mouse models rather than human clinical trials, found that treatment with a specific organic salt called lithium orotate prevented harmful protein accumulation and improved memory. While those animal and cellular studies suggest lithium has biological effects on Alzheimer’s mechanisms, the new study indicates that the specific inorganic lithium salts commonly used in human clinical trials, such as lithium carbonate, do not translate into measurable cognitive benefits for human patients.
As with all research, there are some caveats to consider. The meta-analysis was based on a relatively small number of studies and a modest total of 435 participants, which limits the statistical power of the analysis. A larger pool of data might be needed to detect very subtle effects. There are also a few things to keep in mind regarding the participants themselves. In the older trials, patients with mild cognitive impairment were diagnosed based on clinical symptoms rather than modern biological markers like brain scans or spinal fluid tests. This means some participants might have had memory issues caused by conditions other than early Alzheimer’s disease.
Additionally, the patients in these trials were often taking standard anti-dementia medications alongside the lithium or placebo. The types and combinations of these medications varied across the studies, which might have influenced the outcomes. Finally, the analysis focused heavily on inorganic lithium salts like lithium carbonate and lithium sulfate. Some researchers suggest that organic salts like lithium orotate might enter brain cells more efficiently and with fewer side effects, but human clinical trials testing lithium orotate for Alzheimer’s disease are currently lacking.
The study, “Lithium for Alzheimer’s disease: Insights from a meta-analysis,” was authored by Taro Kishi, Shinji Matsunaga, Youichi Saito, and Nakao Iwata.
-------------------------------------------------
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 #LithiumAlzheimersNo Benefit #AlzheimersDisease #CognitiveDecline #MildCognitiveImpairment #LithiumSupplementation #NeuroscienceResearch #ClinicalTrials #MetaAnalysis #AlzheimersTreatment #BrainHealth
-
DATE: September 18, 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: Lithium supplementation does not slow cognitive decline in Alzheimer’s disease, meta-analysis finds
A recent meta-analysis evaluating the cognitive effects of lithium supplementation in older adults found that the mineral does not slow cognitive decline in individuals with Alzheimer’s disease or mild cognitive impairment. The research provides evidence that commonly prescribed forms of lithium are not effective at preserving memory and thinking skills in this population. The findings were published in the Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews.
Alzheimer’s disease is a progressive condition of the brain where brain cells gradually degrade and die, leading to worsening memory, confusion, and an inability to perform daily tasks. The disease is characterized by the accumulation of harmful proteins in the brain, namely amyloid-beta plaques and tau tangles, which disrupt cell communication and cause inflammation. Before a person develops full Alzheimer’s disease, they often experience mild cognitive impairment, an intermediate stage of memory loss that is noticeable but does not completely disrupt everyday life. Finding treatments that can halt or slow this progression from early memory loss to severe dementia is a major priority in medical science.
One substance that has attracted attention as a potential treatment is lithium. Lithium is a naturally occurring mineral that is most commonly formulated as a medication, such as lithium carbonate, to stabilize mood in people with bipolar disorder. In recent years, laboratory experiments have suggested that lithium might also protect brain cells from the damage seen in Alzheimer’s disease by blocking specific enzymes that lead to protein buildup.
A series of small clinical trials and earlier pooled reviews yielded mixed evidence on whether lithium can actually slow cognitive decline in humans. For example, a 2009 clinical trial investigated whether a short course of lithium could alter disease markers and slow mental decline in patients with Alzheimer’s, but it found no major benefit.
A few years later, a 2011 clinical trial indicated that long-term, low-dose lithium treatment helped stabilize memory and thinking in patients with mild cognitive impairment. Trying to make sense of these varying outcomes, a 2015 meta-analysis combined the results of these early clinical trials, yielding intriguing but still inconclusive evidence about the mineral’s protective effects.
This conflicting background set the stage for an updated analysis of lithium’s therapeutic value in Alzheimer’s disease. The research team, led by Taro Kishi of the Fujita Health University School of Medicine, wanted to incorporate the most recent clinical trials into a single, comprehensive statistical model to see if lithium offers any reliable cognitive benefits for people with mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer’s disease.
To explore this question, the scientists utilized a meta-analysis, which is a statistical method that pools data from multiple independent studies to identify broader trends that a single study might miss. The researchers searched major scientific databases for randomized, placebo-controlled trials that tested lithium supplementation in individuals diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment or Alzheimer’s disease. In these types of trials, one group of patients receives the active medication while another receives an inactive dummy pill, allowing researchers to isolate the effects of the drug.
The final analysis included six clinical trials with a total of 435 participants. Two of the trials focused exclusively on patients with mild cognitive impairment, while the others included patients with various stages of Alzheimer’s disease. The length of the studies varied, with some tracking patients for just 10 weeks and others following them for up to two years. The types of lithium used in these trials were mostly inorganic salts, predominantly lithium carbonate, though some used lithium sulfate or lithium gluconate.
To measure cognitive changes, the original studies used standardized tests such as the Alzheimer’s Disease Assessment Scale-Cognitive Subscale and the Mini-Mental State Examination. These tools are questionnaires and tasks designed to evaluate memory, language, attention, and basic problem-solving skills. The research team compared the cognitive test scores of the patients who took lithium with those who took a placebo to determine if the mineral slowed their rate of mental decline.
The researchers found that lithium supplementation was not better than a placebo at preserving cognitive function. When combining the data from all six studies, the difference in cognitive test scores between the lithium group and the placebo group was not statistically significant. The patients taking lithium experienced a similar rate of memory and thinking decline as those who did not receive the treatment.
The team also looked at secondary outcomes, including behavioral symptoms like agitation and aggression, which are common in advancing Alzheimer’s disease. Once again, the results were not statistically significant; lithium did not improve behavioral symptoms better than a placebo. Similarly, the rates of people dropping out of the studies or experiencing adverse side effects were roughly equal between the lithium and placebo groups.
To ensure they were not missing specific scenarios where lithium might work, the scientists performed several subgroup analyses. They checked whether the results differed depending on the patient’s diagnosis, the length of the study, the dose of lithium, or the specific formulation used. In all of these categories, lithium consistently failed to show an advantage over the placebo.
These findings are in line with research covered by PsyPost in May 2026, which found that lithium chloride treatment reduced harmful protein activity and altered brain signaling. However, the new meta-analysis evaluated clinical cognitive outcomes in human patients rather than molecular and cellular changes in laboratory cell cultures.
The results also offer interesting context for another study covered by PsyPost in September 2025. That study, which used mouse models rather than human clinical trials, found that treatment with a specific organic salt called lithium orotate prevented harmful protein accumulation and improved memory. While those animal and cellular studies suggest lithium has biological effects on Alzheimer’s mechanisms, the new study indicates that the specific inorganic lithium salts commonly used in human clinical trials, such as lithium carbonate, do not translate into measurable cognitive benefits for human patients.
As with all research, there are some caveats to consider. The meta-analysis was based on a relatively small number of studies and a modest total of 435 participants, which limits the statistical power of the analysis. A larger pool of data might be needed to detect very subtle effects. There are also a few things to keep in mind regarding the participants themselves. In the older trials, patients with mild cognitive impairment were diagnosed based on clinical symptoms rather than modern biological markers like brain scans or spinal fluid tests. This means some participants might have had memory issues caused by conditions other than early Alzheimer’s disease.
Additionally, the patients in these trials were often taking standard anti-dementia medications alongside the lithium or placebo. The types and combinations of these medications varied across the studies, which might have influenced the outcomes. Finally, the analysis focused heavily on inorganic lithium salts like lithium carbonate and lithium sulfate. Some researchers suggest that organic salts like lithium orotate might enter brain cells more efficiently and with fewer side effects, but human clinical trials testing lithium orotate for Alzheimer’s disease are currently lacking.
The study, “Lithium for Alzheimer’s disease: Insights from a meta-analysis,” was authored by Taro Kishi, Shinji Matsunaga, Youichi Saito, and Nakao Iwata.
-------------------------------------------------
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 #LithiumAlzheimersNo Benefit #AlzheimersDisease #CognitiveDecline #MildCognitiveImpairment #LithiumSupplementation #NeuroscienceResearch #ClinicalTrials #MetaAnalysis #AlzheimersTreatment #BrainHealth
-
DATE: September 18, 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: Weight-loss drug semaglutide accelerates recovery from brain inflammation in mice
The diabetes and weight-loss drug semaglutide can calm inflammation in the brain by coordinating a response across multiple types of cells. The findings suggest the medication might help protect against cognitive decline by reversing cellular changes associated with neurodegenerative diseases. The research was published in Nature Communications.
Inflammation in the brain, or neuroinflammation, is a natural defense mechanism that protects neural tissue from injury and infection. In a healthy system, this response is brief and highly controlled. When this inflammatory response becomes chronic or dysregulated, it contributes to neurodegenerative conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease.
Genetics research points to immune pathways as major drivers of cognitive decline over time. At the same time, metabolic conditions like obesity and type 2 diabetes independently increase the risk of developing dementia. To explore the bridge between metabolism and brain health, scientists are investigating a class of medications called glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists.
Originally developed to treat diabetes and obesity, drugs like semaglutide mimic a natural hormone that regulates blood sugar and appetite. Clinical observations indicate that patients taking these medications might experience lower rates of dementia. However, researchers do not entirely understand how these drugs alter the cellular environment of the brain to provide a protective effect.
To understand the cellular mechanics behind this process, researchers Dylan M. Belmont-Rausch, Mette Q. Ludwig, and Marie A. Bentsen led a team to map how semaglutide alters the brain during an inflammatory event. The researchers first established a controlled model of brain inflammation. They injected male mice with lipopolysaccharide, a bacterial component that reliably triggers a strong immune response.
Before the inflammatory challenge, a subset of the animals received a daily dose of semaglutide for two weeks. By examining brain tissue under a microscope at different intervals, the team tracked the activity of microglia and astrocytes. Microglia act as the primary immune cells of the central nervous system, patrolling for damage and clearing cellular debris, while astrocytes help support neuronal health.
The microscopic analysis showed that semaglutide did not block the initial spike in microglial activity immediately following the bacterial trigger. Instead, the medication accelerated the recovery process. Eleven days after the inflammatory event, the mice treated with semaglutide showed reduced microglial activation in the hippocampus, a brain region central to learning and memory.
To uncover the genetic instructions driving this recovery, the researchers analyzed the RNA inside individual cell nuclei from the hippocampus. RNA carries the genetic blueprints that dictate how a cell behaves. By isolating thousands of individual nuclei and reading these blueprints, the team could tell exactly which cellular programs were turned on or off over time.
Following the bacterial challenge, the mice experienced a rush of neutrophils into the hippocampus. Neutrophils are white blood cells that usually circulate in the bloodstream to fight infections. Under normal conditions, they rarely enter healthy brain tissue, but the bacterial component caused them to breach this boundary.
Semaglutide treatment completely prevented these white blood cells from infiltrating the brain. Blood tests revealed that the medication also suppressed the release of inflammatory signaling proteins in the rest of the body. At the same time, the drug maintained the body’s levels of proteins that naturally reduce inflammation, promoting a state of immune tolerance.
Within the brain tissue itself, semaglutide reversed inflammatory genetic changes in several non-neuronal cells. This included the microglia, as well as endothelial cells that line blood vessels and pericytes that help maintain the structural integrity of the blood-brain barrier. The researchers mapped the transcription factor networks that act as master switches for these cellular programs.
The bacterial trigger activated networks related to immune defense and cellular shape changes, instructing the cells to mount a defense. The medication systematically deactivated these specific networks in the vascular and immune cells. By tracking an established set of maintenance genes, the researchers observed that the drug helped the microglia return to their baseline, resting state much faster than they would have naturally.
The team then investigated the dorsal vagal complex, a region in the brainstem that acts as a communication hub between the gut and the brain. They applied the same single-nucleus RNA sequencing technique to tissue from this area. Just as in the hippocampus, the bacterial component altered the behavior of non-neuronal cells, and semaglutide countered these changes.
The researchers identified a specific group of neurons in the brainstem that feature receptors for the medication. When exposed to semaglutide, these neurons activated genes responsible for producing anti-inflammatory chemical messengers. These neurons also produce signaling molecules associated with the body’s natural opioid and adrenaline systems.
Non-neuronal cells like microglia and endothelial cells do not possess their own receptors for the drug. The researchers suspect these brainstem neurons act as intermediaries. The neurons detect the medication and then relay protective signals to the rest of the brain’s immune and vascular systems to stand down the immune response.
To evaluate the relevance of these animal findings to human health, the researchers cross-referenced their genetic data with large databases of human DNA. They compared the genetic activity seen in the mice with genes known to increase the risk of Alzheimer’s disease in humans. The inflammatory response in the mice activated many of the exact same genes associated with human Alzheimer’s risk.
Semaglutide treatment successfully dialed down the activity of these disease-linked genes in the mice. The researchers also compared their results to postmortem brain tissue from human patients. The cellular signatures from the medicated mice countered the genetic patterns typically seen in advanced stages of human cognitive decline.
The current experiments utilized exclusively male mice, meaning the results might not fully translate to females due to hormonal differences in immune responses. The mice were also young and healthy prior to the study, which does not entirely capture the gradual aging processes involved in chronic human neurodegeneration.
The researchers measured genetic instructions and cellular markers but did not track the animals’ behavior or memory performance. Future studies will need to explore whether the cellular recovery promoted by the medication translates into measurable improvements in cognitive function. The precise communication pathways between the brainstem neurons and the broader immune system also require further mapping.
The study, “Semaglutide attenuates neuroinflammation in male mice,” was authored by Dylan M. Belmont-Rausch, Mette Q. Ludwig, Marie A. Bentsen, Stine N. Hansen, Anna Secher, Dorte Holst, Jaime Moreno, Vivek Das, Kristoffer L. Egerod, Anne-Mette Bjerregaard, Kristoffer Niss, Sarah Bau, Charles Pyke, Kevin Dalgaard, Myrte Merkestein, Franziska Wichern, Charlotte Thim Hansen, Joseph Polex-Wolf, Lotte Bjerre Knudsen, and Tune H. Pers.
-------------------------------------------------
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-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #SemaglutideNeuroinflammation #BrainHealth #NeurodegenerationProtection #Glp1RA #CognitiveDeclinePrevention #MicrogliaEndothelialCells #NeutrophilInfiltrationSuppressed #NeuroinflammatoryGenes #BrainGutAxis #NatureCommunicationsResearch
-
DATE: September 18, 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: Weight-loss drug semaglutide accelerates recovery from brain inflammation in mice
The diabetes and weight-loss drug semaglutide can calm inflammation in the brain by coordinating a response across multiple types of cells. The findings suggest the medication might help protect against cognitive decline by reversing cellular changes associated with neurodegenerative diseases. The research was published in Nature Communications.
Inflammation in the brain, or neuroinflammation, is a natural defense mechanism that protects neural tissue from injury and infection. In a healthy system, this response is brief and highly controlled. When this inflammatory response becomes chronic or dysregulated, it contributes to neurodegenerative conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease.
Genetics research points to immune pathways as major drivers of cognitive decline over time. At the same time, metabolic conditions like obesity and type 2 diabetes independently increase the risk of developing dementia. To explore the bridge between metabolism and brain health, scientists are investigating a class of medications called glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists.
Originally developed to treat diabetes and obesity, drugs like semaglutide mimic a natural hormone that regulates blood sugar and appetite. Clinical observations indicate that patients taking these medications might experience lower rates of dementia. However, researchers do not entirely understand how these drugs alter the cellular environment of the brain to provide a protective effect.
To understand the cellular mechanics behind this process, researchers Dylan M. Belmont-Rausch, Mette Q. Ludwig, and Marie A. Bentsen led a team to map how semaglutide alters the brain during an inflammatory event. The researchers first established a controlled model of brain inflammation. They injected male mice with lipopolysaccharide, a bacterial component that reliably triggers a strong immune response.
Before the inflammatory challenge, a subset of the animals received a daily dose of semaglutide for two weeks. By examining brain tissue under a microscope at different intervals, the team tracked the activity of microglia and astrocytes. Microglia act as the primary immune cells of the central nervous system, patrolling for damage and clearing cellular debris, while astrocytes help support neuronal health.
The microscopic analysis showed that semaglutide did not block the initial spike in microglial activity immediately following the bacterial trigger. Instead, the medication accelerated the recovery process. Eleven days after the inflammatory event, the mice treated with semaglutide showed reduced microglial activation in the hippocampus, a brain region central to learning and memory.
To uncover the genetic instructions driving this recovery, the researchers analyzed the RNA inside individual cell nuclei from the hippocampus. RNA carries the genetic blueprints that dictate how a cell behaves. By isolating thousands of individual nuclei and reading these blueprints, the team could tell exactly which cellular programs were turned on or off over time.
Following the bacterial challenge, the mice experienced a rush of neutrophils into the hippocampus. Neutrophils are white blood cells that usually circulate in the bloodstream to fight infections. Under normal conditions, they rarely enter healthy brain tissue, but the bacterial component caused them to breach this boundary.
Semaglutide treatment completely prevented these white blood cells from infiltrating the brain. Blood tests revealed that the medication also suppressed the release of inflammatory signaling proteins in the rest of the body. At the same time, the drug maintained the body’s levels of proteins that naturally reduce inflammation, promoting a state of immune tolerance.
Within the brain tissue itself, semaglutide reversed inflammatory genetic changes in several non-neuronal cells. This included the microglia, as well as endothelial cells that line blood vessels and pericytes that help maintain the structural integrity of the blood-brain barrier. The researchers mapped the transcription factor networks that act as master switches for these cellular programs.
The bacterial trigger activated networks related to immune defense and cellular shape changes, instructing the cells to mount a defense. The medication systematically deactivated these specific networks in the vascular and immune cells. By tracking an established set of maintenance genes, the researchers observed that the drug helped the microglia return to their baseline, resting state much faster than they would have naturally.
The team then investigated the dorsal vagal complex, a region in the brainstem that acts as a communication hub between the gut and the brain. They applied the same single-nucleus RNA sequencing technique to tissue from this area. Just as in the hippocampus, the bacterial component altered the behavior of non-neuronal cells, and semaglutide countered these changes.
The researchers identified a specific group of neurons in the brainstem that feature receptors for the medication. When exposed to semaglutide, these neurons activated genes responsible for producing anti-inflammatory chemical messengers. These neurons also produce signaling molecules associated with the body’s natural opioid and adrenaline systems.
Non-neuronal cells like microglia and endothelial cells do not possess their own receptors for the drug. The researchers suspect these brainstem neurons act as intermediaries. The neurons detect the medication and then relay protective signals to the rest of the brain’s immune and vascular systems to stand down the immune response.
To evaluate the relevance of these animal findings to human health, the researchers cross-referenced their genetic data with large databases of human DNA. They compared the genetic activity seen in the mice with genes known to increase the risk of Alzheimer’s disease in humans. The inflammatory response in the mice activated many of the exact same genes associated with human Alzheimer’s risk.
Semaglutide treatment successfully dialed down the activity of these disease-linked genes in the mice. The researchers also compared their results to postmortem brain tissue from human patients. The cellular signatures from the medicated mice countered the genetic patterns typically seen in advanced stages of human cognitive decline.
The current experiments utilized exclusively male mice, meaning the results might not fully translate to females due to hormonal differences in immune responses. The mice were also young and healthy prior to the study, which does not entirely capture the gradual aging processes involved in chronic human neurodegeneration.
The researchers measured genetic instructions and cellular markers but did not track the animals’ behavior or memory performance. Future studies will need to explore whether the cellular recovery promoted by the medication translates into measurable improvements in cognitive function. The precise communication pathways between the brainstem neurons and the broader immune system also require further mapping.
The study, “Semaglutide attenuates neuroinflammation in male mice,” was authored by Dylan M. Belmont-Rausch, Mette Q. Ludwig, Marie A. Bentsen, Stine N. Hansen, Anna Secher, Dorte Holst, Jaime Moreno, Vivek Das, Kristoffer L. Egerod, Anne-Mette Bjerregaard, Kristoffer Niss, Sarah Bau, Charles Pyke, Kevin Dalgaard, Myrte Merkestein, Franziska Wichern, Charlotte Thim Hansen, Joseph Polex-Wolf, Lotte Bjerre Knudsen, and Tune H. Pers.
-------------------------------------------------
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-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #SemaglutideNeuroinflammation #BrainHealth #NeurodegenerationProtection #Glp1RA #CognitiveDeclinePrevention #MicrogliaEndothelialCells #NeutrophilInfiltrationSuppressed #NeuroinflammatoryGenes #BrainGutAxis #NatureCommunicationsResearch
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DATE: September 18, 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: Weight-loss drug semaglutide accelerates recovery from brain inflammation in mice
The diabetes and weight-loss drug semaglutide can calm inflammation in the brain by coordinating a response across multiple types of cells. The findings suggest the medication might help protect against cognitive decline by reversing cellular changes associated with neurodegenerative diseases. The research was published in Nature Communications.
Inflammation in the brain, or neuroinflammation, is a natural defense mechanism that protects neural tissue from injury and infection. In a healthy system, this response is brief and highly controlled. When this inflammatory response becomes chronic or dysregulated, it contributes to neurodegenerative conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease.
Genetics research points to immune pathways as major drivers of cognitive decline over time. At the same time, metabolic conditions like obesity and type 2 diabetes independently increase the risk of developing dementia. To explore the bridge between metabolism and brain health, scientists are investigating a class of medications called glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists.
Originally developed to treat diabetes and obesity, drugs like semaglutide mimic a natural hormone that regulates blood sugar and appetite. Clinical observations indicate that patients taking these medications might experience lower rates of dementia. However, researchers do not entirely understand how these drugs alter the cellular environment of the brain to provide a protective effect.
To understand the cellular mechanics behind this process, researchers Dylan M. Belmont-Rausch, Mette Q. Ludwig, and Marie A. Bentsen led a team to map how semaglutide alters the brain during an inflammatory event. The researchers first established a controlled model of brain inflammation. They injected male mice with lipopolysaccharide, a bacterial component that reliably triggers a strong immune response.
Before the inflammatory challenge, a subset of the animals received a daily dose of semaglutide for two weeks. By examining brain tissue under a microscope at different intervals, the team tracked the activity of microglia and astrocytes. Microglia act as the primary immune cells of the central nervous system, patrolling for damage and clearing cellular debris, while astrocytes help support neuronal health.
The microscopic analysis showed that semaglutide did not block the initial spike in microglial activity immediately following the bacterial trigger. Instead, the medication accelerated the recovery process. Eleven days after the inflammatory event, the mice treated with semaglutide showed reduced microglial activation in the hippocampus, a brain region central to learning and memory.
To uncover the genetic instructions driving this recovery, the researchers analyzed the RNA inside individual cell nuclei from the hippocampus. RNA carries the genetic blueprints that dictate how a cell behaves. By isolating thousands of individual nuclei and reading these blueprints, the team could tell exactly which cellular programs were turned on or off over time.
Following the bacterial challenge, the mice experienced a rush of neutrophils into the hippocampus. Neutrophils are white blood cells that usually circulate in the bloodstream to fight infections. Under normal conditions, they rarely enter healthy brain tissue, but the bacterial component caused them to breach this boundary.
Semaglutide treatment completely prevented these white blood cells from infiltrating the brain. Blood tests revealed that the medication also suppressed the release of inflammatory signaling proteins in the rest of the body. At the same time, the drug maintained the body’s levels of proteins that naturally reduce inflammation, promoting a state of immune tolerance.
Within the brain tissue itself, semaglutide reversed inflammatory genetic changes in several non-neuronal cells. This included the microglia, as well as endothelial cells that line blood vessels and pericytes that help maintain the structural integrity of the blood-brain barrier. The researchers mapped the transcription factor networks that act as master switches for these cellular programs.
The bacterial trigger activated networks related to immune defense and cellular shape changes, instructing the cells to mount a defense. The medication systematically deactivated these specific networks in the vascular and immune cells. By tracking an established set of maintenance genes, the researchers observed that the drug helped the microglia return to their baseline, resting state much faster than they would have naturally.
The team then investigated the dorsal vagal complex, a region in the brainstem that acts as a communication hub between the gut and the brain. They applied the same single-nucleus RNA sequencing technique to tissue from this area. Just as in the hippocampus, the bacterial component altered the behavior of non-neuronal cells, and semaglutide countered these changes.
The researchers identified a specific group of neurons in the brainstem that feature receptors for the medication. When exposed to semaglutide, these neurons activated genes responsible for producing anti-inflammatory chemical messengers. These neurons also produce signaling molecules associated with the body’s natural opioid and adrenaline systems.
Non-neuronal cells like microglia and endothelial cells do not possess their own receptors for the drug. The researchers suspect these brainstem neurons act as intermediaries. The neurons detect the medication and then relay protective signals to the rest of the brain’s immune and vascular systems to stand down the immune response.
To evaluate the relevance of these animal findings to human health, the researchers cross-referenced their genetic data with large databases of human DNA. They compared the genetic activity seen in the mice with genes known to increase the risk of Alzheimer’s disease in humans. The inflammatory response in the mice activated many of the exact same genes associated with human Alzheimer’s risk.
Semaglutide treatment successfully dialed down the activity of these disease-linked genes in the mice. The researchers also compared their results to postmortem brain tissue from human patients. The cellular signatures from the medicated mice countered the genetic patterns typically seen in advanced stages of human cognitive decline.
The current experiments utilized exclusively male mice, meaning the results might not fully translate to females due to hormonal differences in immune responses. The mice were also young and healthy prior to the study, which does not entirely capture the gradual aging processes involved in chronic human neurodegeneration.
The researchers measured genetic instructions and cellular markers but did not track the animals’ behavior or memory performance. Future studies will need to explore whether the cellular recovery promoted by the medication translates into measurable improvements in cognitive function. The precise communication pathways between the brainstem neurons and the broader immune system also require further mapping.
The study, “Semaglutide attenuates neuroinflammation in male mice,” was authored by Dylan M. Belmont-Rausch, Mette Q. Ludwig, Marie A. Bentsen, Stine N. Hansen, Anna Secher, Dorte Holst, Jaime Moreno, Vivek Das, Kristoffer L. Egerod, Anne-Mette Bjerregaard, Kristoffer Niss, Sarah Bau, Charles Pyke, Kevin Dalgaard, Myrte Merkestein, Franziska Wichern, Charlotte Thim Hansen, Joseph Polex-Wolf, Lotte Bjerre Knudsen, and Tune H. Pers.
-------------------------------------------------
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-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #SemaglutideNeuroinflammation #BrainHealth #NeurodegenerationProtection #Glp1RA #CognitiveDeclinePrevention #MicrogliaEndothelialCells #NeutrophilInfiltrationSuppressed #NeuroinflammatoryGenes #BrainGutAxis #NatureCommunicationsResearch
-
DATE: September 18, 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: Dark personality traits predict support for violence by both Israel and Hamas
Recent psychology research indicates that while most people base their support for political violence on their personal ideological beliefs, individuals with high levels of psychopathy and sadism tend to endorse violence across the board. A new study examining attitudes toward the Israel-Hamas conflict suggests that these specific dark personality traits are linked to support for violent actions committed by both sides. The findings were published in Personality and Individual Differences.
In the study of political psychology, a common assumption is that people evaluate violence based on their group identity and political worldview. This means individuals usually justify violence when it is committed by a group they agree with, while firmly rejecting similar violent actions when committed by opposing groups. In highly polarized situations like the conflict between Israel and Hamas, this translates to an actor-specific view of violence. An individual might support the military actions of one side, but it is unusual for them to endorse violence from both sides simultaneously.
The author of the new study, Tobias Greitemeyer of the University of Innsbruck, wanted to explore whether certain personality characteristics override this partisan loyalty. He focused on the Dark Tetrad, a grouping of four socially aversive personality traits. These traits include narcissism, which involves grandiosity and entitlement; Machiavellianism, characterized by manipulative and cynical behavior; psychopathy, marked by callousness, low empathy, and impulsive thrill-seeking; and sadism, which involves deriving pleasure from the suffering of others.
Previous investigations have linked these traits to various forms of hostility. For instance, a 2024 study covered by PsyPost indicated that higher scores on dark personality traits were associated with higher levels of antisemitism, showing how these characteristics can shape views on Middle Eastern geopolitics. Other research, such as a 2015 study on consumer attitudes, has shown that dark personality traits are related to a concept called moral disengagement. Moral disengagement refers to the mental gymnastics people use to justify harmful behavior, allowing them to ignore their own moral standards without feeling guilty.
To test how these traits relate to attitudes toward the Israel-Hamas conflict, Greitemeyer conducted two separate online studies. The first study recruited 257 German-speaking participants, mostly from Austria and Germany. The participants completed a standardized questionnaire measuring their levels of the Dark Tetrad traits, as well as measures of their political orientation, their general attitudes toward war and peace, and their specific support for violent actions carried out by Israel and Hamas.
The results provided evidence for the traditional view that political violence is generally actor-specific. Support for violence by Israel and support for violence by Hamas were negatively correlated, indicating that participants who endorsed violence by one actor were less likely to endorse violence by the other. Older participants tended to show more support for Israeli actions and less support for Hamas actions. Men reported more support for Israeli military actions than women did, but there was no difference between men and women regarding support for Hamas.
When looking at personality, however, a different pattern emerged. Psychopathy and sadism were positively associated with support for violent actions by both Israel and Hamas. Individuals scoring higher in these two traits showed a generalized acceptance of violence, regardless of which side was responsible. This generalized support remained present even when the researcher accounted for the participants’ political ideologies. Narcissism and Machiavellianism, on the other hand, did not show this consistent, cross-actor support for violence.
A second study was conducted with 470 United Kingdom citizens to see if these findings would hold up in a larger sample and to explore potential psychological mechanisms. In addition to measuring the Dark Tetrad traits and support for violence by Israel and Hamas, participants completed assessments for two other variables. One was their interest in militarism, which captures a fascination with weapons, special forces, and martial arts. The other was their propensity for moral disengagement.
The second study mirrored the findings of the first. Once again, support for Israel and Hamas was negatively correlated overall, but psychopathy and sadism reliably predicted an endorsement of violence by both actors. Narcissism was only linked to support for Hamas, and Machiavellianism showed no reliable association with support for either side.
The data also indicated that interest in militarism and moral disengagement helped explain the connection between dark personality traits and support for violence, though only partially. Both militarism and moral disengagement acted as mediating factors for why psychopathy and sadism predicted support for Israeli violent actions. However, neither of these psychological mechanisms explained the link between the dark traits and support for Hamas’s violent actions, suggesting that different cognitive pathways might be at play depending on the specific actor involved.
“This confirms the work of earlier research and slightly extends it by explicitly showing that individuals scoring high on dark personality traits (especially on psychopathy and sadism) tend to exhibit support for political violence of multiple conflicted and even directly opposing groups,” said Tomislav Pavlović, a researcher working on the MOTIKA project, which focuses on understanding drivers and barriers to peaceful and violent collective action, who was not involved in the study.
“As earlier research demonstrated, individuals scoring high on dark personality traits also tend to exhibit more favorable attitudes toward violence in general,” Pavlović told PsyPost. “From this perspective, it is not surprising that individuals showing stronger support for violence as a general method of achieving goals also see it as a more acceptable method of achieving political goals.”
“The findings of this paper could be taken as an extension of existing research, indicating that endorsement of political violence is not related only to political beliefs and social identity (ideological partisanship), but also to individual differences in dark personality traits,” said Anja Wertag, a researcher at the Ivo Pilar Institute of Social Sciences in Croatia who was also not involved in the work. She told PsyPost the study highlights “the importance of integrating personality and political psychology perspectives in investigating violence endorsement.”
The findings are in line with research covered by PsyPost in July 2024, which indicated that psychopathy strongly predicted support for military violence against civilians among Russian residents. The results also align with another 2024 study showing that higher psychopathy is associated with greater attitudinal support for politically motivated violence across multiple countries. Additionally, the conclusions echo a 2021 study that linked psychopathic traits to support for violent social change, regardless of whether that violence was endorsed by left-wing or right-wing groups.
But as with all research, there are a few things to keep in mind regarding this study. The data rely on self-reported questionnaires, meaning participants might have altered their answers to appear more socially acceptable, especially on sensitive political topics. The samples were also non-representative groups of internet users from Europe, which limits how broadly the findings can be applied to the general public or to populations directly involved in the conflict.
“It is important to note that the Dark Tetrad traits explained only a modest amount of the variance in support for Israeli and Hamas violent actions – ranging from 5 to 8%,” Wertag noted. She added that because “all Dark Tetrad traits are multidimensional and the current study used only a brief measure to assess them, future research should include broader measures of dark traits to enable a clearer view of the relations between different aspects of the dark traits and violence endorsement.”
Pavlović pointed out another geographical limitation regarding the samples. “Finally, it is worth mentioning that none of the samples were from Israel or Gaza,” he said. “Therefore, (at least) the majority of participants perceive the conflict from the perspective of relatively neutral bystanders. We cannot tell whether these results would be replicated had the study been conducted on participants whose nations are involved in conflict.”
The cross-sectional design of the studies also means the research cannot determine cause and effect. It is possible that consuming media about political violence alters a person’s psychological state, rather than personality traits alone driving their political attitudes. Future research could investigate whether these patterns hold true in other geopolitical conflicts and explore other psychological mechanisms, such as a lack of empathic concern for victims, that might bridge the gap between dark personality traits and support for war.
“While dark personality traits and support for political violence are correlated, this relationship may reflect a third underlying variable (such as experience of violence),” Pavlović explained. “Furthermore, support for political violence should not be equated with actual participation in violent acts.”
Wertag agreed, warning against leaping to broad conclusions. “I am concerned about a possible overinterpretation of the results regarding the link between violence endorsement, regardless of the side, and psychopathy and sadism due to the above-mentioned methodological constraints,” she said. “The results also do not imply that personality traits are more important than political orientation; they simply highlight that both matter. Finally, the results say nothing about the actual tendency toward violent behavior.”
The study, “When darkness overrides partisanship: Psychopathy and sadism predict support for violence on both sides of the Israel–Hamas conflict,” was authored by Tobias Greitemeyer.
-------------------------------------------------
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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 #DarkTriad #Psychopathy #Sadism #IsraelHamas #PoliticalViolence #MoralDisengagement #Militarism #PersonalityPsychology #ConflictResearch #ViolenceEndorsement
-
DATE: September 18, 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: Dark personality traits predict support for violence by both Israel and Hamas
Recent psychology research indicates that while most people base their support for political violence on their personal ideological beliefs, individuals with high levels of psychopathy and sadism tend to endorse violence across the board. A new study examining attitudes toward the Israel-Hamas conflict suggests that these specific dark personality traits are linked to support for violent actions committed by both sides. The findings were published in Personality and Individual Differences.
In the study of political psychology, a common assumption is that people evaluate violence based on their group identity and political worldview. This means individuals usually justify violence when it is committed by a group they agree with, while firmly rejecting similar violent actions when committed by opposing groups. In highly polarized situations like the conflict between Israel and Hamas, this translates to an actor-specific view of violence. An individual might support the military actions of one side, but it is unusual for them to endorse violence from both sides simultaneously.
The author of the new study, Tobias Greitemeyer of the University of Innsbruck, wanted to explore whether certain personality characteristics override this partisan loyalty. He focused on the Dark Tetrad, a grouping of four socially aversive personality traits. These traits include narcissism, which involves grandiosity and entitlement; Machiavellianism, characterized by manipulative and cynical behavior; psychopathy, marked by callousness, low empathy, and impulsive thrill-seeking; and sadism, which involves deriving pleasure from the suffering of others.
Previous investigations have linked these traits to various forms of hostility. For instance, a 2024 study covered by PsyPost indicated that higher scores on dark personality traits were associated with higher levels of antisemitism, showing how these characteristics can shape views on Middle Eastern geopolitics. Other research, such as a 2015 study on consumer attitudes, has shown that dark personality traits are related to a concept called moral disengagement. Moral disengagement refers to the mental gymnastics people use to justify harmful behavior, allowing them to ignore their own moral standards without feeling guilty.
To test how these traits relate to attitudes toward the Israel-Hamas conflict, Greitemeyer conducted two separate online studies. The first study recruited 257 German-speaking participants, mostly from Austria and Germany. The participants completed a standardized questionnaire measuring their levels of the Dark Tetrad traits, as well as measures of their political orientation, their general attitudes toward war and peace, and their specific support for violent actions carried out by Israel and Hamas.
The results provided evidence for the traditional view that political violence is generally actor-specific. Support for violence by Israel and support for violence by Hamas were negatively correlated, indicating that participants who endorsed violence by one actor were less likely to endorse violence by the other. Older participants tended to show more support for Israeli actions and less support for Hamas actions. Men reported more support for Israeli military actions than women did, but there was no difference between men and women regarding support for Hamas.
When looking at personality, however, a different pattern emerged. Psychopathy and sadism were positively associated with support for violent actions by both Israel and Hamas. Individuals scoring higher in these two traits showed a generalized acceptance of violence, regardless of which side was responsible. This generalized support remained present even when the researcher accounted for the participants’ political ideologies. Narcissism and Machiavellianism, on the other hand, did not show this consistent, cross-actor support for violence.
A second study was conducted with 470 United Kingdom citizens to see if these findings would hold up in a larger sample and to explore potential psychological mechanisms. In addition to measuring the Dark Tetrad traits and support for violence by Israel and Hamas, participants completed assessments for two other variables. One was their interest in militarism, which captures a fascination with weapons, special forces, and martial arts. The other was their propensity for moral disengagement.
The second study mirrored the findings of the first. Once again, support for Israel and Hamas was negatively correlated overall, but psychopathy and sadism reliably predicted an endorsement of violence by both actors. Narcissism was only linked to support for Hamas, and Machiavellianism showed no reliable association with support for either side.
The data also indicated that interest in militarism and moral disengagement helped explain the connection between dark personality traits and support for violence, though only partially. Both militarism and moral disengagement acted as mediating factors for why psychopathy and sadism predicted support for Israeli violent actions. However, neither of these psychological mechanisms explained the link between the dark traits and support for Hamas’s violent actions, suggesting that different cognitive pathways might be at play depending on the specific actor involved.
“This confirms the work of earlier research and slightly extends it by explicitly showing that individuals scoring high on dark personality traits (especially on psychopathy and sadism) tend to exhibit support for political violence of multiple conflicted and even directly opposing groups,” said Tomislav Pavlović, a researcher working on the MOTIKA project, which focuses on understanding drivers and barriers to peaceful and violent collective action, who was not involved in the study.
“As earlier research demonstrated, individuals scoring high on dark personality traits also tend to exhibit more favorable attitudes toward violence in general,” Pavlović told PsyPost. “From this perspective, it is not surprising that individuals showing stronger support for violence as a general method of achieving goals also see it as a more acceptable method of achieving political goals.”
“The findings of this paper could be taken as an extension of existing research, indicating that endorsement of political violence is not related only to political beliefs and social identity (ideological partisanship), but also to individual differences in dark personality traits,” said Anja Wertag, a researcher at the Ivo Pilar Institute of Social Sciences in Croatia who was also not involved in the work. She told PsyPost the study highlights “the importance of integrating personality and political psychology perspectives in investigating violence endorsement.”
The findings are in line with research covered by PsyPost in July 2024, which indicated that psychopathy strongly predicted support for military violence against civilians among Russian residents. The results also align with another 2024 study showing that higher psychopathy is associated with greater attitudinal support for politically motivated violence across multiple countries. Additionally, the conclusions echo a 2021 study that linked psychopathic traits to support for violent social change, regardless of whether that violence was endorsed by left-wing or right-wing groups.
But as with all research, there are a few things to keep in mind regarding this study. The data rely on self-reported questionnaires, meaning participants might have altered their answers to appear more socially acceptable, especially on sensitive political topics. The samples were also non-representative groups of internet users from Europe, which limits how broadly the findings can be applied to the general public or to populations directly involved in the conflict.
“It is important to note that the Dark Tetrad traits explained only a modest amount of the variance in support for Israeli and Hamas violent actions – ranging from 5 to 8%,” Wertag noted. She added that because “all Dark Tetrad traits are multidimensional and the current study used only a brief measure to assess them, future research should include broader measures of dark traits to enable a clearer view of the relations between different aspects of the dark traits and violence endorsement.”
Pavlović pointed out another geographical limitation regarding the samples. “Finally, it is worth mentioning that none of the samples were from Israel or Gaza,” he said. “Therefore, (at least) the majority of participants perceive the conflict from the perspective of relatively neutral bystanders. We cannot tell whether these results would be replicated had the study been conducted on participants whose nations are involved in conflict.”
The cross-sectional design of the studies also means the research cannot determine cause and effect. It is possible that consuming media about political violence alters a person’s psychological state, rather than personality traits alone driving their political attitudes. Future research could investigate whether these patterns hold true in other geopolitical conflicts and explore other psychological mechanisms, such as a lack of empathic concern for victims, that might bridge the gap between dark personality traits and support for war.
“While dark personality traits and support for political violence are correlated, this relationship may reflect a third underlying variable (such as experience of violence),” Pavlović explained. “Furthermore, support for political violence should not be equated with actual participation in violent acts.”
Wertag agreed, warning against leaping to broad conclusions. “I am concerned about a possible overinterpretation of the results regarding the link between violence endorsement, regardless of the side, and psychopathy and sadism due to the above-mentioned methodological constraints,” she said. “The results also do not imply that personality traits are more important than political orientation; they simply highlight that both matter. Finally, the results say nothing about the actual tendency toward violent behavior.”
The study, “When darkness overrides partisanship: Psychopathy and sadism predict support for violence on both sides of the Israel–Hamas conflict,” was authored by Tobias Greitemeyer.
-------------------------------------------------
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 #DarkTriad #Psychopathy #Sadism #IsraelHamas #PoliticalViolence #MoralDisengagement #Militarism #PersonalityPsychology #ConflictResearch #ViolenceEndorsement
-
DATE: September 18, 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: Dark personality traits predict support for violence by both Israel and Hamas
Recent psychology research indicates that while most people base their support for political violence on their personal ideological beliefs, individuals with high levels of psychopathy and sadism tend to endorse violence across the board. A new study examining attitudes toward the Israel-Hamas conflict suggests that these specific dark personality traits are linked to support for violent actions committed by both sides. The findings were published in Personality and Individual Differences.
In the study of political psychology, a common assumption is that people evaluate violence based on their group identity and political worldview. This means individuals usually justify violence when it is committed by a group they agree with, while firmly rejecting similar violent actions when committed by opposing groups. In highly polarized situations like the conflict between Israel and Hamas, this translates to an actor-specific view of violence. An individual might support the military actions of one side, but it is unusual for them to endorse violence from both sides simultaneously.
The author of the new study, Tobias Greitemeyer of the University of Innsbruck, wanted to explore whether certain personality characteristics override this partisan loyalty. He focused on the Dark Tetrad, a grouping of four socially aversive personality traits. These traits include narcissism, which involves grandiosity and entitlement; Machiavellianism, characterized by manipulative and cynical behavior; psychopathy, marked by callousness, low empathy, and impulsive thrill-seeking; and sadism, which involves deriving pleasure from the suffering of others.
Previous investigations have linked these traits to various forms of hostility. For instance, a 2024 study covered by PsyPost indicated that higher scores on dark personality traits were associated with higher levels of antisemitism, showing how these characteristics can shape views on Middle Eastern geopolitics. Other research, such as a 2015 study on consumer attitudes, has shown that dark personality traits are related to a concept called moral disengagement. Moral disengagement refers to the mental gymnastics people use to justify harmful behavior, allowing them to ignore their own moral standards without feeling guilty.
To test how these traits relate to attitudes toward the Israel-Hamas conflict, Greitemeyer conducted two separate online studies. The first study recruited 257 German-speaking participants, mostly from Austria and Germany. The participants completed a standardized questionnaire measuring their levels of the Dark Tetrad traits, as well as measures of their political orientation, their general attitudes toward war and peace, and their specific support for violent actions carried out by Israel and Hamas.
The results provided evidence for the traditional view that political violence is generally actor-specific. Support for violence by Israel and support for violence by Hamas were negatively correlated, indicating that participants who endorsed violence by one actor were less likely to endorse violence by the other. Older participants tended to show more support for Israeli actions and less support for Hamas actions. Men reported more support for Israeli military actions than women did, but there was no difference between men and women regarding support for Hamas.
When looking at personality, however, a different pattern emerged. Psychopathy and sadism were positively associated with support for violent actions by both Israel and Hamas. Individuals scoring higher in these two traits showed a generalized acceptance of violence, regardless of which side was responsible. This generalized support remained present even when the researcher accounted for the participants’ political ideologies. Narcissism and Machiavellianism, on the other hand, did not show this consistent, cross-actor support for violence.
A second study was conducted with 470 United Kingdom citizens to see if these findings would hold up in a larger sample and to explore potential psychological mechanisms. In addition to measuring the Dark Tetrad traits and support for violence by Israel and Hamas, participants completed assessments for two other variables. One was their interest in militarism, which captures a fascination with weapons, special forces, and martial arts. The other was their propensity for moral disengagement.
The second study mirrored the findings of the first. Once again, support for Israel and Hamas was negatively correlated overall, but psychopathy and sadism reliably predicted an endorsement of violence by both actors. Narcissism was only linked to support for Hamas, and Machiavellianism showed no reliable association with support for either side.
The data also indicated that interest in militarism and moral disengagement helped explain the connection between dark personality traits and support for violence, though only partially. Both militarism and moral disengagement acted as mediating factors for why psychopathy and sadism predicted support for Israeli violent actions. However, neither of these psychological mechanisms explained the link between the dark traits and support for Hamas’s violent actions, suggesting that different cognitive pathways might be at play depending on the specific actor involved.
“This confirms the work of earlier research and slightly extends it by explicitly showing that individuals scoring high on dark personality traits (especially on psychopathy and sadism) tend to exhibit support for political violence of multiple conflicted and even directly opposing groups,” said Tomislav Pavlović, a researcher working on the MOTIKA project, which focuses on understanding drivers and barriers to peaceful and violent collective action, who was not involved in the study.
“As earlier research demonstrated, individuals scoring high on dark personality traits also tend to exhibit more favorable attitudes toward violence in general,” Pavlović told PsyPost. “From this perspective, it is not surprising that individuals showing stronger support for violence as a general method of achieving goals also see it as a more acceptable method of achieving political goals.”
“The findings of this paper could be taken as an extension of existing research, indicating that endorsement of political violence is not related only to political beliefs and social identity (ideological partisanship), but also to individual differences in dark personality traits,” said Anja Wertag, a researcher at the Ivo Pilar Institute of Social Sciences in Croatia who was also not involved in the work. She told PsyPost the study highlights “the importance of integrating personality and political psychology perspectives in investigating violence endorsement.”
The findings are in line with research covered by PsyPost in July 2024, which indicated that psychopathy strongly predicted support for military violence against civilians among Russian residents. The results also align with another 2024 study showing that higher psychopathy is associated with greater attitudinal support for politically motivated violence across multiple countries. Additionally, the conclusions echo a 2021 study that linked psychopathic traits to support for violent social change, regardless of whether that violence was endorsed by left-wing or right-wing groups.
But as with all research, there are a few things to keep in mind regarding this study. The data rely on self-reported questionnaires, meaning participants might have altered their answers to appear more socially acceptable, especially on sensitive political topics. The samples were also non-representative groups of internet users from Europe, which limits how broadly the findings can be applied to the general public or to populations directly involved in the conflict.
“It is important to note that the Dark Tetrad traits explained only a modest amount of the variance in support for Israeli and Hamas violent actions – ranging from 5 to 8%,” Wertag noted. She added that because “all Dark Tetrad traits are multidimensional and the current study used only a brief measure to assess them, future research should include broader measures of dark traits to enable a clearer view of the relations between different aspects of the dark traits and violence endorsement.”
Pavlović pointed out another geographical limitation regarding the samples. “Finally, it is worth mentioning that none of the samples were from Israel or Gaza,” he said. “Therefore, (at least) the majority of participants perceive the conflict from the perspective of relatively neutral bystanders. We cannot tell whether these results would be replicated had the study been conducted on participants whose nations are involved in conflict.”
The cross-sectional design of the studies also means the research cannot determine cause and effect. It is possible that consuming media about political violence alters a person’s psychological state, rather than personality traits alone driving their political attitudes. Future research could investigate whether these patterns hold true in other geopolitical conflicts and explore other psychological mechanisms, such as a lack of empathic concern for victims, that might bridge the gap between dark personality traits and support for war.
“While dark personality traits and support for political violence are correlated, this relationship may reflect a third underlying variable (such as experience of violence),” Pavlović explained. “Furthermore, support for political violence should not be equated with actual participation in violent acts.”
Wertag agreed, warning against leaping to broad conclusions. “I am concerned about a possible overinterpretation of the results regarding the link between violence endorsement, regardless of the side, and psychopathy and sadism due to the above-mentioned methodological constraints,” she said. “The results also do not imply that personality traits are more important than political orientation; they simply highlight that both matter. Finally, the results say nothing about the actual tendency toward violent behavior.”
The study, “When darkness overrides partisanship: Psychopathy and sadism predict support for violence on both sides of the Israel–Hamas conflict,” was authored by Tobias Greitemeyer.
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DATE: September 18, 2026 at 10:00AM
SOURCE: PSYCHIATRIC TIMESDirect article link at end of text block below.
Denial of suicidal intent in adolescents after firearm injury can coexist with high-risk behaviors, necessitating assessment beyond self-report, particularly when affect appears constricted or emotionally numb. https://t.co/S3WlYtR2eN
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DATE: September 18, 2026 at 10:00AM
SOURCE: PSYCHIATRIC TIMESDirect article link at end of text block below.
Denial of suicidal intent in adolescents after firearm injury can coexist with high-risk behaviors, necessitating assessment beyond self-report, particularly when affect appears constricted or emotionally numb. https://t.co/S3WlYtR2eN
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DATE: September 18, 2026 at 10:00AM
SOURCE: PSYCHIATRIC TIMESDirect article link at end of text block below.
Denial of suicidal intent in adolescents after firearm injury can coexist with high-risk behaviors, necessitating assessment beyond self-report, particularly when affect appears constricted or emotionally numb. https://t.co/S3WlYtR2eN
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DATE: September 18, 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: High intelligence may exacerbate impulsivity in children with ADHD
URL: https://www.psypost.org/high-intelligence-may-exacerbate-impulsivity-in-children-with-adhd/
Having a high intelligence quotient is generally thought to protect children from the most severe symptoms of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. A new large study reveals that while higher intelligence is associated with better focus, specific types of high intelligence are actually linked to greater impulsivity. The research was published in the journal Translational Psychiatry.
Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, is a neurodevelopmental condition characterized by patterns of inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity. Inattention involves difficulty staying on task, sustaining focus, and staying organized. Hyperactivity and impulsivity involve excessive movement, fidgeting, and taking actions without thinking about the consequences.
Clinicians measure intelligence using an intelligence quotient, or IQ. A full-scale IQ score is made up of two main components. Verbal IQ measures language-based reasoning, vocabulary, and verbal comprehension. Performance IQ evaluates non-verbal skills like spatial processing, pattern recognition, and visual puzzle-solving.
Medical professionals often assume that a higher overall IQ buffers children against the daily challenges of ADHD. Some researchers suspect this perspective is too simple. They propose that high intelligence can sometimes mask underlying deficits, making diagnosis difficult, or even introduce new behavioral challenges.
Lead researchers Lu Liu and Qiujin Qian, psychiatrists at Peking University Sixth Hospital in China, wanted to examine whether the separate components of intelligence relate to different ADHD symptoms. They also aimed to see if these behavioral patterns corresponded with brain structure and daily functioning in a clinical setting.
The researchers examined a large study cohort of 5,138 children diagnosed with ADHD, ranging in age from six to 16 years old. Clinicians evaluated the children using standardized intelligence tests and established ADHD symptom rating scales filled out by guardians. The team analyzed how verbal and performance IQ scores correlated with specific symptoms like inattention and impulsivity.
Overall intelligence was linked to fewer total ADHD symptoms. When looking at the components separately, a higher verbal IQ was associated with less inattention. However, a higher verbal IQ was also linked to higher impulsivity scores, presenting a mixed outcome for highly verbal children.
Performance IQ showed a shifting developmental pattern. In younger children, higher performance IQ was associated with lower impulsivity. In adolescents aged 12 and older, the pattern formed a U-shape. This means that both the lowest and the highest performance IQ scores were linked to higher impulsivity.
To understand the cognitive mechanisms behind these behaviors, the team analyzed a subset of 3,676 children who had completed tests of executive function. Executive function refers to the mental skills needed to manage daily life and achieve goals. These skills include working memory, which is the ability to hold and use information over short periods, and inhibitory control, which is the ability to stop oneself from acting on sudden urges.
Higher verbal and performance IQ scores were both linked to better working memory. This aligns with the observation that higher intelligence is associated with less inattention, as holding information in mind helps children stay focused on tasks.
When looking at inhibitory control, performance IQ again showed a non-linear relationship. This mirrored the U-shaped pattern seen with impulsivity in the behavioral tests. The cognitive data suggested that the behavioral symptoms were rooted in measurable differences in how the children processed information.
The researchers then looked at brain anatomy in a smaller subset of 262 children who underwent magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI, scans. They focused on the surface area of specific brain regions previously linked to attention and hyperactivity.
Higher verbal IQ was associated with a larger surface area in the rostral anterior cingulate cortex. This brain region is involved in regulating emotions, resolving conflicts, and managing impulses.
Performance IQ had a non-linear relationship with total brain surface area. These physical brain measurements provided biological evidence matching the behavioral and cognitive test results, linking physical brain structure to the children’s psychological profiles.
Finally, the team grouped 1,100 of the children based on how much their symptoms impaired their daily academic and social lives. They used statistical modeling to find natural groupings within the data based on functional impairment scores reported by parents.
The analysis revealed three distinct groups. A “mild impairment” group had the highest intelligence scores and the fewest academic problems. However, children in this group still exhibited notable impulsivity, showing that intelligence did not erase all ADHD symptoms.
A “severe academic deficit” group had the lowest intelligence scores and the most severe inattention. These children displayed minimal impulsivity, suggesting their primary struggle was with focus and learning rather than behavioral control.
A third group fell in the middle for both intelligence and symptom severity. This profiling showed that higher intelligence does not automatically translate to fewer social impairments. Highly intelligent children with ADHD may face social struggles just as severe as those with average intelligence.
Because this is an observational study, the results show associations rather than proving that high intelligence causes impulsive behavior. High verbal intelligence might simply give children the ability to navigate social situations faster. This rapid social processing could inadvertently reinforce an impulsive interaction style over time.
Additionally, the brain regions analyzed in this study were selected based on previous research conducted on the general population. They were not based specifically on children with ADHD. Brain development in children with ADHD can vary widely from the general population, meaning the selected brain regions might not tell the whole story.
Few associations in the study reached the threshold of being statistically significant after researchers corrected for multiple testing. The researchers noted that strict mathematical thresholds can sometimes mask authentic developmental processes in very large datasets, though the findings should be interpreted with that limitation in mind.
Future research using brain imaging targeted specifically at ADHD populations is needed to verify these neurological associations. Researchers might also look at how shifting social demands during adolescence influence impulsive behavior in highly intelligent children.
As adolescents develop more autonomy, what appears as a lack of impulse control might actually represent an intelligence-driven desire to test environmental boundaries. Understanding these specific profiles could help medical professionals design better, more targeted interventions for children across the entire intelligence spectrum.
The study, “The paradox of high IQ in ADHD: dissociable effects on inattention and impulsivity – insights from behavior, cognition & brain in 5138 children,” was authored by Ningning Liu, Gaoding Jia, Yinshan Wang, Litanshunbuer A, Zelin Mu, Meixue Wang, Meirong Pan, Haimei Li, Yufeng Wang, Qiujin Qian, and Lu Liu.
URL: https://www.psypost.org/high-intelligence-may-exacerbate-impulsivity-in-children-with-adhd/
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#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #ADHD #IQandADHD #VerbalIQ #PerformanceIQ #Impulsivity #Inattention #ExecutiveFunction #BrainImaging #TranslationalPsychiatry #PediatricNeurodevelopment
-
DATE: September 18, 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: High intelligence may exacerbate impulsivity in children with ADHD
URL: https://www.psypost.org/high-intelligence-may-exacerbate-impulsivity-in-children-with-adhd/
Having a high intelligence quotient is generally thought to protect children from the most severe symptoms of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. A new large study reveals that while higher intelligence is associated with better focus, specific types of high intelligence are actually linked to greater impulsivity. The research was published in the journal Translational Psychiatry.
Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, is a neurodevelopmental condition characterized by patterns of inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity. Inattention involves difficulty staying on task, sustaining focus, and staying organized. Hyperactivity and impulsivity involve excessive movement, fidgeting, and taking actions without thinking about the consequences.
Clinicians measure intelligence using an intelligence quotient, or IQ. A full-scale IQ score is made up of two main components. Verbal IQ measures language-based reasoning, vocabulary, and verbal comprehension. Performance IQ evaluates non-verbal skills like spatial processing, pattern recognition, and visual puzzle-solving.
Medical professionals often assume that a higher overall IQ buffers children against the daily challenges of ADHD. Some researchers suspect this perspective is too simple. They propose that high intelligence can sometimes mask underlying deficits, making diagnosis difficult, or even introduce new behavioral challenges.
Lead researchers Lu Liu and Qiujin Qian, psychiatrists at Peking University Sixth Hospital in China, wanted to examine whether the separate components of intelligence relate to different ADHD symptoms. They also aimed to see if these behavioral patterns corresponded with brain structure and daily functioning in a clinical setting.
The researchers examined a large study cohort of 5,138 children diagnosed with ADHD, ranging in age from six to 16 years old. Clinicians evaluated the children using standardized intelligence tests and established ADHD symptom rating scales filled out by guardians. The team analyzed how verbal and performance IQ scores correlated with specific symptoms like inattention and impulsivity.
Overall intelligence was linked to fewer total ADHD symptoms. When looking at the components separately, a higher verbal IQ was associated with less inattention. However, a higher verbal IQ was also linked to higher impulsivity scores, presenting a mixed outcome for highly verbal children.
Performance IQ showed a shifting developmental pattern. In younger children, higher performance IQ was associated with lower impulsivity. In adolescents aged 12 and older, the pattern formed a U-shape. This means that both the lowest and the highest performance IQ scores were linked to higher impulsivity.
To understand the cognitive mechanisms behind these behaviors, the team analyzed a subset of 3,676 children who had completed tests of executive function. Executive function refers to the mental skills needed to manage daily life and achieve goals. These skills include working memory, which is the ability to hold and use information over short periods, and inhibitory control, which is the ability to stop oneself from acting on sudden urges.
Higher verbal and performance IQ scores were both linked to better working memory. This aligns with the observation that higher intelligence is associated with less inattention, as holding information in mind helps children stay focused on tasks.
When looking at inhibitory control, performance IQ again showed a non-linear relationship. This mirrored the U-shaped pattern seen with impulsivity in the behavioral tests. The cognitive data suggested that the behavioral symptoms were rooted in measurable differences in how the children processed information.
The researchers then looked at brain anatomy in a smaller subset of 262 children who underwent magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI, scans. They focused on the surface area of specific brain regions previously linked to attention and hyperactivity.
Higher verbal IQ was associated with a larger surface area in the rostral anterior cingulate cortex. This brain region is involved in regulating emotions, resolving conflicts, and managing impulses.
Performance IQ had a non-linear relationship with total brain surface area. These physical brain measurements provided biological evidence matching the behavioral and cognitive test results, linking physical brain structure to the children’s psychological profiles.
Finally, the team grouped 1,100 of the children based on how much their symptoms impaired their daily academic and social lives. They used statistical modeling to find natural groupings within the data based on functional impairment scores reported by parents.
The analysis revealed three distinct groups. A “mild impairment” group had the highest intelligence scores and the fewest academic problems. However, children in this group still exhibited notable impulsivity, showing that intelligence did not erase all ADHD symptoms.
A “severe academic deficit” group had the lowest intelligence scores and the most severe inattention. These children displayed minimal impulsivity, suggesting their primary struggle was with focus and learning rather than behavioral control.
A third group fell in the middle for both intelligence and symptom severity. This profiling showed that higher intelligence does not automatically translate to fewer social impairments. Highly intelligent children with ADHD may face social struggles just as severe as those with average intelligence.
Because this is an observational study, the results show associations rather than proving that high intelligence causes impulsive behavior. High verbal intelligence might simply give children the ability to navigate social situations faster. This rapid social processing could inadvertently reinforce an impulsive interaction style over time.
Additionally, the brain regions analyzed in this study were selected based on previous research conducted on the general population. They were not based specifically on children with ADHD. Brain development in children with ADHD can vary widely from the general population, meaning the selected brain regions might not tell the whole story.
Few associations in the study reached the threshold of being statistically significant after researchers corrected for multiple testing. The researchers noted that strict mathematical thresholds can sometimes mask authentic developmental processes in very large datasets, though the findings should be interpreted with that limitation in mind.
Future research using brain imaging targeted specifically at ADHD populations is needed to verify these neurological associations. Researchers might also look at how shifting social demands during adolescence influence impulsive behavior in highly intelligent children.
As adolescents develop more autonomy, what appears as a lack of impulse control might actually represent an intelligence-driven desire to test environmental boundaries. Understanding these specific profiles could help medical professionals design better, more targeted interventions for children across the entire intelligence spectrum.
The study, “The paradox of high IQ in ADHD: dissociable effects on inattention and impulsivity – insights from behavior, cognition & brain in 5138 children,” was authored by Ningning Liu, Gaoding Jia, Yinshan Wang, Litanshunbuer A, Zelin Mu, Meixue Wang, Meirong Pan, Haimei Li, Yufeng Wang, Qiujin Qian, and Lu Liu.
URL: https://www.psypost.org/high-intelligence-may-exacerbate-impulsivity-in-children-with-adhd/
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#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #ADHD #IQandADHD #VerbalIQ #PerformanceIQ #Impulsivity #Inattention #ExecutiveFunction #BrainImaging #TranslationalPsychiatry #PediatricNeurodevelopment
-
DATE: September 18, 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: High intelligence may exacerbate impulsivity in children with ADHD
URL: https://www.psypost.org/high-intelligence-may-exacerbate-impulsivity-in-children-with-adhd/
Having a high intelligence quotient is generally thought to protect children from the most severe symptoms of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. A new large study reveals that while higher intelligence is associated with better focus, specific types of high intelligence are actually linked to greater impulsivity. The research was published in the journal Translational Psychiatry.
Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, is a neurodevelopmental condition characterized by patterns of inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity. Inattention involves difficulty staying on task, sustaining focus, and staying organized. Hyperactivity and impulsivity involve excessive movement, fidgeting, and taking actions without thinking about the consequences.
Clinicians measure intelligence using an intelligence quotient, or IQ. A full-scale IQ score is made up of two main components. Verbal IQ measures language-based reasoning, vocabulary, and verbal comprehension. Performance IQ evaluates non-verbal skills like spatial processing, pattern recognition, and visual puzzle-solving.
Medical professionals often assume that a higher overall IQ buffers children against the daily challenges of ADHD. Some researchers suspect this perspective is too simple. They propose that high intelligence can sometimes mask underlying deficits, making diagnosis difficult, or even introduce new behavioral challenges.
Lead researchers Lu Liu and Qiujin Qian, psychiatrists at Peking University Sixth Hospital in China, wanted to examine whether the separate components of intelligence relate to different ADHD symptoms. They also aimed to see if these behavioral patterns corresponded with brain structure and daily functioning in a clinical setting.
The researchers examined a large study cohort of 5,138 children diagnosed with ADHD, ranging in age from six to 16 years old. Clinicians evaluated the children using standardized intelligence tests and established ADHD symptom rating scales filled out by guardians. The team analyzed how verbal and performance IQ scores correlated with specific symptoms like inattention and impulsivity.
Overall intelligence was linked to fewer total ADHD symptoms. When looking at the components separately, a higher verbal IQ was associated with less inattention. However, a higher verbal IQ was also linked to higher impulsivity scores, presenting a mixed outcome for highly verbal children.
Performance IQ showed a shifting developmental pattern. In younger children, higher performance IQ was associated with lower impulsivity. In adolescents aged 12 and older, the pattern formed a U-shape. This means that both the lowest and the highest performance IQ scores were linked to higher impulsivity.
To understand the cognitive mechanisms behind these behaviors, the team analyzed a subset of 3,676 children who had completed tests of executive function. Executive function refers to the mental skills needed to manage daily life and achieve goals. These skills include working memory, which is the ability to hold and use information over short periods, and inhibitory control, which is the ability to stop oneself from acting on sudden urges.
Higher verbal and performance IQ scores were both linked to better working memory. This aligns with the observation that higher intelligence is associated with less inattention, as holding information in mind helps children stay focused on tasks.
When looking at inhibitory control, performance IQ again showed a non-linear relationship. This mirrored the U-shaped pattern seen with impulsivity in the behavioral tests. The cognitive data suggested that the behavioral symptoms were rooted in measurable differences in how the children processed information.
The researchers then looked at brain anatomy in a smaller subset of 262 children who underwent magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI, scans. They focused on the surface area of specific brain regions previously linked to attention and hyperactivity.
Higher verbal IQ was associated with a larger surface area in the rostral anterior cingulate cortex. This brain region is involved in regulating emotions, resolving conflicts, and managing impulses.
Performance IQ had a non-linear relationship with total brain surface area. These physical brain measurements provided biological evidence matching the behavioral and cognitive test results, linking physical brain structure to the children’s psychological profiles.
Finally, the team grouped 1,100 of the children based on how much their symptoms impaired their daily academic and social lives. They used statistical modeling to find natural groupings within the data based on functional impairment scores reported by parents.
The analysis revealed three distinct groups. A “mild impairment” group had the highest intelligence scores and the fewest academic problems. However, children in this group still exhibited notable impulsivity, showing that intelligence did not erase all ADHD symptoms.
A “severe academic deficit” group had the lowest intelligence scores and the most severe inattention. These children displayed minimal impulsivity, suggesting their primary struggle was with focus and learning rather than behavioral control.
A third group fell in the middle for both intelligence and symptom severity. This profiling showed that higher intelligence does not automatically translate to fewer social impairments. Highly intelligent children with ADHD may face social struggles just as severe as those with average intelligence.
Because this is an observational study, the results show associations rather than proving that high intelligence causes impulsive behavior. High verbal intelligence might simply give children the ability to navigate social situations faster. This rapid social processing could inadvertently reinforce an impulsive interaction style over time.
Additionally, the brain regions analyzed in this study were selected based on previous research conducted on the general population. They were not based specifically on children with ADHD. Brain development in children with ADHD can vary widely from the general population, meaning the selected brain regions might not tell the whole story.
Few associations in the study reached the threshold of being statistically significant after researchers corrected for multiple testing. The researchers noted that strict mathematical thresholds can sometimes mask authentic developmental processes in very large datasets, though the findings should be interpreted with that limitation in mind.
Future research using brain imaging targeted specifically at ADHD populations is needed to verify these neurological associations. Researchers might also look at how shifting social demands during adolescence influence impulsive behavior in highly intelligent children.
As adolescents develop more autonomy, what appears as a lack of impulse control might actually represent an intelligence-driven desire to test environmental boundaries. Understanding these specific profiles could help medical professionals design better, more targeted interventions for children across the entire intelligence spectrum.
The study, “The paradox of high IQ in ADHD: dissociable effects on inattention and impulsivity – insights from behavior, cognition & brain in 5138 children,” was authored by Ningning Liu, Gaoding Jia, Yinshan Wang, Litanshunbuer A, Zelin Mu, Meixue Wang, Meirong Pan, Haimei Li, Yufeng Wang, Qiujin Qian, and Lu Liu.
URL: https://www.psypost.org/high-intelligence-may-exacerbate-impulsivity-in-children-with-adhd/
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#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #ADHD #IQandADHD #VerbalIQ #PerformanceIQ #Impulsivity #Inattention #ExecutiveFunction #BrainImaging #TranslationalPsychiatry #PediatricNeurodevelopment
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DATE: September 18, 2026 at 07:31AM
SOURCE: PSYCHIATRIC TIMESDirect article link at end of text block below.
Last chance to register for Jersey City Psychiatry 2026! 🧠
Join fellow mental health professionals October 2–3 in Jersey City, NJ, for 2 days of education, connection & conversations on the latest in psychiatric care.
Register: https://t.co/fok1Qmp3EY #JCPsych2026 https://t.co/nd7hZhBAPi
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DATE: September 18, 2026 at 07:31AM
SOURCE: PSYCHIATRIC TIMESDirect article link at end of text block below.
Last chance to register for Jersey City Psychiatry 2026! 🧠
Join fellow mental health professionals October 2–3 in Jersey City, NJ, for 2 days of education, connection & conversations on the latest in psychiatric care.
Register: https://t.co/fok1Qmp3EY #JCPsych2026 https://t.co/nd7hZhBAPi
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DATE: September 18, 2026 at 07:31AM
SOURCE: PSYCHIATRIC TIMESDirect article link at end of text block below.
Last chance to register for Jersey City Psychiatry 2026! 🧠
Join fellow mental health professionals October 2–3 in Jersey City, NJ, for 2 days of education, connection & conversations on the latest in psychiatric care.
Register: https://t.co/fok1Qmp3EY #JCPsych2026 https://t.co/nd7hZhBAPi
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Articles can be found by scrolling down the page at Articles can be found at https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/news".
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#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #psychotherapist #JerseyCityPsych2026 #MentalHealthEducation #PsychiatryConference #ProfessionalNetworking #RegisterNow
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DATE: September 18, 2026 at 12:25AM
SOURCE: SCIENCE DAILY PSYCHOLOGY FEEDTITLE: Scientists restore a brain protein and reverse signs of aging in mice
URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/09/260918000437.htm
Scientists found that declining levels of the brain protein Menin may help drive aging, with lower levels in mice linked to inflammation, cognitive decline, weaker bones, and thinner skin. Restoring Menin reversed several age-related changes, while the amino acid D-serine improved cognition, hinting at a potentially intriguing new target for healthy aging.
URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/09/260918000437.htm
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-
DATE: September 18, 2026 at 12:25AM
SOURCE: SCIENCE DAILY PSYCHOLOGY FEEDTITLE: Scientists restore a brain protein and reverse signs of aging in mice
URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/09/260918000437.htm
Scientists found that declining levels of the brain protein Menin may help drive aging, with lower levels in mice linked to inflammation, cognitive decline, weaker bones, and thinner skin. Restoring Menin reversed several age-related changes, while the amino acid D-serine improved cognition, hinting at a potentially intriguing new target for healthy aging.
URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/09/260918000437.htm
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#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #Scientists #Menin #BrainProtein #AgingResearch #Cognition #Inflammation #HealthyAging #DSerine #MiceStudy #AgeReversal
-
DATE: September 18, 2026 at 12:25AM
SOURCE: SCIENCE DAILY PSYCHOLOGY FEEDTITLE: Scientists restore a brain protein and reverse signs of aging in mice
URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/09/260918000437.htm
Scientists found that declining levels of the brain protein Menin may help drive aging, with lower levels in mice linked to inflammation, cognitive decline, weaker bones, and thinner skin. Restoring Menin reversed several age-related changes, while the amino acid D-serine improved cognition, hinting at a potentially intriguing new target for healthy aging.
URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/09/260918000437.htm
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#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #Scientists #Menin #BrainProtein #AgingResearch #Cognition #Inflammation #HealthyAging #DSerine #MiceStudy #AgeReversal
-
DATE: September 18, 2026 at 05:48AM
SOURCE: SCIENCE DAILY PSYCHIATIRY FEEDTITLE: These blood thinners may have an unexpected benefit for Alzheimer’s patients
URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/09/260917003732.htm
Newer blood thinners may do more than prevent strokes in people with Alzheimer’s disease and atrial fibrillation. Researchers found that patients taking NOACs experienced a slower decline in cognitive function than those using warfarin or no blood thinners. The effect was modest each year but could add up over time.
URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/09/260917003732.htm
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DATE: September 18, 2026 at 05:48AM
SOURCE: SCIENCE DAILY PSYCHIATIRY FEEDTITLE: These blood thinners may have an unexpected benefit for Alzheimer’s patients
URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/09/260917003732.htm
Newer blood thinners may do more than prevent strokes in people with Alzheimer’s disease and atrial fibrillation. Researchers found that patients taking NOACs experienced a slower decline in cognitive function than those using warfarin or no blood thinners. The effect was modest each year but could add up over time.
URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/09/260917003732.htm
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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 #Alzheimers Research #NOACs #Blood Thinners #CognitiveHealth #AtrialFibrillation #WarfarinAlternatives #StrokePrevention #DementiaCare #NeurodegenerativeSupport #MedicalResearch
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DATE: September 18, 2026 at 05:48AM
SOURCE: SCIENCE DAILY PSYCHIATIRY FEEDTITLE: These blood thinners may have an unexpected benefit for Alzheimer’s patients
URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/09/260917003732.htm
Newer blood thinners may do more than prevent strokes in people with Alzheimer’s disease and atrial fibrillation. Researchers found that patients taking NOACs experienced a slower decline in cognitive function than those using warfarin or no blood thinners. The effect was modest each year but could add up over time.
URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/09/260917003732.htm
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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 #Alzheimers Research #NOACs #Blood Thinners #CognitiveHealth #AtrialFibrillation #WarfarinAlternatives #StrokePrevention #DementiaCare #NeurodegenerativeSupport #MedicalResearch
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DATE: September 18, 2026 at 12:25AM
SOURCE: SCIENCE DAILY MIND-BRAIN FEEDTITLE: Scientists restore a brain protein and reverse signs of aging in mice
URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/09/260918000437.htm
Scientists found that declining levels of the brain protein Menin may help drive aging, with lower levels in mice linked to inflammation, cognitive decline, weaker bones, and thinner skin. Restoring Menin reversed several age-related changes, while the amino acid D-serine improved cognition, hinting at a potentially intriguing new target for healthy aging.
URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/09/260918000437.htm
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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 #BrainAging #MeninProtein #AgingResearch #CognitiveHealth #Inflammation #BoneHealth #SkinHealth #DSerine #MiceStudy #HealthyAging
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DATE: September 18, 2026 at 05:48AM
SOURCE: SCIENCE DAILY MIND-BRAIN FEEDTITLE: These blood thinners may have an unexpected benefit for Alzheimer’s patients
URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/09/260917003732.htm
Newer blood thinners may do more than prevent strokes in people with Alzheimer’s disease and atrial fibrillation. Researchers found that patients taking NOACs experienced a slower decline in cognitive function than those using warfarin or no blood thinners. The effect was modest each year but could add up over time.
URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/09/260917003732.htm
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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 #AlzheimersResearch #BloodThinners #NOACs #WarfarinAlternative #CognitiveDecline #AtrialFibrillation #StrokePrevention #AlzheimersTherapy #NeurologyNews #MedicalBreakthroughs
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DATE: September 18, 2026 at 12:25AM
SOURCE: SCIENCE DAILY MIND-BRAIN FEEDTITLE: Scientists restore a brain protein and reverse signs of aging in mice
URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/09/260918000437.htm
Scientists found that declining levels of the brain protein Menin may help drive aging, with lower levels in mice linked to inflammation, cognitive decline, weaker bones, and thinner skin. Restoring Menin reversed several age-related changes, while the amino acid D-serine improved cognition, hinting at a potentially intriguing new target for healthy aging.
URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/09/260918000437.htm
-------------------------------------------------
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 #BrainAging #MeninProtein #AgingResearch #CognitiveHealth #Inflammation #BoneHealth #SkinHealth #DSerine #MiceStudy #HealthyAging
-
DATE: September 18, 2026 at 05:48AM
SOURCE: SCIENCE DAILY MIND-BRAIN FEEDTITLE: These blood thinners may have an unexpected benefit for Alzheimer’s patients
URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/09/260917003732.htm
Newer blood thinners may do more than prevent strokes in people with Alzheimer’s disease and atrial fibrillation. Researchers found that patients taking NOACs experienced a slower decline in cognitive function than those using warfarin or no blood thinners. The effect was modest each year but could add up over time.
URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/09/260917003732.htm
-------------------------------------------------
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 #AlzheimersResearch #BloodThinners #NOACs #WarfarinAlternative #CognitiveDecline #AtrialFibrillation #StrokePrevention #AlzheimersTherapy #NeurologyNews #MedicalBreakthroughs
-
DATE: September 18, 2026 at 12:25AM
SOURCE: SCIENCE DAILY MIND-BRAIN FEEDTITLE: Scientists restore a brain protein and reverse signs of aging in mice
URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/09/260918000437.htm
Scientists found that declining levels of the brain protein Menin may help drive aging, with lower levels in mice linked to inflammation, cognitive decline, weaker bones, and thinner skin. Restoring Menin reversed several age-related changes, while the amino acid D-serine improved cognition, hinting at a potentially intriguing new target for healthy aging.
URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/09/260918000437.htm
-------------------------------------------------
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 #BrainAging #MeninProtein #AgingResearch #CognitiveHealth #Inflammation #BoneHealth #SkinHealth #DSerine #MiceStudy #HealthyAging
-
DATE: September 18, 2026 at 05:48AM
SOURCE: SCIENCE DAILY MIND-BRAIN FEEDTITLE: These blood thinners may have an unexpected benefit for Alzheimer’s patients
URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/09/260917003732.htm
Newer blood thinners may do more than prevent strokes in people with Alzheimer’s disease and atrial fibrillation. Researchers found that patients taking NOACs experienced a slower decline in cognitive function than those using warfarin or no blood thinners. The effect was modest each year but could add up over time.
URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/09/260917003732.htm
-------------------------------------------------
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 #AlzheimersResearch #BloodThinners #NOACs #WarfarinAlternative #CognitiveDecline #AtrialFibrillation #StrokePrevention #AlzheimersTherapy #NeurologyNews #MedicalBreakthroughs