#counseling — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #counseling, aggregated by home.social.
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DATE: August 23, 2026 at 12:31AM
SOURCE: SCIENCE DAILY PSYCHIATIRY FEEDTITLE: This common vitamin was linked to 13% better cognitive scores
URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/08/260822015138.htm
Older adults with mild cognitive impairment and sleep problems who took at least 5,000 IU of vitamin D daily scored more than 13% higher on a cognitive test than those taking none. The preliminary findings suggest vitamin D could be worth studying as a potentially modifiable factor during an early window of cognitive decline.
URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/08/260822015138.htm
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#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #VitaminD #CognitiveHealth #VitaminDSupplement #MildCognitiveImpairment #SleepAndCognition #BrainHealth #DosingVitaminD #CognitiveScores #EarlyIntervention #HealthyAging
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DATE: August 23, 2026 at 12:31AM
SOURCE: SCIENCE DAILY MIND-BRAIN FEEDTITLE: This common vitamin was linked to 13% better cognitive scores
URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/08/260822015138.htm
Older adults with mild cognitive impairment and sleep problems who took at least 5,000 IU of vitamin D daily scored more than 13% higher on a cognitive test than those taking none. The preliminary findings suggest vitamin D could be worth studying as a potentially modifiable factor during an early window of cognitive decline.
URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/08/260822015138.htm
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#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #VitaminD #CognitiveHealth #MildCognitiveImpairment #SleepAndHealth #VitaminDBenefits #CognitiveScores #OlderAdultsHealth #PreventiveHealth #BrainHealth #WellnessResearch
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DATE: August 22, 2026 at 10:46PM
SOURCE: SCIENCE DAILY MIND-BRAIN FEEDTITLE: Quitting alcohol may prime the brain for relapse
URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/08/260822015148.htm
Mice that developed compulsive drinking after alcohol abstinence showed more than double the activity in a brain region associated with stress and addiction. Because the signal appeared before they drank again, researchers think it could eventually help predict who is most at risk of relapse.
URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/08/260822015148.htm
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#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #QuittingAlcohol #RelapseRisk #AlcoholWithdrawal #BrainSignals #AddictionResearch #StressAndAddiction #RelapsePrediction #MiceStudy #Neuroscience #AlcoholAwareness
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DATE: August 22, 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: Psychedelic raves act as a modern rite of passage with complex psychological effects, new research suggests
For frequent Israeli rave-goers who consume psychedelic drugs, the experience extends well beyond the hours spent dancing, with preparations beginning beforehand and physical, emotional, and social effects continuing after the party, according to a qualitative study in the Journal of Substance Use and Addiction Treatment. Participants described both positive experiences, including greater confidence and social connection, and negative effects such as exhaustion, nausea, low mood, and problems concentrating.
Rave parties combine electronic dance music, prolonged dancing, and often highly stimulating social and visual environments. Psychedelic and other psychoactive drug use is also common in some rave settings. Previous research has documented risks such as adverse drug reactions alongside reports of belonging, identity change, and meaningful or transformative experiences.
Yet researchers have typically focused on what people experience while they are actually at a rave. Far less is known about the period before attendees arrive or what happens as they return to ordinary routines afterward. That gap is particularly important because preparation can influence drug-related risk, while difficult physical or psychological after-effects may not become apparent until the event is over.
Led by Yula Milshteyn of Bar-Ilan University in Israel, the researchers interviewed 27 Jewish Israeli rave attendees who regularly attended events and consumed psychedelic drugs. Participants were, on average, 38.3 years old; 18 were men and nine were women. Ten reported using MDMA at raves, 15 reported LSD, and two described using LSD or MDMA together with substances such as alcohol or marijuana.
Rather than using questionnaires with predetermined answers, the researchers conducted semi-structured interviews and analyzed how participants described and interpreted their own experiences. The approach produced five broad themes before a rave and four afterward.
Milshteyn and Bensimon discovered that preparation was not merely practical. Participants described physical rituals and drug-related preparation, excitement and mixed bodily feelings, attempts to clear negative thoughts, social bonding with friends, and practical activities such as organizing food, clothing, water, and tents. The researchers interpreted these practices through the idea of a “rite of passage”: temporarily leaving ordinary routines before entering a distinctive social setting.
Afterward, experiences were equally varied. Participants reported tiredness, dizziness, headaches, nausea, and vomiting in the days following events. Emotional accounts included joy, confidence, and empowerment, as well as less welcome experiences such as depression-like low mood and mood swings. Some people described positive changes in their creative or musical direction, while others reported reduced concentration and attention. Enhanced friendships and sociability formed another recurring theme.
The study therefore does not support a simple portrayal of rave experiences as either beneficial or harmful. The same participants could describe meaningful social or emotional changes alongside unpleasant physical and psychological consequences.
The researchers concluded that after the raves, “participants return to their normal life, yet with changes in physical, emotional, cognitive, and social aspects.”
Some limitations must be accounted for. For example, the sample was small, self-selected, and predominantly male. Furthermore, exact drug doses were not recorded, and no objective measurements of participants’ psychological or cognitive states were collected.
The study, “Preparations for rave music parties and consequences for attendees who consume psychedelic drugs,” was authored by Yula Milshteyn and Moshe Bensimon.
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#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #PsychedelicRaves #RiteOfPassage #RaveCulture #PsychedelicResearch #DJMDMA #LSDExperiences #PostRaveEffects #SocialConnection #CreativeImpact #AfterMathRave
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DATE: August 22, 2026 at 02:08AM
SOURCE: SOCIALPSYCHOLOGY.ORGTITLE: How the United Nations is Using AI to Advance Human Rights
Source: United Nations News
Across agencies, the United Nations is implementing artificial intelligence tools to help promote peace, security, and human rights. The U.N. is also using AI to detect land mines, assess disaster damage, identify suspicious financial transactions, and monitor radioactive contamination. But as technology advances, the U.N. is emphasizing equity, human rights, and ethics to ensure that AI promotes development instead of threatening peace and...
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#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #UnitedNationsAI #HumanRights #AIforGood #EthicalAI #PeaceAndSecurity #DisasterResponse #AIInHumanRights #TechForDevelopment #AITransparency #DigitalEquity
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DATE: August 22, 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: This specific type of positive emotion predicts life satisfaction better than the rest
An analysis of data from two longitudinal studies conducted in Germany and the Netherlands found that both energized and pleasant positive emotions are associated with life satisfaction, but that this association was much stronger with pleasant positive emotions. The paper was published in the Journal of Positive Psychology.
Subjective well-being is a person’s overall evaluation of how well their life is going. It is typically described as a combination of how satisfied people are with their lives and how frequently they experience positive and negative emotions. Yet researchers still disagree about exactly how these components fit together and whether they reflect a single underlying form of well-being.
One particularly important source of confusion concerns positive affect, which is often treated as if it were one simple psychological state. In reality, the term can refer to very different experiences, ranging from calm pleasure and happiness to excitement, enthusiasm, interest, and energetic engagement.
This means that two studies can both claim to measure positive affect while actually assessing rather different emotional experiences. The distinction matters because pleasant and energized positive emotions may play different roles in well-being. Pleasant feelings may be especially closely connected to satisfaction because they signal that things are going well or that important goals have been achieved. More energized states such as interest, engagement, and enthusiasm may instead be especially useful for motivating activity, exploration, and personal growth.
Study author Jinrui Liu and her colleagues conducted a study in which they explored whether positive emotions and life satisfaction are associated with each other over time. They also wanted to know whether energized and pleasant positive emotions have associations of similar strength with life satisfaction. Finally, they wanted to know whether personality traits that predict energized positive emotions are the same ones that predict pleasant positive emotions.
Study authors analyzed data from the Panel Analysis of Intimate Relationships and Family Dynamics from Germany (PAIRFAM) and the Longitudinal Internet Studies for the Social Sciences (LISS) from the Netherlands. PAIRFAM is a longitudinal study of more than 12,000 individuals from three different birth groups (those born between 1971 and 1973, between 1981 and 1983, and between 1991 and 1993). Study authors analyzed data collected between 2014 and 2021.
The LISS data used in this analysis was collected between 2013 and 2024. The LISS conducted monthly internet surveys of a sample of Dutch individuals aged 16 and older from 5,000 households in each data collection wave. They were recruited randomly from the Dutch population. The sample analyzed in this study included 17,532 participants. 53.3% of them were women.
The measure of pleasant positive emotions used in this analysis was derived from an assessment of depression in PAIRFAM, using items initially meant to capture a lack of depressive symptoms, which actually describe the presence of pleasant feelings (e.g., “I am happy”, “I feel good”).
The assessment of energized positive emotions came from the LISS dataset where the Positive and Negative Affect Scale was used. Both datasets contained a measure of life satisfaction. Additionally, both datasets contained assessments of participants’ personalities in line with the Big Five model (the BFI-20 in the PAIRFAM, and IPIP-50 in the LISS).
Results showed that both pleasant and energized positive emotions were associated with life satisfaction, but that the association with pleasant positive emotions was much stronger. The associations ran in both temporal directions, meaning that earlier life satisfaction was associated with later positive emotions and vice versa.
The associations of the two types of positive emotions with personality traits of extraversion and neuroticism also differed. Neuroticism showed a stronger negative association with pleasant positive emotions, while energized positive emotions were more strongly associated with extraversion.
“In sum, our results indicate that pleasant and energized PA [positive affect] are not interchangeable in longitudinal SWB [subjective well-being] dynamics. Both PA types showed bidirectional within-person associations with LS [life satisfaction] beyond their shared trait-like SWB factor, supporting the view that these SWB elements are further causally related beyond a common underlying construct. However, these associations were consistently stronger for pleasant PA with LS than energized PA,” the study authors concluded.
The study contributes to the theoretical conceptualization of subjective well-being. However, it should be noted that the study authors’ measurements of energized and pleasant positive emotions were driven by the data that were available in the datasets they used. It is possible that different ways of measuring these two categories of positive emotions would yield different results.
The paper, “Jingle all the way? Pleasant and energized positive affect show differential longitudinal relationships with life satisfaction and personality,” was authored by Jinrui Liu, Joar Vittersø, Irene J. E. Teulings, Ragnhild Bang Nes, Lilian Mayerhofer, and Espen Røysamb.
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#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #LifeSatisfaction #PositiveAffect #PleasantEmotions #EnergizedPositiveEmotions #SubjectiveWellBeing #WellBeingResearch #JournalOfPositivePsychology #HappinessStudy #BigFivePersonality #LongevityOfWellBeing
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DATE: August 22, 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: Depression may speed up cognitive decline by increasing social isolation
URL: https://www.psypost.org/depression-may-speed-up-cognitive-decline-by-increasing-social-isolation/
A large study of older adults in China suggests that experiencing depressive symptoms can lead to a decline in mental sharpness partly by causing people to withdraw from their social circles. The findings suggest that public health programs designed to treat depression could also help preserve memory and thinking skills by keeping people socially engaged. The research was published in the Journal of Affective Disorders.
Dementia and cognitive decline are major health concerns for aging populations worldwide. Research has frequently shown that older adults who experience a decline in memory and thinking abilities often experience depression at the same time. The exact relationship between the two conditions has been difficult to pin down. Some studies suggest depression speeds up mental decline, while others propose the reverse is true.
Researchers suspect that a third factor, a lack of social contact, might bridge the gap between mental health and mental sharpness. Jia Fang and Meifen Zhang, nursing researchers at Sun Yat-Sen University in China, wanted to understand the sequence of these events over time. They theorized that depression acts as an internal stressor that drains a person’s energy and motivation to socialize.
When people withdraw from friends and family, they lose out on the mental stimulation that social interactions provide. This lack of engagement can erode what researchers call cognitive reserve. Cognitive reserve is the brain’s ability to improvise and find alternative ways of getting a job done, which helps protect against memory loss. The researchers hypothesized that treating depression might prevent this loss of social contact and subsequently protect the aging brain.
To test their hypothesis, Fang, Zhang, and their colleagues analyzed data from a large study of 9,220 adults aged 45 and older. The participants were part of the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study, a nationwide project tracking the health of older adults. The average age of the participants was about 58 years old, and a majority lived in rural areas. The researchers looked at information collected during three different periods: 2013, 2015, and 2018.
The team assessed depressive symptoms using a standard ten-question survey. This test asked participants how often they felt fearful, lonely, or unable to get going during the previous week. To measure social isolation, the researchers looked at four objective factors. They counted whether participants were unmarried, lived alone, had contact with their children less than once a week, or participated in no social activities.
Finally, the researchers measured cognitive function through memory and mental math tests. Participants were asked to recall a list of ten words immediately and after a short delay. They also completed tasks like subtracting seven from one hundred multiple times in a row, stating the current date and season, and copying a drawing of intersecting shapes.
The researchers used a statistical technique to see how these three variables influenced each other across the five-year span. They adjusted their mathematical models to account for factors like age, educational background, marital status, urban or rural residence, and physical mobility.
The analysis revealed a specific chain of events. High levels of depressive symptoms in 2013 predicted an increase in social isolation by 2015. In turn, that increased social isolation in 2015 predicted lower scores on the memory and thinking tests in 2018.
The statistical models confirmed that social isolation acted as a bridge between depression and cognitive decline. Depression appeared to cause people to pull away from their social networks. The researchers noted that people with depression might harbor negative thoughts about their self-worth, leading them to actively or passively avoid friends and family. The resulting isolation then contributed to a worsening of their mental acuity.
The researchers also tested the reverse scenario to see if a decline in memory caused people to become depressed by making them socially isolated. The results were not statistically significant in that direction. While a drop in cognitive scores did predict more social isolation later on, that isolation did not predict future depressive symptoms.
The researchers pointed to psychological theories on aging to explain this lack of connection. As people age, they tend to selectively choose who stays in their social networks, prioritizing close emotional bonds and letting go of casual acquaintances. Even if older adults become more isolated due to memory issues, they might not necessarily become depressed if they are content with a smaller, more intimate circle of support.
While the study tracked people over five years, the research relies on observational data. This means the researchers cannot definitively prove that depression causes social isolation or that isolation directly causes cognitive decline. Other unmeasured aspects of a person’s life or health could influence these outcomes.
The specific bridging effect of social isolation was relatively small. The statistical models indicated that social isolation accounted for about three percent of the total effect that depression had on cognitive function. This suggests that depression likely influences brain health through multiple different pathways, such as biological changes or inflammation, rather than just through a reduction in socializing.
The measurement of social isolation also had limitations. The researchers only counted objective facts about a person’s social life, like how often they saw their children. The data did not capture the subjective feeling of loneliness or the emotional quality of the participants’ relationships. A person might see family often but still feel lonely, or they might live alone but feel perfectly content.
Despite the small individual effect, the researchers noted that interventions targeting social engagement could have massive benefits when applied to large aging populations. Public health strategies that help depressed older adults reconnect with their communities could be an important piece of the puzzle for maintaining brain health. Future studies could explore whether specific programs, like community groups or technology classes, offer the best protection against memory loss.
The study, “Social isolation mediates association between depressive symptoms and cognitive function: Evidence from China health and retirement longitudinal study,” was authored by Jia Fang, Wencan Cheng, Huiyuan Li, Chen Yang, Ni Zhang, Baoyi Zhang, Ye Zhang, and Meifen Zhang.
URL: https://www.psypost.org/depression-may-speed-up-cognitive-decline-by-increasing-social-isolation/
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#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #DepressionAndCognition #SocialIsolation #CognitiveDecline #MentalHealthAging #MemoryProtection #BrainHealth #PublicHealth #ChinaHealthStudy #AgingPopulation #SocialEngagement
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DATE: August 22, 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: Maternal stress during pregnancy linked to children’s social communication skills
Children whose mothers experienced high levels of stress during pregnancy and shortly after birth may face lasting challenges with social communication. A recent analysis indicates that early exposure to maternal hardship predicts poorer communication skills as youth progress from childhood into adolescence. The research was published in the journal Development and Psychopathology.
Social cognition is the broad ability to perceive, interpret, and respond to social information. It encompasses several distinct skills, including the capacity to recognize emotions in others and the ability to engage in reciprocal social communication. Emotion recognition typically emerges early in life and stabilizes during late childhood. In contrast, complex social communication abilities continue to mature well into adolescence.
The time before birth and the first few months of life represent a sensitive window for brain maturation. During this period, the developing nervous system is highly responsive to environmental inputs. Elevated maternal stress can lead to changes in fetal neurodevelopment, potentially by increasing the transfer of stress hormones across the placenta. This biological process can influence the growth of brain regions involved in social and emotional processing, such as the prefrontal cortex and the amygdala.
Past research has linked early adversity to various emotional and behavioral difficulties, but it has remained uncertain exactly how maternal stress affects specific types of social cognition. Theodora Kokosi, Marta Francesconi, and Eirini Flouri at University College London conducted this study to examine whether prenatal adversity influences distinct social skills differently. They specifically wanted to track these skills across multiple developmental stages, from middle childhood through late adolescence.
The researchers analyzed data from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children. This large study tracks the health and development of youth born in the United Kingdom in the early 1990s. The analytic sample for this investigation included 10,177 participants who had data available for at least one measure of social cognition.
To gauge early adversity, mothers completed established checklists documenting stressful life events they had experienced. These inventories capture a variety of challenging situations, ranging from relationship difficulties to financial strain. The mothers filled out these surveys at 18 weeks of pregnancy and again at eight weeks postpartum. The researchers combined these responses to create a cumulative score of adverse life events spanning the early prenatal period through the first two months of the child’s life.
The first outcome the researchers evaluated was social communication. Parents completed a standardized checklist assessing their child’s social reciprocity and communication behaviors. This assessment occurred at four different time points: when the children were 8, 11, 14, and 17 years old.
The researchers found that higher maternal exposure to stressful life events was associated with poorer offspring social communication. This link held even after adjusting for factors like family socioeconomic status, maternal postpartum depression, and the child’s intelligence scores. The negative association between early adversity and social communication also widened slightly as the children aged from 8 to 17 years old.
The authors suggest that this widening gap might reflect the changing nature of social environments. As teenagers navigate increasingly nuanced social expectations, underlying communication difficulties may become more pronounced. Early disruptions to neural systems involved in social processing could make it harder for youth to keep up with these escalating demands.
The study also examined emotion recognition, which relies on different neurocognitive systems than social communication. At age eight, children completed a task evaluating their ability to identify emotions from static images. They viewed photographs of faces displaying fear, happiness, sadness, or anger, and they were asked to categorize the expression.
Maternal exposure to stressful life events was not related to the children’s performance on this facial emotion recognition test. Early life adversity did not appear to hinder or help a child’s ability to interpret basic facial expressions. The researchers note that static image tests might not always capture subtle changes in emotional processing.
At age 14, the teenagers completed a different type of emotion recognition assessment. This computer-based test required participants to identify emotions based on the movement patterns of abstract geometric shapes. For example, an animated triangle repeatedly jabbing at a circle was intended to convey anger.
In this case, greater maternal exposure to stressful life events from mid-pregnancy to the early postpartum period predicted slightly better performance on the movement-based task. While this result might seem counterintuitive, it aligns with certain developmental theories. Some researchers propose that individuals raised in unpredictable environments develop a heightened sensitivity to dynamic social cues as a way to adapt and survive.
There are a few caveats to consider when interpreting this research. The study relied on parent reports to measure the children’s social communication skills. This method can introduce subjective bias, as parents might interpret their children’s behaviors differently based on their own experiences or stress levels.
The study is also observational, which means it cannot prove that maternal stress directly caused the differences in social cognition. Other unmeasured environmental or genetic factors could contribute to the observed associations. Additionally, some participants dropped out of the longitudinal study over time, and this missing data could influence the statistical estimates of how communication skills change with age.
The measures used in the study also capture only a fraction of the broader concept of social cognition. Social cognition includes other sub-domains, such as the ability to understand different mental states or draw inferences about the causes of actions. It remains unknown if maternal stress influences these other specialized skills in the same way.
Future investigations could benefit from incorporating objective, observer-rated assessments of social communication to supplement parent reports. Researchers might also explore the biological mechanisms linking maternal stress to fetal brain development. Examining specific pathways, such as changes in immune function or stress hormone regulation, could clarify exactly how the early environment shapes lifelong social skills.
The study, “Prenatal exposure to stressful life events and offspring social cognition across childhood and adolescence,” was authored by Theodora Kokosi, Marta Francesconi, and Eirini Flouri.
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#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #MaternalStress #PrenatalStress #SocialCognition #ChildDevelopment #AdolescentDevelopment #EarlyAdversity #SocialCommunication #EmotionRecognition #Neurodevelopment #AvonLongitudinalStudy
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DATE: August 22, 2026 at 09:12AM
SOURCE: SCIENCE DAILY MIND-BRAIN FEEDTITLE: Multilingual people may have brains up to 13 years younger
URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/08/260821012226.htm
People who speak several languages may have brains that age more slowly, with four-language speakers showing brains that appeared about 13 years younger than those of monolinguals. Starting earlier and becoming highly fluent were also linked to a stronger effect.
URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/08/260821012226.htm
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#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #MultilingualBrain #BrainAging #LanguageLearning #BilingualBenefits #CognitiveHealth #FourLanguageFluency #BrainAgeDifference #EarlyLanguageExposure #Neuroscience #HealthyAging
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DATE: August 22, 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: People who favor dark humor tend to exhibit more problematic personality traits
The way a person jokes may offer a subtle glimpse into their underlying psychological makeup and how they handle interpersonal relationships. A recent study published in the Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts suggests that people who favor darker forms of humor, such as sarcasm and cynicism, tend to show higher levels of maladaptive personality traits. In contrast, those who use lighter, more playful humor tend to display fewer traits associated with personality disorders.
Humor is a universal human behavior that does more than just make people laugh. It serves as a tool for emotional regulation, social bonding, and communicating complex ideas. “Humor is one of the most fascinating forms of human communication, and I have been studying its psychological functions for about 15 years,” said lead author Alberto Dionigi, a psychologist and cognitive behavioral psychotherapist at the Noesis Clinical Center in Italy.
“I am a psychologist and Cognitive Behavioral Psychotherapist, and my main research interest is understanding how humor can influence the way we cope with emotions, relate to other people, and express our personality,” Dionigi explained. Psychologists often break humor down into different comic styles. Lighter styles include fun, benevolent humor, nonsense, and wit, which generally promote positive feelings and social connection.
Darker comic styles include irony, satire, sarcasm, and cynicism. These styles often rely on criticism, mockery, or a sense of superiority, which can strain relationships if used excessively. “We often think of humor as something inherently positive, but this is not always the case,” Dionigi said. “Humor can promote wellbeing, reduce stress, and facilitate social relationships, but it can also be used to criticize, distance ourselves from others, express hostility, or protect ourselves from vulnerability.”
Past research linking humor to personality mostly focused on standard traits, like extraversion or agreeableness. The authors of this new research wanted to explore how these eight specific comic styles align with a wider range of personality disorder traits.
“For this reason, we decided to investigate whether different ways of using humor are associated with specific maladaptive personality traits,” Dionigi added. “Rather than simply asking whether someone has a “good sense of humor,” we examined eight different comic styles, ranging from lighter forms such as fun, benevolent humor, nonsense, and wit to darker forms such as irony, satire, sarcasm, and cynicism.”
The scientists focused on a normative adult sample. This means they studied everyday people rather than patients formally diagnosed with a psychiatric condition. Mental health professionals recognize that personality disorder traits exist on a continuous spectrum. Many people possess subclinical levels of these traits, meaning they have certain cognitive or behavioral tendencies that do not meet the threshold for a full medical diagnosis.
The researchers surveyed 599 Italian adults with an average age of 40. Participants completed the survey online, answering questions from the Comic Style Markers questionnaire. This tool measures how frequently a person uses the eight different humor styles. The survey asked participants to rate statements on a scale from one to seven based on how well the descriptions matched their behavior.
For example, a statement measuring fun was “I am a funny joker,” while a statement measuring sarcasm was “Biting mockery suits me.” Next, the participants completed the Personality Belief Questionnaire-Short Form. This tool measures dysfunctional thinking patterns associated with ten different personality disorder traits. These traits include avoidant, dependent, passive-aggressive, obsessive-compulsive, antisocial, narcissistic, histrionic, schizoid, paranoid, and borderline tendencies.
An avoidant trait was measured with statements like “I should avoid unpleasant situations at all costs.” An antisocial trait was measured with statements such as “Force or cunning is the best way to get things done.” The researchers analyzed the collected data to see which personality traits predicted which humor styles. The authors controlled for the age and sex of the participants during their statistical analysis to isolate the effects of personality.
The findings indicate that darker comic styles are consistently linked to more problematic personality features. “I think the main message is that humor is not simply positive or negative: how we use humor matters,” Dionigi explained. “In our study of 599 Italian adults, we found that darker comic styles, particularly sarcasm and cynicism, were more strongly associated with maladaptive personality traits.”
Sarcasm and cynicism showed the strongest positive associations with passive-aggressive, antisocial, narcissistic, histrionic, and borderline traits. The statistical models explained up to 23 percent of the variance in the use of cynical humor. This indicates a moderate statistical relationship, meaning that almost a quarter of the differences in how often people use cynical humor can be predicted by these specific personality traits.
These patterns suggest that individuals with antagonistic or impulsive tendencies might use sarcasm and cynicism as socially acceptable ways to express dominance. “For example, they were related to traits involving interpersonal antagonism, distrust, hostility, and emotional dysregulation,” Dionigi said. “This does not mean, of course, that a sarcastic person has a personality disorder. Our participants came from the general population, and we investigated personality traits on a continuum, not clinical diagnoses.”
Irony and satire also showed positive links to maladaptive traits, though the associations were slightly weaker. Satire, which involves mocking foolish behavior to correct it, was associated with both narcissistic and obsessive-compulsive traits. The researchers propose that narcissistic individuals might use satire to mask their feelings of superiority in a socially acceptable format.
Meanwhile, those with obsessive-compulsive traits might use satirical humor as a way to enforce moral rules and maintain a sense of order. Irony was positively linked to borderline, paranoid, and obsessive-compulsive patterns. The authors suspect irony provides a cognitive distance that helps people regulate intense emotions. “Similarly, irony may sometimes help people create emotional distance from difficult experiences,” Dionigi noted.
The researchers caution against labeling any humor style as strictly good or bad. “One aspect I would emphasize is that our results should not be interpreted as saying that some forms of humor are “healthy” and others are “pathological.” Humor is much more complex than that,” Dionigi explained. “Even darker styles can have adaptive functions depending on the context. Satire, for example, can be used to criticize problematic behaviors or social norms and encourage reflection and change.”
Lighter comic styles were mostly isolated from these darker personality traits. “On the other hand, lighter forms of humor were generally less strongly related to maladaptive personality traits and were more connected with social affiliation, playfulness, and cognitive flexibility,” Dionigi added. Fun and benevolent humor showed weak or negative associations with maladaptive tendencies.
Avoidant personality traits, which involve a deep fear of social rejection, were negatively associated with fun, benevolent humor, nonsense, and wit. People with high avoidant traits tend to withdraw from social situations, which likely reduces their opportunities to engage in playful banter and share jokes.
“A frequent reliance on cynical or sarcastic humor, for example, may sometimes offer clues about hostility, distrust, or the need to maintain emotional distance, while difficulty using more affiliative forms of humor may be associated with social withdrawal or vulnerability,” Dionigi said.
The histrionic personality trait, characterized by excessive attention-seeking and emotionality, heavily predicted the use of fun and humor. Individuals with these traits may use playful jokes to maintain the spotlight and engage with their audience. Wit, which involves clever verbal associations, was positively associated with narcissism, suggesting that self-enhancing individuals might use intellectual humor to impress others. Additionally, men in the sample reported higher scores on the darker, more maladaptive forms of humor than women did.
“So, perhaps the most interesting takeaway is that our sense of humor may tell us something about the way we relate to ourselves and to other people,” Dionigi said. “Humor can be a way of connecting, playing, and sharing positive emotions, but it can also become a socially acceptable way of expressing hostility, keeping emotional distance, or defending ourselves.”
A cross-sectional design was used for this research, meaning all data was collected at a single point in time. This setup indicates associations between variables but cannot determine cause and effect. “An important caveat is that this was a cross-sectional study, so we cannot establish causality,” Dionigi explained. “We can say that certain personality traits and comic styles are associated, but we cannot say that personality traits cause a particular type of humor, or vice versa.”
The study relied entirely on self-reported questionnaires. People often lack objective self-awareness, especially regarding their own negative traits, and they may answer in ways that make them look better than they actually are.
“Humor is a highly interpersonal behavior, so future studies could include ratings from partners, friends, or clinicians, as well as behavioral measures of how people actually use humor in real-life interactions,” Dionigi noted.
The sample consisted primarily of Italian adults, and nearly 73 percent of the participants were women. This demographic imbalance and specific cultural setting might limit how well the findings apply to other populations. “Our sample was also composed mainly of nonclinical Italian adults, so the findings should not automatically be generalized to people diagnosed with personality disorders or to other cultures,” Dionigi said.
Future studies could track people over time and across different cultures to better understand how humor and personality interact throughout a lifespan.
“One question I find particularly interesting for future research is whether it is not only which humor style people use, but also how effectively they use it that matters,” Dionigi explained. “Two people may both use sarcasm, for example, but with very different interpersonal effects. It would also be interesting to study these relationships in clinical populations and among professional humor performers.”
As a psychotherapist, Dionigi hopes this research encourages people to think more deeply about their own habits. “So, rather than asking “Is humor good or bad?”, perhaps we should ask: “What kind of humor am I using, with whom, and what function is it serving in this particular moment?””
The study, “Humor and Personality Disorders: Associations Between Comic Styles and Maladaptive Personality Traits in a Normative Adult Sample,” was authored by Alberto Dionigi, Mirko Duradoni, and Laura Vagnoli.
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DATE: August 22, 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: Weight-loss drugs linked to rare eye condition in massive data review
URL: https://www.psypost.org/weight-loss-drugs-linked-to-rare-eye-condition-in-massive-data-review/
A massive new review of medical data indicates that patients taking popular weight-loss and diabetes medications may face a higher risk of developing a rare but serious eye condition. The research, published in Neurology, found that people using semaglutide experience sudden vision loss at a higher rate than those using other treatments. The results offer a detailed look at the potential side effects associated with this rapidly growing class of drugs.
Nonarteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy is a condition in which blood flow to the optic nerve is restricted. This vital nerve connects the eye to the brain, and a lack of blood flow causes the tissue to swell. The swelling results in sudden, painless vision loss, typically in just one eye. The condition frequently leads to permanent visual damage, making it the leading cause of acute optic nerve injury in older adults.
Risk factors for this type of nerve damage include high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, and sleep apnea. Certain anatomical features, such as having a crowded optic nerve head in the back of the eye, can also increase a person’s vulnerability. Because these risk factors overlap heavily with metabolic diseases, isolating the true cause of the neuropathy in patients is often difficult.
Medications like semaglutide belong to a class of drugs known as glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists. These drugs mimic a naturally occurring hormone in the body to delay stomach emptying and reduce a person’s appetite. They also help the pancreas release insulin in response to meals, which controls blood sugar levels. Doctors prescribe them widely to treat type 2 diabetes and clinical obesity.
Millions of patients now take these medications globally, making the identification of rare side effects a public health priority. Recent observational studies looking at these medications and eye health have produced conflicting results. Some individual studies suggested the drugs increased the risk of optic neuropathy. Other analyses found no association or even hinted at a protective effect against vision loss.
To synthesize the available data and resolve these contradictions, a team of researchers conducted a comprehensive meta-analysis. Thanansayan Dhivagaran, Fahad Butt, and Luckshann Arunasalam of the University of Western Ontario led the study. They collaborated with Edward Margolin and other colleagues from the University of Toronto.
The researchers systematically searched medical databases for observational studies published up to April 2025. They specifically looked for studies comparing the risk of optic neuropathy between patients using the medications and those using alternative treatments. The team established strict criteria to avoid counting the same patients multiple times across overlapping data registries.
They pooled data from five main studies to form a massive sample of 1,593,554 patients. This group included 682,456 patients using semaglutide and 911,098 using other drugs. The team used specialized Bayesian statistical models to calculate the relative risk and the overall incidence of the eye condition. These models are particularly useful for analyzing extremely rare medical events.
The primary analysis revealed that semaglutide use was associated with a 152 percent higher risk of developing the optic neuropathy compared to the use of alternative medications. The statistical models showed a 99.9 percent probability that the true relative risk was greater than one. Despite this relative increase, the absolute number of cases remained very low in the population.
The researchers calculated an overall incidence of 118 cases per 100,000 semaglutide users. Across all medications in this class, including dulaglutide and exenatide, the incidence was 85 cases per 100,000 users. These numbers translate to less than a fraction of a percent of all patients taking the drugs.
The team then looked specifically at patients with diabetes to see if the underlying condition influenced the risk. They analyzed data from five studies covering roughly 1.59 million individuals. This massive subset was split between semaglutide users and those managing their diabetes with other treatments.
Among patients with diabetes, semaglutide users had a 141 percent higher risk of developing the eye condition compared to non-users. The absolute risk in this specific group was estimated at 125 cases per 100,000 semaglutide users. The statistical evidence supporting this association remained extremely strong across multiple sensitivity analyses.
Next, the researchers examined the risk among patients prescribed semaglutide specifically for obesity. They pooled data from two studies that included a large sample of 116,613 patients. This group consisted of 58,254 semaglutide users and 58,359 individuals taking alternative weight-loss medications.
In the obesity subgroup, semaglutide was associated with a 77 percent higher risk of the optic neuropathy compared to the alternative treatments. The incidence rate in this group was notably higher at 712 cases per 100,000 semaglutide users. The researchers noted that the statistical certainty for this specific subgroup was moderate rather than strong.
To provide more context, the researchers evaluated how semaglutide compared directly to other specific classes of drugs. They analyzed data comparing semaglutide to SGLT2 inhibitors, which are another common type of diabetes medication. This comparison involved a massive sample of nearly 948,000 patients.
Patients taking semaglutide had roughly twice the risk of developing the vision condition compared to those taking SGLT2 inhibitors. The team also compared semaglutide to other drugs within the same class in a sample of about 865,000 patients. When compared to users of other similar medications, semaglutide users faced a 61 percent higher risk.
The exact biological reason for this association remains unknown. One hypothesis suggests that the blood pressure-lowering effects of the medications might reduce blood flow to the optic nerve head. Animal and human studies show that these drugs interact with bodily systems regulating sodium absorption and blood pressure. In susceptible individuals, this chronic reduction in local blood pressure could trigger the neuropathy.
Weight loss itself might also indirectly lead to lower blood pressure, compounding the effect. Patients experiencing rapid weight loss may require adjustments to their existing blood pressure medications to prevent sudden drops. If these adjustments are not made, the resulting low blood pressure might leave the optic nerve vulnerable to injury.
Because this meta-analysis relied exclusively on observational data, the results cannot prove that semaglutide directly causes the eye condition. Patients prescribed these newer medications often have more severe or poorly controlled metabolic diseases. Advanced diabetes and obesity are themselves major drivers of vascular damage and nerve problems. This underlying disease severity could be contributing to the higher rates of vision loss in the treatment groups.
The researchers also noted that it takes time for the medications to reach their maximum effect in the body. Cases of vision loss that occur shortly after a patient starts the drug might reflect preexisting vascular risks rather than a side effect of the treatment. Additionally, the studies included in the review mostly featured White populations from the United States, Denmark, and Norway. This demographic limitation restricts how broadly the findings can be applied to other groups.
Health care providers must weigh this rare risk against the well-documented systemic benefits of the medications. Large clinical trials have shown that these drugs reduce the incidence of cardiovascular death, nonfatal heart attacks, and strokes. The medications may even protect against other prevalent eye diseases like diabetic retinopathy and glaucoma. For the vast majority of patients, the broad improvements in metabolic health likely outweigh the low absolute risk of this specific neuropathy.
Future research will need to track visual outcomes in patients over longer periods while strictly controlling for existing vascular risk factors. Prospective trials could help clarify the exact biological mechanisms linking the medications to blood flow changes in the eye. Until more data is available, the authors suggest that doctors discuss potential visual risks when prescribing these medications. Patients initiating therapy should seek prompt ophthalmic evaluation if they experience sudden visual changes.
The study, “Glucagon-like Peptide-1 Receptor Agonists and Risk of Nonarteritic Anterior Ischemic Optic Neuropathy Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis,” was authored by Thanansayan Dhivagaran, Fahad Butt, Luckshann Arunasalam, Isabel Bae, David Mikhail, Brendan K. Tao, Jim Shenchu Xie, Michael Balas, Marko Popovic, and Edward Margolin.
URL: https://www.psypost.org/weight-loss-drugs-linked-to-rare-eye-condition-in-massive-data-review/
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DATE: August 22, 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: The “sense of absence” may explain why disconnected teens turn to addictive behaviors
Recent psychological research provides evidence that adolescents who feel emotionally detached and unnoticed by others may be more likely to engage in addictive behaviors as a way to cope. A newly developed psychological scale allows scientists to measure this subjective sense of absence, which appears to act as a bridge connecting poor family communication to various addictions. These findings were recently published in two separate papers in the Journal of Behavioral Addictions and Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Mental Health.
Yaniv Efrati, head of the Addictive Behaviors Lab at Bar-Ilan University’s Faculty of Education, and Marc N. Potenza of Yale University wanted to better understand why some teenagers turn to the internet, substances, or repetitive behaviors to manage their emotions. Existing psychological concepts like loneliness or emptiness describe isolation or a lack of meaning in life, but the researchers suspected something deeper might be occurring.
“Much of the research on adolescent addictive behaviors focuses on specific risk factors and asks what makes some young people more vulnerable than others,” Efrati said. “As a researcher, I found myself asking a somewhat different question: Is there a more fundamental subjective experience that might help us understand what lies behind adolescents’ involvement in addictive behaviors?”
This specific feeling is known as a sense of absence. It describes a state in which a young person might feel like they are watching their own life from the outside or struggling to participate in daily activities. “It describes an experience that has both an internal and an interpersonal dimension,” Efrati explained. “Internally, an adolescent may experience a sense of emptiness, inner disconnection, or the feeling that something important is missing, even when it is difficult to identify exactly what that is.”
The interpersonal aspect involves adolescents feeling misunderstood or unseen by the people who matter most. “An adolescent can feel that something is missing within while simultaneously feeling that others do not really see or understand them,” Efrati said. “I wanted to examine whether this broader experience of absence might be meaningfully connected to adolescents’ relationships with significant others and, at the same time, to their involvement in different addictive behaviors.”
To explore this, Efrati and Potenza designed their initial study to create a reliable way to measure this complex emotional state. They developed a new questionnaire called the Sense of Absence Scale. They recruited a sample of 1,555 adolescents from the general community in Israel, ranging in age from 14 to 18 years old. The participants completed the newly designed 14-item survey alongside established questionnaires measuring online addictions, loneliness, emptiness, mental pain, hope, and suicidal thoughts.
The researchers found that the new scale functioned very well across different genders and religious backgrounds. The scale successfully captured a unique emotional experience that overlapped with, yet remained distinct from, general psychological distress. For instance, the sense of absence scale shared about 59 percent of its statistical variance with feelings of emptiness and 42 percent with mental pain.
The researchers initially expected the results to closely mirror established psychological concepts. “What surprised me most was the way the Sense of Absence emerged as a distinct psychological construct,” Efrati said. “When we first began conceptualizing the construct and developing the questionnaire with Prof. Marc Potenza from Yale University, we assumed that it would largely reflect a combination of experiences we already know well, particularly emptiness, psychological pain, and loneliness.”
Instead, the data revealed a unique blend of internal and interpersonal detachment. “However, both the theoretical development and the statistical findings suggested something broader and more coherent,” Efrati said. “The Sense of Absence captures not only an internal experience of emptiness or disconnection, but also an important interpersonal experience: the feeling that I am not truly seen, understood, or emotionally recognized by the people around me.”
Previous research tends to treat loneliness and emptiness as separate experiences. “The Sense of Absence appears to bring together the internal feeling that ‘something is missing in me’ with the relational feeling that ‘others do not really see me,'” Efrati noted. “The fact that these experiences formed a coherent construct in their own right was one of the findings that surprised us most.”
Higher scores on this new scale aligned with higher levels of problematic online behaviors, loneliness, and suicidal thoughts, while indicating lower levels of hope and self-compassion.
Using this validated tool, Efrati conducted a larger follow-up study to map out exactly how this emotional state fits into a teenager’s broader psychological world. This study involved 2,564 adolescents from the general Israeli community with an average age of about 16 years. Participants completed online questionnaires assessing their sense of absence, attachment styles, and the quality of their communication with their parents.
The participants also reported on a wide variety of addictive behaviors. These included alcohol and drug use, problem gambling, shopping addiction, internet gaming disorder, problematic social media use, smartphone addiction, problematic pornography use, and compulsive sexual behavior. Efrati used a statistical technique called network analysis to map how all these different psychological and behavioral variables interact with one another in a complex web.
Network analysis allows scientists to visualize which factors act as central hubs connecting different clusters of behavior. The results indicated that the sense of absence held the most central and influential position in the entire psychological network. Its influence score was about 7.8 percent higher than the second-most influential factor, which was problematic social media use.
The analysis grouped the sense of absence together with relational factors, such as attachment anxiety, attachment avoidance, and parent-adolescent communication. These social and family dynamics formed one distinct cluster in the network. The addictive behaviors formed separate clusters, with online addictions grouping together and substance or impulse-based addictions forming another group.
The sense of absence acted as the strongest bridge connecting the family and relational cluster to the various addiction clusters. The direct links between poor parent-adolescent communication and addictive behaviors were relatively sparse and weak. Instead, the data suggests that poor communication and insecure attachments relate strongly to a sense of absence, which in turn relates to engagement in addictive behaviors.
In this network, the sense of absence showed stronger mathematical associations with relational factors than it did directly with the addictions.
“The main takeaway is that when we think about addictive behaviors in adolescence, we should look beyond the behavior itself and ask what the young person may be experiencing underneath it,” Efrati told PsyPost. “Findings suggest that a sense of inner emptiness, feeling unseen by others, and difficulty feeling meaningfully connected may be important parts of the broader picture.”
This internal void might make a teenager more vulnerable to seeking out the temporary stimulation or relief provided by addictive habits. “This does not mean that feeling unseen causes addiction, and the study cannot establish that kind of causal relationship,” Efrati noted.
“For parents, teachers, and professionals, the message may therefore be quite simple: alongside asking what an adolescent is doing, how much they are using a smartphone, gaming, drinking, or engaging in other potentially addictive behaviors, it may also be important to ask how they are feeling in their relationships. Sometimes understanding the experience surrounding the behavior may tell us something important that focusing on the behavior alone does not reveal.”
Building stronger family connections could offer a protective effect against these behaviors. “When discussing the prevention of addictive behaviors among adolescents, we often focus on screen time, gaming, substance use, or setting limits,” Efrati explained. “These are important, but our findings suggest another question: What might the adolescent be seeking through this behavior? Parenting is not only about supervision, but also about being present, listening, and creating a relationship in which adolescents feel seen, heard, and significant.”
The cross-sectional design of both studies only captures data at a single point in time, meaning the research cannot determine the exact sequence of events. “The main caveat is that this was a cross-sectional study, so we cannot determine causality or the direction of the associations,” Efrati said. “Although the network analysis identifies meaningful connections among relational experiences, Sense of Absence, and addictive behaviors, longitudinal research is needed to understand how these relationships develop over time.”
Another limitation is that the new survey does not specify exactly who the teenager feels absent from. A teenager might feel invisible to their parents but highly valued by their friends, and the current questionnaire does not separate these distinct social relationships. The scale also lacks established clinical cutoffs, meaning mental health professionals cannot yet use it to definitively diagnose a specific level of impairment.
Future research will need to test the survey in different cultural contexts and age groups outside of Israel. “Our next step is to examine the Sense of Absence longitudinally and understand how it develops across adolescence and relates to changes in addictive behaviors, including both online addictive behaviors and substance use,” Efrati said.
“More broadly, this research offers another perspective on adolescent addiction: beyond asking how much time adolescents spend online, whether they use substances, or what behaviors they engage in, we may also need to ask what they are experiencing underneath these behaviors and whether they feel connected, present, and truly seen in their relationships. Ultimately, we hope this perspective can inform prevention efforts that strengthen adolescents’ sense of connection and belonging.”
The study, ““Feeling unseen”: Generation and psychometric validation of a scale assessing sense of absence,” was authored by Yaniv Efrati and Marc N. Potenza.
The study, “Filling the void: sense of absence as a comprehensive bridge between attachment, parent–adolescent communication, and addictive behaviors among adolescents,” was authored by Yaniv Efrati.
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DATE: August 22, 2026 at 06:00AM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: Global data shows a sharp rise in adult ADHD diagnoses and medication prescriptions
Diagnoses for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) have increased in many countries across all age groups, our latest review has found. We have also shown that prescriptions for ADHD treatments have seen similar increases across all age groups.
Our latest review, published in the Journal of Psychopharmacology, drew together the recently published research on ADHD diagnoses and prescriptions across the world.
We found that in the UK, increases in recorded ADHD diagnoses and treatment prescriptions occurred across all age groups between 2000 and 2018.
The greatest rise in ADHD diagnoses across this period was among children. However, there was also a distinct increase in adults. For example, among men aged 18-29 there was an approximately 20-fold increase in diagnoses and an almost 50-fold increase in prescriptions.
The sex ratio of ADHD diagnoses in childhood and adolescence was approximately 4:1 male to female. However, the ratio of diagnoses in adulthood is nearly 1:1. This shift may partly reflect increased recognition of how ADHD presents in girls and adults – groups that have historically been underdiagnosed.
Alongside these increases in ADHD diagnoses, there has also been an increase in prescriptions for ADHD treatments.
In England, prescriptions of central nervous system stimulants (the main prescription treatments for ADHD) increased by 32% in adults over 18 in 2021-22. In children under 17, prescriptions increased by 12% from 2022-23. This was also the first time that more adults were prescribed these drugs than children since records started in 2015.
A retrospective study of over 154 million people from 13 countries, including in North America, Europe and Asia, demonstrated that use of ADHD medication prescriptions had increased in these regions as well.
Why diagnoses and prescriptions are increasing
A few key factors can largely explain the increase in both ADHD diagnoses and prescriptions that we’ve seen. This includes increased public awareness of the condition, better understanding by doctors of the way symptoms present and the availability of new and improved medications.
Additionally, there is better awareness of how ADHD manifests in groups who may have previously been missed because their symptoms did not match with those typically exhibited in boys and adolescents. This includes women and girls and people with predominantly inattentive symptoms.
However, these factors may only tell part of the story. Our review also revealed other drivers may deserve careful consideration.
For instance, there has been much debate over whether there is an issue of overdiagnosis and over-prescribing. Legitimate questions about whether some attention difficulties might be over-medicalised have also been raised. On the other hand, some authors have argued that there is no evidence to suggest overdiagnosis is occurring in the UK.
Understanding the full picture requires looking beyond the obvious explanations to examine cultural, economic, social and technological pressures in a globally competitive environment that may be influencing both diagnosis rates and treatment choices.
Looking forward
The rising rates of ADHD diagnoses and treatment represent a complex picture. There have been genuine improvements in recognising a real disorder that was historically overlooked (particularly in adult men and women), better clinical awareness and perhaps also some degree of over-identification in certain environments.
What seems clear is that ADHD, long thought of as a children’s disorder, is now being treated as what it truly is: a lifelong neurodevelopmental disorder affecting millions of people across the globe.
As awareness continues to grow, the challenge ahead lies in preserving limited NHS resources, while ensuring those who genuinely need these resources have improved access.
The wait time for an ADHD diagnosis in England currently ranges from two to 15 years. With increasing rates of diagnoses and prescriptions to manage ADHD, there are concerns that demand will soon outstrip NHS capacity entirely.
What could be a solution is the discovery of ADHD biomarkers – an objectively measurable indicator of a biological state or condition that can be detected in signatures in the brain. Currently, ADHD is diagnosed by a doctor who often has to rely on self-reported symptoms. Having biomarkers could improve the accuracy of diagnoses, ensuring those who have the condition get the support they need earlier on.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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DATE: August 21, 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: Women face higher risks of partner violence during the weeks their partners cheat
An analysis of the Relationship Dynamics and Social Life study data found that women were more likely to experience violence from their intimate partners at the time the partner was having another sexual partner. This was the case both in situations where the couple did not have an explicit agreement about monogamy and when they had an agreement to be monogamous (that the partner broke). The probability that the relationship will be dissolved was higher after these events. The paper was published in the Journal of Marriage and Family.
Intimate relationships are an important part of adolescence and early adulthood. They help young people develop skills that can shape their relationships later in life. Yet young relationships do not always provide positive experiences. Conflict, controlling behavior, violence, and infidelity can all occur during this period. Therefore, learning to end an unhealthy relationship may be just as important a developmental task as learning how to form and maintain one.
People generally decide whether to remain with a partner by weighing what they gain from the relationship against its emotional and practical costs. Negative experiences can increase those costs, reduce relationship satisfaction, and make being single or finding another partner seem more attractive.
However, not every harmful experience has the same meaning or the same likelihood of bringing a relationship to an end. Physical aggression, psychological abuse, threats, and controlling behavior can overlap, making it difficult to separate their individual effects on a relationship. Infidelity can be particularly destabilizing because it represents a clear violation of an explicit expectation of monogamy and introduces another person into the relationship.
Study authors Jennifer S. Barber and Yasamin Kusunoki examined how intimate partner violence and non-monogamy (having more than one partner at the same time) co-occur and shape the probability of relationship dissolution. They differentiate between two types of non-monogamy – ambiguous-consent non-monogamy and non-consensual non-monogamy.
Ambiguous-consent non-monogamy is a situation where a person has concurrent sexual partners without an explicit agreement about monogamy or non-monogamy. Non-consensual non-monogamy represents a situation where a person has additional sexual partners while in a committed monogamous relationship (this is also called cheating). Study authors expected that intimate partner violence and these two types of non-monogamy will tend to co-occur in relationships and that they increase the probability of subsequent relationship dissolution.
They analyzed data from the Relationship Dynamics and Social Life (RDSL) study. This study involved 1003 young women who were 18-19 years old at the start of the study, drawn from a diverse Michigan county. 992 of them agreed to participate in the longitudinal part of the study. The study followed these women for 2.5 years, to 20-22.5 years of age. It was focused on young pregnancies. Participants were sampled randomly using a database of all driver’s license holders and personal ID card holders for that county. 84% of women selected for participation in this way agreed to participate.
The study began with a 60-minute face-to-face baseline survey focused on respondent’s current intimate relationship, attitudes, and experiences related to intimate relationships and pregnancy. This was followed (for participants who agreed to participate in the longitudinal part of the study) by brief weekly online or telephone surveys to assess ongoing experiences.
Overall, 75% of participants participated in the study for at least 18 months. Participants received small payments for their participation and completion of weekly surveys. Study authors excluded women who did not have sex with male partners, as well as women whose relationships ended before the follow-up surveys began, making the final analyzed sample 895 women.
Results showed that 80% of participants’ relationships ended during the study period. 41% of relationships included fighting (but without intimate partner violence), and 28% of relationships included intimate partner violence. 52% of participants experienced intimate partner violence.
Participating women reported engaging in non-consensual non-monogamy (cheating) in 5% of relationships, while they reported their partner doing this in 7% of relationships. They reported engaging in ambiguous-consent non-monogamy in 9% of relationships, while reporting this for their partner in 16% of relationships.
They reported having sex during 42% of weeks in which they had a partner. On average, relationships lasted 9 months and 85% of them did not include pregnancies or births. 6% included a pregnancy that did not lead to a birth, and 8% of these relationships resulted in a child. Partners were, on average, 2 years older than respondents.
Participants were more likely to experience violence from their partner in the weeks when their partner was having another sexual partner, both in situations where this represented ambiguous-consent non-monogamy and when it was non-consensual non-monogamy (i.e., when the partner was cheating). Relationships were more likely to dissolve after both types of non-monogamy and after intimate partner violence.
The authors framed these findings using expectancy violations theory, which is the idea that people have strict standards for how their partners should behave, and breaking those rules triggers a severe reassessment of the relationship.
“Findings, interpreted through expectancy violations theory, suggest NCNM [non-consensual non-monogamy i.e., cheating on a partner in a monogamous relationship] and ACNM [ambiguous consent non-monogamy i.e., having additional sexual partners without an explicit agreement] function as powerful relational breaches, while physical IPV [intimate partner violence] (assault) may operate differently from chronic psychological IPV in predicting dissolution,” study authors concluded.
The study contributes to the scientific understanding of romantic relationships. However, although the study collected data on participants’ own non-monogamous behavior, the authors did not report the associations between these types of participants’ behavior and intimate partner violence. Therefore, it remains unreported whether participating women’s own non-monogamous behaviors were associated with intimate partner violence, or how often participants’ and their partners’ non-monogamous behaviors co-occurred. Additionally, the paper did not measure participant-perpetrated intimate partner violence in the same way it measured violence perpetrated by their partners, making the asymmetry starker.
The paper, “Intimate Partner Violence, Ambiguous and Non-Consensual Non-Monogamy, and Breaking Up During Young Adulthood,” was authored by Jennifer S. Barber and Yasamin Kusunoki.
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DATE: August 21, 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: Caffeine might ease anxiety and depression by calming brain inflammation
Caffeine appears to alleviate symptoms of anxiety and depression in rodents by reducing inflammation in the brain. A recent systematic review of 17 animal studies found that the widely consumed stimulant consistently diminished behavioral signs of distress and lowered levels of inflammatory molecules. The findings were published in Translational Psychiatry.
Mental health conditions like anxiety and depression involve physical changes in the nervous system. Over the past few decades, researchers have identified neuroinflammation as a major contributor to these mood disorders. When the body experiences chronic psychological stress or illness, the immune system often responds by releasing proteins called cytokines.
These cytokines travel to the brain and activate specialized immune cells known as microglia and astrocytes. Once activated, these glial cells can disrupt the normal balance of neurotransmitters like dopamine and serotonin. This inflammatory process can trigger behaviors associated with mood disorders, such as a loss of motivation or heightened fear responses.
Caffeine is a psychoactive substance that primarily works by blocking adenosine receptors in the brain. Adenosine is a chemical that naturally accumulates during the day, binding to specific receptors to promote sleepiness. By blocking these receptors, caffeine keeps the brain alert.
Adenosine receptors are not just involved in wakefulness. A specific subtype, called the A2A receptor, is prominently featured on the surface of microglia and astrocytes. Prolonged stress can cause an overabundance of these A2A receptors, which makes the brain’s immune cells highly sensitive and prone to causing inflammation.
Because caffeine blocks these A2A receptors, scientists suspect it might act as a brake on the brain’s inflammatory response. Neurobiologists Laís da Silva Neves and Paula Campello-Costa at the Fluminense Federal University in Brazil wanted to synthesize the existing data on this topic. Along with their colleagues, they set out to analyze how caffeine influences both brain inflammation and behavior in animal models.
The research team conducted a systematic review, a process that involves collecting and evaluating all the published scientific literature on a specific research question. They combed through online databases and identified 17 rodent studies that met their strict inclusion criteria. Every selected study featured a control group to allow for objective comparisons.
The team first looked at six studies focusing on anxiety. In these experiments, researchers induced anxiety in adult rats through various stressful scenarios. These included acute stressors, like a brief period of sleep deprivation or exposure to the scent of a predator, as well as chronic stressors, such as repeated physical restraint.
During or after these stressful events, the rodents received caffeine. The method of administration varied by study. Some animals received the substance through their drinking water, while others were given direct injections or fed through a gastric tube.
Scientists then measured the animals’ anxiety levels using established behavioral tests. A common method involves placing the rodent in an elevated, cross-shaped maze with both open and enclosed arms. Anxious animals will generally hide in the dark, enclosed arms, while less anxious animals will spend more time exploring the exposed sections.
Neves, Campello-Costa, and their team noted that caffeine consistently promoted exploratory behaviors, indicating a reduction in anxiety. This behavioral shift was accompanied by distinct physical changes in the animals’ brains. The rodents treated with caffeine exhibited lower levels of oxidative stress, a type of cellular damage associated with psychological strain.
Brain tissue analysis also revealed a drop in several pro-inflammatory cytokines, including interleukin-6 and tumor necrosis factor-alpha. At the same time, the caffeine-treated animals showed increased levels of anti-inflammatory molecules. The substance effectively prevented the microglia and astrocytes from entering a highly reactive, damaging state.
The remaining eleven studies in the review focused on animal models of depression. To mimic the biological mechanisms of depression, researchers in several of these studies injected the mice or rats with lipopolysaccharide. This molecule is a structural component of bacterial cell walls, and injecting it tricks the animal’s immune system into launching a massive, body-wide inflammatory response.
Other depression models utilized chronic unpredictable mild stress or long-term sleep deprivation. To assess whether the animals had entered a depressive-like state, researchers used tests that measure motivation and the capacity to experience pleasure. For example, they tracked whether the rodents lost interest in drinking sweetened water, a behavior that mirrors the loss of pleasure seen in human depression.
Across the different models, caffeine administration protected the rodents from developing these depressive-like behaviors. The animals maintained their motivation in physical tests and continued to seek out rewards like sugar water. In some of the studies, caffeine performed just as well as standard antidepressant medications like imipramine.
When examining the biological data from these depression models, the reviewers found a similar pattern to the anxiety studies. Caffeine reversed the chemical changes induced by the bacterial components or the chronic stress. The treated rodents displayed higher levels of protective antioxidant enzymes and fewer inflammatory markers in regions of the brain associated with memory and emotion.
A few of the evaluated studies also tested substances closely related to caffeine, such as caffeic acid and green tea extract. These compounds provided similar mood-boosting and anti-inflammatory benefits. Some research even suggested that standard caffeinated coffee and decaffeinated coffee both lowered inflammation, though the behavioral benefits were sometimes tied strictly to the caffeine.
While the review points to a robust anti-inflammatory effect, translating these findings to humans requires caution. Animal models can replicate specific neurochemical mechanisms, but they cannot capture the subjective, conscious experience of human anxiety or depression. The behavioral tests only act as proxies for actual mood disorders.
Almost all the studies in this review used adult male rodents. This uniformity makes the data easier to pool and compare, but it leaves a major gap in the scientific literature. It remains unknown if caffeine produces the exact same neuroinflammatory responses in female rodents or in animals at different developmental stages, such as adolescents or the elderly.
The amount of caffeine administered in these experiments also varied widely. Some doses were relatively low, mimicking the concentration a human might get from a standard cup of coffee. Other studies used extremely high doses that would be toxic to humans.
One study in the review actually demonstrated that a massive dose of caffeine worsened anxiety and increased brain inflammation in sleep-deprived rats. High doses of stimulants are known to trigger panic and hyperactivity in both humans and animals. Future research will need to determine the exact doses and consumption habits required to safely harness caffeine’s anti-inflammatory properties for mental health treatments.
The study, “Effects of caffeine on neuroinflammation in anxiety and depression: a systematic review of rodent studies,” was authored by Laís da Silva Neves, Giovanna Várzea Roberti Monteiro de Mattos, Yasmin Oliveira-Nazareth, Rosane Souza da Silva, and Paula Campello-Costa.
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DATE: August 21, 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: Oxytocin has opposite effects on men’s generosity depending on a their childhood experiences
Childhood experiences can leave a lasting imprint on a person’s willingness to help strangers, but a naturally occurring hormone called oxytocin might have the power to temporarily shift these tendencies. A recent study published in Translational Psychiatry suggests that a dose of oxytocin can increase altruistic donations in adults who experienced higher levels of childhood adversity, producing the opposite effect in those with fewer adverse early experiences. The findings provide evidence that early life events shape how the brain responds to social chemicals later in life.
Altruistic behavior involves choosing to help others even when it comes at a personal cost. Past research indicates that experiencing adversity during childhood, such as emotional neglect or physical abuse, is linked to lasting reductions in this type of generous behavior.
Seeking to uncover the biological factors behind this trend, scientists designed a new experiment. The research team was led by Nina Marsh, a researcher in the Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy at the Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg in Germany, and Vanessa Jeske, alongside colleagues from the University of Bonn and Georgetown University.
“What fascinates me about altruism is that helping another person—particularly a stranger at a personal cost—is anything but self-evident,” Marsh said. “Yet we see it across societies and throughout human history. Understanding what enables people to transcend immediate self-interest is therefore not only a question about social behavior, but also about something fundamental to human coexistence. It is precisely this complexity that makes the study of human altruistic behavior so fascinating to me.”
People who encounter severe early stressors often develop a heightened sensitivity to social threats, which can make it more difficult for them to form trusting bonds or engage in acts of generosity as adults.
“One question that has fascinated me is how our earliest life experiences shape our willingness to help others later in life,” Marsh noted. “Adverse childhood experiences are remarkably complex and can affect people in very different ways. While their links to mental health have been studied extensively, much less is known about how they relate to prosocial behavior in adulthood.”
To understand if this decline in prosocial behavior can be temporarily altered, the researchers looked to oxytocin. Oxytocin is a hormone produced in the brain that plays a role in regulating social behaviors like empathy, bonding, and trust. “We therefore wanted to explore whether childhood adversity might shape how people respond to oxytocin during altruistic decision-making—and what happens in the brain during those decisions,” Marsh said.
The scientists recruited 54 healthy young men, with an average age of about 25, for a placebo-controlled experiment. Participants were screened to ensure they had no current or past psychiatric illnesses. The research team also measured and controlled for several baseline factors, including anxiety, depressive symptoms, autistic traits, empathy, personal income, and how often the participants had donated money in the past year.
Participants were randomly assigned to receive either a nasal spray containing oxytocin or a placebo spray with no active ingredients. Neither the participants nor the scientists running the experiment knew who received which spray. About 40 minutes after taking the nasal spray, participants completed a monetary donation task while lying inside a high-resolution brain scanner known as an MRI. This specific timing was chosen to capture the peak behavioral and neural effects of the nasal spray.
During the brain scan, participants were given an initial endowment of 60 Euros. They viewed 60 short profiles on a screen, with 40 profiles describing a stranger in a state of need and 20 describing individuals with no specific need. For each scenario, participants had up to 15 seconds to choose to donate anywhere from zero to one Euro in 10-cent increments. They were informed that any money they chose to give would be deducted from their final payout.
In the placebo group, the scientists found that early life experiences predicted donation amounts. Participants who reported higher levels of childhood adversity donated an average of just 8.22 Euros in total. Participants with lower levels of childhood adversity donated more than twice that amount, averaging 20.01 Euros.
The oxytocin spray produced contrasting effects depending on a person’s background. For those with a history of higher childhood adversity, oxytocin nearly doubled their altruistic behavior, raising their average total donation from 8.22 Euros to 15.68 Euros. For participants who experienced lower childhood adversity, oxytocin had the opposite effect. In this low-adversity group, the hormone cut their average donations by 53 percent, dropping their total from 20.01 Euros down to 9.46 Euros.
This bidirectional result suggests that the hormone does not act as a simple switch that uniformly turns on generosity. “Our findings once again challenge the popular idea to refer to oxytocin as a simple ‘love hormone,'” Marsh told PsyPost.
“Oxytocin does not uniformly promote prosocial behavior—its effects are much more complex. We know that individual characteristics as well as environmental and biographical factors can influence both the direction and magnitude of oxytocin’s behavioral effects. Our study suggests that early life experiences are another important part of this picture.”
Rather than acting as a universal booster for giving, oxytocin appears to tune a person’s sensitivity to social cues based on their existing baseline. “Perhaps the most important takeaway is that early life experiences do not determine who we become,” Marsh said. “But they may shape how we respond to social and neurobiological signals later in life.”
For those whose social sensitivity was lowered by early adversity, oxytocin might boost their attention to others’ needs into an optimal range for helping. For those who already have high social sensitivity, extra oxytocin might make them overly sensitive or hesitant, reducing their willingness to give. “In our study, oxytocin did not simply make people ‘more altruistic,'” Marsh noted. “Its effects differed depending on participants’ childhood experiences, highlighting how biology and individual life history can interact in shaping social behavior.”
Brain scans helped explain these behavioral shifts by tracking functional connectivity, which is a measure of how well different brain areas communicate with one another in real time. The scientists focused on the connection between the medial prefrontal cortex and the middle cingulate cortex. The medial prefrontal cortex is a brain area involved in taking another person’s perspective and regulating emotions. The middle cingulate cortex is a region that helps detect socially relevant information and guides adaptive responses.
In the placebo group, higher childhood adversity was associated with stronger communication between these two brain regions, and this heightened neural connectivity corresponded with lower donation amounts. When given oxytocin, this communication pattern reversed. The hormone reduced the connectivity between these regions in the high-adversity group, which aligned with their increased willingness to donate money to strangers.
The researchers combined the behavioral data and the brain connectivity data into a single predictive mathematical model. This combined model explained almost 47 percent of the variation in how much money people chose to donate. This finding indicates that altruistic behavior is not just a psychological trait but is deeply rooted in the architecture and communication patterns of the brain.
Relying on self-reported questionnaires to measure childhood adversity means that memories of early experiences might be incomplete or influenced by a person’s current mood. “Childhood adversity is highly complex and heterogeneous: different types, timing, duration, and severity of adverse experiences may have very different effects, which cannot be fully captured by a single retrospective measure,” Marsh pointed out. “Our findings therefore provide an empirical foundation that describes associations with reported childhood adversity.”
Because the study only included healthy young men, the findings do not necessarily apply to broader populations. “Also, our sample consisted exclusively of healthy men, so the findings need to be replicated in larger and more diverse samples, particularly including women,” Marsh said. “Finally, our findings should not be interpreted as evidence that oxytocin can ‘reverse’ the effects of childhood adversity or as supporting its clinical use for this purpose.”
Observing how the brain’s social networks operate under various types of stress will help clarify exactly how early life events alter social processing.
“My long-term research asks a much broader question: What are the conditions under which empathy-based altruism unfolds?” Marsh explained. “I want to better understand how biographical, environmental, and neurobiological factors interact to shape our willingness to help others. This means looking beyond individual factors in isolation and studying how our experiences and biology jointly shape empathy, trust, cooperation, and altruistic behavior.”
The study, “Early life adversity shapes neural and behavioural responses to oxytocin during altruistic decision-making,” was authored by Nina Marsh, Vanessa Jeske, Mari Babasiz, Angela Herscheid, Ann-Kathrin Kreuder, Rüdiger Stirnberg, Tony Stoecker, Abigail A. Marsh, Johannes Schultz, and René Hurlemann.
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DATE: August 21, 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: How physical stress symptoms shape the emotional content of women’s dreams
URL: https://www.psypost.org/how-physical-stress-symptoms-shape-the-emotional-content-of-women-s-dreams/
Women who experience physical symptoms like headaches or muscle pain without an obvious medical cause often report experiencing more negative and intense dreams. A recent survey of adult women explored how these physical sensations, alongside general bodily awareness, relate to the emotional content of their nighttime experiences. The results, published in Dreaming, reveal a distinct link between daytime physical discomfort and negative dream themes.
The human brain processes emotional and physical stress in varied ways. Sometimes, psychological distress such as anxiety or emotional exhaustion translates into physical symptoms like nausea, back aches, or dizziness. This phenomenon is known as somatization.
Somatization occurs when the body expresses emotional pain through physical language. It is often observed in individuals who find it difficult to identify or verbalize their feelings. The physical symptoms are very real to the person experiencing them, even if they originate from psychological stress rather than a physical injury.
Another aspect of how people experience their physical selves is body awareness. This concept refers to a person’s sensitivity to internal physical sensations and physiological processes. It includes recognizing changes in the body, sensing the sleep cycle, or noticing the early signs of an illness.
People with high body awareness tend to feel more in tune with their physical existence. They often excel at recognizing their own physiological reactions to external events.
Dreams provide another window into how the brain handles emotional regulation. Dreaming happens primarily during the rapid eye movement, or REM, stage of sleep. During this phase, the brain regions responsible for processing emotions become highly active, often generating vivid and emotionally charged narratives.
Caglayan Pinar Ozturk, a researcher at Suleyman Demirel University in Turkiye, wanted to understand how these elements overlap. Past research has questioned the connections between chronic pain and dream activity, but less is known about how general body awareness and non-chronic physical symptoms relate to dream content.
Ozturk designed a study to examine whether a person’s level of body awareness relates to their dream themes. The researcher also wanted to test whether physical symptoms of stress correspond to the types of dreams these individuals experience.
Ozturk recruited 213 adult women between the ages of 18 and 65 to participate in an online survey. The participants were predominantly young to middle-aged and held university degrees. To isolate the effects of everyday physical symptoms and general body awareness, the researcher excluded individuals with diagnosed psychiatric conditions, sleep disorders, and chronic diseases.
The participants completed three separate questionnaires. The first assessed their dream themes over the past six months, asking them to rate how often they experienced specific dream scenarios on a scaled grading system. The second questionnaire measured their body awareness by asking how closely they track their internal bodily sensations.
The third survey evaluated their somatization symptoms, asking participants to report any physical complaints they experienced over the past 15 days. These complaints included everyday ailments such as headaches, chest pain, numbness, and nausea.
When analyzing the responses, Ozturk found that the relationship between a person’s body awareness and their overall level of somatization was not statistically significant. Being highly tuned to internal bodily sensations did not mean a participant was more or less likely to report physical symptoms of stress.
However, the results showed a weak but positive association between body awareness and dream themes. Women who scored above average in body awareness reported more frequent dream themes, particularly negative ones.
This association might occur because people who pay close attention to their bodies also possess better memory recall for their internal experiences, including dreams. Cognitive processes that regulate attention to the body often overlap with the working memory required to encode and recall dream narratives upon waking.
The strongest pattern emerged between physical symptoms and dream content. Ozturk found a moderate, positive association between a participant’s total physical symptoms and their dream themes. As the participants reported more physical symptoms during waking hours, their dream content tended to become increasingly negative.
Headaches emerged as the most common physical complaint, followed by muscle pain and back pain. The researcher analyzed how these specific symptoms paired with particular dream themes. Nearly every physical symptom measured was associated with at least one negative dream theme.
For example, women who reported waking physical pain like headaches, chest pain, and lower back pain frequently reported dreams about being harmed by others. They also experienced dreams centered on feelings of discomfort, hidden emotions, health problems, and anxiety.
Sensations of weakness or heaviness in the body were linked to an especially wide range of emotional dream themes. Participants who felt weak or heavy during the day reported more dreams involving emotional blockages, interpersonal conflict, aggression, and defeat.
Even specific symptoms like a sensation of a lump in the throat correlated with intense nighttime narratives. Women who felt this symptom frequently dreamed about being blocked, experiencing discomfort, and harboring hidden emotions. These patterns suggest that physical discomfort might share a psychological foundation with the emotionally charged narratives the brain constructs during sleep.
The study relied on a cross-sectional design, meaning the data was collected at a single point in time. This approach makes it impossible to determine whether physical symptoms cause negative dreams, or if negative dreams cause subsequent physical symptoms. Both experiences might simply arise from a shared underlying source of psychological stress.
The questionnaires also covered different timeframes, which complicates the interpretation of the results. Participants reported their dream themes over a six-month period, but they only reported their physical symptoms over the past 15 days. Because of this short window, the physical complaints cannot be classified as chronic pain.
The dream assessment tool used in the survey contained mostly negative dream themes. This imbalance likely influenced the finding that higher body awareness corresponds with more negative dreams. A more balanced assessment tool might reveal different patterns for neutral or joyful dream content.
Future research could provide a broader view by assessing positive dream content, dream clarity, and the exact frequency of dream recall. Investigating these variables over a longer timeframe could clarify how daily physical sensations shape nighttime brain activity. Researchers could also explore how these relationships play out in populations with diagnosed chronic pain conditions to see if the emotional themes of their dreams mirror their physical experiences in similar ways.
The study, “An Examination of the Relationship Between Body Awareness, Dream Themes, and Somatization in Adult Women,” was authored by Caglayan Pinar Ozturk.
URL: https://www.psypost.org/how-physical-stress-symptoms-shape-the-emotional-content-of-women-s-dreams/
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DATE: August 21, 2026 at 10:00AM
SOURCE: PSYCHIATRIC TIMESDirect article link at end of text block below.
Much of psychiatry's caseload involves co-managing chronic pain.
In our latest "Psyched Perspectives" podcast episode, learn more about integrative chronic pain care. https://t.co/FlJNi0hfI5 https://t.co/qlb2iFzZZg
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DATE: August 21, 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: New study shed light on how estradiol influences memory networks in middle-aged women
New research published in Brain Imaging and Behavior suggests that estradiol, a primary form of estrogen, influences how different areas of the brain communicate during memory tasks in middle-aged women. The findings provide evidence that higher levels of this hormone tend to allow for more efficient brain connectivity when recalling information. This research offers insights into how hormonal shifts might shape cognitive changes during the transition to menopause.
Midlife in women involves a major hormonal transition known as perimenopause, which leads up to menopause. During this period, the body experiences dropping levels of estradiol, which is the most potent and abundant form of estrogen in the human body before menopause. Because estradiol interacts directly with the nervous system, this decrease often coincides with temporary changes in mood, behavior, and memory functioning.
Scientists aim to understand why some individuals experience persistent memory difficulties as they age, whereas others maintain their cognitive performance. “Menopause is an important neuroendocrine transition and with decades of life left to live after the transition it is important to understand how the brain adapts during this time,” said Abigail Testo, a postdoctoral associate in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Vermont’s Larner College of Medicine.
Testo co-authored the study with Julie Dumas, a professor and vice chair in the same department. “We hoped with this research to add to the growing body of work being done to better understand how menopause contributes to normal or pathological aging,” Testo said.
A specific area of interest is episodic memory. This type of memory is the brain’s ability to recall specific past events or experiences, such as remembering a person’s name or recalling what happened yesterday.
To explore these individual differences, Testo and Dumas examined how estradiol levels relate to functional connectivity in the brain. Functional connectivity refers to the way distinct brain regions share signals and work together to perform specific tasks. Previous work indicates that estradiol plays a role in regulating these brain networks, but its exact influence during different stages of memory processing remains largely unexplored. The researchers aimed to see how estradiol levels affect the flow of information between brain regions when women encode new memories and when they recall them.
The researchers analyzed data from the Human Connectome Project Aging, a large database designed to track healthy brain aging. They looked specifically at 150 female participants between the ages of 40 and 55. This specific age range allowed the scientists to capture a wide spectrum of estradiol levels, as the group included women who were premenopausal, perimenopausal, and postmenopausal.
To measure hormone levels, medical technicians collected blood samples from the participants after an eight-hour fast. The average estradiol level among the participants was about 83 picograms per milliliter. On the same day, the women underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI. This imaging technique uses powerful magnetic fields to track blood flow in the brain, identifying which specific areas are active during different mental tasks.
During the brain scan, participants completed an episodic memory test called the Face-Name Encoding Task. In the first phase, called encoding, the women viewed faces paired with names and were asked to memorize them. After a brief distractor task, the recall phase began. During this stage, the same faces appeared without names, and the participants had to silently recall the correct names and press a button if they remembered them.
Following the scanning session, researchers tested the participants’ actual memory performance. They asked the women to match the correct names to ten of the faces they had just seen. Overall, the women performed quite well on this cognitive assessment. They correctly identified an average of about 7.5 out of 10 face-name pairs.
To analyze the brain imaging data, Testo and Dumas looked at the functional connections among 132 different regions of the brain. They also controlled for the age of the participants to ensure that chronological aging did not skew the hormonal data. They found five specific brain connections that were associated with estradiol levels during the recall phase of the memory task.
Specifically, higher levels of estradiol were linked to negative functional associations, meaning a decrease in synchronized activity, between certain brain areas. These decreased connections occurred between the left superior frontal gyrus and the brain stem, as well as between the right anterior middle temporal gyrus and the right posterior superior temporal gyrus. The frontal and temporal regions of the brain are well known for supporting human memory functions.
The authors suggest that the lower connectivity seen at higher estradiol levels might represent increased neural efficiency. In other words, with plenty of estradiol available, the brain might not need to work as hard or recruit as many strong connections to successfully recall the required information.
Despite the overall association between estradiol and brain connectivity, the researchers noted an unexpected detail regarding the specific menopausal stages. “We were surprised to find that these brain associations with estradiol levels were not found for women who were perimenopausal,” Testo said. “The reason this was a surprise is because perimenopause is a time with a lot of hormone variability and we thought that variability would lead to greater associations with brain functioning.”
Interestingly, the scientists found no statistically significant relationship between estradiol levels and brain connectivity during the initial encoding phase. This suggests that the hormone’s role differs depending on whether a person is actively learning new information or trying to access a stored memory. The researchers also found no statistically significant correlation between a participant’s estradiol levels and how well they actually scored on the memory test outside the scanner.
It is easy to misinterpret these brain connectivity differences as a direct indicator of everyday memory loss. Because the participants in this sample scored very high on the memory test, the data cannot establish if these specific brain connectivity patterns translate to noticeable memory deficits.
“While estradiol was associated with differences in functional association strengths, it was not similarly associated with differences in memory performance,” Testo explained. “For this reason, we can’t say if the identified functional associations are inherently good or bad for brain functioning.”
Still, the findings point to a lasting biological relationship. “Estradiol likely plays a role in brain functioning throughout the aging process, even after the reproductive period has ended,” Testo noted.
The study relies on a cross-sectional design, meaning it captures a single snapshot in time rather than tracking the same women over several years. This prevents drawing causal conclusions about an individual’s dropping estrogen levels directly causing the observed brain changes. People naturally have individual differences in their brain networks. Observing the exact same participants as they transition through menopause would provide stronger evidence of how hormonal changes alter brain function over time.
The scientists plan to address this gap in the future. “Future HCP-A releases (the dataset utilized in this study) will include longitudinal data,” Testo said. “It would be interesting to revisit this investigation as participants age and estradiol levels continue to fluctuate and decline.”
Future studies may also benefit from observing how other hormones that fluctuate during midlife interact with these brain networks. Hormones like progesterone also drop off after menopause, and observing their interaction with estradiol could offer a better biological picture.
Some participants in the current study used hormonal medications, which could influence brain connectivity differently than naturally produced hormones. Exploring the distinct effects of prescribed hormones versus natural hormones could offer a more detailed picture of cognitive aging in women.
The study, “Estradiol modulated brain connectivity in females during midlife performing an episodic memory task,” was authored by Abigail A. Testo and Julie A. Dumas.
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DATE: August 20, 2026 at 06:59PM
SOURCE: SCIENCE DAILY MIND-BRAIN FEEDTITLE: Ozempic does something unexpected to the brain’s hunger neurons
URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/08/260820002436.htm
Ozempic may work in the brain in almost the opposite way scientists expected, activating hunger-linked neurons that appear essential for sustaining fat loss. The surprising discovery in mice could reveal new targets for developing even more effective obesity drugs.
URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/08/260820002436.htm
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DATE: August 21, 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: What psychological science actually says about pornography and addiction
URL: https://www.psypost.org/what-psychological-science-actually-says-about-pornography-and-addiction/
Porn is a topic we tend to avoid talking about – whether it be at school, work or around the dinner table.
But in Australia, roughly three-quarters of men (76%) and more than one-third of women (41%) report to have looked at pornographic material in the past year.
And among Australians aged 15-20, more than half (54%) of young men and one in seven (14%) young women report accessing porn weekly.
You may have heard the term “porn addiction” used to describe the excessive consumption of porn, in ways that disrupt a person’s life or the lives of those around them.
But is porn actually addictive? Current research suggests the answer is rather complicated.
The debate about porn
For many people, watching porn is a fairly typical behaviour. Others, however, consider it to be problematic.
A 2025 inquiry examined the effects of porn on people’s mental, emotional and physical health. It concluded porn is not inherently harmful. It may, however, impact people differently depending on what it depicts, who consumes it and how it is consumed.
Excessive porn use may become a problem if it affects how a person functions in daily life. To describe this, researchers and clinicians use the term problematic porn use. This refers to the inability to control one’s porn consumption despite repeated attempts to do so, and experiencing negative consequences as a result.
A global survey found 3%–15% of people potentially experience problematic porn use. And these difficulties are generally more common among men.
What causes it?
Problematic porn use is a complex issue and is influenced by various factors. These include pre-existing neurodevelopmental and mental health conditions, such as ADHD or depression. Certain personality traits such as impulsivity, low self-control and novelty seeking may also contribute.
Social and cultural factors such as low relationship satisfaction, social isolation and religious influences are also relevant. And people who feel lonely or lack emotional support are more at risk of developing this issue.
For many people with problematic porn use, consuming porn can become a vicious cycle that draws attention away from their relationships and daily responsibilities. For example, a person’s excessive porn use could see them lose their job due to poor performance. They may also become isolated from friends and family. These consequences often worsen their mental health and daily functioning, making it even harder to control their porn consumption.
People can experience problematic porn use in different ways. Researchers have suggested several key presentations including:
• compulsivity, defined as a strong, hard-to-resist urge for porn, particularly to relieve built-up tension or anxiety
•• impulsivity, which leads to speedy, spontaneous engagements with porn without considering consequences, for instance using porn on a work computer
•• emotional dysregulation, when a person turns to porn to manage difficult emotions such as stress, boredom or loneliness
•• addiction-like experiences, such as having intense cravings and/or needing more extreme content to feel satisfied.
•Is porn actually addictive?
Problematic porn use is currently considered a type of compulsive sexual behaviour disorder. Such disorders are characterised by an inability to control intense, repetitive sexual impulses for at least six months, to the point of neglecting daily responsibilities.
At this stage, problematic porn use is not formally recognised as an addiction. It is not included as an addiction in the WHO’s International Classification of Diseases or the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic Statistical Manual of Mental Illnesses, two international systems used to define and diagnose medical conditions.
Importantly, research on this topic has grown dramatically since these manuals came out. Evidence, including a recent international review, suggests problematic porn use can in some cases function like an addiction.
There are mounting calls to classify problematic porn use as a behavioural addiction, which would put it in the same category as other addictive online behaviours, such as gambling and gaming disorders. These behaviours light up similar areas of the brain’s reward system. However, activities such as drinking water trigger a similar response, so it’s important to consider this research in context.
The recent landmark social media addiction trial in the United States ruled that tech giants Meta and Google had engineered their platforms to be intentionally addictive. Similar design components are also used on many popular tube-sites – free platforms where porn videos are uploaded and watched. Modern internet porn offers unlimited access to sexual novelty by allowing people to “tab-switch” and continually seek new content during so-called “binges”. Research shows both behaviours may be risk factors for problematic porn use.
However, there is reason to be cautious about describing problematic porn use as an addiction. Research consistently shows many people self-identify as being addicted to porn, even if their use is infrequent and generally under control. This is due to moral incongruence, which is when a person holds strong moral or religious beliefs against pornography, but continues to use it. This can cause significant distress or a strong sense of feeling addicted, even with controlled use, and has been linked to several underlying mental health conditions.
What you can do
If you or a loved one feels like your porn use is problematic, here are some practical steps you can take.
• unpack what’s driving this behaviour to ensure you get the right treatment. For example, is it a genuine loss of control, moral conflicts about porn use and/or underlying conditions such as depression?
•• contact a qualified professional who specialises in problematic porn use. Psychologists can assess whether your consumption is more compulsive, impulsive or addiction-like. They can suggest evidence-based treatments, such as cognitive behavioural therapy. Sexologists and sex therapists can also help you understand how you engage with porn and develop healthier behaviours
•• be aware there is a significant amount of misinformation in this space, including from unqualified therapists and coaches who do not use evidence-based approaches
•• broach any conversation about porn use with respect and care, as this topic can carry strong feelings of shame, fear or guilt.
•For urgent support, you can call Lifeline on 13 11 14 or Beyond Blue on 1300 224 636.
Correction: this article originally stated the number of young women accessing porn weekly was one-fifth. This has been corrected to state one in seven.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
URL: https://www.psypost.org/what-psychological-science-actually-says-about-pornography-and-addiction/
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DATE: August 21, 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: A father’s absence is linked to early puberty, but only if it happens during a crucial developmental window
Children who grow up without a father in the home during their first year of life may experience physical signs of puberty earlier than their peers. A recent study published in the Biology of Sex Differences suggests that the timing of a father’s absence is linked to the onset of specific developmental milestones in both girls and boys. These findings offer new insights into how early family environments might shape biological development over time.
The transition from childhood to adulthood is a complex biological and social process. Across various countries, data indicates that children are beginning puberty at younger ages than in previous generations. Entering puberty earlier than same-aged peers is associated with a greater risk for depression, risk-taking behaviors, and long-term health issues like heart disease.
Biological factors such as body mass index and genetics account for a large portion of this variation, but they do not completely explain why some individuals develop earlier than others. Social and family experiences also appear to play a role in physical maturation. Evolutionary models, such as Life History Theory, propose that early life stressors act as environmental cues. This theory suggests that unstable family environments might prompt the body to accelerate reproductive development as an adaptation to perceived adversity.
One prominent feature of the childhood environment is the presence or absence of a father in the home. Previous research has identified father absence as a reliable predictor of earlier puberty in girls. Much of this past research relied on retrospective self-reports of a single, late-stage pubertal milestone, such as a girl’s first menstrual period. Studies rarely tracked how a father’s presence fluctuated over a child’s life, and they often excluded boys entirely.
Taylor M. Drazan, a clinical science graduate student at Indiana University Bloomington, and Natasha Chaku, an assistant professor in the developmental area at Indiana University Bloomington, designed a study to address these gaps.
“Puberty is beginning earlier across cultures and generations,” Chaku said. “Father absence is one of the most consistent psychosocial predictors of earlier pubertal timing, but most previous research has treated father absence as a binary construct which does not fully capture the real experiences of families in the U.S.”
Chaku noted that the team wanted to explore the varying conditions of home life. “We were interested in whether the timing, stability, and consistency of father absence across childhood might matter for development,” Chaku said. “We also wanted to include boys, who have historically received much less attention in research on family environments and pubertal timing.”
The researchers analyzed data from the Future of Families and Child Wellbeing Study. This long-term project tracked 4,898 children, including 2,341 girls, from 20 cities across the United States. Mothers reported on the father’s presence in the household at the time of the child’s birth, and again when the child was one, three, five, and nine years old.
Based on these reports, the scientists identified four distinct patterns of father absence. About 38.9 percent of fathers were consistently present throughout the first nine years, and 39.3 percent were consistently absent. Another 15.6 percent were present early in the child’s life but absent later. Finally, 6.2 percent were absent early in the child’s life but returned to the household later in childhood.
To assess pubertal timing, the researchers looked at several distinct physical milestones at age nine. For girls, they tracked thelarche, which is the onset of breast development. For boys, they tracked the initiation of facial hair growth. In both sexes, they also measured the growth of pubic and underarm hair.
The scientists adjusted their statistical models to account for several outside variables. These included whether the child was raised by non-biological parents, how often the mother was present, and whether the mother lived with a new partner. They also accounted for the mother’s age at birth and the child’s race or ethnicity.
For girls, the analysis found a link between early father absence and breast development at age nine. Specifically, 66.2 percent of girls with consistently absent fathers had started breast development, compared to a base rate of 52.5 percent among girls with consistently present fathers. Girls whose fathers were absent early on but returned later showed a similar absolute rate of 66.5 percent. Girls whose fathers left later in childhood showed an absolute rate of 55.3 percent.
A similar pattern emerged for boys regarding facial hair growth. Among boys with consistently absent fathers, 4.1 percent exhibited facial hair growth at age nine, compared to just 0.1 percent of boys with consistently present fathers. Boys whose fathers were absent early but returned later showed an absolute rate of 5.2 percent. For boys whose fathers were present early but left later, the rate was 3.9 percent.
“One of the most interesting findings was how similar the results were for girls and boys,” Chaku told PsyPost. “Previous research has been much more consistent in girls, in part because puberty is harder to measure in boys, so finding associations with boys’ pubertal milestones suggested that boys may be more sensitive to family context than the existing literature would imply.”
“The main takeaway is that the timing of father absence seems to matter,” Chaku added. “Children whose fathers were consistently absent, as well as children whose fathers were absent early in life but later returned to the household, were more likely to show signs of pubertal development by age 9, highlighting the importance of early life father absence on child outcomes. Importantly, we saw similar patterns in girls and boys, suggesting that boys’ pubertal development may also be sensitive to early family environments.”
Despite these patterns in breast and facial hair development, the researchers found no statistically significant differences between the groups regarding pubic and underarm hair growth. The researchers noted that pubic and underarm hair growth is driven by a separate hormonal process in the adrenal glands. This process might respond differently to environmental factors than the hormones driving breast and facial hair development.
The study also asked children and parents to compare their physical development to their peers. At age nine, parents’ ratings of their children’s relative development showed no statistically significant differences based on father absence. By age 15, the self-reported data indicated some minor variations.
Girls whose fathers left the household later in life tended to report maturing earlier than girls whose fathers were absent early but returned. Boys whose fathers were absent early but returned tended to report maturing earlier than boys with consistently present fathers. The researchers interpreted these peer comparison results with caution, noting that social comparisons might become less reliable near the end of puberty.
Finally, the researchers tested whether material hardship, a father’s depressive symptoms, or a child’s body mass index at age five might explain the link between father absence and early puberty. None of these proposed variables statistically explained the connection. This suggests that other unmeasured elements of the family environment might be associated with the observed biological changes.
“We were also surprised that material hardship, fathers’ depression, and children’s BMI did not explain the associations between father absence and pubertal onset,” Chaku said. “These are all plausible pathways linking family environments to biological development, but none significantly mediated the relationship in our study, which tells us that we still have a lot to learn about the mechanisms involved in these associations.”
Observational studies of this nature cannot determine that father absence directly causes earlier puberty. Families experiencing father absence often face a variety of overlapping social and economic stressors, making it difficult to isolate specific biological triggers. Unmeasured factors such as genetic predispositions or the quality of the parent-child relationship may also influence a child’s physical development.
“At the same time, I would not interpret these findings to mean that father absence causes early puberty,” Chaku said. “The effects were relatively small, they were not observed for every measure of puberty, and family structure is associated with many other early life experiences that could explain these results.”
Chaku further noted the need to temper conclusions. “The associations were also small and differed depending on which pubertal milestone we examined,” Chaku said. “In addition, this was an observational study, so other factors—such as genetics, prenatal experiences, family stress, or other environmental influences—could contribute to both father absence and pubertal development. Thus, we shouldn’t make causal interpretations of these results.”
The data relied on a mother’s report of a father’s residence in the household. Living outside the home does not necessarily mean a father is entirely absent from a child’s life.
“Our measure captured whether the biological father lived in the household, not the quality of the father-child relationship or how involved a nonresident father remained in the child’s life,” Chaku said. “Fathers can live outside the household and still be a very positive and important presence in their child’s life.”
The study sample consisted largely of urban, socioeconomically disadvantaged families within the United States. These specific environmental pressures might differ from those found in rural areas, wealthier demographics, or countries with different social welfare systems.
To better understand these patterns, researchers plan to study neuroendocrine systems, which are the biological networks that allow the brain to communicate with the body’s hormones. “A major next step is understanding why and how early life experiences become biologically embedded,” Chaku said. “The first year of life is a particularly interesting period to explore because several important neuroendocrine systems are developing, including the systems involved in reproductive maturation and the stress response.”
“We also want to move beyond simple measures of father absence or presence to better characterize father-child contact, parenting quality, family conflict, and instability,” Chaku added. “Those factors may help explain why early family environments are associated with individual differences in pubertal onset.”
“This study is not intended to suggest that any one family structure determines how a child will grow and develop,” Chaku said. “Families are extraordinarily diverse and intricate; their living arrangements do not tell us about the quality of relationships within them, when they are most impactful, or how they change over time. Instead, our findings suggest that developmental science may benefit from paying more attention to the timing and changing nature of children’s early environments rather than treating them as static experiences.”
The study, “Timing matters: a prospective investigation of father absence and pubertal timing in girls and boys,” was authored by Taylor M. Drazan and Natasha Chaku.
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DATE: August 21, 2026 at 06:00AM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: Brain scans reveal biological divides based on subtle political differences
URL: https://www.psypost.org/brain-activity-synchronizes-among-people-with-similar-political-views/
People with even slightly different political views process information using different patterns of brain activity. A recent brain imaging experiment reveals that listening to political statements about immigration prompts synchronized neural responses among individuals who share similar attitudes. These findings, published in iScience, suggest that the biological roots of political division extend to subtle ideological disagreements.
In recent years, researchers have documented a biological phenomenon called neural polarization. This occurs when the brain activity of individuals holding similar political beliefs synchronizes while they consume political content. At the same time, their brain activity diverges from people who hold opposing views. Past studies typically focused on stark divides in the United States or Israel, comparing staunch conservatives to strong liberals.
These previous experiments often found that political attitudes influence how the brain processes information. Some research pointed to polarization in higher-order brain regions responsible for complex thought. Other studies found that political leanings alter activity in lower-order areas responsible for basic sensory perception.
A team of researchers wanted to know if this biological divide happens even among people whose political views are only slightly different. The research was led by neuroscientists Niloufar Zebarjadi and Annika Kluge at Aalto University in Finland, along with Jonathan Levy at Bar-Ilan University in Israel. They designed an experiment focusing on attitudes toward immigration in Finland.
Finland has a multiparty political system with relatively low levels of societal polarization compared to other Western nations. Because the country is not strictly divided into a two-party system, it provides an ideal setting to study subtle ideological differences. The researchers wanted to see if identical information is interpreted differently depending on minor variations in a person’s worldview.
The researchers recorded fMRI data from 48 participants, of whom 40 remained after exclusions and were included in the final analysis. Functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI, tracks blood flow in the brain to measure neural activity in real time. While inside the scanner, the participants listened to 44 audio statements about immigration to Finland.
Half of these statements supported immigration, and the other half opposed it. The audio clips were specifically balanced to ensure they were similar in length and grammatical structure. Some statements focused on immigration in general, while others specifically mentioned Muslim immigrants.
After hearing each statement, participants rated how much they agreed with the message on a five-point scale. The researchers used these ratings to calculate an overall immigration attitude score for each person. After the scanning session, participants also filled out several questionnaires measuring their political inclination, empathy, and attitudes toward multiculturalism.
The participants’ immigration attitude scores strongly correlated with their survey answers. Those who scored lower on immigration support also reported higher levels of perceived threat and discriminatory attitudes. The researchers divided the participants into two groups of 20 based on a median split of their immigration attitude scores. Both groups were generally supportive of immigration, but one group was highly supportive while the other was slightly less supportive.
To find evidence of neural polarization, the researchers used a technique called inter-subject correlation. This method looks at how the activity in tiny sections of the brain rises and falls over time. The researchers compared the brain activity time courses among people in the same group and compared them against people in the opposing group.
If the brain waves in a specific area synced up closely among people in the same group, but did not sync up with the other group, that area was marked as polarized. When analyzing all the audio statements together, the researchers found that brain activity was more similar among people in the same group than it was between the two groups. This divergence appeared in two specific brain areas: the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and the left premotor cortex.
The dorsolateral prefrontal cortex is a region associated with complex cognitive tasks like reasoning, memory, and decision making. The premotor cortex is traditionally involved in planning physical movements. Finding differences in both areas indicates that political attitudes filter information through high-level thinking centers as well as lower-level regions tied to physical action.
Next, the researchers analyzed the data to see if the type of political narrative changed the brain’s response. They separated the brain scans recorded during the pro-immigration audio from the scans recorded during the anti-immigration audio. They repeated their inter-subject correlation analysis for each set of data.
When participants listened to pro-immigration statements, the researchers observed a similar pattern of neural polarization. The brain activity diverged between the highly supportive and less supportive groups in the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and the right premotor cortex. The results closely mirrored the findings from the overall analysis.
When participants listened to anti-immigration statements, the brain mapping looked different. Neural polarization still appeared in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, though in the right hemisphere instead of the left. The researchers also found polarized activity in the primary somatosensory cortex, which processes physical sensations like touch.
Another area that showed polarization during anti-immigration audio was the superior temporal gyrus. This part of the brain is involved in processing sounds and understanding language. By comparing the overall level of synchronization, the researchers noticed another pattern during the anti-immigration narratives.
The group that was less supportive of immigration showed a stronger degree of neural polarization than the highly supportive group. The brain responses were distinctly sensitive to the political leaning of the audio content. The researchers noted that focusing on specific polarizing topics, such as immigration, can alter how different ideological groups biologically process political speech.
There are several limitations to consider when interpreting these results. The study group consisted mostly of individuals who favored immigration, and a majority identified as politically left-leaning. Because the participants were mostly uniform in their overall support for immigration, the findings might look different in a highly divided population with extreme opposing views.
The study relied on an observational design, meaning it cannot prove that a person’s political beliefs caused their brain activity to change. It is possible that underlying biological differences influence a person’s political attitudes. The self-reported nature of the surveys also means that some participants might not have revealed their true attitudes due to social pressures.
The participant pool was relatively small, heavily female, and drawn from a single industrialized, democratic country. The researchers also pointed out that the findings were not statistically significant when the groups were analyzed completely separately for some of the brain regions, likely due to reduced statistical power from dividing a small sample size. Expanding the research to include larger, more diverse groups of people would help determine how universal these patterns of neural polarization might be.
Scientists are continuing to investigate how biological mechanisms relate to political beliefs. The study, “Polarized neural responses to political narratives are sensitive to small variations in self-reported political perspectives,” was authored by Niloufar Zebarjadi, Annika Kluge, Enrico Glerean, Matilde Tassinari, Iiro P. Jääskeläinen, Inga Jasinskaja-Lahti, and Jonathan Levy.
URL: https://www.psypost.org/brain-activity-synchronizes-among-people-with-similar-political-views/
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DATE: August 21, 2026 at 04:30AM
SOURCE: STAT NEWS MENTAL HEALTHTITLE: Opinion: Lil Nas X’s bipolar diagnosis and the paradox of treatment
When Lil Nas X recently disclosed that he had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, one part of his story stood out to me more than the diagnosis itself. For years, he had suspected something was wrong. Yet he resisted seeking treatment because he feared medication.
This is a paradox that exists at the intersection of mental health, identity, and achievement. The people who are most capable of recognizing that something is wrong are often the same people most reluctant to accept help. Not because they deny their suffering, but because they have come to view suffering as an inseparable part of their success.
Read the rest…
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DATE: August 20, 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: Gen Z Americans are more willing to use blockades and violence to stop public speakers
A survey of over 4,000 individuals found that Gen Z Americans tend to be more accepting of shoutdowns, blockades, and violence as methods to suppress speech than their older compatriots, regardless of whether they are asked about these tactics in the abstract or against speech they find personally offensive. Young liberals tended to be more supportive of these methods compared to conservatives when asked abstractly worded questions, but this ideological gap disappeared when the questions referred to suppressing specific, highly offensive ideas. The paper was published in PS: Political Science & Politics.
Free speech is a cornerstone of democratic society. However, people do not always agree about what should happen when speech is considered offensive or harmful. One of the personal and social characteristics that allows free speech to exist is political tolerance. Political tolerance involves allowing people to express ideas that we strongly oppose. In this way, controversial speech is an important test of a person’s commitment to the principles of political tolerance.
Recent research suggests that attitudes toward free speech in the United States may be changing, particularly among younger generations. Younger and more progressive Americans appear increasingly likely to weigh concerns about equality, inclusion, and harm against an unrestricted commitment to freedom of expression. The issue becomes especially complicated when protests themselves are intended to prevent other people from speaking. Although Americans generally support peaceful protest, support falls considerably when protesters employ disruptive, coercive, or violent tactics.
Study author Kevin Jay Wallsten explored the American public’s views on speech-suppressing, disruptive protest tactics. He noted that previous research generally examined tolerance in one of three ways: by exploring abstract support for free speech; by exploring how much people tolerate speech from groups the researchers believe are broadly unpopular, such as communists or racists (the “fixed-group” approach); and by exploring tolerance toward a “least-liked group” that the respondents previously selected from a list.
He notes that the first two approaches can overestimate tolerance because they do not measure whether respondents would actually extend civil liberties to groups they find disagreeable. Researchers using the fixed-group approach do not definitively know if their respondents actually find the groups they are asking about disagreeable, or to what extent. They only gauge the general view of the public.
To address this, Wallsten conducted a nationally representative survey of 4,188 Americans. Study participants were randomly assigned to one of two conditions. In the first condition (the “non-group” or abstract approach), participants were asked: “How acceptable [always/sometimes/rarely/never] would you say it is for people to engage in the following action to protest a public speaker?: (1) shouting down a speaker to prevent them from speaking; (2) blocking other people from attending a speech; and (3) using violence to stop a speech.”
In the second condition (the “most-offensive-idea” approach), participants were first asked to select the statement they found most offensive from a list (e.g., “All whites are racist oppressors” or “America got what it deserved on 9/11”). They were then asked whether the protest tactics described in the first condition would be acceptable when used against a speaker advocating the specific idea they just selected.
Results showed that the idea participants found to be most offensive depended heavily on their political ideology. For example, the statement “January 6th was a peaceful protest” was selected as the most offensive by almost 25% of liberals, but only 1% of conservatives. On the other hand, statements like “All whites are racist oppressors” were much more frequently selected by conservatives. Interestingly, the shares of conservatives and liberals who selected “America got what it deserved on 9/11” and “All immigrants should be arrested and deported” as the most offensive were relatively similar.
Results further showed that the three tactics the survey asked about were not equally endorsed. Participants were most accepting of shouting down a speaker and least accepting of using violence. Overall, the youngest participants (Gen Z) tended to be more accepting of all three methods of suppressing speech than older generations. Furthermore, the study found no significant difference between Gen Z respondents who attend college and those who do not, suggesting this acceptance is a generational shift rather than a result of higher education socialization.
Ideological differences also depended entirely on how the question was asked. Young liberals tended to be more supportive of these methods compared to conservatives and moderates only in the abstract condition where the speaker’s statements were not specified. However, when respondents evaluated tactics used against a speaker making a statement they personally found offensive, acceptance increased among conservatives and moderates, completely erasing the ideological gap.
“These analyses reveal important generational differences in how people think about speech-suppressing shoutdowns, blockades, and violence. Members of Gen Z consistently express more permissiveness about these tactics than older cohorts,” the study author concluded.
“Although previous research suggests that young liberals are particularly supportive of disruptive protest actions, this study demonstrates that ideological polarization is present only when survey respondents are asked abstractly worded questions. When asked to evaluate disruptive acts targeting speakers that they find personally offensive, ideological gaps between liberals and conservatives close.”
The study contributes to the scientific understanding of political tolerance in the U.S. However, it should be noted that all data came from self-reports (asking people how acceptable certain actions are to them in theory) rather than observing their behavior in real-world situations. This leaves room for self-reporting bias—where people answer how they think they should feel rather than how they would actually act—to have affected the results.
The paper, “Generational and Ideological Divides in Support for Speech-Suppressing Protest,” was authored by Kevin Jay Wallsten.
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DATE: August 20, 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: University teachers with a strong sense of purpose report higher job satisfaction
College instructors who feel a deep, personal calling to their profession tend to show higher levels of engagement in their daily tasks. This heightened dedication is heavily influenced by how committed they feel to their university and how satisfied they are with their jobs. The findings were recently published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology.
Work engagement describes a psychological state where employees feel energetic, dedicated, and entirely absorbed in their tasks. People with high engagement often experience a sense of meaning and enthusiasm, and they can focus on their work so deeply that time seems to pass quickly. Career calling refers to a deep internal drive where individuals view their work as a vital part of their identity. Instead of treating their job as a simple way to earn a paycheck, they see it as a way to fulfill a higher purpose.
Researchers Yulong Guo of Harbin Engineering University and Mengshi Zhang of Northeast Forestry University wanted to understand how this internal drive relates to daily professional enthusiasm. They focused on a specific group of educators in China known as ideological and political theory teachers. These instructors teach Marxist theory and government ideology at the university level.
Past research on what drives these particular teachers has mostly looked at external factors or how they organize their daily routines. Guo and Zhang wanted to explore the internal, psychological drivers of their work habits. They based their investigation on a framework known as self-determination theory. This theory suggests that humans have basic psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and a sense of belonging.
When people feel a strong career calling, their work fulfills these basic needs. The work feels like a personal choice rather than an external demand, giving them autonomy. The desire to succeed in their mission drives them to improve their skills, building competence.
Finally, connecting their daily tasks to a broader societal goal fosters a sense of belonging. The researchers theorized that fulfilling these needs makes teachers feel more attached to their schools.
The researchers also drew on social exchange theory, which views human behavior as a reciprocal exchange of resources. If an organization provides a supportive environment, the employee feels an obligation to return the favor. In this context, the researchers suspected that if a strong sense of calling made teachers happier with their jobs, they would reciprocate by pouring more energy into their lesson plans and student interactions.
To test these ideas, the researchers distributed an electronic survey using a snowball sampling method. They sent the questionnaire to teachers within their own professional networks and asked those individuals to forward it to other colleagues across different institutions. The survey asked respondents to rate their feelings on standardized scales measuring four different concepts.
These included their sense of career calling, their emotional attachment to their university, their overall job satisfaction, and their level of daily work engagement. The work engagement scale specifically measured a teacher’s physical vigor, emotional dedication, and mental absorption. The job satisfaction scale measured happiness with both the internal aspects of the work and external conditions like the working environment.
After one month, the researchers collected 1,428 valid responses from teachers at universities across 13 provinces and municipalities in China. The participants included a mix of age groups, educational backgrounds, and academic ranks. About 58 percent held master’s degrees, and 22 percent held doctoral degrees.
The researchers used statistical modeling software to analyze how the responses to the four different survey categories related to one another. They specifically tested whether organizational attachment and job satisfaction acted as psychological bridges between a teacher’s sense of calling and their ultimate dedication to their work. The analysis revealed that a higher sense of career calling is closely associated with higher work engagement.
Instructors who viewed their profession as a profound personal mission reported putting more energy and focus into their teaching and research. The data also showed that organizational commitment and job satisfaction both separately act as intermediate links in this relationship. When teachers felt a strong calling, they were more likely to feel deeply loyal to their university. That loyalty in turn predicted higher engagement.
Similarly, a strong calling was linked to greater overall job satisfaction. That job satisfaction also predicted higher work engagement. Beyond these separate links, the statistical models revealed a sequential chain connecting all four concepts together.
A strong sense of calling predicted higher loyalty to the university. That heightened loyalty then correlated with increased job satisfaction. Finally, that elevated job satisfaction predicted the highest levels of daily work engagement.
The researchers noted that this multi-step pathway helps explain exactly how an abstract feeling of purpose translates into concrete work habits. An educator’s mindset shapes how they view their school. This organizational view influences their daily mood, which ultimately dictates their daily effort.
The study relies on a cross-sectional design, meaning all the survey data was collected at a single point in time. Because of this, the statistical models can only show associations between the different psychological states, not a chain of cause and effect. Future research would need to track educators over several years to see if changes in a person’s sense of calling eventually lead to changes in their work habits. Other factors like teaching experience or specific school resources might also influence the results.
The data is also entirely self-reported. This can introduce bias if participants provide answers they believe make them look like better or more dedicated employees. Additionally, the snowball sampling method used to recruit participants might have gathered a group of teachers with similar professional networks. This approach limits how well the results represent all educators across the country.
The study sample was also about 75 percent female, which does not perfectly match the overall gender distribution of university instructors in this field. This imbalance might obscure differences in how male and female educators experience career calling. Future studies might use random sampling and incorporate objective measures of performance, such as student feedback or research output, to get a broader picture of educator engagement.
The study, “The influence of career calling on the work engagement of ideological and political theory teachers in colleges and universities: the chain mediating effect of organizational commitment and job satisfaction,” was authored by Yulong Guo and Mengshi Zhang.
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DATE: August 20, 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: Scientists discover an epigenetic mechanism that links childhood trauma to adult stress sensitivity
Experiencing trauma during early development suggests a lasting alteration in how brain cells package their DNA, leaving individuals more vulnerable to stress later in life. A recent study published in the journal Neuron indicates that early-life adversity increases a specific enzyme that keeps DNA loosely coiled in a key brain region, making the brain hyper-reactive to future stressors. Preventing this molecular change protected mice from developing heightened stress sensitivity in adulthood.
Childhood trauma and severe early-life stress are known risk factors for anxiety, depression, and other mood disorders in adulthood. The authors of the current study aimed to understand the physical mechanisms that allow trauma during early development to alter the brain permanently.
“Millions of children experience stress while growing up,” explained Catherine Jensen Peña, an assistant professor at the Princeton Neuroscience Institute. “We’ve known for decades that the more stress a child encounters, the greater the risk for additional stress later in life to precipitate anxiety, depression, or addiction. But we’ve known very little about the biology of that latent vulnerability. Ultimately, we hope this research can help point to new treatments to ease this stress sensitivity.”
To investigate this, the scientists focused on the ventral tegmental area, a brain region rich in dopamine-producing neurons that processes rewards and adversity. Within these dopamine cells, the scientists examined the epigenome. The epigenome consists of molecular tags that attach to DNA and determine whether specific genes are turned on or off.
Inside the nucleus, DNA is tightly wound around proteins called histones, resembling a coiled spring. When the DNA coil is compressed, the genes are hidden and turned off, but when chemical tags cause the coil to stretch and open, the genes become accessible and can be easily activated by environmental triggers.
“The effects of childhood adversity may not be immediately obvious, and sometimes manifests much later in life as exaggerated sensitivity to new stress encounters,” Peña told PsyPost. “We found one biological mechanism for this latent sensitivity at the epigenetic interface of nature and nurture.”
To observe how early-life stress alters these molecular tags, the researchers first used an analytical technique called mass spectrometry on brain tissue. They compared samples from 18 adult male mice, half of which experienced standard rearing and half of which were exposed to early-life stress. The stress condition involved separating the pups from their mothers for a few hours a day and reducing their nesting material between their tenth and seventeenth days of life.
The analysis indicated that early-life stress persistently altered the proportions of multiple histone modifications in the ventral tegmental area. Specifically, the stressed mice showed increased levels of 14 different modifications that are generally associated with a permissive, open DNA state. The researchers noted a large statistical effect size for a specific chemical tag called H3K4me1, which they then validated using protein analysis in a separate cohort of 27 male and female mice.
The scientists next sought to identify the enzyme responsible for adding this H3K4me1 tag to the histones. They analyzed RNA sequencing data from eight male mice and conducted genetic expression tests on a new cohort of 21 male and female mice, comparing standard-reared and stress-reared groups. The early-life stress condition increased the expression of Setd7, the gene that produces the enzyme responsible for placing the H3K4me1 tag, leaving the DNA structure stretched open.
To test if increasing this enzyme mimics the effects of early-life stress, the researchers used viral vectors to artificially overexpress Setd7 in the ventral tegmental area of juvenile mice. This approach acted as a form of genetic manipulation to introduce the enzyme, but it did not dictate exactly which genes the enzyme targeted.
“Increasing SETD7 was a fairly broad, non-specific tool (we didn’t have control over where the enzyme was depositing H3K4me1 around the genome) so it was a bit of a long-shot that it worked to mimic early-life stress,” Peña told PsyPost. “We don’t yet know if there is specificity in where early-life stress acts throughout the genome, or if the broad scatter-shot approach is the point.”
They compared this genetically altered group to a control group that received a neutral viral vector. Once the mice reached adulthood, they were exposed to a short social defeat stress protocol, and the researchers then sequenced the RNA from the brain tissue of 13 mice to observe gene activity.
In the control mice, the adult stressor mostly suppressed gene activity, decreasing the expression of 99 genes and increasing 39. In the mice with artificially boosted Setd7, the opposite occurred. The adult stressor increased the expression of 48 genes and decreased only three, providing evidence that the open DNA structure primed the cells for a hyper-active genetic response to stress.
The researchers also measured the electrical activity of the dopamine neurons. They artificially increased Setd7 in another group of juvenile mice, and during adulthood, these mice experienced three days of unpredictable stressors, such as tail suspension and mild foot shocks. The scientists then used microscopic electrodes to record the electrical firing of dopamine neurons in about 36 mice across the different experimental and control groups.
Increasing Setd7 did not change the baseline electrical activity of the dopamine cells in unstressed mice. Following the adult stress protocol, however, the dopamine neurons in the Setd7-boosted mice fired much more rapidly in response to stimulation and showed a higher baseline electrical current compared to the control mice. This indicates that the epigenetic changes specifically lowered the cells’ tolerance to future stress, rather than simply raising their baseline activity.
To observe how this hyper-reactivity affects behavior, the researchers tested 28 mice, split evenly by sex. Half received the Setd7 boost as juveniles, and half received a control vector. As adults, the mice underwent a social interaction test and an open field exploration test before and after experiencing social defeat stress.
The brief adult stressor did not strongly affect the behavior of the control mice. For the Setd7-boosted mice, the adult stressor reduced their social interaction time and decreased the time they spent exploring the center of an open field. This behavioral shift suggests that artificially opening the DNA structure is sufficient to make mice more susceptible to adult stress.
Finally, the researchers tested whether blocking this enzyme could prevent stress sensitivity. They used a customized viral vector to reduce Setd7 levels in the ventral tegmental area of juvenile mice that had actually experienced early-life stress. They tested the behavior of roughly 50 mice, including standard-reared and stress-reared groups with and without the genetic reduction, before and after adult stress.
Mice exposed to early-life stress typically showed reduced social interaction and more anxious behavior following adult stress. Reducing the Setd7 enzyme prevented these behavioral changes. The mice with lowered Setd7 levels remained social and exploratory after the adult stressor, mirroring the resilience of mice that never experienced early-life trauma.
The research involves certain limitations regarding the precision of the genetic tools used. The viral vector used to increase the Setd7 enzyme operated across all cell types in the targeted brain region, not just dopamine neurons. This broad application means the resulting behavioral changes could partially stem from alterations in neighboring non-dopamine cells. Future studies will need to use more advanced gene-editing techniques to target epigenetic modifications to specific cell types and precise locations on the DNA coil.
The viral vectors allowed the researchers to successfully reduce Setd7 and prevent stress sensitivity in mice, but translating this to human medical care presents immense hurdles. “We used a form of gene therapy to ameliorate the effects of early-life stress in this study, but we are far from using that safely and ethically in humans, especially in a preventative manner,” Peña explained. “Instead, we might explore whether we can harness the extra sensitivity early-life stress bestows, but in positive contexts.”
This future direction aligns with the fact that the current experiments focused only on aversive stressors. It remains unknown if this epigenetic priming mechanism might also make the brain more sensitive to positive, enriching experiences in adulthood.
The study, “Early-life stress alters H3K4me1 in VTA to prime stress sensitivity,” was authored by Hye Ji J. Kim, Luke T. Geiger, Julie-Anne Balouek, Lisa Z. Fang, Mason R. Barrett, Jeremy M. Thompson, Lorna A. Farrelly, Travis Hage, Rixing Lin, Andy S. Chen, Megan Tang, Hao Huang, Anna Buretta, Agatha Chan, Shannon N. Bennett, Benjamin A. Garcia, Ian Maze, Meaghan C. Creed, and Catherine Jensen Peña.
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DATE: August 20, 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: Brain imaging reveals why some people struggle to resist sweet foods
URL: https://www.psypost.org/how-your-brain-s-cellular-vacuums-might-drive-your-sugar-cravings/
How our brains process sugar might influence our ability to resist dessert. A recent study found that individuals who exhibit a specific change in their brain chemistry after receiving sugar tend to have a harder time controlling their intake of sweet foods. The research, published in Human Brain Mapping, suggests that an overly efficient system for removing reward-related chemicals could leave some people craving more sweets.
The global rate of obesity has increased massively over the past few decades, bringing elevated risks for cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and certain cancers. The human brain plays a central role in regulating our energy balance, deciding when we feel hungry and when we feel full. Food acts as a natural reward, and the neurotransmitter dopamine is a primary driver of this system. Dopamine is a chemical messenger that helps modulate motivation, habit formation, and the pleasurable sensations associated with eating.
When we eat highly palatable foods like sweets, dopamine is released into the microscopic gaps between our brain cells. Researchers have proposed that obesity might be linked to irregularities in this dopamine system. Some suggest that certain individuals are hypersensitive to the rewarding aspects of food, leading to excessive intake. Others propose a reward deficit model, where people who are insensitive to everyday rewards overeat to boost their dopamine to normal levels.
To study this in living humans, researchers typically use Positron Emission Tomography, or PET scans. A PET scan is an imaging test that uses harmless radioactive tracers to visualize specific cellular functions and brain chemistry. Past PET scan research often focused on dopamine receptors, which act as the docking stations on brain cells that receive the dopamine signal. The results from those studies were highly inconsistent.
Some studies showed higher receptor levels in obese individuals, while others showed lower levels or no difference at all. Because dopamine receptors are difficult to interpret on their own, a research team led by Kyoungjune Pak at Pusan National University Hospital in South Korea shifted their focus to the dopamine transporter. This transporter is a protein that acts like a cellular vacuum cleaner. After dopamine has been released and done its job, the transporter sweeps the chemical out of the space between neurons and returns it to the sending cell.
Previous research by the same team demonstrated that giving humans a dose of glucose increases the activity of these dopamine transporters. When blood sugar rises, the body releases the hormone insulin to help cells absorb the energy. Insulin also appears to signal the brain to deploy more dopamine transporters. Pak and his colleagues wanted to see if this physiological response relates to how people subjectively experience and crave sweet foods.
The researchers recruited thirty-five healthy young men for a small study. Each participant visited the hospital on three separate days, fasting overnight for at least twelve hours before each appointment. This fasting ensured that recent meals would not interfere with their baseline brain chemistry or hormone levels.
During two of these visits, the participants received an intravenous infusion while resting in the scanner. On one day, they received a dose of liquid glucose, and on the other day, they received a placebo of normal saline. The participants did not know which infusion they were receiving on which day, eliminating the influence of expectation.
Following each infusion, the participants underwent a PET scan using a specific tracer designed to bind exclusively to dopamine transporters. This allowed the researchers to measure the availability of the transporters in the striatum. The striatum is a cluster of neurons located deep in the center of the brain that is heavily involved in reward, motivation, and decision-making.
On the third visit, the participants underwent a different type of PET scan that measures overall brain glucose metabolism. This scan provided a baseline map of their normal brain cellular activity. Between all these visits, the researchers tracked the participants’ body mass index, height, and weight.
In addition to the brain scans, all participants completed a twelve-item sweet taste questionnaire. This survey measures an individual’s psychological attitude toward sweets, scoring them on their sensitivity to the mood-altering effects of sugary foods. It also measures their perceived lack of control over eating sweet items. The researchers measured the participants’ blood sugar and insulin levels before and after the infusions to track the body’s physical response.
The glucose infusions successfully raised the participants’ blood sugar and insulin levels, mimicking the biological aftermath of eating a carbohydrate-heavy meal. When analyzing the PET scans, the researchers observed that dopamine transporter availability was generally higher following the glucose infusion compared to the placebo infusion. The participants essentially had more cellular vacuums ready to sweep up dopamine.
When the team compared the brain imaging data to the questionnaire responses, a consistent pattern emerged. The participants who showed higher dopamine transporter availability after the glucose infusion also scored higher on the sweet taste questionnaire. They reported being more sensitive to the mood-altering effects of sweets and having a harder time controlling their consumption of them.
The researchers did not find this relationship when looking at the baseline placebo scans. A person’s dopamine transporter levels under normal, fasting conditions did not predict their attitude toward sweet foods. Similarly, the participants’ baseline brain glucose metabolism and their body mass index did not correlate with their questionnaire scores.
The authors suggest that this biological mechanism might explain why some people struggle to resist sugary snacks. If a spike in blood sugar prompts the brain to rapidly deploy dopamine transporters, those transporters will quickly vacuum up the available dopamine. This rapid removal would abruptly end the rewarding sensation of the treat.
As a result, the individual might feel an immediate desire to eat more sweets to bring the dopamine levels back up. Their brain essentially curtails the pleasure of the sugar, creating a cycle of craving. The faster the dopamine is removed, the faster the person wants another dessert.
The authors noted a few limitations to their research. As a cross-sectional analysis, the results highlight a correlation between brain chemistry and dietary attitudes but cannot prove a direct sequence of cause and effect. It is possible that individuals with an inherent sensitivity to sweet foods simply have different underlying biological traits. Future experiments involving repeated interventions would be needed to establish exactly how these variables influence one another.
The sample size of this small study also limits the strength of the conclusions. The statistical models showed consistent directional trends, but some of the specific regional brain data were not statistically significant after adjusting for multiple comparisons. A larger cohort of participants is required to confirm the findings.
The research exclusively enrolled male participants. Past studies have shown that men and women can exhibit entirely opposite neuroendocrine responses to food-related signals. For example, previous brain imaging research found that intravenous glucose alters dopamine receptor availability differently depending on a person’s sex.
The mechanisms observed in this experiment likely have sexually dimorphic characteristics, meaning the results cannot be automatically generalized to females. Finally, because the study focused primarily on lean individuals, the findings might not apply to populations with clinical obesity. Medical professionals will need to replicate these scans in diverse groups to fully understand how sugar influences dopamine across the general public.
The study, “The Change of Dopamine Transporter After Glucose Loading Is Associated With an Individual’s Attitude Toward Sweet Foods in Healthy Young Males,” was authored by Kyoungjune Pak, Jihyun Kim, Keunyoung Kim, Seongho Seo, and Myung Jun Lee.
URL: https://www.psypost.org/how-your-brain-s-cellular-vacuums-might-drive-your-sugar-cravings/
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DATE: August 20, 2026 at 09:41AM
SOURCE: PSYCHIATRIC TIMESDirect article link at end of text block below.
The FDA signals clear IND path for @protagenic's PT00114, a first-in-class neuropeptide aiming to reset stress responses in patients with generalized anxiety disorder. https://t.co/aEQ0C0En2e
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DATE: August 20, 2026 at 09:30AM
SOURCE: PSYCHIATRIC TIMESDirect article link at end of text block below.
Urine drug screenings are often misordered and misread, risking stigma and harm. Let's discuss when testing truly helps. https://t.co/OFzBo0tCvC
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