#counseling — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #counseling, aggregated by home.social.
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DATE: September 12, 2026 at 06:00PM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: Autistic individuals might be somewhat better at reading emotions of other autistic people
A study comparing the abilities of autistic and non-autistic individuals to recognize other people’s emotions found no overall main differences between the two groups. However, autistic individuals were more accurate at reading the emotional valence of other autistic individuals. The paper was published in Molecular Autism.
Empathy is the ability to understand another person’s thoughts and feelings. It also includes the ability to respond emotionally in a way that reflects or fits what that person is experiencing. Researchers distinguish between cognitive empathy, which involves recognizing and understanding another person’s mental state, and affective empathy, which refers to emotionally responding to another person’s feelings.
Autism has traditionally been associated with difficulties in empathy, especially in understanding other people’s emotions, intentions, and social signals. More recent work, however, has challenged the idea that such difficulties can be explained solely by deficits within autistic individuals. One influential view is the double empathy problem hypothesis. This hypothesis proposes that misunderstandings between autistic and non-autistic people are reciprocal rather than one-sided.
According to this view, autistic people find it difficult to understand non-autistic people, while non-autistic people likewise struggle to understand autistic people because the two groups tend to differ in how they experience and communicate about the world. Research has increasingly found that autistic people tend to report easier communication, stronger connection, and greater comfort when interacting with other autistic people. Likewise, non-autistic people can have more difficulty accurately interpreting the emotions and mental states of autistic individuals than those of other non-autistic people.
Study author Yonat Rum and colleagues conducted a study in which they tested the double empathy problem hypothesis. More specifically, they explored whether autistic and non-autistic individuals differ in their ability to empathize with autistic and non-autistic social targets. These authors hypothesized that non-autistic participants would better empathize with non-autistic social targets, while autistic participants would better empathize with autistic social targets. Empathizing, in this context, meant understanding another person’s feelings accurately.
Study participants were 235 individuals recruited through the Cambridge Autism Research Database (CARD) and word of mouth. 141 of them were autistic. 125 were female. 74% were from English-speaking countries, most often from the UK. Autistic participants’ average age was 48 years, while it was 51 for non-autistic participants.
Study authors prepared an empathic accuracy task that consisted of videos of 5 autistic and 5 non-autistic adults telling autobiographical stories. These individuals reported how they felt while telling the story using a slider on a scale ranging from negative to positive (affective valence). They were continuously adjusting this slider while telling the story. The slider’s position was recorded every 0.5 seconds. After completing the story, these 10 storytellers rated the degree to which they felt 12 emotions (embarrassment, anger, sadness, happiness, disgust, pride, fear, excitement, contentment, stress, calmness, and alertness) on a scale from 0 to 8.
In the course of the study, each participant watched 2 of these videos (randomly selected), one with an autistic storyteller and one with a non-autistic storyteller. They were not told the diagnosis of the storytellers. Participants provided the same ratings as the storytellers, and study authors assessed participants’ empathic accuracy by calculating how much participants’ ratings of a storyteller’s emotional state agreed with the storyteller’s own ratings. Aside from this, participants rated their own feeling of empathy and interest toward the storyteller.
Results showed that participants were somewhat accurate in determining whether a storyteller’s feelings were positive or negative. However, there were no main differences between autistic and non-autistic individuals in the overall accuracy of estimating the specific emotions of the storytellers in the videos. However, when tracking moment-to-moment emotional valence using the continuous slider, autistic individuals were significantly more accurate at tracking the emotions of autistic storytellers compared to non-autistic participants. This small-to-medium advantage suggests an own-group advantage for autistic individuals.
The two groups of participants were equally accurate when assessing non-autistic storytellers. Interestingly, non-autistic individuals rated their own empathy and interest in the storyteller as higher. Additionally, when providing free-text comments, autistic participants frequently described difficulties in identifying emotions and reflected on their own performance, whereas non-autistic participants mostly provided feedback on the task design. This led the researchers to suggest that autistic individuals may underestimate their own empathic abilities.
“Findings suggest partial support for the double empathy problem theory and potential underestimation of autistic participants of their own empathic abilities. Individual variability patterns caution against treating neurotypes as homogeneous categories that alone determine double empathy processes,” study authors concluded.
The study contributes to the scientific understanding of autism. However, it should be noted that study participants rated pre-recorded videos, which is substantively different from assessing emotions during real-life social encounters. Authors also note that autistic participants in their study were volunteers i.e., self-selected, and may not adequately represent the full autism spectrum. The study sample likely did not include autistic individuals requiring greater support to engage in social interactions.
The paper, “Nuances of double empathy in autistic and non-autistic people: examination using the empathic accuracy paradigm,” was authored by Yonat Rum, Noa Feldman, Shir Genzer, Carrie Allison, Ofer Golan, Anat Perry, and Simon Baron-Cohen.
-------------------------------------------------
Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org
Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #AutismEmpathy #DoubleEmpathy #EmpathicAccuracy #AutisticStrengths #EmotionReading #AutismResearch #Neurodiversity #MentalHealthAwareness #SocialCognition #MolecularAutism
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DATE: September 12, 2026 at 06:00PM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: Autistic individuals might be somewhat better at reading emotions of other autistic people
A study comparing the abilities of autistic and non-autistic individuals to recognize other people’s emotions found no overall main differences between the two groups. However, autistic individuals were more accurate at reading the emotional valence of other autistic individuals. The paper was published in Molecular Autism.
Empathy is the ability to understand another person’s thoughts and feelings. It also includes the ability to respond emotionally in a way that reflects or fits what that person is experiencing. Researchers distinguish between cognitive empathy, which involves recognizing and understanding another person’s mental state, and affective empathy, which refers to emotionally responding to another person’s feelings.
Autism has traditionally been associated with difficulties in empathy, especially in understanding other people’s emotions, intentions, and social signals. More recent work, however, has challenged the idea that such difficulties can be explained solely by deficits within autistic individuals. One influential view is the double empathy problem hypothesis. This hypothesis proposes that misunderstandings between autistic and non-autistic people are reciprocal rather than one-sided.
According to this view, autistic people find it difficult to understand non-autistic people, while non-autistic people likewise struggle to understand autistic people because the two groups tend to differ in how they experience and communicate about the world. Research has increasingly found that autistic people tend to report easier communication, stronger connection, and greater comfort when interacting with other autistic people. Likewise, non-autistic people can have more difficulty accurately interpreting the emotions and mental states of autistic individuals than those of other non-autistic people.
Study author Yonat Rum and colleagues conducted a study in which they tested the double empathy problem hypothesis. More specifically, they explored whether autistic and non-autistic individuals differ in their ability to empathize with autistic and non-autistic social targets. These authors hypothesized that non-autistic participants would better empathize with non-autistic social targets, while autistic participants would better empathize with autistic social targets. Empathizing, in this context, meant understanding another person’s feelings accurately.
Study participants were 235 individuals recruited through the Cambridge Autism Research Database (CARD) and word of mouth. 141 of them were autistic. 125 were female. 74% were from English-speaking countries, most often from the UK. Autistic participants’ average age was 48 years, while it was 51 for non-autistic participants.
Study authors prepared an empathic accuracy task that consisted of videos of 5 autistic and 5 non-autistic adults telling autobiographical stories. These individuals reported how they felt while telling the story using a slider on a scale ranging from negative to positive (affective valence). They were continuously adjusting this slider while telling the story. The slider’s position was recorded every 0.5 seconds. After completing the story, these 10 storytellers rated the degree to which they felt 12 emotions (embarrassment, anger, sadness, happiness, disgust, pride, fear, excitement, contentment, stress, calmness, and alertness) on a scale from 0 to 8.
In the course of the study, each participant watched 2 of these videos (randomly selected), one with an autistic storyteller and one with a non-autistic storyteller. They were not told the diagnosis of the storytellers. Participants provided the same ratings as the storytellers, and study authors assessed participants’ empathic accuracy by calculating how much participants’ ratings of a storyteller’s emotional state agreed with the storyteller’s own ratings. Aside from this, participants rated their own feeling of empathy and interest toward the storyteller.
Results showed that participants were somewhat accurate in determining whether a storyteller’s feelings were positive or negative. However, there were no main differences between autistic and non-autistic individuals in the overall accuracy of estimating the specific emotions of the storytellers in the videos. However, when tracking moment-to-moment emotional valence using the continuous slider, autistic individuals were significantly more accurate at tracking the emotions of autistic storytellers compared to non-autistic participants. This small-to-medium advantage suggests an own-group advantage for autistic individuals.
The two groups of participants were equally accurate when assessing non-autistic storytellers. Interestingly, non-autistic individuals rated their own empathy and interest in the storyteller as higher. Additionally, when providing free-text comments, autistic participants frequently described difficulties in identifying emotions and reflected on their own performance, whereas non-autistic participants mostly provided feedback on the task design. This led the researchers to suggest that autistic individuals may underestimate their own empathic abilities.
“Findings suggest partial support for the double empathy problem theory and potential underestimation of autistic participants of their own empathic abilities. Individual variability patterns caution against treating neurotypes as homogeneous categories that alone determine double empathy processes,” study authors concluded.
The study contributes to the scientific understanding of autism. However, it should be noted that study participants rated pre-recorded videos, which is substantively different from assessing emotions during real-life social encounters. Authors also note that autistic participants in their study were volunteers i.e., self-selected, and may not adequately represent the full autism spectrum. The study sample likely did not include autistic individuals requiring greater support to engage in social interactions.
The paper, “Nuances of double empathy in autistic and non-autistic people: examination using the empathic accuracy paradigm,” was authored by Yonat Rum, Noa Feldman, Shir Genzer, Carrie Allison, Ofer Golan, Anat Perry, and Simon Baron-Cohen.
-------------------------------------------------
Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org
Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #AutismEmpathy #DoubleEmpathy #EmpathicAccuracy #AutisticStrengths #EmotionReading #AutismResearch #Neurodiversity #MentalHealthAwareness #SocialCognition #MolecularAutism
-
DATE: September 12, 2026 at 06:00PM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: Autistic individuals might be somewhat better at reading emotions of other autistic people
A study comparing the abilities of autistic and non-autistic individuals to recognize other people’s emotions found no overall main differences between the two groups. However, autistic individuals were more accurate at reading the emotional valence of other autistic individuals. The paper was published in Molecular Autism.
Empathy is the ability to understand another person’s thoughts and feelings. It also includes the ability to respond emotionally in a way that reflects or fits what that person is experiencing. Researchers distinguish between cognitive empathy, which involves recognizing and understanding another person’s mental state, and affective empathy, which refers to emotionally responding to another person’s feelings.
Autism has traditionally been associated with difficulties in empathy, especially in understanding other people’s emotions, intentions, and social signals. More recent work, however, has challenged the idea that such difficulties can be explained solely by deficits within autistic individuals. One influential view is the double empathy problem hypothesis. This hypothesis proposes that misunderstandings between autistic and non-autistic people are reciprocal rather than one-sided.
According to this view, autistic people find it difficult to understand non-autistic people, while non-autistic people likewise struggle to understand autistic people because the two groups tend to differ in how they experience and communicate about the world. Research has increasingly found that autistic people tend to report easier communication, stronger connection, and greater comfort when interacting with other autistic people. Likewise, non-autistic people can have more difficulty accurately interpreting the emotions and mental states of autistic individuals than those of other non-autistic people.
Study author Yonat Rum and colleagues conducted a study in which they tested the double empathy problem hypothesis. More specifically, they explored whether autistic and non-autistic individuals differ in their ability to empathize with autistic and non-autistic social targets. These authors hypothesized that non-autistic participants would better empathize with non-autistic social targets, while autistic participants would better empathize with autistic social targets. Empathizing, in this context, meant understanding another person’s feelings accurately.
Study participants were 235 individuals recruited through the Cambridge Autism Research Database (CARD) and word of mouth. 141 of them were autistic. 125 were female. 74% were from English-speaking countries, most often from the UK. Autistic participants’ average age was 48 years, while it was 51 for non-autistic participants.
Study authors prepared an empathic accuracy task that consisted of videos of 5 autistic and 5 non-autistic adults telling autobiographical stories. These individuals reported how they felt while telling the story using a slider on a scale ranging from negative to positive (affective valence). They were continuously adjusting this slider while telling the story. The slider’s position was recorded every 0.5 seconds. After completing the story, these 10 storytellers rated the degree to which they felt 12 emotions (embarrassment, anger, sadness, happiness, disgust, pride, fear, excitement, contentment, stress, calmness, and alertness) on a scale from 0 to 8.
In the course of the study, each participant watched 2 of these videos (randomly selected), one with an autistic storyteller and one with a non-autistic storyteller. They were not told the diagnosis of the storytellers. Participants provided the same ratings as the storytellers, and study authors assessed participants’ empathic accuracy by calculating how much participants’ ratings of a storyteller’s emotional state agreed with the storyteller’s own ratings. Aside from this, participants rated their own feeling of empathy and interest toward the storyteller.
Results showed that participants were somewhat accurate in determining whether a storyteller’s feelings were positive or negative. However, there were no main differences between autistic and non-autistic individuals in the overall accuracy of estimating the specific emotions of the storytellers in the videos. However, when tracking moment-to-moment emotional valence using the continuous slider, autistic individuals were significantly more accurate at tracking the emotions of autistic storytellers compared to non-autistic participants. This small-to-medium advantage suggests an own-group advantage for autistic individuals.
The two groups of participants were equally accurate when assessing non-autistic storytellers. Interestingly, non-autistic individuals rated their own empathy and interest in the storyteller as higher. Additionally, when providing free-text comments, autistic participants frequently described difficulties in identifying emotions and reflected on their own performance, whereas non-autistic participants mostly provided feedback on the task design. This led the researchers to suggest that autistic individuals may underestimate their own empathic abilities.
“Findings suggest partial support for the double empathy problem theory and potential underestimation of autistic participants of their own empathic abilities. Individual variability patterns caution against treating neurotypes as homogeneous categories that alone determine double empathy processes,” study authors concluded.
The study contributes to the scientific understanding of autism. However, it should be noted that study participants rated pre-recorded videos, which is substantively different from assessing emotions during real-life social encounters. Authors also note that autistic participants in their study were volunteers i.e., self-selected, and may not adequately represent the full autism spectrum. The study sample likely did not include autistic individuals requiring greater support to engage in social interactions.
The paper, “Nuances of double empathy in autistic and non-autistic people: examination using the empathic accuracy paradigm,” was authored by Yonat Rum, Noa Feldman, Shir Genzer, Carrie Allison, Ofer Golan, Anat Perry, and Simon Baron-Cohen.
-------------------------------------------------
Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org
Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #AutismEmpathy #DoubleEmpathy #EmpathicAccuracy #AutisticStrengths #EmotionReading #AutismResearch #Neurodiversity #MentalHealthAwareness #SocialCognition #MolecularAutism
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DATE: September 12, 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: Therapeutic gardening improves mental health for adults with chronic conditions
Getting your hands dirty in the garden might offer a moderate boost to mental health for adults managing chronic health conditions. A recent review of past research found that activities like planting and tending to community gardens help ease symptoms of depression and anxiety, though the benefits for physical ailments are less pronounced. The research was published in BMC Public Health.
Chronic health conditions encompass a wide range of long-lasting medical issues that persist over time. These include physical illnesses like cardiovascular disease, arthritis, and diabetes, alongside cognitive and mood disorders like dementia, anxiety, and depression. Managing these persistent health challenges places a heavy burden on individuals, families, and healthcare systems around the world. Because the aging global population is driving an increase in these long-term conditions, medical professionals are seeking new management strategies.
Nature-based treatments are frequently recommended to help people cope with these long-term health needs. Therapeutic gardening is one such approach, where patients actively engage with plants, soil, and outdoor environments. These programs treat horticulture as a structured leisure activity that encourages physical movement, social interaction, and a connection to the natural world. In places like the United Kingdom, healthcare providers even use a process called social prescribing to encourage patients to visit parks and community gardens.
Past research has documented various psychological and social benefits of spending time in green spaces. Public health researcher Feifei Wang of Fudan University and psychologist Szilvia Boros of Széchenyi István University wanted to quantify these benefits specifically for populations with existing medical diagnoses. They designed a study to evaluate exactly how gardening activities alter specific categories of health for adults living with chronic illnesses.
To understand the broader impact of these outdoor interventions, Wang and Boros conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis. A meta-analysis is a statistical technique that pools data from multiple independent studies to identify overall trends that a single experiment might miss. The researchers searched major scientific databases for peer-reviewed studies that tested gardening programs against a standard control group. They only included research focused on adults over the age of 18 who had at least one diagnosed chronic condition.
The team identified 23 relevant studies that included a total of 4,535 participants, representing a large combined sample size for this specific topic. The individuals involved in these trials lived with various chronic conditions, ranging from physical pain and obesity to high blood pressure, cognitive dysfunction, and cancer. The participants were primarily older adults with an average age of about 54 years, and roughly two-thirds of them were women. The included research featured a mix of randomized controlled trials and quasi-experimental study designs.
Wang and Boros extracted the reported health outcomes from these studies and divided them into three primary categories to calculate an effect size. An effect size is a statistical measurement that tells researchers how much of a difference an intervention actually made. The mental health category included measurements of anxiety, stress, depression, overall mood, and loneliness. The physical health category tracked metrics like blood pressure and cognitive function. The general health category covered broader quality of life indicators, such as pain levels, sleep quality, and social connectedness.
When analyzing the combined data, the researchers found that gardening interventions offered a moderate improvement for mental health outcomes. Participants who spent time digging, watering, and harvesting reported fewer issues with depression and anxiety compared to those in the control groups who did not participate in the gardening programs. Many of these trials involved older adults experiencing cognitive decline, such as dementia, who seemed to benefit psychologically from the active lifestyle and socialization that community gardens provide.
The analysis revealed less encouraging results for the other two categories. Gardening activities produced relatively small effects on general health and almost negligible changes to physical health outcomes. The data did not show widespread physical improvements, such as lowered blood pressure or improved cognitive function, directly stemming from the gardening interventions. The researchers noted that while physical movement is involved in gardening, it might not be strenuous enough to dramatically alter physical disease progression in a short timeframe.
To ensure the reliability of their findings, Wang and Boros performed a sensitivity analysis using a standardized quality assessment tool. This process involves stripping away studies with a high risk of bias or low-quality methodology to see if the overall trends hold up. After removing the weaker studies, the positive effect of gardening on mental health became even stronger. At the same time, the evidence for physical and general health benefits remained weak and the results were not statistically significant.
The study comes with a few limitations related to the nature of the available research. The included trials exhibited high heterogeneity, meaning the methods, duration, and intensity of the gardening programs varied wildly from one study to the next. Some studies involved short sessions over a few weeks, while others spanned several months. This wide variation makes it difficult to recommend a specific type or amount of gardening for therapeutic purposes.
Many of the included trials also struggled with methodological challenges like selection bias and a lack of randomized participant placement. In medical research, it is difficult to design a trial where participants are blind to the treatment they are receiving if that treatment involves active physical tasks. Because participants knew they were engaging in an outdoor activity, their expectations might have influenced their reported improvements in mood, stress, and general life satisfaction.
High dropout rates in community-based interventions can also skew the results of a meta-analysis. If participants who do not enjoy gardening leave a study early, the final data will only reflect the experiences of those who liked the activity enough to stay. The researchers noted that achieving perfect experimental conditions is often unrealistic when testing lifestyle interventions in real-world community settings.
Future research will need to define standardized gardening activities to better measure their health impacts. While working with plants can support psychological well-being, the current evidence does not support using horticulture as a primary treatment for physical ailments. Medical providers looking to recommend nature-based therapies require more rigorous, uniform trials to understand exactly how different health conditions respond to specific outdoor environments.
The study, “Effect of gardening activities on domains of health: a systematic review and meta-analysis,” was authored by Feifei Wang and Szilvia Boros.
-------------------------------------------------
Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org
Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #TherapeuticGardening #MentalHealthMatters #ChronicConditionsSupport #GreenCare #NatureTherapy #PublicHealthResearch #GardenTherapy #WellbeingThroughNature #CommunityGardening #MentalHealthAwareness
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DATE: September 12, 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: Therapeutic gardening improves mental health for adults with chronic conditions
Getting your hands dirty in the garden might offer a moderate boost to mental health for adults managing chronic health conditions. A recent review of past research found that activities like planting and tending to community gardens help ease symptoms of depression and anxiety, though the benefits for physical ailments are less pronounced. The research was published in BMC Public Health.
Chronic health conditions encompass a wide range of long-lasting medical issues that persist over time. These include physical illnesses like cardiovascular disease, arthritis, and diabetes, alongside cognitive and mood disorders like dementia, anxiety, and depression. Managing these persistent health challenges places a heavy burden on individuals, families, and healthcare systems around the world. Because the aging global population is driving an increase in these long-term conditions, medical professionals are seeking new management strategies.
Nature-based treatments are frequently recommended to help people cope with these long-term health needs. Therapeutic gardening is one such approach, where patients actively engage with plants, soil, and outdoor environments. These programs treat horticulture as a structured leisure activity that encourages physical movement, social interaction, and a connection to the natural world. In places like the United Kingdom, healthcare providers even use a process called social prescribing to encourage patients to visit parks and community gardens.
Past research has documented various psychological and social benefits of spending time in green spaces. Public health researcher Feifei Wang of Fudan University and psychologist Szilvia Boros of Széchenyi István University wanted to quantify these benefits specifically for populations with existing medical diagnoses. They designed a study to evaluate exactly how gardening activities alter specific categories of health for adults living with chronic illnesses.
To understand the broader impact of these outdoor interventions, Wang and Boros conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis. A meta-analysis is a statistical technique that pools data from multiple independent studies to identify overall trends that a single experiment might miss. The researchers searched major scientific databases for peer-reviewed studies that tested gardening programs against a standard control group. They only included research focused on adults over the age of 18 who had at least one diagnosed chronic condition.
The team identified 23 relevant studies that included a total of 4,535 participants, representing a large combined sample size for this specific topic. The individuals involved in these trials lived with various chronic conditions, ranging from physical pain and obesity to high blood pressure, cognitive dysfunction, and cancer. The participants were primarily older adults with an average age of about 54 years, and roughly two-thirds of them were women. The included research featured a mix of randomized controlled trials and quasi-experimental study designs.
Wang and Boros extracted the reported health outcomes from these studies and divided them into three primary categories to calculate an effect size. An effect size is a statistical measurement that tells researchers how much of a difference an intervention actually made. The mental health category included measurements of anxiety, stress, depression, overall mood, and loneliness. The physical health category tracked metrics like blood pressure and cognitive function. The general health category covered broader quality of life indicators, such as pain levels, sleep quality, and social connectedness.
When analyzing the combined data, the researchers found that gardening interventions offered a moderate improvement for mental health outcomes. Participants who spent time digging, watering, and harvesting reported fewer issues with depression and anxiety compared to those in the control groups who did not participate in the gardening programs. Many of these trials involved older adults experiencing cognitive decline, such as dementia, who seemed to benefit psychologically from the active lifestyle and socialization that community gardens provide.
The analysis revealed less encouraging results for the other two categories. Gardening activities produced relatively small effects on general health and almost negligible changes to physical health outcomes. The data did not show widespread physical improvements, such as lowered blood pressure or improved cognitive function, directly stemming from the gardening interventions. The researchers noted that while physical movement is involved in gardening, it might not be strenuous enough to dramatically alter physical disease progression in a short timeframe.
To ensure the reliability of their findings, Wang and Boros performed a sensitivity analysis using a standardized quality assessment tool. This process involves stripping away studies with a high risk of bias or low-quality methodology to see if the overall trends hold up. After removing the weaker studies, the positive effect of gardening on mental health became even stronger. At the same time, the evidence for physical and general health benefits remained weak and the results were not statistically significant.
The study comes with a few limitations related to the nature of the available research. The included trials exhibited high heterogeneity, meaning the methods, duration, and intensity of the gardening programs varied wildly from one study to the next. Some studies involved short sessions over a few weeks, while others spanned several months. This wide variation makes it difficult to recommend a specific type or amount of gardening for therapeutic purposes.
Many of the included trials also struggled with methodological challenges like selection bias and a lack of randomized participant placement. In medical research, it is difficult to design a trial where participants are blind to the treatment they are receiving if that treatment involves active physical tasks. Because participants knew they were engaging in an outdoor activity, their expectations might have influenced their reported improvements in mood, stress, and general life satisfaction.
High dropout rates in community-based interventions can also skew the results of a meta-analysis. If participants who do not enjoy gardening leave a study early, the final data will only reflect the experiences of those who liked the activity enough to stay. The researchers noted that achieving perfect experimental conditions is often unrealistic when testing lifestyle interventions in real-world community settings.
Future research will need to define standardized gardening activities to better measure their health impacts. While working with plants can support psychological well-being, the current evidence does not support using horticulture as a primary treatment for physical ailments. Medical providers looking to recommend nature-based therapies require more rigorous, uniform trials to understand exactly how different health conditions respond to specific outdoor environments.
The study, “Effect of gardening activities on domains of health: a systematic review and meta-analysis,” was authored by Feifei Wang and Szilvia Boros.
-------------------------------------------------
Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org
Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #TherapeuticGardening #MentalHealthMatters #ChronicConditionsSupport #GreenCare #NatureTherapy #PublicHealthResearch #GardenTherapy #WellbeingThroughNature #CommunityGardening #MentalHealthAwareness
-
DATE: September 12, 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: Therapeutic gardening improves mental health for adults with chronic conditions
Getting your hands dirty in the garden might offer a moderate boost to mental health for adults managing chronic health conditions. A recent review of past research found that activities like planting and tending to community gardens help ease symptoms of depression and anxiety, though the benefits for physical ailments are less pronounced. The research was published in BMC Public Health.
Chronic health conditions encompass a wide range of long-lasting medical issues that persist over time. These include physical illnesses like cardiovascular disease, arthritis, and diabetes, alongside cognitive and mood disorders like dementia, anxiety, and depression. Managing these persistent health challenges places a heavy burden on individuals, families, and healthcare systems around the world. Because the aging global population is driving an increase in these long-term conditions, medical professionals are seeking new management strategies.
Nature-based treatments are frequently recommended to help people cope with these long-term health needs. Therapeutic gardening is one such approach, where patients actively engage with plants, soil, and outdoor environments. These programs treat horticulture as a structured leisure activity that encourages physical movement, social interaction, and a connection to the natural world. In places like the United Kingdom, healthcare providers even use a process called social prescribing to encourage patients to visit parks and community gardens.
Past research has documented various psychological and social benefits of spending time in green spaces. Public health researcher Feifei Wang of Fudan University and psychologist Szilvia Boros of Széchenyi István University wanted to quantify these benefits specifically for populations with existing medical diagnoses. They designed a study to evaluate exactly how gardening activities alter specific categories of health for adults living with chronic illnesses.
To understand the broader impact of these outdoor interventions, Wang and Boros conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis. A meta-analysis is a statistical technique that pools data from multiple independent studies to identify overall trends that a single experiment might miss. The researchers searched major scientific databases for peer-reviewed studies that tested gardening programs against a standard control group. They only included research focused on adults over the age of 18 who had at least one diagnosed chronic condition.
The team identified 23 relevant studies that included a total of 4,535 participants, representing a large combined sample size for this specific topic. The individuals involved in these trials lived with various chronic conditions, ranging from physical pain and obesity to high blood pressure, cognitive dysfunction, and cancer. The participants were primarily older adults with an average age of about 54 years, and roughly two-thirds of them were women. The included research featured a mix of randomized controlled trials and quasi-experimental study designs.
Wang and Boros extracted the reported health outcomes from these studies and divided them into three primary categories to calculate an effect size. An effect size is a statistical measurement that tells researchers how much of a difference an intervention actually made. The mental health category included measurements of anxiety, stress, depression, overall mood, and loneliness. The physical health category tracked metrics like blood pressure and cognitive function. The general health category covered broader quality of life indicators, such as pain levels, sleep quality, and social connectedness.
When analyzing the combined data, the researchers found that gardening interventions offered a moderate improvement for mental health outcomes. Participants who spent time digging, watering, and harvesting reported fewer issues with depression and anxiety compared to those in the control groups who did not participate in the gardening programs. Many of these trials involved older adults experiencing cognitive decline, such as dementia, who seemed to benefit psychologically from the active lifestyle and socialization that community gardens provide.
The analysis revealed less encouraging results for the other two categories. Gardening activities produced relatively small effects on general health and almost negligible changes to physical health outcomes. The data did not show widespread physical improvements, such as lowered blood pressure or improved cognitive function, directly stemming from the gardening interventions. The researchers noted that while physical movement is involved in gardening, it might not be strenuous enough to dramatically alter physical disease progression in a short timeframe.
To ensure the reliability of their findings, Wang and Boros performed a sensitivity analysis using a standardized quality assessment tool. This process involves stripping away studies with a high risk of bias or low-quality methodology to see if the overall trends hold up. After removing the weaker studies, the positive effect of gardening on mental health became even stronger. At the same time, the evidence for physical and general health benefits remained weak and the results were not statistically significant.
The study comes with a few limitations related to the nature of the available research. The included trials exhibited high heterogeneity, meaning the methods, duration, and intensity of the gardening programs varied wildly from one study to the next. Some studies involved short sessions over a few weeks, while others spanned several months. This wide variation makes it difficult to recommend a specific type or amount of gardening for therapeutic purposes.
Many of the included trials also struggled with methodological challenges like selection bias and a lack of randomized participant placement. In medical research, it is difficult to design a trial where participants are blind to the treatment they are receiving if that treatment involves active physical tasks. Because participants knew they were engaging in an outdoor activity, their expectations might have influenced their reported improvements in mood, stress, and general life satisfaction.
High dropout rates in community-based interventions can also skew the results of a meta-analysis. If participants who do not enjoy gardening leave a study early, the final data will only reflect the experiences of those who liked the activity enough to stay. The researchers noted that achieving perfect experimental conditions is often unrealistic when testing lifestyle interventions in real-world community settings.
Future research will need to define standardized gardening activities to better measure their health impacts. While working with plants can support psychological well-being, the current evidence does not support using horticulture as a primary treatment for physical ailments. Medical providers looking to recommend nature-based therapies require more rigorous, uniform trials to understand exactly how different health conditions respond to specific outdoor environments.
The study, “Effect of gardening activities on domains of health: a systematic review and meta-analysis,” was authored by Feifei Wang and Szilvia Boros.
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-
DATE: September 12, 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: Weightlifting offers large antidepressant effects for young women with anxiety, regardless of intensity
A recent study suggests that both standard and low-intensity strength training can help alleviate depressive symptoms in young women who experience high levels of anxiety. The findings provide evidence that weightlifting is a viable option for improving mental health, regardless of how much physical effort is involved. The research was published in Journal of Affective Disorders.
Generalized anxiety disorder involves severe, persistent worry that interferes with daily life. Some people experience symptoms that mimic this condition but fall just short of an official diagnosis, known as subclinical or analogue anxiety. Women are twice as likely as men to experience anxiety and depression, and these conditions often occur together. While medication and talk therapy are standard treatments, they can present barriers like high costs or unwanted side effects.
Lead author Darragh O’Sullivan, an exercise psychology researcher at the University of Limerick, Ireland, explained the focus on this demographic. “We also expanded on our previous research by focusing on anxious young women, as women are [generally] less involved in muscle-strengthening exercise, and therefore may have greater potential for improvement,” O’Sullivan told PsyPost.
“Women are also at higher risk of Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Major Depressive Disorder, their comorbidity, and experience greater disability from their comorbidity, and therefore may benefit from early interventions, such as exercise, to treat mild symptoms,” O’Sullivan added.
As an alternative, physical exercise has emerged as a potential treatment. Strength training, which involves exercising with weights or resistance to build muscle, has shown particular promise. A 2018 meta-analysis indicated that strength training reliably reduces depressive symptoms across various populations. Building on this, a study covered by PsyPost in 2023 found that an eight-week weightlifting program lowered depressive symptoms in young adults when compared to a group placed on a waitlist.
However, comparing a workout program to a waitlist leaves a gap in our understanding. It is difficult to tell if the physical exertion is what helps, or if participants just benefit from getting out of the house, interacting with a coach, and expecting to feel better. To separate the physical benefits from the psychological boost of receiving attention, scientists needed to compare standard strength training against a very low-effort workout.
The current research was designed to test whether the actual intensity of the weightlifting changes how much a person’s mental health improves. “Although our previous trial demonstrated that guidelines-based resistance exercise training can result in large antidepressant effects when compared to a waitlist control, a key limitation of waitlist controls is that they cannot control for important factors like social contact or expectations for improvement,” O’Sullivan noted. “We therefore expanded on that by comparing the same resistance exercise training intervention to a low-intensity sham resistance exercise training attention control.”
The researchers recruited 55 young adult women with an average age of 22. All participants met the criteria for subclinical generalized anxiety disorder and were not currently engaged in regular strength training. After a brief familiarization period, the women were randomly divided into two groups for an eight-week program. Both groups completed twice-weekly, one-on-one supervised sessions consisting of exercises like squats, bench presses, and deadlifts.
The primary difference between the two groups was the amount of weight lifted. One group performed a moderate-to-high intensity routine, lifting loads set at 70 to 80 percent of their maximum capacity. The second group acted as a control condition, performing the exact same exercises but lifting only 20 percent of their maximum capacity. The authors tracked depressive symptoms using a standard 16-item questionnaire at multiple points during the study and one month after the program ended.
The results indicated that both groups experienced massive drops in their depressive symptoms. In the higher-intensity group, symptom scores fell by an average of 54 percent. Meanwhile, the low-intensity group saw their scores drop by 43 percent. The difference in mental health improvement between the two groups was not statistically significant.
This suggests that a low-intensity workout also yields a strong antidepressant effect for this population. As expected, physical strength changes did differ between the groups. The higher-intensity group increased their overall lifting strength by 41 percent, compared to a 21 percent increase in the low-intensity group. For both groups, the psychological benefits were largely maintained a month after the supervised training concluded.
The strong benefit seen in the low-effort group was somewhat unanticipated by the research team. “The magnitude of the antidepressant effect of low-intensity resistance exercise training exceeded our expectations, but is likely reflective of what is still a substantial change in exercise activity, from not engaging in resistance exercise training to completing low-intensity resistance exercise training twice per week for 10 weeks,” O’Sullivan said.
These results stand in slight tension with a 2024 meta-analysis covered by PsyPost. That review found that higher exercise intensity is generally linked to greater reductions in depression, though it focused on clinical major depression rather than subclinical anxiety in young women. On the other hand, the new findings are consistent with research covered by PsyPost in 2026. That earlier study looked at older women and similarly found that weightlifting reduced depressive symptoms regardless of whether the participants lifted heavy or light weights.
As with all research, there are a few things to keep in mind. The researchers point out that the low-intensity group might have actually received a mild physical training effect, rather than just acting as a psychological control. Because the low-intensity group did gain some physical strength, it is difficult to completely separate the psychological benefits of participating from the physical benefits of the movement itself.
Additionally, the study relied on self-reported questionnaires to track mental health changes. Such surveys can sometimes be influenced by a participant’s expectations or desire to show improvement to their trainers. The sample was also restricted to young adult women with a specific anxiety profile. This means the findings might not naturally extend to men, older adults, or people with a formally diagnosed clinical disorder.
Moving forward, the scientists suggest testing these programs in larger clinical settings. They hope to compare weightlifting directly against standard treatments like talk therapy or medication.
“Both higher- and lower-intensity resistance exercise training can result in large reductions in depressive symptoms in anxious young women,” O’Sullivan concluded. “Young women can benefit from even low-intensity resistance exercise training which requires less physical effort, but we do recommend gradual progression to higher intensity for additional health benefits.”
He added, “For those that are not involved in any resistance exercise, anything is better than nothing, including for mental health.”
The study, “Resistance exercise training compared to a low-intensity sham for depressive symptoms in young women with analogue generalized anxiety disorder: A randomized controlled trial,” was authored by Darragh O’Sullivan, Jennifer M. Rice, Mark Lyons, Brett R. Gordon, and Matthew P. Herring.
-------------------------------------------------
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-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #WeightliftingForMentalHealth #AnxietyInYoungWomen #ResistanceTraining #DepressionReduction #LowIntensityExerciseWorks #StrengthTrainingBenefits #WomenInSportsPsych #SubclinicalAnxiety #MentalHealthExercise #ExerciseAsTreatment
-
DATE: September 12, 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: Weightlifting offers large antidepressant effects for young women with anxiety, regardless of intensity
A recent study suggests that both standard and low-intensity strength training can help alleviate depressive symptoms in young women who experience high levels of anxiety. The findings provide evidence that weightlifting is a viable option for improving mental health, regardless of how much physical effort is involved. The research was published in Journal of Affective Disorders.
Generalized anxiety disorder involves severe, persistent worry that interferes with daily life. Some people experience symptoms that mimic this condition but fall just short of an official diagnosis, known as subclinical or analogue anxiety. Women are twice as likely as men to experience anxiety and depression, and these conditions often occur together. While medication and talk therapy are standard treatments, they can present barriers like high costs or unwanted side effects.
Lead author Darragh O’Sullivan, an exercise psychology researcher at the University of Limerick, Ireland, explained the focus on this demographic. “We also expanded on our previous research by focusing on anxious young women, as women are [generally] less involved in muscle-strengthening exercise, and therefore may have greater potential for improvement,” O’Sullivan told PsyPost.
“Women are also at higher risk of Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Major Depressive Disorder, their comorbidity, and experience greater disability from their comorbidity, and therefore may benefit from early interventions, such as exercise, to treat mild symptoms,” O’Sullivan added.
As an alternative, physical exercise has emerged as a potential treatment. Strength training, which involves exercising with weights or resistance to build muscle, has shown particular promise. A 2018 meta-analysis indicated that strength training reliably reduces depressive symptoms across various populations. Building on this, a study covered by PsyPost in 2023 found that an eight-week weightlifting program lowered depressive symptoms in young adults when compared to a group placed on a waitlist.
However, comparing a workout program to a waitlist leaves a gap in our understanding. It is difficult to tell if the physical exertion is what helps, or if participants just benefit from getting out of the house, interacting with a coach, and expecting to feel better. To separate the physical benefits from the psychological boost of receiving attention, scientists needed to compare standard strength training against a very low-effort workout.
The current research was designed to test whether the actual intensity of the weightlifting changes how much a person’s mental health improves. “Although our previous trial demonstrated that guidelines-based resistance exercise training can result in large antidepressant effects when compared to a waitlist control, a key limitation of waitlist controls is that they cannot control for important factors like social contact or expectations for improvement,” O’Sullivan noted. “We therefore expanded on that by comparing the same resistance exercise training intervention to a low-intensity sham resistance exercise training attention control.”
The researchers recruited 55 young adult women with an average age of 22. All participants met the criteria for subclinical generalized anxiety disorder and were not currently engaged in regular strength training. After a brief familiarization period, the women were randomly divided into two groups for an eight-week program. Both groups completed twice-weekly, one-on-one supervised sessions consisting of exercises like squats, bench presses, and deadlifts.
The primary difference between the two groups was the amount of weight lifted. One group performed a moderate-to-high intensity routine, lifting loads set at 70 to 80 percent of their maximum capacity. The second group acted as a control condition, performing the exact same exercises but lifting only 20 percent of their maximum capacity. The authors tracked depressive symptoms using a standard 16-item questionnaire at multiple points during the study and one month after the program ended.
The results indicated that both groups experienced massive drops in their depressive symptoms. In the higher-intensity group, symptom scores fell by an average of 54 percent. Meanwhile, the low-intensity group saw their scores drop by 43 percent. The difference in mental health improvement between the two groups was not statistically significant.
This suggests that a low-intensity workout also yields a strong antidepressant effect for this population. As expected, physical strength changes did differ between the groups. The higher-intensity group increased their overall lifting strength by 41 percent, compared to a 21 percent increase in the low-intensity group. For both groups, the psychological benefits were largely maintained a month after the supervised training concluded.
The strong benefit seen in the low-effort group was somewhat unanticipated by the research team. “The magnitude of the antidepressant effect of low-intensity resistance exercise training exceeded our expectations, but is likely reflective of what is still a substantial change in exercise activity, from not engaging in resistance exercise training to completing low-intensity resistance exercise training twice per week for 10 weeks,” O’Sullivan said.
These results stand in slight tension with a 2024 meta-analysis covered by PsyPost. That review found that higher exercise intensity is generally linked to greater reductions in depression, though it focused on clinical major depression rather than subclinical anxiety in young women. On the other hand, the new findings are consistent with research covered by PsyPost in 2026. That earlier study looked at older women and similarly found that weightlifting reduced depressive symptoms regardless of whether the participants lifted heavy or light weights.
As with all research, there are a few things to keep in mind. The researchers point out that the low-intensity group might have actually received a mild physical training effect, rather than just acting as a psychological control. Because the low-intensity group did gain some physical strength, it is difficult to completely separate the psychological benefits of participating from the physical benefits of the movement itself.
Additionally, the study relied on self-reported questionnaires to track mental health changes. Such surveys can sometimes be influenced by a participant’s expectations or desire to show improvement to their trainers. The sample was also restricted to young adult women with a specific anxiety profile. This means the findings might not naturally extend to men, older adults, or people with a formally diagnosed clinical disorder.
Moving forward, the scientists suggest testing these programs in larger clinical settings. They hope to compare weightlifting directly against standard treatments like talk therapy or medication.
“Both higher- and lower-intensity resistance exercise training can result in large reductions in depressive symptoms in anxious young women,” O’Sullivan concluded. “Young women can benefit from even low-intensity resistance exercise training which requires less physical effort, but we do recommend gradual progression to higher intensity for additional health benefits.”
He added, “For those that are not involved in any resistance exercise, anything is better than nothing, including for mental health.”
The study, “Resistance exercise training compared to a low-intensity sham for depressive symptoms in young women with analogue generalized anxiety disorder: A randomized controlled trial,” was authored by Darragh O’Sullivan, Jennifer M. Rice, Mark Lyons, Brett R. Gordon, and Matthew P. Herring.
-------------------------------------------------
Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org
Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #WeightliftingForMentalHealth #AnxietyInYoungWomen #ResistanceTraining #DepressionReduction #LowIntensityExerciseWorks #StrengthTrainingBenefits #WomenInSportsPsych #SubclinicalAnxiety #MentalHealthExercise #ExerciseAsTreatment
-
DATE: September 12, 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: Weightlifting offers large antidepressant effects for young women with anxiety, regardless of intensity
A recent study suggests that both standard and low-intensity strength training can help alleviate depressive symptoms in young women who experience high levels of anxiety. The findings provide evidence that weightlifting is a viable option for improving mental health, regardless of how much physical effort is involved. The research was published in Journal of Affective Disorders.
Generalized anxiety disorder involves severe, persistent worry that interferes with daily life. Some people experience symptoms that mimic this condition but fall just short of an official diagnosis, known as subclinical or analogue anxiety. Women are twice as likely as men to experience anxiety and depression, and these conditions often occur together. While medication and talk therapy are standard treatments, they can present barriers like high costs or unwanted side effects.
Lead author Darragh O’Sullivan, an exercise psychology researcher at the University of Limerick, Ireland, explained the focus on this demographic. “We also expanded on our previous research by focusing on anxious young women, as women are [generally] less involved in muscle-strengthening exercise, and therefore may have greater potential for improvement,” O’Sullivan told PsyPost.
“Women are also at higher risk of Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Major Depressive Disorder, their comorbidity, and experience greater disability from their comorbidity, and therefore may benefit from early interventions, such as exercise, to treat mild symptoms,” O’Sullivan added.
As an alternative, physical exercise has emerged as a potential treatment. Strength training, which involves exercising with weights or resistance to build muscle, has shown particular promise. A 2018 meta-analysis indicated that strength training reliably reduces depressive symptoms across various populations. Building on this, a study covered by PsyPost in 2023 found that an eight-week weightlifting program lowered depressive symptoms in young adults when compared to a group placed on a waitlist.
However, comparing a workout program to a waitlist leaves a gap in our understanding. It is difficult to tell if the physical exertion is what helps, or if participants just benefit from getting out of the house, interacting with a coach, and expecting to feel better. To separate the physical benefits from the psychological boost of receiving attention, scientists needed to compare standard strength training against a very low-effort workout.
The current research was designed to test whether the actual intensity of the weightlifting changes how much a person’s mental health improves. “Although our previous trial demonstrated that guidelines-based resistance exercise training can result in large antidepressant effects when compared to a waitlist control, a key limitation of waitlist controls is that they cannot control for important factors like social contact or expectations for improvement,” O’Sullivan noted. “We therefore expanded on that by comparing the same resistance exercise training intervention to a low-intensity sham resistance exercise training attention control.”
The researchers recruited 55 young adult women with an average age of 22. All participants met the criteria for subclinical generalized anxiety disorder and were not currently engaged in regular strength training. After a brief familiarization period, the women were randomly divided into two groups for an eight-week program. Both groups completed twice-weekly, one-on-one supervised sessions consisting of exercises like squats, bench presses, and deadlifts.
The primary difference between the two groups was the amount of weight lifted. One group performed a moderate-to-high intensity routine, lifting loads set at 70 to 80 percent of their maximum capacity. The second group acted as a control condition, performing the exact same exercises but lifting only 20 percent of their maximum capacity. The authors tracked depressive symptoms using a standard 16-item questionnaire at multiple points during the study and one month after the program ended.
The results indicated that both groups experienced massive drops in their depressive symptoms. In the higher-intensity group, symptom scores fell by an average of 54 percent. Meanwhile, the low-intensity group saw their scores drop by 43 percent. The difference in mental health improvement between the two groups was not statistically significant.
This suggests that a low-intensity workout also yields a strong antidepressant effect for this population. As expected, physical strength changes did differ between the groups. The higher-intensity group increased their overall lifting strength by 41 percent, compared to a 21 percent increase in the low-intensity group. For both groups, the psychological benefits were largely maintained a month after the supervised training concluded.
The strong benefit seen in the low-effort group was somewhat unanticipated by the research team. “The magnitude of the antidepressant effect of low-intensity resistance exercise training exceeded our expectations, but is likely reflective of what is still a substantial change in exercise activity, from not engaging in resistance exercise training to completing low-intensity resistance exercise training twice per week for 10 weeks,” O’Sullivan said.
These results stand in slight tension with a 2024 meta-analysis covered by PsyPost. That review found that higher exercise intensity is generally linked to greater reductions in depression, though it focused on clinical major depression rather than subclinical anxiety in young women. On the other hand, the new findings are consistent with research covered by PsyPost in 2026. That earlier study looked at older women and similarly found that weightlifting reduced depressive symptoms regardless of whether the participants lifted heavy or light weights.
As with all research, there are a few things to keep in mind. The researchers point out that the low-intensity group might have actually received a mild physical training effect, rather than just acting as a psychological control. Because the low-intensity group did gain some physical strength, it is difficult to completely separate the psychological benefits of participating from the physical benefits of the movement itself.
Additionally, the study relied on self-reported questionnaires to track mental health changes. Such surveys can sometimes be influenced by a participant’s expectations or desire to show improvement to their trainers. The sample was also restricted to young adult women with a specific anxiety profile. This means the findings might not naturally extend to men, older adults, or people with a formally diagnosed clinical disorder.
Moving forward, the scientists suggest testing these programs in larger clinical settings. They hope to compare weightlifting directly against standard treatments like talk therapy or medication.
“Both higher- and lower-intensity resistance exercise training can result in large reductions in depressive symptoms in anxious young women,” O’Sullivan concluded. “Young women can benefit from even low-intensity resistance exercise training which requires less physical effort, but we do recommend gradual progression to higher intensity for additional health benefits.”
He added, “For those that are not involved in any resistance exercise, anything is better than nothing, including for mental health.”
The study, “Resistance exercise training compared to a low-intensity sham for depressive symptoms in young women with analogue generalized anxiety disorder: A randomized controlled trial,” was authored by Darragh O’Sullivan, Jennifer M. Rice, Mark Lyons, Brett R. Gordon, and Matthew P. Herring.
-------------------------------------------------
Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org
Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #WeightliftingForMentalHealth #AnxietyInYoungWomen #ResistanceTraining #DepressionReduction #LowIntensityExerciseWorks #StrengthTrainingBenefits #WomenInSportsPsych #SubclinicalAnxiety #MentalHealthExercise #ExerciseAsTreatment
-
DATE: September 12, 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: Different video game genres alter brain activity and enhance cognition in unique ways
Playing different types of video games can improve a person’s cognitive abilities and alter how their brain operates at rest. A new study reveals that fast-paced action games and turn-based strategy games both enhance mental performance, but action games lead to more pronounced and long-lasting neural adaptations. The research was recently published in the journal Brain Sciences.
As video games have grown into a dominant form of global entertainment, researchers have increasingly investigated their potential to shape the brain. Past studies have suggested that regular gameplay can boost attention, memory, and executive function. Executive function refers to a set of mental skills that include flexible thinking and self-control.
Researchers Jingqing Lu, Dezhong Yao, and their colleagues at the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China wanted to understand how distinct game genres uniquely influence the brain. Different genres require vastly different mental resources to succeed. Fast-paced action games demand rapid reflexes, hand-eye coordination, and the simultaneous monitoring of multiple visual targets. Turn-based strategy card games focus on long-term planning, probabilistic reasoning, and keeping track of past moves.
The researchers designed a study to compare these two specific gaming experiences. They aimed to track how dedicated practice alters performance on mental tests and changes the brain’s baseline electrical activity. To measure this baseline activity, they used electroencephalography, commonly known as EEG, to record electrical signals while participants rested with their eyes closed. Resting-state EEG provides an objective measure of the brain’s intrinsic activity and structural efficiency when not actively engaged in a task.
The researchers recruited 68 college students who did not regularly play video games. They randomly assigned the participants to play either an action game, League of Legends, or a strategy card game, Legends of the Three Kingdoms. Each participant played their assigned game for one hour a day, five days a week, over a span of 20 weeks.
To track changes, the research team tested the participants at six different points over 30 weeks. This timeline included a baseline test, mid-training assessments, a post-training test at 20 weeks, and a final retention test 10 weeks after all training had stopped. At these sessions, participants completed three computer-based cognitive tasks. The researchers separately recorded their resting brain activity during these testing weeks.
The first task evaluated distributed spatial attention, which is the ability to monitor multiple locations at once without moving the eyes. Participants had to remember the location of a quick visual cue. They later had to identify a symbol that appeared in that exact spot on a screen.
Over the course of the training, both groups became faster and more accurate at this spatial attention task. However, the action game group experienced a much larger boost in accuracy than the strategy game group. This advantage for the action game players remained robust at the final 10-week follow-up.
The second assessment was a spatial working memory task. It required participants to observe a grid of flashing squares and recall if a current square matched one that flashed several turns earlier. Working memory acts as a temporary mental workspace for holding and processing information on the fly.
Participants in both the action and strategy groups responded faster on the working memory task as their training progressed. Both groups maintained their initial accuracy levels as their speed improved. The action game players consistently demonstrated higher overall performance throughout the testing period.
The final task measured executive function by presenting participants with colored arrows. The participants had to press buttons based on specific rules that pitted the color of the arrow against the direction it was pointing. This forced them to suppress their instinctive reactions and follow the changing logical rules.
In this executive function test, both groups substantially reduced their reaction times without sacrificing accuracy. The researchers observed that differences in accuracy between the two groups were not statistically significant. This indicates that both game types provided a similar enhancement to the speed of cognitive processing.
During the EEG sessions, the researchers looked at specific frequencies of brainwaves. They focused on slow-moving delta and theta waves, as well as functional connections in the alpha band. Delta and theta waves are associated with neural adaptability and readiness. Alpha-band connections indicate how efficiently different brain regions communicate with one another.
The physiological data showed that both groups developed increased delta and theta wave power over the 30 weeks. They also showed a reduction in alpha-band connectivity. A decrease in alpha connectivity suggests that the brain is streamlining its networks. It appears to cut out redundant pathways to process information more efficiently.
The action game group exhibited much stronger brain wave changes than the strategy game group. Ten weeks after the training ended, the action game players had notably higher slow-wave activity than their strategy game counterparts. They also displayed much lower alpha connectivity. These physiological shifts closely mirrored the action group’s superior performance on the attention and memory tasks.
While these results highlight the mental benefits of gaming, the findings apply specifically to the structured environment of the experiment. The participants only played for one hour a day. They avoided extreme gaming habits that could lead to fatigue or behavioral issues. The study also focused exclusively on young, healthy college students.
The way video games affect the brains of children, older adults, or individuals with cognitive impairments might look entirely different. Additionally, the researchers relied on self-reported logs and limited account data to verify that participants were not playing other video games during the study. This method relies on honesty and memory, which can introduce errors.
The researchers also did not track the participants’ academic workloads during the testing phases. Heavy coursework or stressful exams could have independently influenced their mental fatigue or cognitive performance. Future research will need to incorporate broader age groups and track daily stress levels to fully understand how digital environments shape human brain function.
The study, “Effects of Video Game Type on Cognitive Performance and Brain Functional Connectivity: A Longitudinal EEG Study,” was authored by Jingqing Lu, Ruifang Cui, Lijun Jiang, Chenyu Mu, Weiyi Ma, Diankun Gong, and Dezhong Yao.
-------------------------------------------------
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-------------------------------------------------
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-
DATE: September 12, 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: Different video game genres alter brain activity and enhance cognition in unique ways
Playing different types of video games can improve a person’s cognitive abilities and alter how their brain operates at rest. A new study reveals that fast-paced action games and turn-based strategy games both enhance mental performance, but action games lead to more pronounced and long-lasting neural adaptations. The research was recently published in the journal Brain Sciences.
As video games have grown into a dominant form of global entertainment, researchers have increasingly investigated their potential to shape the brain. Past studies have suggested that regular gameplay can boost attention, memory, and executive function. Executive function refers to a set of mental skills that include flexible thinking and self-control.
Researchers Jingqing Lu, Dezhong Yao, and their colleagues at the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China wanted to understand how distinct game genres uniquely influence the brain. Different genres require vastly different mental resources to succeed. Fast-paced action games demand rapid reflexes, hand-eye coordination, and the simultaneous monitoring of multiple visual targets. Turn-based strategy card games focus on long-term planning, probabilistic reasoning, and keeping track of past moves.
The researchers designed a study to compare these two specific gaming experiences. They aimed to track how dedicated practice alters performance on mental tests and changes the brain’s baseline electrical activity. To measure this baseline activity, they used electroencephalography, commonly known as EEG, to record electrical signals while participants rested with their eyes closed. Resting-state EEG provides an objective measure of the brain’s intrinsic activity and structural efficiency when not actively engaged in a task.
The researchers recruited 68 college students who did not regularly play video games. They randomly assigned the participants to play either an action game, League of Legends, or a strategy card game, Legends of the Three Kingdoms. Each participant played their assigned game for one hour a day, five days a week, over a span of 20 weeks.
To track changes, the research team tested the participants at six different points over 30 weeks. This timeline included a baseline test, mid-training assessments, a post-training test at 20 weeks, and a final retention test 10 weeks after all training had stopped. At these sessions, participants completed three computer-based cognitive tasks. The researchers separately recorded their resting brain activity during these testing weeks.
The first task evaluated distributed spatial attention, which is the ability to monitor multiple locations at once without moving the eyes. Participants had to remember the location of a quick visual cue. They later had to identify a symbol that appeared in that exact spot on a screen.
Over the course of the training, both groups became faster and more accurate at this spatial attention task. However, the action game group experienced a much larger boost in accuracy than the strategy game group. This advantage for the action game players remained robust at the final 10-week follow-up.
The second assessment was a spatial working memory task. It required participants to observe a grid of flashing squares and recall if a current square matched one that flashed several turns earlier. Working memory acts as a temporary mental workspace for holding and processing information on the fly.
Participants in both the action and strategy groups responded faster on the working memory task as their training progressed. Both groups maintained their initial accuracy levels as their speed improved. The action game players consistently demonstrated higher overall performance throughout the testing period.
The final task measured executive function by presenting participants with colored arrows. The participants had to press buttons based on specific rules that pitted the color of the arrow against the direction it was pointing. This forced them to suppress their instinctive reactions and follow the changing logical rules.
In this executive function test, both groups substantially reduced their reaction times without sacrificing accuracy. The researchers observed that differences in accuracy between the two groups were not statistically significant. This indicates that both game types provided a similar enhancement to the speed of cognitive processing.
During the EEG sessions, the researchers looked at specific frequencies of brainwaves. They focused on slow-moving delta and theta waves, as well as functional connections in the alpha band. Delta and theta waves are associated with neural adaptability and readiness. Alpha-band connections indicate how efficiently different brain regions communicate with one another.
The physiological data showed that both groups developed increased delta and theta wave power over the 30 weeks. They also showed a reduction in alpha-band connectivity. A decrease in alpha connectivity suggests that the brain is streamlining its networks. It appears to cut out redundant pathways to process information more efficiently.
The action game group exhibited much stronger brain wave changes than the strategy game group. Ten weeks after the training ended, the action game players had notably higher slow-wave activity than their strategy game counterparts. They also displayed much lower alpha connectivity. These physiological shifts closely mirrored the action group’s superior performance on the attention and memory tasks.
While these results highlight the mental benefits of gaming, the findings apply specifically to the structured environment of the experiment. The participants only played for one hour a day. They avoided extreme gaming habits that could lead to fatigue or behavioral issues. The study also focused exclusively on young, healthy college students.
The way video games affect the brains of children, older adults, or individuals with cognitive impairments might look entirely different. Additionally, the researchers relied on self-reported logs and limited account data to verify that participants were not playing other video games during the study. This method relies on honesty and memory, which can introduce errors.
The researchers also did not track the participants’ academic workloads during the testing phases. Heavy coursework or stressful exams could have independently influenced their mental fatigue or cognitive performance. Future research will need to incorporate broader age groups and track daily stress levels to fully understand how digital environments shape human brain function.
The study, “Effects of Video Game Type on Cognitive Performance and Brain Functional Connectivity: A Longitudinal EEG Study,” was authored by Jingqing Lu, Ruifang Cui, Lijun Jiang, Chenyu Mu, Weiyi Ma, Diankun Gong, and Dezhong Yao.
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DATE: September 12, 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: Different video game genres alter brain activity and enhance cognition in unique ways
Playing different types of video games can improve a person’s cognitive abilities and alter how their brain operates at rest. A new study reveals that fast-paced action games and turn-based strategy games both enhance mental performance, but action games lead to more pronounced and long-lasting neural adaptations. The research was recently published in the journal Brain Sciences.
As video games have grown into a dominant form of global entertainment, researchers have increasingly investigated their potential to shape the brain. Past studies have suggested that regular gameplay can boost attention, memory, and executive function. Executive function refers to a set of mental skills that include flexible thinking and self-control.
Researchers Jingqing Lu, Dezhong Yao, and their colleagues at the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China wanted to understand how distinct game genres uniquely influence the brain. Different genres require vastly different mental resources to succeed. Fast-paced action games demand rapid reflexes, hand-eye coordination, and the simultaneous monitoring of multiple visual targets. Turn-based strategy card games focus on long-term planning, probabilistic reasoning, and keeping track of past moves.
The researchers designed a study to compare these two specific gaming experiences. They aimed to track how dedicated practice alters performance on mental tests and changes the brain’s baseline electrical activity. To measure this baseline activity, they used electroencephalography, commonly known as EEG, to record electrical signals while participants rested with their eyes closed. Resting-state EEG provides an objective measure of the brain’s intrinsic activity and structural efficiency when not actively engaged in a task.
The researchers recruited 68 college students who did not regularly play video games. They randomly assigned the participants to play either an action game, League of Legends, or a strategy card game, Legends of the Three Kingdoms. Each participant played their assigned game for one hour a day, five days a week, over a span of 20 weeks.
To track changes, the research team tested the participants at six different points over 30 weeks. This timeline included a baseline test, mid-training assessments, a post-training test at 20 weeks, and a final retention test 10 weeks after all training had stopped. At these sessions, participants completed three computer-based cognitive tasks. The researchers separately recorded their resting brain activity during these testing weeks.
The first task evaluated distributed spatial attention, which is the ability to monitor multiple locations at once without moving the eyes. Participants had to remember the location of a quick visual cue. They later had to identify a symbol that appeared in that exact spot on a screen.
Over the course of the training, both groups became faster and more accurate at this spatial attention task. However, the action game group experienced a much larger boost in accuracy than the strategy game group. This advantage for the action game players remained robust at the final 10-week follow-up.
The second assessment was a spatial working memory task. It required participants to observe a grid of flashing squares and recall if a current square matched one that flashed several turns earlier. Working memory acts as a temporary mental workspace for holding and processing information on the fly.
Participants in both the action and strategy groups responded faster on the working memory task as their training progressed. Both groups maintained their initial accuracy levels as their speed improved. The action game players consistently demonstrated higher overall performance throughout the testing period.
The final task measured executive function by presenting participants with colored arrows. The participants had to press buttons based on specific rules that pitted the color of the arrow against the direction it was pointing. This forced them to suppress their instinctive reactions and follow the changing logical rules.
In this executive function test, both groups substantially reduced their reaction times without sacrificing accuracy. The researchers observed that differences in accuracy between the two groups were not statistically significant. This indicates that both game types provided a similar enhancement to the speed of cognitive processing.
During the EEG sessions, the researchers looked at specific frequencies of brainwaves. They focused on slow-moving delta and theta waves, as well as functional connections in the alpha band. Delta and theta waves are associated with neural adaptability and readiness. Alpha-band connections indicate how efficiently different brain regions communicate with one another.
The physiological data showed that both groups developed increased delta and theta wave power over the 30 weeks. They also showed a reduction in alpha-band connectivity. A decrease in alpha connectivity suggests that the brain is streamlining its networks. It appears to cut out redundant pathways to process information more efficiently.
The action game group exhibited much stronger brain wave changes than the strategy game group. Ten weeks after the training ended, the action game players had notably higher slow-wave activity than their strategy game counterparts. They also displayed much lower alpha connectivity. These physiological shifts closely mirrored the action group’s superior performance on the attention and memory tasks.
While these results highlight the mental benefits of gaming, the findings apply specifically to the structured environment of the experiment. The participants only played for one hour a day. They avoided extreme gaming habits that could lead to fatigue or behavioral issues. The study also focused exclusively on young, healthy college students.
The way video games affect the brains of children, older adults, or individuals with cognitive impairments might look entirely different. Additionally, the researchers relied on self-reported logs and limited account data to verify that participants were not playing other video games during the study. This method relies on honesty and memory, which can introduce errors.
The researchers also did not track the participants’ academic workloads during the testing phases. Heavy coursework or stressful exams could have independently influenced their mental fatigue or cognitive performance. Future research will need to incorporate broader age groups and track daily stress levels to fully understand how digital environments shape human brain function.
The study, “Effects of Video Game Type on Cognitive Performance and Brain Functional Connectivity: A Longitudinal EEG Study,” was authored by Jingqing Lu, Ruifang Cui, Lijun Jiang, Chenyu Mu, Weiyi Ma, Diankun Gong, and Dezhong Yao.
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DATE: September 12, 2026 at 12:09PM
SOURCE: SOCIALPSYCHOLOGY.ORGTITLE: Anthropic Says It Blocked AI Misuse That Could Create Biological Weapons
Source: PBS News Hour
Anthropic said Thursday it has blocked efforts by bad actors to use its artificial intelligence models for malicious activity such as cyberattacks, surveillance, and research that could have led to biological weapons. As AI models grow more powerful, elaborate cyberattacks no longer require sophisticated skills, and even lone individuals can create threats that would not have been possible even a year ago, Anthropic warned.
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DATE: September 12, 2026 at 12:09PM
SOURCE: SOCIALPSYCHOLOGY.ORGTITLE: Anthropic Says It Blocked AI Misuse That Could Create Biological Weapons
Source: PBS News Hour
Anthropic said Thursday it has blocked efforts by bad actors to use its artificial intelligence models for malicious activity such as cyberattacks, surveillance, and research that could have led to biological weapons. As AI models grow more powerful, elaborate cyberattacks no longer require sophisticated skills, and even lone individuals can create threats that would not have been possible even a year ago, Anthropic warned.
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-
DATE: September 12, 2026 at 12:09PM
SOURCE: SOCIALPSYCHOLOGY.ORGTITLE: Anthropic Says It Blocked AI Misuse That Could Create Biological Weapons
Source: PBS News Hour
Anthropic said Thursday it has blocked efforts by bad actors to use its artificial intelligence models for malicious activity such as cyberattacks, surveillance, and research that could have led to biological weapons. As AI models grow more powerful, elaborate cyberattacks no longer require sophisticated skills, and even lone individuals can create threats that would not have been possible even a year ago, Anthropic warned.
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DATE: September 12, 2026 at 12:08PM
SOURCE: SOCIALPSYCHOLOGY.ORGTITLE: Ancient Teeth Reveal Humans Were Getting High 25,000 Years Ago
Source: Science Daily - Top Society
Ancient human remains from Sulawesi suggest people were habitually using the psychoactive betel nut as far back as 25,000 years ago. Researchers found unusual tooth wear and traces of arecoline, the nut's mind-altering compound, in the teeth of prehistoric hunter-gatherers. The practice may have started partly for pain relief, but prolonged use damaged their teeth—providing perhaps the earliest known evidence of habitual drug use anywhere in...
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DATE: September 12, 2026 at 12:08PM
SOURCE: SOCIALPSYCHOLOGY.ORGTITLE: Studies May Promise Anonymity, But the Promise Is Often Broken
Source: Science
Economist Abel Brodeur was leading a group of colleagues examining a survey-research study when they noticed something that stunned them. Its data set, available in a public repository, contained names of people who had admitted to crimes and identified their accomplices, information never provided to police. This broken promise of anonymity, it turns out, was far from an isolated case, according to a new study released last week.
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-
DATE: September 12, 2026 at 12:08PM
SOURCE: SOCIALPSYCHOLOGY.ORGTITLE: Studies May Promise Anonymity, But the Promise Is Often Broken
Source: Science
Economist Abel Brodeur was leading a group of colleagues examining a survey-research study when they noticed something that stunned them. Its data set, available in a public repository, contained names of people who had admitted to crimes and identified their accomplices, information never provided to police. This broken promise of anonymity, it turns out, was far from an isolated case, according to a new study released last week.
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-
DATE: September 12, 2026 at 12:08PM
SOURCE: SOCIALPSYCHOLOGY.ORGTITLE: Studies May Promise Anonymity, But the Promise Is Often Broken
Source: Science
Economist Abel Brodeur was leading a group of colleagues examining a survey-research study when they noticed something that stunned them. Its data set, available in a public repository, contained names of people who had admitted to crimes and identified their accomplices, information never provided to police. This broken promise of anonymity, it turns out, was far from an isolated case, according to a new study released last week.
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DATE: September 12, 2026 at 12:07PM
SOURCE: SOCIALPSYCHOLOGY.ORGTITLE: Why People Often Hide Their Successes and Share Their Failures
Source: PsyPost
People often adjust what they share about their own achievements or setbacks based on what their conversation partner has just revealed. New research suggests that these choices are driven less by a desire to manage one's own image and more by an intention to protect other people's feelings. This goal leads people to share mutual failures far more often than mutual successes, according to a report in Organizational Behavior and Human Decision...
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DATE: September 12, 2026 at 12:07PM
SOURCE: SOCIALPSYCHOLOGY.ORGTITLE: Smartphone Use Before Age 13 Tied to Worse Mental Health in Adulthood
Source: PsyPost
New research has linked the use of smartphones in early childhood to poorer psychological well-being in young adulthood. The negative outcomes are largely tied to social media usage, which opens the door to cyberbullying, poor family relationships, and disrupted sleep. The study, published in Journal of Human Development and Capabilities, examined over 100,000 young adults between the ages of 18 and 24 from 163 countries and varied cultural...
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DATE: September 12, 2026 at 12:07PM
SOURCE: SOCIALPSYCHOLOGY.ORGTITLE: Smartphone Use Before Age 13 Tied to Worse Mental Health in Adulthood
Source: PsyPost
New research has linked the use of smartphones in early childhood to poorer psychological well-being in young adulthood. The negative outcomes are largely tied to social media usage, which opens the door to cyberbullying, poor family relationships, and disrupted sleep. The study, published in Journal of Human Development and Capabilities, examined over 100,000 young adults between the ages of 18 and 24 from 163 countries and varied cultural...
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-
DATE: September 12, 2026 at 12:07PM
SOURCE: SOCIALPSYCHOLOGY.ORGTITLE: Smartphone Use Before Age 13 Tied to Worse Mental Health in Adulthood
Source: PsyPost
New research has linked the use of smartphones in early childhood to poorer psychological well-being in young adulthood. The negative outcomes are largely tied to social media usage, which opens the door to cyberbullying, poor family relationships, and disrupted sleep. The study, published in Journal of Human Development and Capabilities, examined over 100,000 young adults between the ages of 18 and 24 from 163 countries and varied cultural...
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-
DATE: September 12, 2026 at 12:07PM
SOURCE: SOCIALPSYCHOLOGY.ORGTITLE: Smartphone Use Before Age 13 Tied to Worse Mental Health in Adulthood
Source: PsyPost
New research has linked the use of smartphones in early childhood to poorer psychological well-being in young adulthood. The negative outcomes are largely tied to social media usage, which opens the door to cyberbullying, poor family relationships, and disrupted sleep. The study, published in Journal of Human Development and Capabilities, examined over 100,000 young adults between the ages of 18 and 24 from 163 countries and varied cultural...
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-
DATE: September 12, 2026 at 12:07PM
SOURCE: SOCIALPSYCHOLOGY.ORGTITLE: Why People Often Hide Their Successes and Share Their Failures
Source: PsyPost
People often adjust what they share about their own achievements or setbacks based on what their conversation partner has just revealed. New research suggests that these choices are driven less by a desire to manage one's own image and more by an intention to protect other people's feelings. This goal leads people to share mutual failures far more often than mutual successes, according to a report in Organizational Behavior and Human Decision...
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-
DATE: September 12, 2026 at 12:07PM
SOURCE: SOCIALPSYCHOLOGY.ORGTITLE: Why People Often Hide Their Successes and Share Their Failures
Source: PsyPost
People often adjust what they share about their own achievements or setbacks based on what their conversation partner has just revealed. New research suggests that these choices are driven less by a desire to manage one's own image and more by an intention to protect other people's feelings. This goal leads people to share mutual failures far more often than mutual successes, according to a report in Organizational Behavior and Human Decision...
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#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #HidingSuccesses #SharingFailures #MutualSupport #EmpathyInConversation #SocialBehavior研究 #CommunicationDynamics #WorkplaceCulture #EmotionalIntelligence #SelfPresentation #PsychologyResearch
-
DATE: September 12, 2026 at 12:07PM
SOURCE: SOCIALPSYCHOLOGY.ORGTITLE: Why People Often Hide Their Successes and Share Their Failures
Source: PsyPost
People often adjust what they share about their own achievements or setbacks based on what their conversation partner has just revealed. New research suggests that these choices are driven less by a desire to manage one's own image and more by an intention to protect other people's feelings. This goal leads people to share mutual failures far more often than mutual successes, according to a report in Organizational Behavior and Human Decision...
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DATE: September 12, 2026 at 12:05PM
SOURCE: SOCIALPSYCHOLOGY.ORGTITLE: Senators From Both Parties Question OpenAI on Breach of AI Startup
Source: PBS News Hour
Lawmakers worried about the existential risk posed by artificial intelligence demanded information from OpenAI on Thursday with separate queries that underscored concerns about the technology's potential to elude human control. Senator Josh Hawley launched an investigation Thursday into OpenAI for its artificial intelligence system hacking into another AI company on its own, and Senator Chris Van Hollen called on OpenAI to cooperate in a safety...
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-
DATE: September 12, 2026 at 09:52AM
SOURCE: SCIENCE DAILY MIND-BRAIN FEEDTITLE: Scientists find Ozempic may slow aging itself
URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/09/260911214238.htm
Semaglutide helped older healthy mice live longer while improving memory, muscle function, blood sugar control, and several biological signs of aging. Its effects went beyond those seen with calorie restriction, raising the possibility that GLP-1 drugs could tap into a separate biological pathway linked to longevity.
URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/09/260911214238.htm
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-
DATE: September 12, 2026 at 09:52AM
SOURCE: SCIENCE DAILY MIND-BRAIN FEEDTITLE: Scientists find Ozempic may slow aging itself
URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/09/260911214238.htm
Semaglutide helped older healthy mice live longer while improving memory, muscle function, blood sugar control, and several biological signs of aging. Its effects went beyond those seen with calorie restriction, raising the possibility that GLP-1 drugs could tap into a separate biological pathway linked to longevity.
URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/09/260911214238.htm
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-
DATE: September 12, 2026 at 09:52AM
SOURCE: SCIENCE DAILY MIND-BRAIN FEEDTITLE: Scientists find Ozempic may slow aging itself
URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/09/260911214238.htm
Semaglutide helped older healthy mice live longer while improving memory, muscle function, blood sugar control, and several biological signs of aging. Its effects went beyond those seen with calorie restriction, raising the possibility that GLP-1 drugs could tap into a separate biological pathway linked to longevity.
URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/09/260911214238.htm
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-
DATE: September 12, 2026 at 09:52AM
SOURCE: SCIENCE DAILY MIND-BRAIN FEEDTITLE: Scientists find Ozempic may slow aging itself
URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/09/260911214238.htm
Semaglutide helped older healthy mice live longer while improving memory, muscle function, blood sugar control, and several biological signs of aging. Its effects went beyond those seen with calorie restriction, raising the possibility that GLP-1 drugs could tap into a separate biological pathway linked to longevity.
URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/09/260911214238.htm
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DATE: September 12, 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: Tracking brain waves reveals a surprising twist in how different generations form social bonds
Getting to know someone across multiple encounters can ease feelings of loneliness, and new research indicates that these budding relationships physically synchronize brain activity in unexpected ways. A new study, published in PLOS Biology, suggests that when younger and older adults regularly participate in creative activities together, their brains coordinate differently over time compared to pairs of the same age. Over six weeks of collaborative drawing, people of different generations showed decreasing neural synchronization, while same-age peers showed increasing synchronization, even as both groups reported feeling closer to their partners.
People of all ages experience perceived social isolation, and community programs that mix generations are a popular way to combat these feelings of loneliness. These programs rely on the idea that repeated interactions foster meaningful social bonds. However, the physical brain changes that happen as these relationships form are mostly unknown to scientists.
“As the global population ages, and with social isolation acknowledged as a global health risk, it is critical to understand how social bonds form between people from the same and different generations,” Ryssa Moffat, a postdoctoral researcher at ETH Zurich’s Social Brain Sciences Lab, told PsyPost. “My motivation to study social interactions between seniors and young adults grew from positive experiences getting to know seniors around the world. The idea for this project really gained momentum when I read statistics about the growing proportion of older adults globally and learned about the risks of loneliness and social isolation.”
To study these physical changes in real time, scientists use a technique called functional near-infrared spectroscopy. This involves participants wearing a flexible cap embedded with sensors that shine safe levels of light through the scalp to measure changes in blood flow in specific brain areas. This tool allows researchers to track interpersonal neural synchrony, which is the extent to which two people’s brain activity aligns in time while they interact.
Researchers pay special attention to two specific brain regions during social tasks. The first is the temporoparietal junction, an area near the ears that helps people process social information and understand others’ perspectives. The second is the inferior frontal gyrus, an area near the temples involved in paying attention to the same thing as a partner.
A progression of recent research provides evidence that social bonds shift brain-to-brain dynamics as relationships unfold. For instance, a 2022 meta-analysis found that working together on a cooperative task consistently synchronizes the frontal and temporoparietal brain regions. This aligns with research covered by PsyPost in 2024, which found that brain synchronization between humans and dogs increases as they become more familiar with each other over several days.
In human relationships, a 2024 experiment indicated that brain synchrony between two people naturally shifts over the course of a conversation depending on whether they are friends or strangers. Building on this evidence, the authors of a 2024 review proposed that using mobile brain scanning to track neural alignment across repeated sessions is essential for understanding how social bonds develop across generations. The new research, led by Moffat and Emily S. Cross, put this concept into practice.
The researchers recruited 61 pairs of strangers from the community. They formed 31 intergenerational pairs, consisting of one younger adult and one adult aged 69 or older, and 30 same-generation pairs made up of two younger adults. The pairs met once a week for six weeks to complete a creative drawing program.
At the start of each session, the participants filled out surveys measuring their current feelings of loneliness, their sense of closeness to their drawing partner, and their attitudes toward people of different age groups. After completing the surveys, researchers fitted the participants with the sensor caps.
The pairs then completed three separate drawing tasks using oil pastels, lasting five minutes each. They were instructed not to talk during the drawing portion. For the first drawing, they worked independently, separated by a visual divider. For the next two drawings, the divider was removed and the pair worked together on a single piece of paper. The sessions concluded with a short puzzle or game.
“It is very exciting to have mapped how synchrony emerges among younger and older adults for the first time,” Moffat said. She noted that they were able “to show how patterns of synchrony change across repeated encounters with information from each encounter, instead of just the first and the last encounter.”
Over the six weeks, feelings of loneliness dropped by about 1 percent per session for both groups. Feelings of social closeness increased by about 4 percent per session, indicating that the program successfully fostered social bonds. “These small but robust changes were observed for same-generation pairs and intergenerational pairs alike,” Moffat noted. The intergenerational pairs generally reported feeling less lonely than the same-generation pairs, and they held more positive attitudes toward other generations.
When analyzing the brain data from all the sessions combined, the researchers found that interpersonal neural synchrony was greater when the pairs drew together compared to when they drew alone. This brain alignment was especially high in the temporoparietal junction and inferior frontal gyrus.
The findings are in line with research covered by PsyPost earlier in 2026, which found that engaging in shared activities together produces greater interpersonal neural synchrony than doing them alone, though that study measured brain alignment during shared music listening among friends rather than interactive drawing across different generations.
Tracking the brain alignment across the six weeks presented an unexpected pattern. For the same-generation pairs, neural synchrony in the right temporoparietal junction increased as the weeks went on. For the intergenerational pairs, neural synchrony in this same area actually decreased over the six weeks.
“I was initially surprised to see synchrony levels decrease for intergenerational dyads,” Moffat explained. “My assumption that we would see increases in synchrony was based on the existing studies comparing strangers, friends, and romantic partners who attend a single session. In these studies, the closer people are to one another, the more synchrony they tend to show.”
The authors suggest that this divergence might reflect how different age pairs integrate social information. “The main takeaway from our study is that the way in which people’s brains synchronize during cooperation depends on who they’re interacting with and the common ground shared by the interacting people,” Moffat said. Because synchrony is believed to reflect how fluently people can predict each other, it is amplified when prediction is less fluent.
Younger pairs might monitor each other’s attention more closely as they become familiar, leading to higher synchrony. As Moffat noted, “they may engage in unpredictable behaviors to keep the interactions interesting and engaging.” In contrast, mixed-generation pairs might require less active monitoring of their partner’s attention once they establish a comfortable routine. “As older and younger people become better acquainted and form more common ground, they can predict each other more fluently and we see reductions in synchrony between brains in certain brain regions,” she added.
The researchers also noticed relationships between the physical brain data and the survey responses. Across all the pairs, reporting higher social closeness predicted an increase in synchrony between the inferior frontal gyrus and the temporoparietal junction. Pairs with more similar levels of loneliness showed greater synchrony in the inferior frontal gyrus when drawing together, which might indicate that sharing a similar social mindset shapes how easily two people coordinate their attention.
One common misconception to avoid is the assumption that more synchrony is always better. “If we start from the standpoint that synchrony increases when predicting another person’s actions is more challenging, it’s probable that excessively high levels of synchrony indicate excessive challenge and that very low levels may indicate a lack of engagement,” Moffat explained. Instead, a “happy medium might be optimal,” where navigating different levels of predictability keeps people socially fit.
There are a few other things to keep in mind about this study. The brain scans targeted specific areas associated with social processing and attention, so the results do not capture activity across the entire brain. The experiment also specifically restricted verbal communication during the drawing tasks, meaning brain alignment might look different if the pairs were talking freely.
Additionally, the study only compared mixed-generation pairs to young-adult pairs. The researchers did not include a group of two older adults, which means some of the differences observed between the groups might relate to general age-related brain changes rather than the specific dynamic of mixing generations. Technical issues also caused a few sensors to fail during the experiment, slightly reducing the amount of data available for the right side of the brain.
Future studies could explore whether other types of common ground, such as shared cultural backgrounds or long-term hobbies, shape brain synchronization over time. Expanding this research into larger group settings could also provide a better understanding of how community arts programs physically benefit participants.
Moffat and her colleagues plan to expand on these findings by analyzing the other behavioral data they collected. “Alongside the recordings of brain activity, we also recorded a multitude of other signals including motion capture of body movements, performance on collaborative games and puzzles, the actual drawings that the participants co-created, as well as participants’ subjective experiences,” she said. “Our next steps are to analyze the other signals and to bring them together to understand how social connections form from a holistic perspective.”
The study, “Social interactions between people of same and different generations shape longitudinal changes in interpersonal neural synchrony, loneliness, and social connection,” was authored by Ryssa Moffat, Guillaume Dumas, and Emily S. Cross.
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DATE: September 12, 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: How anxiety and face gender shape emotional processing in children
URL: https://www.psypost.org/how-anxiety-and-face-gender-shape-emotional-processing-in-children/
As children grow, their brains develop distinct ways of processing facial expressions based on a mix of emotion and face gender. A recent study reveals that these neural responses grow more specialized with age, while elevated anxiety can alter how kids react to potentially threatening faces. The research was published in Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience.
Cultural norms and early experiences teach children to associate certain emotions with specific genders. Anger is often linked with male faces and interpreted as a sign of dominance or potential threat. In contrast, happiness is frequently associated with female faces and perceived as a sign of emotional warmth. When a facial expression violates these expectations, such as an angry female face or a happy male face, the brain must work harder to interpret the social cue.
The research team wanted to see how the developing brain manages these unexpected social signals. They focused on tracking specific patterns of electrical activity, known as brain waves. Alpha and beta brain waves are associated with attention and the filtering of sensory information. Gamma waves, which oscillate much faster, are linked to higher cognitive tasks, like blending different pieces of social and emotional information together.
The scientists also aimed to explore how anxiety affects these developmental trajectories. Anxious individuals often exhibit a specific pattern of attention when faced with a threat. They may initially focus heavily on a threatening cue before quickly looking away to reduce their own psychological distress. The research team, led by neuroscientists Hua Bai, Yasra Arif, and Tony W. Wilson at Boys Town National Research Hospital in Nebraska, set out to map these cognitive processes in youth.
The researchers enrolled a group of healthy children and teenagers between the ages of six and 17. The final analysis included data from 149 participants. While positioned inside a brain scanning machine, the participants viewed photographs of adult faces displaying angry, happy, or neutral expressions. Half of the faces shown in the experiment were male, and the other half were female.
The participants were instructed to press a button indicating the gender of each face, regardless of the emotional expression. While the youths performed this task, the researchers recorded their neural activity using a technique called magnetoencephalography. This non-invasive imaging technology measures the tiny magnetic fields produced by the electrical firing of brain cells, allowing researchers to track brain waves with high precision in real time.
The team also collected behavioral data during the task, such as how accurately and quickly the participants responded. Afterward, the researchers used specialized software to filter out background noise from the brain recordings, such as the electrical signals generated by eye blinks and heartbeats. Finally, the children aged eight and older completed a standardized self-report questionnaire to assess their daily anxiety levels.
The behavioral results indicated that response times varied depending on both the age of the participant and the combination of gender and emotion. The youths responded fastest to angry male faces. In contrast, angry female faces prompted the slowest reactions across the board. The researchers noted that these reaction times did not reach a level of statistical significance for the happy faces, meaning the age-related changes were specific to angry and neutral expressions.
When analyzing the brain wave data, the researchers noticed distinct patterns emerging within a fraction of a second. In regions of the brain responsible for visual perception and movement control, alpha and beta wave responses grew stronger in older children. These brain waves were especially active when participants viewed faces that violated social expectations, such as angry female faces and happy male faces.
The researchers found a specific association between these brain waves and reaction times for angry male faces. Older children showed increased alpha and beta activity in a brain region involved in motor planning and inhibitory control. The scientists proposed that as children age, they increasingly recruit this inhibitory network to control their physical responses to threatening cues, slowing themselves down just enough to process the information safely.
A different pattern emerged slightly later in the brain’s processing timeline, characterized by gamma wave activity. Older children displayed increased gamma activity in areas of the brain known for handling complex social and emotional information, such as the temporoparietal junction. This activity was particularly elevated when processing angry female faces, suggesting that the brain requires more integrative processing to make sense of unexpected social signals.
The team also observed age-related increases in gamma waves when participants viewed neutral faces. However, these responses were mixed, with some brain regions reacting more to neutral male faces and others to neutral female faces. The researchers attributed this lack of a consistent pattern to the inherently ambiguous nature of a neutral expression, which requires social interpretation regardless of the person’s gender.
Individual anxiety levels also altered how the brain processed these faces. Children reporting higher levels of anxiety displayed weaker early alpha and beta responses in visual processing areas when viewing angry male faces. This pattern aligns with behavioral theories suggesting that anxious youths instinctively suppress attention toward highly threatening social cues to manage their own distress. Meanwhile, responses to angry female faces remained consistently elevated across all anxiety levels.
The study focuses exclusively on typically developing children, meaning the results may not generalize to youths with clinical conditions like social anxiety disorder or autism spectrum disorder. The faces used in the experiment were also entirely composed of adults. Future studies could incorporate images of children and teenagers to test if youth react differently to the faces of their own peers.
The participant pool was predominantly White, which introduces the possibility of an own-race familiarity bias in how the faces were perceived. Because the study only evaluated participants at a single point in time, researchers cannot track how these brain patterns evolve within the same individual over the years. Longitudinal tracking would clarify how early brain responses shape social and emotional development long-term.
The study, “Facial expression processing is modulated by face gender and anxiety levels in developing youth,” was authored by Hua Bai, Yasra Arif, Jake J. Son, Nathan M. Petro, Grace C. Ende, Danielle L. Rice, Jason A. John, Anna T. Coutant, Erica L. Steiner, Ryan J. Glesinger, Hannah J. Okelberry, Brittany K. Taylor, Giorgia Picci, and Tony W. Wilson.
URL: https://www.psypost.org/how-anxiety-and-face-gender-shape-emotional-processing-in-children/
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DATE: September 12, 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: How anxiety and face gender shape emotional processing in children
URL: https://www.psypost.org/how-anxiety-and-face-gender-shape-emotional-processing-in-children/
As children grow, their brains develop distinct ways of processing facial expressions based on a mix of emotion and face gender. A recent study reveals that these neural responses grow more specialized with age, while elevated anxiety can alter how kids react to potentially threatening faces. The research was published in Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience.
Cultural norms and early experiences teach children to associate certain emotions with specific genders. Anger is often linked with male faces and interpreted as a sign of dominance or potential threat. In contrast, happiness is frequently associated with female faces and perceived as a sign of emotional warmth. When a facial expression violates these expectations, such as an angry female face or a happy male face, the brain must work harder to interpret the social cue.
The research team wanted to see how the developing brain manages these unexpected social signals. They focused on tracking specific patterns of electrical activity, known as brain waves. Alpha and beta brain waves are associated with attention and the filtering of sensory information. Gamma waves, which oscillate much faster, are linked to higher cognitive tasks, like blending different pieces of social and emotional information together.
The scientists also aimed to explore how anxiety affects these developmental trajectories. Anxious individuals often exhibit a specific pattern of attention when faced with a threat. They may initially focus heavily on a threatening cue before quickly looking away to reduce their own psychological distress. The research team, led by neuroscientists Hua Bai, Yasra Arif, and Tony W. Wilson at Boys Town National Research Hospital in Nebraska, set out to map these cognitive processes in youth.
The researchers enrolled a group of healthy children and teenagers between the ages of six and 17. The final analysis included data from 149 participants. While positioned inside a brain scanning machine, the participants viewed photographs of adult faces displaying angry, happy, or neutral expressions. Half of the faces shown in the experiment were male, and the other half were female.
The participants were instructed to press a button indicating the gender of each face, regardless of the emotional expression. While the youths performed this task, the researchers recorded their neural activity using a technique called magnetoencephalography. This non-invasive imaging technology measures the tiny magnetic fields produced by the electrical firing of brain cells, allowing researchers to track brain waves with high precision in real time.
The team also collected behavioral data during the task, such as how accurately and quickly the participants responded. Afterward, the researchers used specialized software to filter out background noise from the brain recordings, such as the electrical signals generated by eye blinks and heartbeats. Finally, the children aged eight and older completed a standardized self-report questionnaire to assess their daily anxiety levels.
The behavioral results indicated that response times varied depending on both the age of the participant and the combination of gender and emotion. The youths responded fastest to angry male faces. In contrast, angry female faces prompted the slowest reactions across the board. The researchers noted that these reaction times did not reach a level of statistical significance for the happy faces, meaning the age-related changes were specific to angry and neutral expressions.
When analyzing the brain wave data, the researchers noticed distinct patterns emerging within a fraction of a second. In regions of the brain responsible for visual perception and movement control, alpha and beta wave responses grew stronger in older children. These brain waves were especially active when participants viewed faces that violated social expectations, such as angry female faces and happy male faces.
The researchers found a specific association between these brain waves and reaction times for angry male faces. Older children showed increased alpha and beta activity in a brain region involved in motor planning and inhibitory control. The scientists proposed that as children age, they increasingly recruit this inhibitory network to control their physical responses to threatening cues, slowing themselves down just enough to process the information safely.
A different pattern emerged slightly later in the brain’s processing timeline, characterized by gamma wave activity. Older children displayed increased gamma activity in areas of the brain known for handling complex social and emotional information, such as the temporoparietal junction. This activity was particularly elevated when processing angry female faces, suggesting that the brain requires more integrative processing to make sense of unexpected social signals.
The team also observed age-related increases in gamma waves when participants viewed neutral faces. However, these responses were mixed, with some brain regions reacting more to neutral male faces and others to neutral female faces. The researchers attributed this lack of a consistent pattern to the inherently ambiguous nature of a neutral expression, which requires social interpretation regardless of the person’s gender.
Individual anxiety levels also altered how the brain processed these faces. Children reporting higher levels of anxiety displayed weaker early alpha and beta responses in visual processing areas when viewing angry male faces. This pattern aligns with behavioral theories suggesting that anxious youths instinctively suppress attention toward highly threatening social cues to manage their own distress. Meanwhile, responses to angry female faces remained consistently elevated across all anxiety levels.
The study focuses exclusively on typically developing children, meaning the results may not generalize to youths with clinical conditions like social anxiety disorder or autism spectrum disorder. The faces used in the experiment were also entirely composed of adults. Future studies could incorporate images of children and teenagers to test if youth react differently to the faces of their own peers.
The participant pool was predominantly White, which introduces the possibility of an own-race familiarity bias in how the faces were perceived. Because the study only evaluated participants at a single point in time, researchers cannot track how these brain patterns evolve within the same individual over the years. Longitudinal tracking would clarify how early brain responses shape social and emotional development long-term.
The study, “Facial expression processing is modulated by face gender and anxiety levels in developing youth,” was authored by Hua Bai, Yasra Arif, Jake J. Son, Nathan M. Petro, Grace C. Ende, Danielle L. Rice, Jason A. John, Anna T. Coutant, Erica L. Steiner, Ryan J. Glesinger, Hannah J. Okelberry, Brittany K. Taylor, Giorgia Picci, and Tony W. Wilson.
URL: https://www.psypost.org/how-anxiety-and-face-gender-shape-emotional-processing-in-children/
-------------------------------------------------
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#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #FacialExpressionProcessing #FaceGenderAndAnxiety #DevelopmentalCognitionNeuroscience #ChildNeurology #EmotionalProcessingInYouth #AlphaBetaGammaWaves #AnxietyAndAttention #SocialCognition #NeuroscienceOfEmotion #YouthBrainDevelopment
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DATE: September 12, 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: How anxiety and face gender shape emotional processing in children
URL: https://www.psypost.org/how-anxiety-and-face-gender-shape-emotional-processing-in-children/
As children grow, their brains develop distinct ways of processing facial expressions based on a mix of emotion and face gender. A recent study reveals that these neural responses grow more specialized with age, while elevated anxiety can alter how kids react to potentially threatening faces. The research was published in Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience.
Cultural norms and early experiences teach children to associate certain emotions with specific genders. Anger is often linked with male faces and interpreted as a sign of dominance or potential threat. In contrast, happiness is frequently associated with female faces and perceived as a sign of emotional warmth. When a facial expression violates these expectations, such as an angry female face or a happy male face, the brain must work harder to interpret the social cue.
The research team wanted to see how the developing brain manages these unexpected social signals. They focused on tracking specific patterns of electrical activity, known as brain waves. Alpha and beta brain waves are associated with attention and the filtering of sensory information. Gamma waves, which oscillate much faster, are linked to higher cognitive tasks, like blending different pieces of social and emotional information together.
The scientists also aimed to explore how anxiety affects these developmental trajectories. Anxious individuals often exhibit a specific pattern of attention when faced with a threat. They may initially focus heavily on a threatening cue before quickly looking away to reduce their own psychological distress. The research team, led by neuroscientists Hua Bai, Yasra Arif, and Tony W. Wilson at Boys Town National Research Hospital in Nebraska, set out to map these cognitive processes in youth.
The researchers enrolled a group of healthy children and teenagers between the ages of six and 17. The final analysis included data from 149 participants. While positioned inside a brain scanning machine, the participants viewed photographs of adult faces displaying angry, happy, or neutral expressions. Half of the faces shown in the experiment were male, and the other half were female.
The participants were instructed to press a button indicating the gender of each face, regardless of the emotional expression. While the youths performed this task, the researchers recorded their neural activity using a technique called magnetoencephalography. This non-invasive imaging technology measures the tiny magnetic fields produced by the electrical firing of brain cells, allowing researchers to track brain waves with high precision in real time.
The team also collected behavioral data during the task, such as how accurately and quickly the participants responded. Afterward, the researchers used specialized software to filter out background noise from the brain recordings, such as the electrical signals generated by eye blinks and heartbeats. Finally, the children aged eight and older completed a standardized self-report questionnaire to assess their daily anxiety levels.
The behavioral results indicated that response times varied depending on both the age of the participant and the combination of gender and emotion. The youths responded fastest to angry male faces. In contrast, angry female faces prompted the slowest reactions across the board. The researchers noted that these reaction times did not reach a level of statistical significance for the happy faces, meaning the age-related changes were specific to angry and neutral expressions.
When analyzing the brain wave data, the researchers noticed distinct patterns emerging within a fraction of a second. In regions of the brain responsible for visual perception and movement control, alpha and beta wave responses grew stronger in older children. These brain waves were especially active when participants viewed faces that violated social expectations, such as angry female faces and happy male faces.
The researchers found a specific association between these brain waves and reaction times for angry male faces. Older children showed increased alpha and beta activity in a brain region involved in motor planning and inhibitory control. The scientists proposed that as children age, they increasingly recruit this inhibitory network to control their physical responses to threatening cues, slowing themselves down just enough to process the information safely.
A different pattern emerged slightly later in the brain’s processing timeline, characterized by gamma wave activity. Older children displayed increased gamma activity in areas of the brain known for handling complex social and emotional information, such as the temporoparietal junction. This activity was particularly elevated when processing angry female faces, suggesting that the brain requires more integrative processing to make sense of unexpected social signals.
The team also observed age-related increases in gamma waves when participants viewed neutral faces. However, these responses were mixed, with some brain regions reacting more to neutral male faces and others to neutral female faces. The researchers attributed this lack of a consistent pattern to the inherently ambiguous nature of a neutral expression, which requires social interpretation regardless of the person’s gender.
Individual anxiety levels also altered how the brain processed these faces. Children reporting higher levels of anxiety displayed weaker early alpha and beta responses in visual processing areas when viewing angry male faces. This pattern aligns with behavioral theories suggesting that anxious youths instinctively suppress attention toward highly threatening social cues to manage their own distress. Meanwhile, responses to angry female faces remained consistently elevated across all anxiety levels.
The study focuses exclusively on typically developing children, meaning the results may not generalize to youths with clinical conditions like social anxiety disorder or autism spectrum disorder. The faces used in the experiment were also entirely composed of adults. Future studies could incorporate images of children and teenagers to test if youth react differently to the faces of their own peers.
The participant pool was predominantly White, which introduces the possibility of an own-race familiarity bias in how the faces were perceived. Because the study only evaluated participants at a single point in time, researchers cannot track how these brain patterns evolve within the same individual over the years. Longitudinal tracking would clarify how early brain responses shape social and emotional development long-term.
The study, “Facial expression processing is modulated by face gender and anxiety levels in developing youth,” was authored by Hua Bai, Yasra Arif, Jake J. Son, Nathan M. Petro, Grace C. Ende, Danielle L. Rice, Jason A. John, Anna T. Coutant, Erica L. Steiner, Ryan J. Glesinger, Hannah J. Okelberry, Brittany K. Taylor, Giorgia Picci, and Tony W. Wilson.
URL: https://www.psypost.org/how-anxiety-and-face-gender-shape-emotional-processing-in-children/
-------------------------------------------------
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-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #FacialExpressionProcessing #FaceGenderAndAnxiety #DevelopmentalCognitionNeuroscience #ChildNeurology #EmotionalProcessingInYouth #AlphaBetaGammaWaves #AnxietyAndAttention #SocialCognition #NeuroscienceOfEmotion #YouthBrainDevelopment
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DATE: September 12, 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: Having multiple partners does not compromise sexual health, large study finds
A recent study published in Journal of Social and Personal Relationships provides evidence that engaging in multiple romantic or sexual relationships does not compromise sexual health. Across two large datasets, researchers found that people in non-monogamous relationships, whether through mutual consent or secrecy, tended to report sexual functioning, satisfaction, and health outcomes that were comparable to, and in some cases slightly better than, those of people in strictly monogamous relationships.
Consensual non-monogamy involves partners mutually agreeing to allow outside romantic or sexual relationships, such as in polyamory or swinging. Infidelity, by contrast, involves engaging in outside relationships secretly and without a partner’s consent.
It is a common assumption that monogamy is inherently safer and more satisfying, but prior work paints a different picture. A study covered by PsyPost in 2016 found that more than one in five single American adults have engaged in consensual non-monogamy at some point. Following this demographic realization, research has sought to understand how these relationship structures operate. For instance, a 2015 study found that people in mutually agreed-upon open relationships were just as likely to practice safe sex and had similar rates of sexually transmitted infections compared to monogamous couples.
Expanding on that, a 2012 study indicated that people who cheat on their partners tend to be less likely to practice safer sex than those in openly non-monogamous relationships. In terms of sexual satisfaction, a 2019 study suggested that polyamorous individuals often experience higher levels of passion and eroticism with secondary partners than with their primary partners.
The current study builds on this progression by testing whether sexual functioning, desire, and the risk of sexually transmitted infections actually differ across relationship types. By strictly distinguishing between consensual non-monogamy and secret infidelity, the researchers used both targeted and large representative population datasets to answer this question.
The research was led by Michelle Larva-Ruhala, a doctoral researcher at the University of Turku’s INVEST Research Flagship Centre in Finland, who aimed to capture a comprehensive picture of how managing multiple partners influences sexual wellbeing.
“We addressed two gaps in research on [consensual non-monogamy],” Larva-Ruhala told PsyPost. “Firstly, we know from previous research that [consensually non-monogamous] relationships are similar to monogamous relationships in relationship quality and sexual satisfaction, but sexual functioning among people with multiple partners has not been studied outside the context of infidelity.”
“Second, the presumption has been that the transparent, negotiated, ‘ethical’ nature of (consensual) non-monogamy is what leads to these better outcomes and sets it apart from infidelity, which we associate with lower quality, conflict, etc.,” she continued. “So, in a nutshell, we wanted to know if having other partners had any ‘spillover effects’ into the bedroom, and whether the consensual vs. non-consensual nature of the non-monogamy had anything to do with it.”
The researchers utilized a two-study approach. In the first study, the team analyzed data from 888 adults recruited through an online survey across multiple countries, including the United States, Portugal, Italy, and Finland. Participants reported their relationship identity as either monogamous or consensually non-monogamous, which included categories like polyamory and open relationships. They also answered questions about how often their interactions with others felt like infidelity or involved keeping sexual and emotional secrets from their primary partner.
To measure sexual functioning, the survey used validated questionnaires assessing domains like desire, arousal, lubrication, and satisfaction for women, and erection, ejaculation, and satisfaction for men. Participants with multiple partners completed these measures for up to two partners. The survey also asked about participants’ history of testing for and being diagnosed with sexually transmitted infections.
The results of the first study showed that sexual functioning was largely similar between monogamous and non-monogamous individuals. However, partner-specific differences emerged. Women with multiple partners reported greater sexual desire, arousal, and satisfaction with their non-primary partners compared to their primary partners, and their scores with non-primary partners were also higher than the scores reported by single-partnered women.
These findings are in line with research covered by PsyPost in 2019, which found that polyamorous individuals report greater eroticism with secondary partners, suggesting they may diversify how their sexual needs are fulfilled across different relationships. Among men, sexual functioning did not differ by relationship type or between partners.
When looking at sexual health practices, polyamorous individuals were 3.6 times more likely to have ever been tested for a sexually transmitted infection compared to monogamous individuals. Despite this higher rate of testing and having more partners, the prevalence of sexually transmitted infection diagnoses did not differ between the two groups.
For the most part, infidelity was not linked to worse sexual functioning. There was one exception: men who reported keeping emotional attachments and sexual encounters secret from their primary partner tended to report lower sexual satisfaction in that primary relationship.
“We were surprised by the finding that infidelity was not associated with worse outcomes,” Larva-Ruhala noted. “Both studies suggest that, on average, having multiple concurrent partners isn’t necessarily tied to poorer sexual health, whether through consensual or non-consensual non-monogamy.”
The second study expanded the investigation to a population level, utilizing a pooled dataset of 10,503 participants from Finland. This dataset combined responses from genetic and behavioral research projects. Participants self-reported their relationship structure and completed broad measures of sexual wellbeing.
For women, this included overall sexual desire and functioning. For men, the researchers assessed premature ejaculatory symptoms, meaning how well they could control ejaculation. The study also measured general dyadic desire, which is the level of sexual interest a person feels toward an attractive partner.
To ensure fair comparisons between the small fraction of non-monogamous individuals and the large monogamous majority, the researchers statistically matched participants on factors like age, gender, and sociosexual orientation, a measure of how willing a person is to engage in uncommitted sex. They also controlled for whether the couples lived together and the gender of their partners.
This approach provided a unique advantage over previous work. “The method used in Study 2 is important for the current research on [consensual non-monogamy],” Larva-Ruhala explained. “Most studies… use data collected from online surveys that people in [consensually non-monogamous] relationships opt into, which is partly necessary in order to obtain a big enough pool of participants to conduct the analyses we want to do, but it also means heavy selection-bias.”
“People who are generally happy in their relationships and interested in representing their relationship configuration may be more quick to participate in these surveys,” she added. “However, study 2 used data from population-representative samples in studies not focused on [consensual non-monogamy], so we can assume people all across the board completed the survey, lowering some of that bias. It improves the generalizability of the results.”
In this population-based sample, non-monogamous men reported fewer early ejaculatory symptoms than monogamous men. Non-monogamous women reported higher global sexual desire than monogamous women. Both men and women in non-monogamous relationships reported slightly greater dyadic desire.
Again, when the researchers specifically isolated the effects of infidelity, defined here as cheating or having partners who were unaware and non-consenting, they found no effect on these sexual health outcomes. This broader lack of negative effects aligns with a major review covered by PsyPost earlier this year, which found that consensually non-monogamous individuals report levels of relationship and sexual satisfaction that are statistically indistinguishable from those of monogamous couples.
As with all research, there are a few things to keep in mind. The studies relied entirely on self-reported measures of sexual functioning and health, which can sometimes differ from objective physiological indicators or medical records. People might misremember their history of sexually transmitted infections or bias their answers to appear in a more favorable light.
Additionally, the first study grouped some participants under the broad umbrella of non-monogamy without distinguishing the specific agreements they had with their partners, such as whether they cohabitate or adhere to strict relationship hierarchies. The measure of infidelity in the second study also combined current and past cheating, meaning some participants may have reconciled with their partners long ago, potentially diluting the measurable impact of the infidelity on current sexual health. Future research could benefit from tracking couples over time to see how relationship structures and sexual health influence each other as relationship agreements evolve.
“Just because we didn’t find many differences in sexual health between those who cheat and those who practice ‘ethical’ forms of non-monogamy, doesn’t mean that doing one or the other is of no consequence,” Larva-Ruhala emphasized. “The results certainly don’t condone infidelity. They simply show that people can maintain sexual health under both versions of non-monogamy.”
To build on these findings, the research team hopes to see this work expanded. “We need replication research to validate or contradict these findings with further evidence, preferably in population-based samples from other countries,” she said.
The study, “Sexual Health in Monogamous and Non-Monogamous Relationships: Evidence From Convenience and Population-Based Samples,” was authored by Michelle A. Larva, David L. Rodrigues, Annika Gunst, Patrick Jern, Sabina Nickull, Marie-Pier Larose, Markus J. Rantala, and Justin K. Mogilski.
-------------------------------------------------
Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org
Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #SexualHealth #NonMonogamy #ConsensualNonMonogamy #OpenRelationships #Polyamory #SexualSatisfaction #SafeSex #Infidelity #RelationshipResearch #MonogamyMyth
-
DATE: September 12, 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: Having multiple partners does not compromise sexual health, large study finds
A recent study published in Journal of Social and Personal Relationships provides evidence that engaging in multiple romantic or sexual relationships does not compromise sexual health. Across two large datasets, researchers found that people in non-monogamous relationships, whether through mutual consent or secrecy, tended to report sexual functioning, satisfaction, and health outcomes that were comparable to, and in some cases slightly better than, those of people in strictly monogamous relationships.
Consensual non-monogamy involves partners mutually agreeing to allow outside romantic or sexual relationships, such as in polyamory or swinging. Infidelity, by contrast, involves engaging in outside relationships secretly and without a partner’s consent.
It is a common assumption that monogamy is inherently safer and more satisfying, but prior work paints a different picture. A study covered by PsyPost in 2016 found that more than one in five single American adults have engaged in consensual non-monogamy at some point. Following this demographic realization, research has sought to understand how these relationship structures operate. For instance, a 2015 study found that people in mutually agreed-upon open relationships were just as likely to practice safe sex and had similar rates of sexually transmitted infections compared to monogamous couples.
Expanding on that, a 2012 study indicated that people who cheat on their partners tend to be less likely to practice safer sex than those in openly non-monogamous relationships. In terms of sexual satisfaction, a 2019 study suggested that polyamorous individuals often experience higher levels of passion and eroticism with secondary partners than with their primary partners.
The current study builds on this progression by testing whether sexual functioning, desire, and the risk of sexually transmitted infections actually differ across relationship types. By strictly distinguishing between consensual non-monogamy and secret infidelity, the researchers used both targeted and large representative population datasets to answer this question.
The research was led by Michelle Larva-Ruhala, a doctoral researcher at the University of Turku’s INVEST Research Flagship Centre in Finland, who aimed to capture a comprehensive picture of how managing multiple partners influences sexual wellbeing.
“We addressed two gaps in research on [consensual non-monogamy],” Larva-Ruhala told PsyPost. “Firstly, we know from previous research that [consensually non-monogamous] relationships are similar to monogamous relationships in relationship quality and sexual satisfaction, but sexual functioning among people with multiple partners has not been studied outside the context of infidelity.”
“Second, the presumption has been that the transparent, negotiated, ‘ethical’ nature of (consensual) non-monogamy is what leads to these better outcomes and sets it apart from infidelity, which we associate with lower quality, conflict, etc.,” she continued. “So, in a nutshell, we wanted to know if having other partners had any ‘spillover effects’ into the bedroom, and whether the consensual vs. non-consensual nature of the non-monogamy had anything to do with it.”
The researchers utilized a two-study approach. In the first study, the team analyzed data from 888 adults recruited through an online survey across multiple countries, including the United States, Portugal, Italy, and Finland. Participants reported their relationship identity as either monogamous or consensually non-monogamous, which included categories like polyamory and open relationships. They also answered questions about how often their interactions with others felt like infidelity or involved keeping sexual and emotional secrets from their primary partner.
To measure sexual functioning, the survey used validated questionnaires assessing domains like desire, arousal, lubrication, and satisfaction for women, and erection, ejaculation, and satisfaction for men. Participants with multiple partners completed these measures for up to two partners. The survey also asked about participants’ history of testing for and being diagnosed with sexually transmitted infections.
The results of the first study showed that sexual functioning was largely similar between monogamous and non-monogamous individuals. However, partner-specific differences emerged. Women with multiple partners reported greater sexual desire, arousal, and satisfaction with their non-primary partners compared to their primary partners, and their scores with non-primary partners were also higher than the scores reported by single-partnered women.
These findings are in line with research covered by PsyPost in 2019, which found that polyamorous individuals report greater eroticism with secondary partners, suggesting they may diversify how their sexual needs are fulfilled across different relationships. Among men, sexual functioning did not differ by relationship type or between partners.
When looking at sexual health practices, polyamorous individuals were 3.6 times more likely to have ever been tested for a sexually transmitted infection compared to monogamous individuals. Despite this higher rate of testing and having more partners, the prevalence of sexually transmitted infection diagnoses did not differ between the two groups.
For the most part, infidelity was not linked to worse sexual functioning. There was one exception: men who reported keeping emotional attachments and sexual encounters secret from their primary partner tended to report lower sexual satisfaction in that primary relationship.
“We were surprised by the finding that infidelity was not associated with worse outcomes,” Larva-Ruhala noted. “Both studies suggest that, on average, having multiple concurrent partners isn’t necessarily tied to poorer sexual health, whether through consensual or non-consensual non-monogamy.”
The second study expanded the investigation to a population level, utilizing a pooled dataset of 10,503 participants from Finland. This dataset combined responses from genetic and behavioral research projects. Participants self-reported their relationship structure and completed broad measures of sexual wellbeing.
For women, this included overall sexual desire and functioning. For men, the researchers assessed premature ejaculatory symptoms, meaning how well they could control ejaculation. The study also measured general dyadic desire, which is the level of sexual interest a person feels toward an attractive partner.
To ensure fair comparisons between the small fraction of non-monogamous individuals and the large monogamous majority, the researchers statistically matched participants on factors like age, gender, and sociosexual orientation, a measure of how willing a person is to engage in uncommitted sex. They also controlled for whether the couples lived together and the gender of their partners.
This approach provided a unique advantage over previous work. “The method used in Study 2 is important for the current research on [consensual non-monogamy],” Larva-Ruhala explained. “Most studies… use data collected from online surveys that people in [consensually non-monogamous] relationships opt into, which is partly necessary in order to obtain a big enough pool of participants to conduct the analyses we want to do, but it also means heavy selection-bias.”
“People who are generally happy in their relationships and interested in representing their relationship configuration may be more quick to participate in these surveys,” she added. “However, study 2 used data from population-representative samples in studies not focused on [consensual non-monogamy], so we can assume people all across the board completed the survey, lowering some of that bias. It improves the generalizability of the results.”
In this population-based sample, non-monogamous men reported fewer early ejaculatory symptoms than monogamous men. Non-monogamous women reported higher global sexual desire than monogamous women. Both men and women in non-monogamous relationships reported slightly greater dyadic desire.
Again, when the researchers specifically isolated the effects of infidelity, defined here as cheating or having partners who were unaware and non-consenting, they found no effect on these sexual health outcomes. This broader lack of negative effects aligns with a major review covered by PsyPost earlier this year, which found that consensually non-monogamous individuals report levels of relationship and sexual satisfaction that are statistically indistinguishable from those of monogamous couples.
As with all research, there are a few things to keep in mind. The studies relied entirely on self-reported measures of sexual functioning and health, which can sometimes differ from objective physiological indicators or medical records. People might misremember their history of sexually transmitted infections or bias their answers to appear in a more favorable light.
Additionally, the first study grouped some participants under the broad umbrella of non-monogamy without distinguishing the specific agreements they had with their partners, such as whether they cohabitate or adhere to strict relationship hierarchies. The measure of infidelity in the second study also combined current and past cheating, meaning some participants may have reconciled with their partners long ago, potentially diluting the measurable impact of the infidelity on current sexual health. Future research could benefit from tracking couples over time to see how relationship structures and sexual health influence each other as relationship agreements evolve.
“Just because we didn’t find many differences in sexual health between those who cheat and those who practice ‘ethical’ forms of non-monogamy, doesn’t mean that doing one or the other is of no consequence,” Larva-Ruhala emphasized. “The results certainly don’t condone infidelity. They simply show that people can maintain sexual health under both versions of non-monogamy.”
To build on these findings, the research team hopes to see this work expanded. “We need replication research to validate or contradict these findings with further evidence, preferably in population-based samples from other countries,” she said.
The study, “Sexual Health in Monogamous and Non-Monogamous Relationships: Evidence From Convenience and Population-Based Samples,” was authored by Michelle A. Larva, David L. Rodrigues, Annika Gunst, Patrick Jern, Sabina Nickull, Marie-Pier Larose, Markus J. Rantala, and Justin K. Mogilski.
-------------------------------------------------
Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org
Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #SexualHealth #NonMonogamy #ConsensualNonMonogamy #OpenRelationships #Polyamory #SexualSatisfaction #SafeSex #Infidelity #RelationshipResearch #MonogamyMyth
-
DATE: September 12, 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: Having multiple partners does not compromise sexual health, large study finds
A recent study published in Journal of Social and Personal Relationships provides evidence that engaging in multiple romantic or sexual relationships does not compromise sexual health. Across two large datasets, researchers found that people in non-monogamous relationships, whether through mutual consent or secrecy, tended to report sexual functioning, satisfaction, and health outcomes that were comparable to, and in some cases slightly better than, those of people in strictly monogamous relationships.
Consensual non-monogamy involves partners mutually agreeing to allow outside romantic or sexual relationships, such as in polyamory or swinging. Infidelity, by contrast, involves engaging in outside relationships secretly and without a partner’s consent.
It is a common assumption that monogamy is inherently safer and more satisfying, but prior work paints a different picture. A study covered by PsyPost in 2016 found that more than one in five single American adults have engaged in consensual non-monogamy at some point. Following this demographic realization, research has sought to understand how these relationship structures operate. For instance, a 2015 study found that people in mutually agreed-upon open relationships were just as likely to practice safe sex and had similar rates of sexually transmitted infections compared to monogamous couples.
Expanding on that, a 2012 study indicated that people who cheat on their partners tend to be less likely to practice safer sex than those in openly non-monogamous relationships. In terms of sexual satisfaction, a 2019 study suggested that polyamorous individuals often experience higher levels of passion and eroticism with secondary partners than with their primary partners.
The current study builds on this progression by testing whether sexual functioning, desire, and the risk of sexually transmitted infections actually differ across relationship types. By strictly distinguishing between consensual non-monogamy and secret infidelity, the researchers used both targeted and large representative population datasets to answer this question.
The research was led by Michelle Larva-Ruhala, a doctoral researcher at the University of Turku’s INVEST Research Flagship Centre in Finland, who aimed to capture a comprehensive picture of how managing multiple partners influences sexual wellbeing.
“We addressed two gaps in research on [consensual non-monogamy],” Larva-Ruhala told PsyPost. “Firstly, we know from previous research that [consensually non-monogamous] relationships are similar to monogamous relationships in relationship quality and sexual satisfaction, but sexual functioning among people with multiple partners has not been studied outside the context of infidelity.”
“Second, the presumption has been that the transparent, negotiated, ‘ethical’ nature of (consensual) non-monogamy is what leads to these better outcomes and sets it apart from infidelity, which we associate with lower quality, conflict, etc.,” she continued. “So, in a nutshell, we wanted to know if having other partners had any ‘spillover effects’ into the bedroom, and whether the consensual vs. non-consensual nature of the non-monogamy had anything to do with it.”
The researchers utilized a two-study approach. In the first study, the team analyzed data from 888 adults recruited through an online survey across multiple countries, including the United States, Portugal, Italy, and Finland. Participants reported their relationship identity as either monogamous or consensually non-monogamous, which included categories like polyamory and open relationships. They also answered questions about how often their interactions with others felt like infidelity or involved keeping sexual and emotional secrets from their primary partner.
To measure sexual functioning, the survey used validated questionnaires assessing domains like desire, arousal, lubrication, and satisfaction for women, and erection, ejaculation, and satisfaction for men. Participants with multiple partners completed these measures for up to two partners. The survey also asked about participants’ history of testing for and being diagnosed with sexually transmitted infections.
The results of the first study showed that sexual functioning was largely similar between monogamous and non-monogamous individuals. However, partner-specific differences emerged. Women with multiple partners reported greater sexual desire, arousal, and satisfaction with their non-primary partners compared to their primary partners, and their scores with non-primary partners were also higher than the scores reported by single-partnered women.
These findings are in line with research covered by PsyPost in 2019, which found that polyamorous individuals report greater eroticism with secondary partners, suggesting they may diversify how their sexual needs are fulfilled across different relationships. Among men, sexual functioning did not differ by relationship type or between partners.
When looking at sexual health practices, polyamorous individuals were 3.6 times more likely to have ever been tested for a sexually transmitted infection compared to monogamous individuals. Despite this higher rate of testing and having more partners, the prevalence of sexually transmitted infection diagnoses did not differ between the two groups.
For the most part, infidelity was not linked to worse sexual functioning. There was one exception: men who reported keeping emotional attachments and sexual encounters secret from their primary partner tended to report lower sexual satisfaction in that primary relationship.
“We were surprised by the finding that infidelity was not associated with worse outcomes,” Larva-Ruhala noted. “Both studies suggest that, on average, having multiple concurrent partners isn’t necessarily tied to poorer sexual health, whether through consensual or non-consensual non-monogamy.”
The second study expanded the investigation to a population level, utilizing a pooled dataset of 10,503 participants from Finland. This dataset combined responses from genetic and behavioral research projects. Participants self-reported their relationship structure and completed broad measures of sexual wellbeing.
For women, this included overall sexual desire and functioning. For men, the researchers assessed premature ejaculatory symptoms, meaning how well they could control ejaculation. The study also measured general dyadic desire, which is the level of sexual interest a person feels toward an attractive partner.
To ensure fair comparisons between the small fraction of non-monogamous individuals and the large monogamous majority, the researchers statistically matched participants on factors like age, gender, and sociosexual orientation, a measure of how willing a person is to engage in uncommitted sex. They also controlled for whether the couples lived together and the gender of their partners.
This approach provided a unique advantage over previous work. “The method used in Study 2 is important for the current research on [consensual non-monogamy],” Larva-Ruhala explained. “Most studies… use data collected from online surveys that people in [consensually non-monogamous] relationships opt into, which is partly necessary in order to obtain a big enough pool of participants to conduct the analyses we want to do, but it also means heavy selection-bias.”
“People who are generally happy in their relationships and interested in representing their relationship configuration may be more quick to participate in these surveys,” she added. “However, study 2 used data from population-representative samples in studies not focused on [consensual non-monogamy], so we can assume people all across the board completed the survey, lowering some of that bias. It improves the generalizability of the results.”
In this population-based sample, non-monogamous men reported fewer early ejaculatory symptoms than monogamous men. Non-monogamous women reported higher global sexual desire than monogamous women. Both men and women in non-monogamous relationships reported slightly greater dyadic desire.
Again, when the researchers specifically isolated the effects of infidelity, defined here as cheating or having partners who were unaware and non-consenting, they found no effect on these sexual health outcomes. This broader lack of negative effects aligns with a major review covered by PsyPost earlier this year, which found that consensually non-monogamous individuals report levels of relationship and sexual satisfaction that are statistically indistinguishable from those of monogamous couples.
As with all research, there are a few things to keep in mind. The studies relied entirely on self-reported measures of sexual functioning and health, which can sometimes differ from objective physiological indicators or medical records. People might misremember their history of sexually transmitted infections or bias their answers to appear in a more favorable light.
Additionally, the first study grouped some participants under the broad umbrella of non-monogamy without distinguishing the specific agreements they had with their partners, such as whether they cohabitate or adhere to strict relationship hierarchies. The measure of infidelity in the second study also combined current and past cheating, meaning some participants may have reconciled with their partners long ago, potentially diluting the measurable impact of the infidelity on current sexual health. Future research could benefit from tracking couples over time to see how relationship structures and sexual health influence each other as relationship agreements evolve.
“Just because we didn’t find many differences in sexual health between those who cheat and those who practice ‘ethical’ forms of non-monogamy, doesn’t mean that doing one or the other is of no consequence,” Larva-Ruhala emphasized. “The results certainly don’t condone infidelity. They simply show that people can maintain sexual health under both versions of non-monogamy.”
To build on these findings, the research team hopes to see this work expanded. “We need replication research to validate or contradict these findings with further evidence, preferably in population-based samples from other countries,” she said.
The study, “Sexual Health in Monogamous and Non-Monogamous Relationships: Evidence From Convenience and Population-Based Samples,” was authored by Michelle A. Larva, David L. Rodrigues, Annika Gunst, Patrick Jern, Sabina Nickull, Marie-Pier Larose, Markus J. Rantala, and Justin K. Mogilski.
-------------------------------------------------
Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org
Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #SexualHealth #NonMonogamy #ConsensualNonMonogamy #OpenRelationships #Polyamory #SexualSatisfaction #SafeSex #Infidelity #RelationshipResearch #MonogamyMyth
-
DATE: September 12, 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: Having multiple partners does not compromise sexual health, large study finds
A recent study published in Journal of Social and Personal Relationships provides evidence that engaging in multiple romantic or sexual relationships does not compromise sexual health. Across two large datasets, researchers found that people in non-monogamous relationships, whether through mutual consent or secrecy, tended to report sexual functioning, satisfaction, and health outcomes that were comparable to, and in some cases slightly better than, those of people in strictly monogamous relationships.
Consensual non-monogamy involves partners mutually agreeing to allow outside romantic or sexual relationships, such as in polyamory or swinging. Infidelity, by contrast, involves engaging in outside relationships secretly and without a partner’s consent.
It is a common assumption that monogamy is inherently safer and more satisfying, but prior work paints a different picture. A study covered by PsyPost in 2016 found that more than one in five single American adults have engaged in consensual non-monogamy at some point. Following this demographic realization, research has sought to understand how these relationship structures operate. For instance, a 2015 study found that people in mutually agreed-upon open relationships were just as likely to practice safe sex and had similar rates of sexually transmitted infections compared to monogamous couples.
Expanding on that, a 2012 study indicated that people who cheat on their partners tend to be less likely to practice safer sex than those in openly non-monogamous relationships. In terms of sexual satisfaction, a 2019 study suggested that polyamorous individuals often experience higher levels of passion and eroticism with secondary partners than with their primary partners.
The current study builds on this progression by testing whether sexual functioning, desire, and the risk of sexually transmitted infections actually differ across relationship types. By strictly distinguishing between consensual non-monogamy and secret infidelity, the researchers used both targeted and large representative population datasets to answer this question.
The research was led by Michelle Larva-Ruhala, a doctoral researcher at the University of Turku’s INVEST Research Flagship Centre in Finland, who aimed to capture a comprehensive picture of how managing multiple partners influences sexual wellbeing.
“We addressed two gaps in research on [consensual non-monogamy],” Larva-Ruhala told PsyPost. “Firstly, we know from previous research that [consensually non-monogamous] relationships are similar to monogamous relationships in relationship quality and sexual satisfaction, but sexual functioning among people with multiple partners has not been studied outside the context of infidelity.”
“Second, the presumption has been that the transparent, negotiated, ‘ethical’ nature of (consensual) non-monogamy is what leads to these better outcomes and sets it apart from infidelity, which we associate with lower quality, conflict, etc.,” she continued. “So, in a nutshell, we wanted to know if having other partners had any ‘spillover effects’ into the bedroom, and whether the consensual vs. non-consensual nature of the non-monogamy had anything to do with it.”
The researchers utilized a two-study approach. In the first study, the team analyzed data from 888 adults recruited through an online survey across multiple countries, including the United States, Portugal, Italy, and Finland. Participants reported their relationship identity as either monogamous or consensually non-monogamous, which included categories like polyamory and open relationships. They also answered questions about how often their interactions with others felt like infidelity or involved keeping sexual and emotional secrets from their primary partner.
To measure sexual functioning, the survey used validated questionnaires assessing domains like desire, arousal, lubrication, and satisfaction for women, and erection, ejaculation, and satisfaction for men. Participants with multiple partners completed these measures for up to two partners. The survey also asked about participants’ history of testing for and being diagnosed with sexually transmitted infections.
The results of the first study showed that sexual functioning was largely similar between monogamous and non-monogamous individuals. However, partner-specific differences emerged. Women with multiple partners reported greater sexual desire, arousal, and satisfaction with their non-primary partners compared to their primary partners, and their scores with non-primary partners were also higher than the scores reported by single-partnered women.
These findings are in line with research covered by PsyPost in 2019, which found that polyamorous individuals report greater eroticism with secondary partners, suggesting they may diversify how their sexual needs are fulfilled across different relationships. Among men, sexual functioning did not differ by relationship type or between partners.
When looking at sexual health practices, polyamorous individuals were 3.6 times more likely to have ever been tested for a sexually transmitted infection compared to monogamous individuals. Despite this higher rate of testing and having more partners, the prevalence of sexually transmitted infection diagnoses did not differ between the two groups.
For the most part, infidelity was not linked to worse sexual functioning. There was one exception: men who reported keeping emotional attachments and sexual encounters secret from their primary partner tended to report lower sexual satisfaction in that primary relationship.
“We were surprised by the finding that infidelity was not associated with worse outcomes,” Larva-Ruhala noted. “Both studies suggest that, on average, having multiple concurrent partners isn’t necessarily tied to poorer sexual health, whether through consensual or non-consensual non-monogamy.”
The second study expanded the investigation to a population level, utilizing a pooled dataset of 10,503 participants from Finland. This dataset combined responses from genetic and behavioral research projects. Participants self-reported their relationship structure and completed broad measures of sexual wellbeing.
For women, this included overall sexual desire and functioning. For men, the researchers assessed premature ejaculatory symptoms, meaning how well they could control ejaculation. The study also measured general dyadic desire, which is the level of sexual interest a person feels toward an attractive partner.
To ensure fair comparisons between the small fraction of non-monogamous individuals and the large monogamous majority, the researchers statistically matched participants on factors like age, gender, and sociosexual orientation, a measure of how willing a person is to engage in uncommitted sex. They also controlled for whether the couples lived together and the gender of their partners.
This approach provided a unique advantage over previous work. “The method used in Study 2 is important for the current research on [consensual non-monogamy],” Larva-Ruhala explained. “Most studies… use data collected from online surveys that people in [consensually non-monogamous] relationships opt into, which is partly necessary in order to obtain a big enough pool of participants to conduct the analyses we want to do, but it also means heavy selection-bias.”
“People who are generally happy in their relationships and interested in representing their relationship configuration may be more quick to participate in these surveys,” she added. “However, study 2 used data from population-representative samples in studies not focused on [consensual non-monogamy], so we can assume people all across the board completed the survey, lowering some of that bias. It improves the generalizability of the results.”
In this population-based sample, non-monogamous men reported fewer early ejaculatory symptoms than monogamous men. Non-monogamous women reported higher global sexual desire than monogamous women. Both men and women in non-monogamous relationships reported slightly greater dyadic desire.
Again, when the researchers specifically isolated the effects of infidelity, defined here as cheating or having partners who were unaware and non-consenting, they found no effect on these sexual health outcomes. This broader lack of negative effects aligns with a major review covered by PsyPost earlier this year, which found that consensually non-monogamous individuals report levels of relationship and sexual satisfaction that are statistically indistinguishable from those of monogamous couples.
As with all research, there are a few things to keep in mind. The studies relied entirely on self-reported measures of sexual functioning and health, which can sometimes differ from objective physiological indicators or medical records. People might misremember their history of sexually transmitted infections or bias their answers to appear in a more favorable light.
Additionally, the first study grouped some participants under the broad umbrella of non-monogamy without distinguishing the specific agreements they had with their partners, such as whether they cohabitate or adhere to strict relationship hierarchies. The measure of infidelity in the second study also combined current and past cheating, meaning some participants may have reconciled with their partners long ago, potentially diluting the measurable impact of the infidelity on current sexual health. Future research could benefit from tracking couples over time to see how relationship structures and sexual health influence each other as relationship agreements evolve.
“Just because we didn’t find many differences in sexual health between those who cheat and those who practice ‘ethical’ forms of non-monogamy, doesn’t mean that doing one or the other is of no consequence,” Larva-Ruhala emphasized. “The results certainly don’t condone infidelity. They simply show that people can maintain sexual health under both versions of non-monogamy.”
To build on these findings, the research team hopes to see this work expanded. “We need replication research to validate or contradict these findings with further evidence, preferably in population-based samples from other countries,” she said.
The study, “Sexual Health in Monogamous and Non-Monogamous Relationships: Evidence From Convenience and Population-Based Samples,” was authored by Michelle A. Larva, David L. Rodrigues, Annika Gunst, Patrick Jern, Sabina Nickull, Marie-Pier Larose, Markus J. Rantala, and Justin K. Mogilski.
-------------------------------------------------
Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org
Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #SexualHealth #NonMonogamy #ConsensualNonMonogamy #OpenRelationships #Polyamory #SexualSatisfaction #SafeSex #Infidelity #RelationshipResearch #MonogamyMyth
-
DATE: September 11, 2026 at 06:00PM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: Escitalopram reduces anger and irritability in premenstrual dysphoric disorder, study finds
A study conducted in Sweden exploring the effects of escitalopram (20 mg per day) given during the luteal phase of the menstrual cycle found that it is effective in reducing the symptoms of premenstrual dysphoric disorder. It was particularly effective in reducing irritability and anger. Aggressiveness also diminished moderately as a result of the treatment. The paper was published in the British Journal of Psychiatry.
The menstrual cycle is a recurring series of hormonal and physical changes that prepares the female reproductive system for a possible pregnancy. It is usually divided into four main phases: menstruation, the follicular phase, ovulation, and the luteal phase. During these phases, changing levels of hormones such as estrogen and progesterone influence the ovaries, uterus, and many other systems in the body.
Many women notice physical or emotional changes in the days before menstruation, a group of symptoms commonly referred to as premenstrual symptoms. For some women, however, these symptoms are much more severe and can significantly interfere with everyday life, work, relationships, and general well-being. This more serious condition is known as premenstrual dysphoric disorder, or PMDD.
PMDD typically appears during the late luteal phase, in the week or two before menstruation. Symptoms usually improve shortly after bleeding begins. Common emotional symptoms include marked irritability, depressed mood, anxiety, mood swings, and feelings of being overwhelmed. Difficulties with concentration, motivation, and sleep can also occur. The disorder can come with physical symptoms as well. These can include fatigue, breast tenderness, bloating, headaches, and changes in appetite.
Study author Manon Dubol and her colleagues investigated the impact of treatment with selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) during the luteal phase of the menstrual cycle on the symptoms of PMDD. They were particularly interested in reactive aggression, an impulsive, emotional response to a perceived threat or provocation. SSRIs are antidepressant medications that increase the availability of the neurotransmitter serotonin in the brain. They are a mainstream treatment for depression.
The study was conducted at Uppsala University Hospital in Sweden. Study participants were 62 women with regular menstrual cycles who met diagnostic criteria for PMDD. Their average age was 34 years. Most were married or cohabiting, employed, and well-educated. On average, they reported experiencing PMDD symptoms for 11 years. Over 75% of them reported being previously treated for PMDD.
Participating women were randomly divided into two groups (33 in one group, 29 in the other). One group was to receive 20 mg of escitalopram per day for up to 15 days in the luteal phase of their menstrual cycle. The other received a placebo during the same period. Escitalopram is a widely used SSRI. It was delivered in the form of tablets. Escitalopram and placebo tablets were identical and used the same packaging and labeling. Participants were not told which treatment they were receiving.
Participants used a smartphone application to complete the Daily Record of Severity of Problems, an assessment of PMDD symptoms. Participants were considered to suffer from PMDD if their symptoms recorded in this way increased at least by 50% in the luteal phase compared to the follicular phase, and if the symptoms were at least mild. The change in these symptoms was the primary outcome study authors observed. The secondary outcomes were specific groups of PMDD symptoms: depressed mood, anxiety, affective lability (mood swings, sensitivity, being easily hurt), and irritability and anger.
Study authors also used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), a technique that maps brain activity by detecting changes in blood flow, to capture participants’ neural reactions to aggression-related stimuli. To invoke aggression in participants, study authors used the Point Subtraction Aggression Paradigm. This task measures aggression by letting participants earn points or retaliate by subtracting points from a supposed opponent who periodically takes points from them (retaliation at one’s own expense is taken as an indicator of aggression). Participants also completed a self-report assessment of aggression before and after the treatment (the Revised Swedish Version of the Aggression Questionnaire).
Results showed that participants who received escitalopram treatment had lower PMDD symptom scores after treatment compared to the placebo group. Their depression, affective lability, and irritability or anger scores were also lower. The decrease was the strongest in irritability and anger. The escitalopram group also showed moderately diminished self-reported aggression after treatment, though behavioral aggression measured by the experimental point-subtraction task did not change.
Further analyses showed that reductions in irritability and anger might be partly mediating the observed decrease in self-reported aggression. Analysis of the neuroimaging data indicated that the escitalopram group showed lower reactivity to provocation (in the experimental task) in the anterior insula, a region of the brain involved in threat detection. The activation in this area was associated with irritability or anger.
“This randomized controlled trial provides timely confirmation of escitalopram as an effective treatment for PMDD within a contemporary clinical context and using prospective daily symptom ratings. Functional neuroimaging suggests that modulation of serotonergic function in PMDD is related to corticolimbic circuits involved in irritability or anger and interpersonal behavior,” study authors concluded.
The study contributes to the scientific knowledge about the effects of escitalopram for treating PMDD. However, study authors report that they found no association between the self-reported irritability/anger and aggression scores derived from the Point Subtraction Aggression Paradigm, raising questions about the sensitivity and validity of this experimental task in this population.
The paper, “Escitalopram and brain reactivity to aggressive stimuli in premenstrual dysphoric disorder,” was authored by Manon Dubol, Maria Gröndal, Felix Schmidt, Patrick M. Fisher, Vibe Gedsoe Frokjaer, Johan Wikström, Elias Eriksson, Inger Sundstrøm, and Erika Comasco.
-------------------------------------------------
Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org
Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #PMDD #Escitalopram #Irritability #AngerReduction #SSRIs #MenstrualHealth #PremenstrualDysphoricDisorder #BrainImaging #fMRI #MentalHealthResearch
-
DATE: September 11, 2026 at 06:00PM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: Escitalopram reduces anger and irritability in premenstrual dysphoric disorder, study finds
A study conducted in Sweden exploring the effects of escitalopram (20 mg per day) given during the luteal phase of the menstrual cycle found that it is effective in reducing the symptoms of premenstrual dysphoric disorder. It was particularly effective in reducing irritability and anger. Aggressiveness also diminished moderately as a result of the treatment. The paper was published in the British Journal of Psychiatry.
The menstrual cycle is a recurring series of hormonal and physical changes that prepares the female reproductive system for a possible pregnancy. It is usually divided into four main phases: menstruation, the follicular phase, ovulation, and the luteal phase. During these phases, changing levels of hormones such as estrogen and progesterone influence the ovaries, uterus, and many other systems in the body.
Many women notice physical or emotional changes in the days before menstruation, a group of symptoms commonly referred to as premenstrual symptoms. For some women, however, these symptoms are much more severe and can significantly interfere with everyday life, work, relationships, and general well-being. This more serious condition is known as premenstrual dysphoric disorder, or PMDD.
PMDD typically appears during the late luteal phase, in the week or two before menstruation. Symptoms usually improve shortly after bleeding begins. Common emotional symptoms include marked irritability, depressed mood, anxiety, mood swings, and feelings of being overwhelmed. Difficulties with concentration, motivation, and sleep can also occur. The disorder can come with physical symptoms as well. These can include fatigue, breast tenderness, bloating, headaches, and changes in appetite.
Study author Manon Dubol and her colleagues investigated the impact of treatment with selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) during the luteal phase of the menstrual cycle on the symptoms of PMDD. They were particularly interested in reactive aggression, an impulsive, emotional response to a perceived threat or provocation. SSRIs are antidepressant medications that increase the availability of the neurotransmitter serotonin in the brain. They are a mainstream treatment for depression.
The study was conducted at Uppsala University Hospital in Sweden. Study participants were 62 women with regular menstrual cycles who met diagnostic criteria for PMDD. Their average age was 34 years. Most were married or cohabiting, employed, and well-educated. On average, they reported experiencing PMDD symptoms for 11 years. Over 75% of them reported being previously treated for PMDD.
Participating women were randomly divided into two groups (33 in one group, 29 in the other). One group was to receive 20 mg of escitalopram per day for up to 15 days in the luteal phase of their menstrual cycle. The other received a placebo during the same period. Escitalopram is a widely used SSRI. It was delivered in the form of tablets. Escitalopram and placebo tablets were identical and used the same packaging and labeling. Participants were not told which treatment they were receiving.
Participants used a smartphone application to complete the Daily Record of Severity of Problems, an assessment of PMDD symptoms. Participants were considered to suffer from PMDD if their symptoms recorded in this way increased at least by 50% in the luteal phase compared to the follicular phase, and if the symptoms were at least mild. The change in these symptoms was the primary outcome study authors observed. The secondary outcomes were specific groups of PMDD symptoms: depressed mood, anxiety, affective lability (mood swings, sensitivity, being easily hurt), and irritability and anger.
Study authors also used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), a technique that maps brain activity by detecting changes in blood flow, to capture participants’ neural reactions to aggression-related stimuli. To invoke aggression in participants, study authors used the Point Subtraction Aggression Paradigm. This task measures aggression by letting participants earn points or retaliate by subtracting points from a supposed opponent who periodically takes points from them (retaliation at one’s own expense is taken as an indicator of aggression). Participants also completed a self-report assessment of aggression before and after the treatment (the Revised Swedish Version of the Aggression Questionnaire).
Results showed that participants who received escitalopram treatment had lower PMDD symptom scores after treatment compared to the placebo group. Their depression, affective lability, and irritability or anger scores were also lower. The decrease was the strongest in irritability and anger. The escitalopram group also showed moderately diminished self-reported aggression after treatment, though behavioral aggression measured by the experimental point-subtraction task did not change.
Further analyses showed that reductions in irritability and anger might be partly mediating the observed decrease in self-reported aggression. Analysis of the neuroimaging data indicated that the escitalopram group showed lower reactivity to provocation (in the experimental task) in the anterior insula, a region of the brain involved in threat detection. The activation in this area was associated with irritability or anger.
“This randomized controlled trial provides timely confirmation of escitalopram as an effective treatment for PMDD within a contemporary clinical context and using prospective daily symptom ratings. Functional neuroimaging suggests that modulation of serotonergic function in PMDD is related to corticolimbic circuits involved in irritability or anger and interpersonal behavior,” study authors concluded.
The study contributes to the scientific knowledge about the effects of escitalopram for treating PMDD. However, study authors report that they found no association between the self-reported irritability/anger and aggression scores derived from the Point Subtraction Aggression Paradigm, raising questions about the sensitivity and validity of this experimental task in this population.
The paper, “Escitalopram and brain reactivity to aggressive stimuli in premenstrual dysphoric disorder,” was authored by Manon Dubol, Maria Gröndal, Felix Schmidt, Patrick M. Fisher, Vibe Gedsoe Frokjaer, Johan Wikström, Elias Eriksson, Inger Sundstrøm, and Erika Comasco.
-------------------------------------------------
Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org
Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #PMDD #Escitalopram #Irritability #AngerReduction #SSRIs #MenstrualHealth #PremenstrualDysphoricDisorder #BrainImaging #fMRI #MentalHealthResearch
-
DATE: September 11, 2026 at 06:00PM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: Escitalopram reduces anger and irritability in premenstrual dysphoric disorder, study finds
A study conducted in Sweden exploring the effects of escitalopram (20 mg per day) given during the luteal phase of the menstrual cycle found that it is effective in reducing the symptoms of premenstrual dysphoric disorder. It was particularly effective in reducing irritability and anger. Aggressiveness also diminished moderately as a result of the treatment. The paper was published in the British Journal of Psychiatry.
The menstrual cycle is a recurring series of hormonal and physical changes that prepares the female reproductive system for a possible pregnancy. It is usually divided into four main phases: menstruation, the follicular phase, ovulation, and the luteal phase. During these phases, changing levels of hormones such as estrogen and progesterone influence the ovaries, uterus, and many other systems in the body.
Many women notice physical or emotional changes in the days before menstruation, a group of symptoms commonly referred to as premenstrual symptoms. For some women, however, these symptoms are much more severe and can significantly interfere with everyday life, work, relationships, and general well-being. This more serious condition is known as premenstrual dysphoric disorder, or PMDD.
PMDD typically appears during the late luteal phase, in the week or two before menstruation. Symptoms usually improve shortly after bleeding begins. Common emotional symptoms include marked irritability, depressed mood, anxiety, mood swings, and feelings of being overwhelmed. Difficulties with concentration, motivation, and sleep can also occur. The disorder can come with physical symptoms as well. These can include fatigue, breast tenderness, bloating, headaches, and changes in appetite.
Study author Manon Dubol and her colleagues investigated the impact of treatment with selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) during the luteal phase of the menstrual cycle on the symptoms of PMDD. They were particularly interested in reactive aggression, an impulsive, emotional response to a perceived threat or provocation. SSRIs are antidepressant medications that increase the availability of the neurotransmitter serotonin in the brain. They are a mainstream treatment for depression.
The study was conducted at Uppsala University Hospital in Sweden. Study participants were 62 women with regular menstrual cycles who met diagnostic criteria for PMDD. Their average age was 34 years. Most were married or cohabiting, employed, and well-educated. On average, they reported experiencing PMDD symptoms for 11 years. Over 75% of them reported being previously treated for PMDD.
Participating women were randomly divided into two groups (33 in one group, 29 in the other). One group was to receive 20 mg of escitalopram per day for up to 15 days in the luteal phase of their menstrual cycle. The other received a placebo during the same period. Escitalopram is a widely used SSRI. It was delivered in the form of tablets. Escitalopram and placebo tablets were identical and used the same packaging and labeling. Participants were not told which treatment they were receiving.
Participants used a smartphone application to complete the Daily Record of Severity of Problems, an assessment of PMDD symptoms. Participants were considered to suffer from PMDD if their symptoms recorded in this way increased at least by 50% in the luteal phase compared to the follicular phase, and if the symptoms were at least mild. The change in these symptoms was the primary outcome study authors observed. The secondary outcomes were specific groups of PMDD symptoms: depressed mood, anxiety, affective lability (mood swings, sensitivity, being easily hurt), and irritability and anger.
Study authors also used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), a technique that maps brain activity by detecting changes in blood flow, to capture participants’ neural reactions to aggression-related stimuli. To invoke aggression in participants, study authors used the Point Subtraction Aggression Paradigm. This task measures aggression by letting participants earn points or retaliate by subtracting points from a supposed opponent who periodically takes points from them (retaliation at one’s own expense is taken as an indicator of aggression). Participants also completed a self-report assessment of aggression before and after the treatment (the Revised Swedish Version of the Aggression Questionnaire).
Results showed that participants who received escitalopram treatment had lower PMDD symptom scores after treatment compared to the placebo group. Their depression, affective lability, and irritability or anger scores were also lower. The decrease was the strongest in irritability and anger. The escitalopram group also showed moderately diminished self-reported aggression after treatment, though behavioral aggression measured by the experimental point-subtraction task did not change.
Further analyses showed that reductions in irritability and anger might be partly mediating the observed decrease in self-reported aggression. Analysis of the neuroimaging data indicated that the escitalopram group showed lower reactivity to provocation (in the experimental task) in the anterior insula, a region of the brain involved in threat detection. The activation in this area was associated with irritability or anger.
“This randomized controlled trial provides timely confirmation of escitalopram as an effective treatment for PMDD within a contemporary clinical context and using prospective daily symptom ratings. Functional neuroimaging suggests that modulation of serotonergic function in PMDD is related to corticolimbic circuits involved in irritability or anger and interpersonal behavior,” study authors concluded.
The study contributes to the scientific knowledge about the effects of escitalopram for treating PMDD. However, study authors report that they found no association between the self-reported irritability/anger and aggression scores derived from the Point Subtraction Aggression Paradigm, raising questions about the sensitivity and validity of this experimental task in this population.
The paper, “Escitalopram and brain reactivity to aggressive stimuli in premenstrual dysphoric disorder,” was authored by Manon Dubol, Maria Gröndal, Felix Schmidt, Patrick M. Fisher, Vibe Gedsoe Frokjaer, Johan Wikström, Elias Eriksson, Inger Sundstrøm, and Erika Comasco.
-------------------------------------------------
Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org
Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #PMDD #Escitalopram #Irritability #AngerReduction #SSRIs #MenstrualHealth #PremenstrualDysphoricDisorder #BrainImaging #fMRI #MentalHealthResearch
-
DATE: September 11, 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: How a parent’s motivation influences their child’s writing skills
URL: https://www.psypost.org/how-a-parent-s-motivation-influences-their-child-s-writing-skills/
Parents who help their children with writing activities because they genuinely enjoy or value the process have children who display more positive attitudes toward the subject. These positive attitudes are then linked to better writing performance in the classroom. This research was published in the Journal of Writing Research.
Learning to write is a highly social process that requires consistent practice both inside and outside the classroom. While teachers provide formal instruction on grammar and text structure, parents often facilitate informal writing experiences at home. Educational psychologists view writing as a community effort. A child’s ability to communicate on paper is shaped by the social and cultural environment in which they learn.
Despite the importance of writing for future academic and professional success, research into home-based learning often focuses heavily on reading. Less is known about how parents support their children’s writing development. Specifically, researchers want to know what motivates parents to get involved in the first place.
Psychologists often divide human motivation into two distinct categories. Autonomous motivation describes doing something because it is intrinsically enjoyable or personally meaningful. For a parent, this might mean helping a child write a story because they believe the activity is important for the child’s growth.
Controlled motivation involves acting out of guilt, shame, or a sense of external obligation. A parent acting on controlled motivation might help with homework solely to avoid feeling like they are failing in their duties.
Bronte Kelso-Marsh, a researcher at Edith Cowan University, led a team to investigate how these different parental motivations relate to children’s writing skills. Kelso-Marsh worked with Anabela Abreu Malpique, Helen Davis, and Debora Similieana Valcan. The researchers wanted to understand if the underlying reasons parents help their children write are connected to how often they participate in home writing activities. They also aimed to see if this involvement is associated with how children feel about writing and how well they perform.
The researchers recruited 159 children in their second year of primary school, along with their parents or caregivers. The students attended twelve different schools in the Perth metropolitan region of Western Australia. These schools represented a range of socioeconomic backgrounds.
To measure the children’s attitudes toward writing, researchers conducted brief one-on-one interviews. They asked the children how much they liked writing and how they felt about writing stories on paper. Because the children were around seven years old, they responded by pointing to a visual scale of faces that ranged from awful to fantastic. Overall, the children reported generally positive feelings toward writing.
To assess writing quality, the researchers gave the children ten minutes to write a story based on a standard prompt. The children were asked to write a narrative about finding a robot on the way home from school.
Trained evaluators then scored these handwritten stories on ten specific criteria. The scoring system evaluated the children’s vocabulary, sentence structure, punctuation, and spelling. It also graded the narratives on broader concepts like character development, text structure, and how well the story engaged the reader.
The parents completed a comprehensive survey about their involvement in their children’s writing at home. The survey asked how often they engaged in everyday writing activities with their children. These activities included writing greeting cards, making shopping lists, playing word games, or doing free writing. Free writing involves writing for fun without a strict purpose or grading rubric.
Parents also answered questions designed to measure their autonomous and controlled motivations. To measure autonomous motivation, parents rated how much they agreed with statements about enjoying helping their child or valuing the benefits of writing. To measure controlled motivation, parents responded to statements about feeling guilty if they did not take part in their child’s writing activities.
The researchers analyzed the data using a mathematical technique that maps direct and indirect relationships between multiple variables. They found that parents who reported higher levels of autonomous motivation were more likely to frequently engage in home writing activities with their children. Enjoyment and a belief in the value of writing appeared to drive active participation.
Parents who were primarily driven by controlled motivation did not report engaging in writing activities any more frequently than other parents. Feelings of guilt or external pressure did not translate into more time spent writing with their children. In fact, higher controlled motivation was associated with children having slightly less favorable attitudes toward writing, though this specific relationship was not the main focus of the mathematical model.
The frequency of home writing activities was directly linked to the children’s attitudes. Children who regularly practiced writing with their parents tended to view writing more favorably.
The data also showed a positive relationship between a child’s attitude toward writing and the quality of their written stories. Children who liked writing produced stories with better structure, grammar, and vocabulary.
Through their statistical model, the researchers traced an indirect path linking the parents’ internal motivation to the children’s final writing quality. Parents who valued writing and enjoyed helping were more active in home writing activities. This shared activity was associated with their children developing positive attitudes. Those positive attitudes were then linked to higher scores on the narrative writing assessment.
The data revealed an unexpected pattern regarding parents who reported high autonomous motivation but low actual involvement. When the mathematical model isolated the effect of parents who valued writing but did not actively participate in writing activities, the children tended to have less favorable attitudes toward writing.
The researchers suggest that simply believing writing is important is not enough to help a child develop a positive mindset. The belief must translate into tangible, shared activities. If a parent values writing but forces a reluctant child to participate without making it an engaging activity, it might create conflict that harms the child’s attitude.
Because the study relies on observing existing behaviors at a single point in time, it cannot prove that parental motivation causes changes in children’s writing. It is possible that the relationship operates in the opposite direction. For example, parents might find it more enjoyable and rewarding to help a child who already likes writing and possesses strong writing skills. A child who struggles with writing might resist help, making the process less enjoyable for the parent.
The assessment of writing quality was also limited to a single narrative story prompt. Children might perform differently when asked to write informational texts or persuasive arguments. The researchers recommend that future studies evaluate multiple types of writing to get a broader picture of a child’s academic abilities. Identifying how parent involvement relates to specific skills like spelling versus idea generation requires larger sample sizes.
Future research could also explore other factors that prevent motivated parents from helping their children. Time constraints, cultural differences, and a parent’s confidence in their own writing abilities likely dictate how often they engage in these activities. By tracking families over several years, scientists could better understand how parental involvement shapes academic development over time.
The study, “Motivation Matters: The Positive Influence of Parental Involvement on Children’s Writing Outcome,” was authored by Bronte Kelso-Marsh, Anabela Abreu Malpique, Helen Davis, and Debora Similieana Valcan.
URL: https://www.psypost.org/how-a-parent-s-motivation-influences-their-child-s-writing-skills/
-------------------------------------------------
Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org
Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #ParentalInvolvement #WritingDevelopment #AutonomousMotivation #ChildLiteracy # writingattitude #homewriting #parentingandwriting #childrenswriting #narrativewriting #educationresearch
-
DATE: September 11, 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: How a parent’s motivation influences their child’s writing skills
URL: https://www.psypost.org/how-a-parent-s-motivation-influences-their-child-s-writing-skills/
Parents who help their children with writing activities because they genuinely enjoy or value the process have children who display more positive attitudes toward the subject. These positive attitudes are then linked to better writing performance in the classroom. This research was published in the Journal of Writing Research.
Learning to write is a highly social process that requires consistent practice both inside and outside the classroom. While teachers provide formal instruction on grammar and text structure, parents often facilitate informal writing experiences at home. Educational psychologists view writing as a community effort. A child’s ability to communicate on paper is shaped by the social and cultural environment in which they learn.
Despite the importance of writing for future academic and professional success, research into home-based learning often focuses heavily on reading. Less is known about how parents support their children’s writing development. Specifically, researchers want to know what motivates parents to get involved in the first place.
Psychologists often divide human motivation into two distinct categories. Autonomous motivation describes doing something because it is intrinsically enjoyable or personally meaningful. For a parent, this might mean helping a child write a story because they believe the activity is important for the child’s growth.
Controlled motivation involves acting out of guilt, shame, or a sense of external obligation. A parent acting on controlled motivation might help with homework solely to avoid feeling like they are failing in their duties.
Bronte Kelso-Marsh, a researcher at Edith Cowan University, led a team to investigate how these different parental motivations relate to children’s writing skills. Kelso-Marsh worked with Anabela Abreu Malpique, Helen Davis, and Debora Similieana Valcan. The researchers wanted to understand if the underlying reasons parents help their children write are connected to how often they participate in home writing activities. They also aimed to see if this involvement is associated with how children feel about writing and how well they perform.
The researchers recruited 159 children in their second year of primary school, along with their parents or caregivers. The students attended twelve different schools in the Perth metropolitan region of Western Australia. These schools represented a range of socioeconomic backgrounds.
To measure the children’s attitudes toward writing, researchers conducted brief one-on-one interviews. They asked the children how much they liked writing and how they felt about writing stories on paper. Because the children were around seven years old, they responded by pointing to a visual scale of faces that ranged from awful to fantastic. Overall, the children reported generally positive feelings toward writing.
To assess writing quality, the researchers gave the children ten minutes to write a story based on a standard prompt. The children were asked to write a narrative about finding a robot on the way home from school.
Trained evaluators then scored these handwritten stories on ten specific criteria. The scoring system evaluated the children’s vocabulary, sentence structure, punctuation, and spelling. It also graded the narratives on broader concepts like character development, text structure, and how well the story engaged the reader.
The parents completed a comprehensive survey about their involvement in their children’s writing at home. The survey asked how often they engaged in everyday writing activities with their children. These activities included writing greeting cards, making shopping lists, playing word games, or doing free writing. Free writing involves writing for fun without a strict purpose or grading rubric.
Parents also answered questions designed to measure their autonomous and controlled motivations. To measure autonomous motivation, parents rated how much they agreed with statements about enjoying helping their child or valuing the benefits of writing. To measure controlled motivation, parents responded to statements about feeling guilty if they did not take part in their child’s writing activities.
The researchers analyzed the data using a mathematical technique that maps direct and indirect relationships between multiple variables. They found that parents who reported higher levels of autonomous motivation were more likely to frequently engage in home writing activities with their children. Enjoyment and a belief in the value of writing appeared to drive active participation.
Parents who were primarily driven by controlled motivation did not report engaging in writing activities any more frequently than other parents. Feelings of guilt or external pressure did not translate into more time spent writing with their children. In fact, higher controlled motivation was associated with children having slightly less favorable attitudes toward writing, though this specific relationship was not the main focus of the mathematical model.
The frequency of home writing activities was directly linked to the children’s attitudes. Children who regularly practiced writing with their parents tended to view writing more favorably.
The data also showed a positive relationship between a child’s attitude toward writing and the quality of their written stories. Children who liked writing produced stories with better structure, grammar, and vocabulary.
Through their statistical model, the researchers traced an indirect path linking the parents’ internal motivation to the children’s final writing quality. Parents who valued writing and enjoyed helping were more active in home writing activities. This shared activity was associated with their children developing positive attitudes. Those positive attitudes were then linked to higher scores on the narrative writing assessment.
The data revealed an unexpected pattern regarding parents who reported high autonomous motivation but low actual involvement. When the mathematical model isolated the effect of parents who valued writing but did not actively participate in writing activities, the children tended to have less favorable attitudes toward writing.
The researchers suggest that simply believing writing is important is not enough to help a child develop a positive mindset. The belief must translate into tangible, shared activities. If a parent values writing but forces a reluctant child to participate without making it an engaging activity, it might create conflict that harms the child’s attitude.
Because the study relies on observing existing behaviors at a single point in time, it cannot prove that parental motivation causes changes in children’s writing. It is possible that the relationship operates in the opposite direction. For example, parents might find it more enjoyable and rewarding to help a child who already likes writing and possesses strong writing skills. A child who struggles with writing might resist help, making the process less enjoyable for the parent.
The assessment of writing quality was also limited to a single narrative story prompt. Children might perform differently when asked to write informational texts or persuasive arguments. The researchers recommend that future studies evaluate multiple types of writing to get a broader picture of a child’s academic abilities. Identifying how parent involvement relates to specific skills like spelling versus idea generation requires larger sample sizes.
Future research could also explore other factors that prevent motivated parents from helping their children. Time constraints, cultural differences, and a parent’s confidence in their own writing abilities likely dictate how often they engage in these activities. By tracking families over several years, scientists could better understand how parental involvement shapes academic development over time.
The study, “Motivation Matters: The Positive Influence of Parental Involvement on Children’s Writing Outcome,” was authored by Bronte Kelso-Marsh, Anabela Abreu Malpique, Helen Davis, and Debora Similieana Valcan.
URL: https://www.psypost.org/how-a-parent-s-motivation-influences-their-child-s-writing-skills/
-------------------------------------------------
Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org
Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #ParentalInvolvement #WritingDevelopment #AutonomousMotivation #ChildLiteracy # writingattitude #homewriting #parentingandwriting #childrenswriting #narrativewriting #educationresearch
-
DATE: September 11, 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: How a parent’s motivation influences their child’s writing skills
URL: https://www.psypost.org/how-a-parent-s-motivation-influences-their-child-s-writing-skills/
Parents who help their children with writing activities because they genuinely enjoy or value the process have children who display more positive attitudes toward the subject. These positive attitudes are then linked to better writing performance in the classroom. This research was published in the Journal of Writing Research.
Learning to write is a highly social process that requires consistent practice both inside and outside the classroom. While teachers provide formal instruction on grammar and text structure, parents often facilitate informal writing experiences at home. Educational psychologists view writing as a community effort. A child’s ability to communicate on paper is shaped by the social and cultural environment in which they learn.
Despite the importance of writing for future academic and professional success, research into home-based learning often focuses heavily on reading. Less is known about how parents support their children’s writing development. Specifically, researchers want to know what motivates parents to get involved in the first place.
Psychologists often divide human motivation into two distinct categories. Autonomous motivation describes doing something because it is intrinsically enjoyable or personally meaningful. For a parent, this might mean helping a child write a story because they believe the activity is important for the child’s growth.
Controlled motivation involves acting out of guilt, shame, or a sense of external obligation. A parent acting on controlled motivation might help with homework solely to avoid feeling like they are failing in their duties.
Bronte Kelso-Marsh, a researcher at Edith Cowan University, led a team to investigate how these different parental motivations relate to children’s writing skills. Kelso-Marsh worked with Anabela Abreu Malpique, Helen Davis, and Debora Similieana Valcan. The researchers wanted to understand if the underlying reasons parents help their children write are connected to how often they participate in home writing activities. They also aimed to see if this involvement is associated with how children feel about writing and how well they perform.
The researchers recruited 159 children in their second year of primary school, along with their parents or caregivers. The students attended twelve different schools in the Perth metropolitan region of Western Australia. These schools represented a range of socioeconomic backgrounds.
To measure the children’s attitudes toward writing, researchers conducted brief one-on-one interviews. They asked the children how much they liked writing and how they felt about writing stories on paper. Because the children were around seven years old, they responded by pointing to a visual scale of faces that ranged from awful to fantastic. Overall, the children reported generally positive feelings toward writing.
To assess writing quality, the researchers gave the children ten minutes to write a story based on a standard prompt. The children were asked to write a narrative about finding a robot on the way home from school.
Trained evaluators then scored these handwritten stories on ten specific criteria. The scoring system evaluated the children’s vocabulary, sentence structure, punctuation, and spelling. It also graded the narratives on broader concepts like character development, text structure, and how well the story engaged the reader.
The parents completed a comprehensive survey about their involvement in their children’s writing at home. The survey asked how often they engaged in everyday writing activities with their children. These activities included writing greeting cards, making shopping lists, playing word games, or doing free writing. Free writing involves writing for fun without a strict purpose or grading rubric.
Parents also answered questions designed to measure their autonomous and controlled motivations. To measure autonomous motivation, parents rated how much they agreed with statements about enjoying helping their child or valuing the benefits of writing. To measure controlled motivation, parents responded to statements about feeling guilty if they did not take part in their child’s writing activities.
The researchers analyzed the data using a mathematical technique that maps direct and indirect relationships between multiple variables. They found that parents who reported higher levels of autonomous motivation were more likely to frequently engage in home writing activities with their children. Enjoyment and a belief in the value of writing appeared to drive active participation.
Parents who were primarily driven by controlled motivation did not report engaging in writing activities any more frequently than other parents. Feelings of guilt or external pressure did not translate into more time spent writing with their children. In fact, higher controlled motivation was associated with children having slightly less favorable attitudes toward writing, though this specific relationship was not the main focus of the mathematical model.
The frequency of home writing activities was directly linked to the children’s attitudes. Children who regularly practiced writing with their parents tended to view writing more favorably.
The data also showed a positive relationship between a child’s attitude toward writing and the quality of their written stories. Children who liked writing produced stories with better structure, grammar, and vocabulary.
Through their statistical model, the researchers traced an indirect path linking the parents’ internal motivation to the children’s final writing quality. Parents who valued writing and enjoyed helping were more active in home writing activities. This shared activity was associated with their children developing positive attitudes. Those positive attitudes were then linked to higher scores on the narrative writing assessment.
The data revealed an unexpected pattern regarding parents who reported high autonomous motivation but low actual involvement. When the mathematical model isolated the effect of parents who valued writing but did not actively participate in writing activities, the children tended to have less favorable attitudes toward writing.
The researchers suggest that simply believing writing is important is not enough to help a child develop a positive mindset. The belief must translate into tangible, shared activities. If a parent values writing but forces a reluctant child to participate without making it an engaging activity, it might create conflict that harms the child’s attitude.
Because the study relies on observing existing behaviors at a single point in time, it cannot prove that parental motivation causes changes in children’s writing. It is possible that the relationship operates in the opposite direction. For example, parents might find it more enjoyable and rewarding to help a child who already likes writing and possesses strong writing skills. A child who struggles with writing might resist help, making the process less enjoyable for the parent.
The assessment of writing quality was also limited to a single narrative story prompt. Children might perform differently when asked to write informational texts or persuasive arguments. The researchers recommend that future studies evaluate multiple types of writing to get a broader picture of a child’s academic abilities. Identifying how parent involvement relates to specific skills like spelling versus idea generation requires larger sample sizes.
Future research could also explore other factors that prevent motivated parents from helping their children. Time constraints, cultural differences, and a parent’s confidence in their own writing abilities likely dictate how often they engage in these activities. By tracking families over several years, scientists could better understand how parental involvement shapes academic development over time.
The study, “Motivation Matters: The Positive Influence of Parental Involvement on Children’s Writing Outcome,” was authored by Bronte Kelso-Marsh, Anabela Abreu Malpique, Helen Davis, and Debora Similieana Valcan.
URL: https://www.psypost.org/how-a-parent-s-motivation-influences-their-child-s-writing-skills/
-------------------------------------------------
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#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #ParentalInvolvement #WritingDevelopment #AutonomousMotivation #ChildLiteracy # writingattitude #homewriting #parentingandwriting #childrenswriting #narrativewriting #educationresearch
-
DATE: September 11, 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: Semaglutide may protect against psychiatric disorders independent of weight loss
New research suggests that higher doses of the medication semaglutide might be linked to a lower risk of developing certain mental health and neurological conditions, and this association appears to be independent of how much weight a person loses. The findings, published in npj Metabolic Health and Disease, indicate that the drug’s effects on the brain may go beyond its well-known metabolic benefits.
Semaglutide belongs to a class of medications called GLP-1 receptor agonists. Originally developed to help manage blood sugar levels in people with type 2 diabetes, these drugs mimic a natural hormone called glucagon-like peptide-1. The drug works by binding to GLP-1 receptors, which are specific protein structures located on the surface of cells, prompting the cell to behave in a certain way. While they are most famous for stimulating insulin release and slowing digestion, GLP-1 receptors are also present in the brain, including areas that control appetite and reward.
In recent years, semaglutide has become widely used as a treatment for obesity. Beyond weight management, it has also demonstrated protective effects on other organs. For example, a 2023 clinical trial found that semaglutide reduces the risk of heart attacks and strokes in people with obesity who do not have diabetes. Because of these wide-ranging health improvements, scientists want to understand the exact mechanisms at play. They question whether the positive changes in the body are a direct result of the medication acting on cells in different organs, or if they are simply a secondary benefit of carrying less body weight.
The research, led by Karthik Murugadoss and Venky Soundararajan of nference, aimed to explore these competing possibilities by examining how semaglutide relates to cognitive and mental health outcomes. By analyzing the medical histories of thousands of patients, the team hoped to see if psychiatric outcomes tracked more closely with the dosage of the medication a patient took or with the amount of weight they lost while taking it.
“Many patients report experiencing metabolic health problems and mental health conditions concurrently, yet treatment success is often summarized by kilograms or pounds lost,” said Soundararajan, founder and chief scientific officer at nference. “We wanted to understand whether Wegovy (semaglutide) dose and weight loss tell the same narrative about subsequent neurological and psychiatric diagnoses.”
The researchers conducted an observational study using a massive database of electronic health records. They identified 63,215 patients who were prescribed semaglutide and already had a documented history of a neurological or psychiatric condition. To establish a baseline for comparison, the researchers first matched these patients with individuals taking other common diabetes medications, such as metformin, making sure the groups were similar in age, sex, body mass index, and diabetes status.
Over a two-year period, patients taking semaglutide generally had lower rates of being diagnosed with new neuropsychiatric issues compared to those taking metformin. For instance, the incidence of substance-related disorders was 3.8 percent in the semaglutide group compared to 6.1 percent in the metformin group. Mood disorders were recorded in 10.5 percent of semaglutide users versus 13.2 percent of metformin users.
To dig deeper, the researchers split the semaglutide patients into groups based on two factors: the maximum dose they reached during their first two years of treatment and the maximum amount of weight they lost during that same window. The researchers then looked at the subsequent two years of medical records to see who developed new neuropsychiatric conditions, treating the two-year mark as a dividing line or “landmark.”
Achieving a higher dose of semaglutide, defined as 1.7 milligrams or more, was associated with lower rates of several mental health conditions compared to staying on a lower dose of 0.25 to 1.0 milligrams. Patients on high doses had a 29 percent lower relative risk of developing substance-related disorders during the follow-up period. They also had an 18 percent lower relative risk of mood disorders. Similar reductions were seen in rates of anxiety, neuromuscular diseases, and impulse-control disorders.
“These represent approximately 18% and 29% lower relative incidence, respectively, with absolute differences equivalent to about 23 and 14 fewer diagnoses per 1,000 people at risk,” Soundararajan told PsyPost. “Whether changing someone’s dose would produce those differences requires a randomized control trial.”
“The selectivity was striking: the association with higher doses of semaglutide did not extend across all neurological outcomes,” he added. “For example, dementia/degenerative central nervous system disease showed no significant difference between semaglutide dose groups. That reinforces why each neuropsychiatric outcome needs its own evidence and merits future studies that examine personalized precision GLP-1 medicine dosage and outcome measurements in support of each patient’s holistic health.”
When the researchers grouped patients by how much weight they lost, which ranged from less than 5 percent to more than 20 percent of their body weight, they did not see the same patterns. The amount of weight a person shed was not strongly linked to their risk of developing substance, mood, or anxiety disorders. This disconnect suggests that the psychiatric benefits associated with the drug might be driven by the medication itself rather than the physical act of losing weight.
“The weighing scale may tell only part of the story when it comes to GLP-1 medicines,” Soundararajan said. “Higher attained Wegovy (semaglutide) doses were associated with fewer subsequent mood, anxiety-related and substance-related diagnoses, without corresponding differences across weight-loss groups. This raises an important question for future research: how much can weight change alone tell us about a patient’s broader neuropsychiatric health improvement response to treatment?”
There was, however, an exception regarding cognitive and speech symptoms. These specific outcomes were more closely related to how much weight a patient lost rather than their medication dose. Patients who lost the most weight actually had slightly higher rates of recorded cognitive symptoms, rising from 2.1 percent in the group that lost the least weight to 4.7 percent in the group that lost the most. The researchers note that this does not necessarily mean the drug harms cognition. In real-world medical data, extreme weight loss can sometimes be an unintentional result of an underlying decline in health or frailty, which could also explain the increase in cognitive issues.
To provide biological context for these clinical findings, the researchers also examined publicly available genetic databases to map where the GLP-1 receptor is naturally produced in the human body. They found trace amounts of the receptor in specific brain regions, such as the hypothalamus, which helps regulate hormones and basic physical needs, and the caudate nucleus, which is involved in learning and reward processing. This genetic evidence provides a plausible pathway for the medication to interact directly with the central nervous system.
As with all research, there are a few caveats to consider. Because this was a retrospective observational study based on medical records, it cannot prove cause and effect. A major consideration is healthy-adherer bias. People who reach higher doses of a medication might just be healthier overall, more engaged with their healthcare providers, or better at taking their medication consistently. Those who experienced negative side effects early in treatment would naturally stay on lower doses or stop taking the drug altogether, which could skew the high-dose group toward individuals who already felt well.
The study also relied on medical diagnostic codes entered by doctors. These codes only capture when a condition is formally diagnosed, which often lags behind when the condition biologically began. The research was not designed to evaluate immediate psychiatric side effects that might happen right after starting the medication, nor should the findings be used to justify prescribing semaglutide specifically for psychiatric conditions. Future prospective trials, where patients are randomly assigned to different doses and closely monitored over time, will be needed to fully map out the drug’s impact on the brain.
“‘Independent of weight loss’ should be understood cautiously: comparing separate dose and weight-loss groups does not establish a direct drug effect independent of weight,” Soundararajan explained. “People who reach higher doses may differ in treatment tolerance, continuity of care and affordability, all of which could influence outcomes. We measured newly recorded diagnoses, which cannot establish recovery from an existing mental-health condition.”
“Our long-term aim is to understand which patients benefit, at what dose, and with what trade-offs across the body and brain,” he continued. “A priority is to use AI-assisted review of clinical notes to clarify actual medication use with expert physician adjudication and validation. We will similarly assess their reasons for stopping and symptom trajectories, and finally test the most credible signals with the greatest real-world evidence in prospective, gold-standard clinical trials.”
“For someone living with obesity or diabetes alongside a mental-health condition, everyday functioning, relationships and emotional well-being are central to what better health means,” Soundararajan said. “We hope this study by nference encourages future studies to measure treatment success in ways that reflect those priorities.”
The study, “Higher semaglutide dose is associated with lower neuropsychiatric event incidence independent of weight loss,” was authored by Karthik Murugadoss, A. J. Venkatakrishnan, and Venky Soundararajan.
-------------------------------------------------
Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org
Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #Semaglutide #GLP1 #NeuropsychiatricHealth #MentalHealthResearch #WeightLossIndependent #NeurocognitiveBenefits #ObesityTreatment #DiabetesCare #PharmaScience #WegovyDoseDoseResponse
-
DATE: September 11, 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: Semaglutide may protect against psychiatric disorders independent of weight loss
New research suggests that higher doses of the medication semaglutide might be linked to a lower risk of developing certain mental health and neurological conditions, and this association appears to be independent of how much weight a person loses. The findings, published in npj Metabolic Health and Disease, indicate that the drug’s effects on the brain may go beyond its well-known metabolic benefits.
Semaglutide belongs to a class of medications called GLP-1 receptor agonists. Originally developed to help manage blood sugar levels in people with type 2 diabetes, these drugs mimic a natural hormone called glucagon-like peptide-1. The drug works by binding to GLP-1 receptors, which are specific protein structures located on the surface of cells, prompting the cell to behave in a certain way. While they are most famous for stimulating insulin release and slowing digestion, GLP-1 receptors are also present in the brain, including areas that control appetite and reward.
In recent years, semaglutide has become widely used as a treatment for obesity. Beyond weight management, it has also demonstrated protective effects on other organs. For example, a 2023 clinical trial found that semaglutide reduces the risk of heart attacks and strokes in people with obesity who do not have diabetes. Because of these wide-ranging health improvements, scientists want to understand the exact mechanisms at play. They question whether the positive changes in the body are a direct result of the medication acting on cells in different organs, or if they are simply a secondary benefit of carrying less body weight.
The research, led by Karthik Murugadoss and Venky Soundararajan of nference, aimed to explore these competing possibilities by examining how semaglutide relates to cognitive and mental health outcomes. By analyzing the medical histories of thousands of patients, the team hoped to see if psychiatric outcomes tracked more closely with the dosage of the medication a patient took or with the amount of weight they lost while taking it.
“Many patients report experiencing metabolic health problems and mental health conditions concurrently, yet treatment success is often summarized by kilograms or pounds lost,” said Soundararajan, founder and chief scientific officer at nference. “We wanted to understand whether Wegovy (semaglutide) dose and weight loss tell the same narrative about subsequent neurological and psychiatric diagnoses.”
The researchers conducted an observational study using a massive database of electronic health records. They identified 63,215 patients who were prescribed semaglutide and already had a documented history of a neurological or psychiatric condition. To establish a baseline for comparison, the researchers first matched these patients with individuals taking other common diabetes medications, such as metformin, making sure the groups were similar in age, sex, body mass index, and diabetes status.
Over a two-year period, patients taking semaglutide generally had lower rates of being diagnosed with new neuropsychiatric issues compared to those taking metformin. For instance, the incidence of substance-related disorders was 3.8 percent in the semaglutide group compared to 6.1 percent in the metformin group. Mood disorders were recorded in 10.5 percent of semaglutide users versus 13.2 percent of metformin users.
To dig deeper, the researchers split the semaglutide patients into groups based on two factors: the maximum dose they reached during their first two years of treatment and the maximum amount of weight they lost during that same window. The researchers then looked at the subsequent two years of medical records to see who developed new neuropsychiatric conditions, treating the two-year mark as a dividing line or “landmark.”
Achieving a higher dose of semaglutide, defined as 1.7 milligrams or more, was associated with lower rates of several mental health conditions compared to staying on a lower dose of 0.25 to 1.0 milligrams. Patients on high doses had a 29 percent lower relative risk of developing substance-related disorders during the follow-up period. They also had an 18 percent lower relative risk of mood disorders. Similar reductions were seen in rates of anxiety, neuromuscular diseases, and impulse-control disorders.
“These represent approximately 18% and 29% lower relative incidence, respectively, with absolute differences equivalent to about 23 and 14 fewer diagnoses per 1,000 people at risk,” Soundararajan told PsyPost. “Whether changing someone’s dose would produce those differences requires a randomized control trial.”
“The selectivity was striking: the association with higher doses of semaglutide did not extend across all neurological outcomes,” he added. “For example, dementia/degenerative central nervous system disease showed no significant difference between semaglutide dose groups. That reinforces why each neuropsychiatric outcome needs its own evidence and merits future studies that examine personalized precision GLP-1 medicine dosage and outcome measurements in support of each patient’s holistic health.”
When the researchers grouped patients by how much weight they lost, which ranged from less than 5 percent to more than 20 percent of their body weight, they did not see the same patterns. The amount of weight a person shed was not strongly linked to their risk of developing substance, mood, or anxiety disorders. This disconnect suggests that the psychiatric benefits associated with the drug might be driven by the medication itself rather than the physical act of losing weight.
“The weighing scale may tell only part of the story when it comes to GLP-1 medicines,” Soundararajan said. “Higher attained Wegovy (semaglutide) doses were associated with fewer subsequent mood, anxiety-related and substance-related diagnoses, without corresponding differences across weight-loss groups. This raises an important question for future research: how much can weight change alone tell us about a patient’s broader neuropsychiatric health improvement response to treatment?”
There was, however, an exception regarding cognitive and speech symptoms. These specific outcomes were more closely related to how much weight a patient lost rather than their medication dose. Patients who lost the most weight actually had slightly higher rates of recorded cognitive symptoms, rising from 2.1 percent in the group that lost the least weight to 4.7 percent in the group that lost the most. The researchers note that this does not necessarily mean the drug harms cognition. In real-world medical data, extreme weight loss can sometimes be an unintentional result of an underlying decline in health or frailty, which could also explain the increase in cognitive issues.
To provide biological context for these clinical findings, the researchers also examined publicly available genetic databases to map where the GLP-1 receptor is naturally produced in the human body. They found trace amounts of the receptor in specific brain regions, such as the hypothalamus, which helps regulate hormones and basic physical needs, and the caudate nucleus, which is involved in learning and reward processing. This genetic evidence provides a plausible pathway for the medication to interact directly with the central nervous system.
As with all research, there are a few caveats to consider. Because this was a retrospective observational study based on medical records, it cannot prove cause and effect. A major consideration is healthy-adherer bias. People who reach higher doses of a medication might just be healthier overall, more engaged with their healthcare providers, or better at taking their medication consistently. Those who experienced negative side effects early in treatment would naturally stay on lower doses or stop taking the drug altogether, which could skew the high-dose group toward individuals who already felt well.
The study also relied on medical diagnostic codes entered by doctors. These codes only capture when a condition is formally diagnosed, which often lags behind when the condition biologically began. The research was not designed to evaluate immediate psychiatric side effects that might happen right after starting the medication, nor should the findings be used to justify prescribing semaglutide specifically for psychiatric conditions. Future prospective trials, where patients are randomly assigned to different doses and closely monitored over time, will be needed to fully map out the drug’s impact on the brain.
“‘Independent of weight loss’ should be understood cautiously: comparing separate dose and weight-loss groups does not establish a direct drug effect independent of weight,” Soundararajan explained. “People who reach higher doses may differ in treatment tolerance, continuity of care and affordability, all of which could influence outcomes. We measured newly recorded diagnoses, which cannot establish recovery from an existing mental-health condition.”
“Our long-term aim is to understand which patients benefit, at what dose, and with what trade-offs across the body and brain,” he continued. “A priority is to use AI-assisted review of clinical notes to clarify actual medication use with expert physician adjudication and validation. We will similarly assess their reasons for stopping and symptom trajectories, and finally test the most credible signals with the greatest real-world evidence in prospective, gold-standard clinical trials.”
“For someone living with obesity or diabetes alongside a mental-health condition, everyday functioning, relationships and emotional well-being are central to what better health means,” Soundararajan said. “We hope this study by nference encourages future studies to measure treatment success in ways that reflect those priorities.”
The study, “Higher semaglutide dose is associated with lower neuropsychiatric event incidence independent of weight loss,” was authored by Karthik Murugadoss, A. J. Venkatakrishnan, and Venky Soundararajan.
-------------------------------------------------
Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org
Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #Semaglutide #GLP1 #NeuropsychiatricHealth #MentalHealthResearch #WeightLossIndependent #NeurocognitiveBenefits #ObesityTreatment #DiabetesCare #PharmaScience #WegovyDoseDoseResponse
-
DATE: September 11, 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: Semaglutide may protect against psychiatric disorders independent of weight loss
New research suggests that higher doses of the medication semaglutide might be linked to a lower risk of developing certain mental health and neurological conditions, and this association appears to be independent of how much weight a person loses. The findings, published in npj Metabolic Health and Disease, indicate that the drug’s effects on the brain may go beyond its well-known metabolic benefits.
Semaglutide belongs to a class of medications called GLP-1 receptor agonists. Originally developed to help manage blood sugar levels in people with type 2 diabetes, these drugs mimic a natural hormone called glucagon-like peptide-1. The drug works by binding to GLP-1 receptors, which are specific protein structures located on the surface of cells, prompting the cell to behave in a certain way. While they are most famous for stimulating insulin release and slowing digestion, GLP-1 receptors are also present in the brain, including areas that control appetite and reward.
In recent years, semaglutide has become widely used as a treatment for obesity. Beyond weight management, it has also demonstrated protective effects on other organs. For example, a 2023 clinical trial found that semaglutide reduces the risk of heart attacks and strokes in people with obesity who do not have diabetes. Because of these wide-ranging health improvements, scientists want to understand the exact mechanisms at play. They question whether the positive changes in the body are a direct result of the medication acting on cells in different organs, or if they are simply a secondary benefit of carrying less body weight.
The research, led by Karthik Murugadoss and Venky Soundararajan of nference, aimed to explore these competing possibilities by examining how semaglutide relates to cognitive and mental health outcomes. By analyzing the medical histories of thousands of patients, the team hoped to see if psychiatric outcomes tracked more closely with the dosage of the medication a patient took or with the amount of weight they lost while taking it.
“Many patients report experiencing metabolic health problems and mental health conditions concurrently, yet treatment success is often summarized by kilograms or pounds lost,” said Soundararajan, founder and chief scientific officer at nference. “We wanted to understand whether Wegovy (semaglutide) dose and weight loss tell the same narrative about subsequent neurological and psychiatric diagnoses.”
The researchers conducted an observational study using a massive database of electronic health records. They identified 63,215 patients who were prescribed semaglutide and already had a documented history of a neurological or psychiatric condition. To establish a baseline for comparison, the researchers first matched these patients with individuals taking other common diabetes medications, such as metformin, making sure the groups were similar in age, sex, body mass index, and diabetes status.
Over a two-year period, patients taking semaglutide generally had lower rates of being diagnosed with new neuropsychiatric issues compared to those taking metformin. For instance, the incidence of substance-related disorders was 3.8 percent in the semaglutide group compared to 6.1 percent in the metformin group. Mood disorders were recorded in 10.5 percent of semaglutide users versus 13.2 percent of metformin users.
To dig deeper, the researchers split the semaglutide patients into groups based on two factors: the maximum dose they reached during their first two years of treatment and the maximum amount of weight they lost during that same window. The researchers then looked at the subsequent two years of medical records to see who developed new neuropsychiatric conditions, treating the two-year mark as a dividing line or “landmark.”
Achieving a higher dose of semaglutide, defined as 1.7 milligrams or more, was associated with lower rates of several mental health conditions compared to staying on a lower dose of 0.25 to 1.0 milligrams. Patients on high doses had a 29 percent lower relative risk of developing substance-related disorders during the follow-up period. They also had an 18 percent lower relative risk of mood disorders. Similar reductions were seen in rates of anxiety, neuromuscular diseases, and impulse-control disorders.
“These represent approximately 18% and 29% lower relative incidence, respectively, with absolute differences equivalent to about 23 and 14 fewer diagnoses per 1,000 people at risk,” Soundararajan told PsyPost. “Whether changing someone’s dose would produce those differences requires a randomized control trial.”
“The selectivity was striking: the association with higher doses of semaglutide did not extend across all neurological outcomes,” he added. “For example, dementia/degenerative central nervous system disease showed no significant difference between semaglutide dose groups. That reinforces why each neuropsychiatric outcome needs its own evidence and merits future studies that examine personalized precision GLP-1 medicine dosage and outcome measurements in support of each patient’s holistic health.”
When the researchers grouped patients by how much weight they lost, which ranged from less than 5 percent to more than 20 percent of their body weight, they did not see the same patterns. The amount of weight a person shed was not strongly linked to their risk of developing substance, mood, or anxiety disorders. This disconnect suggests that the psychiatric benefits associated with the drug might be driven by the medication itself rather than the physical act of losing weight.
“The weighing scale may tell only part of the story when it comes to GLP-1 medicines,” Soundararajan said. “Higher attained Wegovy (semaglutide) doses were associated with fewer subsequent mood, anxiety-related and substance-related diagnoses, without corresponding differences across weight-loss groups. This raises an important question for future research: how much can weight change alone tell us about a patient’s broader neuropsychiatric health improvement response to treatment?”
There was, however, an exception regarding cognitive and speech symptoms. These specific outcomes were more closely related to how much weight a patient lost rather than their medication dose. Patients who lost the most weight actually had slightly higher rates of recorded cognitive symptoms, rising from 2.1 percent in the group that lost the least weight to 4.7 percent in the group that lost the most. The researchers note that this does not necessarily mean the drug harms cognition. In real-world medical data, extreme weight loss can sometimes be an unintentional result of an underlying decline in health or frailty, which could also explain the increase in cognitive issues.
To provide biological context for these clinical findings, the researchers also examined publicly available genetic databases to map where the GLP-1 receptor is naturally produced in the human body. They found trace amounts of the receptor in specific brain regions, such as the hypothalamus, which helps regulate hormones and basic physical needs, and the caudate nucleus, which is involved in learning and reward processing. This genetic evidence provides a plausible pathway for the medication to interact directly with the central nervous system.
As with all research, there are a few caveats to consider. Because this was a retrospective observational study based on medical records, it cannot prove cause and effect. A major consideration is healthy-adherer bias. People who reach higher doses of a medication might just be healthier overall, more engaged with their healthcare providers, or better at taking their medication consistently. Those who experienced negative side effects early in treatment would naturally stay on lower doses or stop taking the drug altogether, which could skew the high-dose group toward individuals who already felt well.
The study also relied on medical diagnostic codes entered by doctors. These codes only capture when a condition is formally diagnosed, which often lags behind when the condition biologically began. The research was not designed to evaluate immediate psychiatric side effects that might happen right after starting the medication, nor should the findings be used to justify prescribing semaglutide specifically for psychiatric conditions. Future prospective trials, where patients are randomly assigned to different doses and closely monitored over time, will be needed to fully map out the drug’s impact on the brain.
“‘Independent of weight loss’ should be understood cautiously: comparing separate dose and weight-loss groups does not establish a direct drug effect independent of weight,” Soundararajan explained. “People who reach higher doses may differ in treatment tolerance, continuity of care and affordability, all of which could influence outcomes. We measured newly recorded diagnoses, which cannot establish recovery from an existing mental-health condition.”
“Our long-term aim is to understand which patients benefit, at what dose, and with what trade-offs across the body and brain,” he continued. “A priority is to use AI-assisted review of clinical notes to clarify actual medication use with expert physician adjudication and validation. We will similarly assess their reasons for stopping and symptom trajectories, and finally test the most credible signals with the greatest real-world evidence in prospective, gold-standard clinical trials.”
“For someone living with obesity or diabetes alongside a mental-health condition, everyday functioning, relationships and emotional well-being are central to what better health means,” Soundararajan said. “We hope this study by nference encourages future studies to measure treatment success in ways that reflect those priorities.”
The study, “Higher semaglutide dose is associated with lower neuropsychiatric event incidence independent of weight loss,” was authored by Karthik Murugadoss, A. J. Venkatakrishnan, and Venky Soundararajan.
-------------------------------------------------
Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org
Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #Semaglutide #GLP1 #NeuropsychiatricHealth #MentalHealthResearch #WeightLossIndependent #NeurocognitiveBenefits #ObesityTreatment #DiabetesCare #PharmaScience #WegovyDoseDoseResponse
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TRIGGER WARNING: Military Psychology
DATE: September 11, 2026 at 12:50PM
SOURCE: CONSORTIUM FOR DEFENSE PSYCHOLOGYDirect article link at end of text block below.
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Articles can be found at https://deploymentpsych.org/.
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