#health-care — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #health-care, aggregated by home.social.
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Public services touch nearly every part of our lives, often without us noticing.
Healthcare, education, public health, libraries, disability supports, housing programs, and more all exist to improve outcomes for individuals and communities.
Good policy should ultimately be judged by its impact on people's lives.
#PublicHealth #Community #PublicServices #Healthcare #LivedExperience
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Public services touch nearly every part of our lives, often without us noticing.
Healthcare, education, public health, libraries, disability supports, housing programs, and more all exist to improve outcomes for individuals and communities.
Good policy should ultimately be judged by its impact on people's lives.
#PublicHealth #Community #PublicServices #Healthcare #LivedExperience
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Designed for hospitals, clinics, doctors, dentists, pharmacies, medical centers, and healthcare professionals, this theme offers a clean, responsive, and professional design to showcase services, specialists, and patient information with ease.
Use Coupon Code: FLASH
https://Pathhan.short.gy/RgixLQ#ad #WordPress #WordPressTheme #Medihealth #Healthcare #MedicalWebsite #WPThemes #WebsiteDevelopment
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DATE: June 13, 2026 at 09:00AM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: Omega-3 supplements protect the brain’s breathing center in Parkinson’s disease model
Omega-3 fish oil supplements preserved the brain regions that control breathing and restored normal breathing rates in mice with a Parkinson’s disease-like condition, according to new research published in the journal Neuroscience.
Parkinson’s disease is a brain disorder known for causing tremors, stiffness, and slow movement—symptoms that stem from the gradual death of dopamine-producing brain cells. In the advanced stages of the disease, many patients develop impaired breathing, and pneumonia resulting from this is the leading cause of death. These breathing problems are thought to arise because the disease eventually damages specific regions of the brainstem controlling automatic functions like breathing and heart rate.
Despite the serious consequences of these breathing complications, the standard treatment for Parkinson’s (levodopa) has little to no effect on this aspect of the disease. Levodopa replenishes dopamine to help with movement, but it does not target the underlying processes of inflammation and cellular damage that drive non-movement-related deterioration.
This has left researchers searching for additional treatments that could address these gaps. Scientists were drawn to omega-3 fatty acids (the active ingredients in fish oil supplements) because of their well-known anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties.
Led by Taina O. Macedo from the University of São Paulo in Brazil, the team utilized 52 mice to model the disease. The mice were divided into four groups: a healthy control group, a healthy group given omega-3, a Parkinson’s model group, and a Parkinson’s model group treated with omega-3.
To create the Parkinson’s model, researchers injected a chemical called 6-hydroxydopamine directly into the brain. Omega-3 supplementation began five days after the injections and continued for ten days—a deliberate timing choice, since by day five the dopamine cell damage was already well established, but the brainstem breathing regions had not yet fully deteriorated. Breathing was assessed using a specialized sealed chamber, and brain tissue was later examined under a microscope to count surviving neurons and assess immune cell activity.
As expected, the omega-3 supplements did not reverse or prevent the loss of dopamine-producing brain cells. However, in mice that received omega-3, the number of surviving neurons in the brainstem breathing regions was preserved at levels comparable to healthy control mice. Without omega-3, these same regions showed significant cell loss in Parkinson’s model animals.
The cellular environment also differed markedly. In the Parkinson’s model mice that did not receive omega-3, the brain’s immune cells showed signs of a reactive, inflammatory state in the brain’s breathing regions. There were also elevated levels of harmful reactive oxygen species, which are a marker of oxidative stress and cellular damage. Omega-3 treatment reduced this oxidative stress and attenuated the abnormal immune cell changes in these regions.
Crucially, these cellular protections translated into a measurable functional benefit. Parkinson’s model mice breathed significantly more slowly than healthy mice at rest—around 161 breaths per minute compared to 183 in controls. Omega-3-treated Parkinson’s mice, however, breathed at a rate of roughly 183 breaths per minute—statistically indistinguishable from the healthy animals.
The researchers noted in the paper that these protective effects “are likely attributable to the antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties of omega-3 fatty acids,” and that the findings “reinforce the therapeutic potential of omega-3 in neurodegenerative conditions.”
The study carries important limitations. Results in animals do not always translate to humans—particularly for a complex disease. Human clinical trials would be needed before any conclusions can be drawn about whether omega-3 supplements could benefit people living with Parkinson’s disease.
The study, “Omega-3 supplementation prevents functional and neural respiratory damage present in an animal model of Parkinson’s disease,” was authored by Taina O. Macedo, Lais M. Cabral, Nicole C. Miranda, Fulvio A. Scorza, Thiago S. Moreira, and Ana C. Takakura.
-------------------------------------------------
Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org
Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
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#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #Omega3 #ParkinsonsResearch #Neurodegeneration #BrainBreathing #OxidativeStress #AntiInflammatory #FishOilBenefits #Neurology #MiceModel #Neuroscience
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DATE: June 13, 2026 at 09:00AM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: Omega-3 supplements protect the brain’s breathing center in Parkinson’s disease model
Omega-3 fish oil supplements preserved the brain regions that control breathing and restored normal breathing rates in mice with a Parkinson’s disease-like condition, according to new research published in the journal Neuroscience.
Parkinson’s disease is a brain disorder known for causing tremors, stiffness, and slow movement—symptoms that stem from the gradual death of dopamine-producing brain cells. In the advanced stages of the disease, many patients develop impaired breathing, and pneumonia resulting from this is the leading cause of death. These breathing problems are thought to arise because the disease eventually damages specific regions of the brainstem controlling automatic functions like breathing and heart rate.
Despite the serious consequences of these breathing complications, the standard treatment for Parkinson’s (levodopa) has little to no effect on this aspect of the disease. Levodopa replenishes dopamine to help with movement, but it does not target the underlying processes of inflammation and cellular damage that drive non-movement-related deterioration.
This has left researchers searching for additional treatments that could address these gaps. Scientists were drawn to omega-3 fatty acids (the active ingredients in fish oil supplements) because of their well-known anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties.
Led by Taina O. Macedo from the University of São Paulo in Brazil, the team utilized 52 mice to model the disease. The mice were divided into four groups: a healthy control group, a healthy group given omega-3, a Parkinson’s model group, and a Parkinson’s model group treated with omega-3.
To create the Parkinson’s model, researchers injected a chemical called 6-hydroxydopamine directly into the brain. Omega-3 supplementation began five days after the injections and continued for ten days—a deliberate timing choice, since by day five the dopamine cell damage was already well established, but the brainstem breathing regions had not yet fully deteriorated. Breathing was assessed using a specialized sealed chamber, and brain tissue was later examined under a microscope to count surviving neurons and assess immune cell activity.
As expected, the omega-3 supplements did not reverse or prevent the loss of dopamine-producing brain cells. However, in mice that received omega-3, the number of surviving neurons in the brainstem breathing regions was preserved at levels comparable to healthy control mice. Without omega-3, these same regions showed significant cell loss in Parkinson’s model animals.
The cellular environment also differed markedly. In the Parkinson’s model mice that did not receive omega-3, the brain’s immune cells showed signs of a reactive, inflammatory state in the brain’s breathing regions. There were also elevated levels of harmful reactive oxygen species, which are a marker of oxidative stress and cellular damage. Omega-3 treatment reduced this oxidative stress and attenuated the abnormal immune cell changes in these regions.
Crucially, these cellular protections translated into a measurable functional benefit. Parkinson’s model mice breathed significantly more slowly than healthy mice at rest—around 161 breaths per minute compared to 183 in controls. Omega-3-treated Parkinson’s mice, however, breathed at a rate of roughly 183 breaths per minute—statistically indistinguishable from the healthy animals.
The researchers noted in the paper that these protective effects “are likely attributable to the antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties of omega-3 fatty acids,” and that the findings “reinforce the therapeutic potential of omega-3 in neurodegenerative conditions.”
The study carries important limitations. Results in animals do not always translate to humans—particularly for a complex disease. Human clinical trials would be needed before any conclusions can be drawn about whether omega-3 supplements could benefit people living with Parkinson’s disease.
The study, “Omega-3 supplementation prevents functional and neural respiratory damage present in an animal model of Parkinson’s disease,” was authored by Taina O. Macedo, Lais M. Cabral, Nicole C. Miranda, Fulvio A. Scorza, Thiago S. Moreira, and Ana C. Takakura.
-------------------------------------------------
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 #Omega3 #ParkinsonsResearch #Neurodegeneration #BrainBreathing #OxidativeStress #AntiInflammatory #FishOilBenefits #Neurology #MiceModel #Neuroscience
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DATE: June 13, 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: Are we actually any good at guessing our partner’s attachment style? New research says yes, but there is a catch
People in romantic relationships can detect their partner’s attachment insecurities with a fair degree of accuracy, but they also tend to view their partner through a biased lens. Recognizing these insecurities prompts people to offer more affection and comfort to their partners in daily life and during stressful moments. These findings, published in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, provide evidence that how we perceive a partner’s relationship fears plays a role in how we support them.
Adult attachment orientations describe the typical ways people think, feel, and behave in their closest relationships. These orientations generally fall into two broad categories of insecurity: attachment anxiety and attachment avoidance. Attachment anxiety describes a strong fear of abandonment, a worry about being unlovable, and an intense desire for closeness. People high in attachment anxiety often monitor their relationships for signs that their partner might leave them.
Attachment avoidance involves a deep discomfort with intimacy, a strong preference for self-reliance, and low trust in others. People high in attachment avoidance tend to keep an emotional distance from their partners to protect themselves. These insecure patterns can be global, meaning they apply to how a person views close relationships in general. They can also be relationship-specific, meaning they apply only to the dynamics of one particular romantic partnership.
When partners feel insecure, their relationships can suffer from increased conflict and lower overall satisfaction. To help manage these negative outcomes, partners can use specific buffering strategies. Buffering occurs when one person acts in a way that directly eases the specific insecurities of their partner. For an anxiously attached partner, a recommended buffering strategy is offering reassurance that the relationship is safe. Reassurance involves directly expressing love, commitment, and care to quiet the anxious person’s fear of abandonment.
“Attachment styles have become part of popular culture, and many people confidently describe their partners as ‘anxiously attached’ or ‘avoidantly attached,'” said Elina Sun, lead author of the study and a recent doctoral graduate in social psychology at Syracuse University. “That raised an interesting question for us: Are people actually good at identifying their partner’s attachment tendencies?”
Sun noted the extensive teamwork involved in the research, which included Brett Jakubiak, an associate professor of psychology at Syracuse University. “This project was a collaborative effort among several graduate students (Xiangjing Kong, Jason Mitala, and myself) and faculty members (Brett Jakubiak and Jeewon Oh),” Sun said.
The authors wanted to understand the behavioral results of noticing these traits. “We also wanted to know whether those perceptions matter,” Sun explained. “If someone sees their partner as especially anxious about the relationship, do they naturally provide more reassurance? Understanding these processes can tell us not only how accurately people understand their partners, but also how partners may help buffer one another’s insecurities and strengthen their relationships.”
To examine this, the researchers used a framework known as the Truth and Bias Model. This model allows scientists to measure how accurately someone perceives a trait in another person, while simultaneously measuring any systematic errors or biases in those perceptions. The first study included 108 undergraduate couples recruited from a private university in the United States. On average, these couples had been dating for about a year and a half.
The participants filled out background surveys assessing their own relationship-specific attachment anxiety and avoidance. In the same surveys, they reported how they perceived their partner’s relationship-specific attachment insecurities. Next, each partner took a turn discussing a personal goal for eight minutes while being recorded on video. These goals were individual objectives that did not require the active involvement of the partner.
The researchers wanted to see if people who thought their partner was highly anxious would offer more reassurance while discussing these personal goals. After the discussion, the participants rated how much they showed care, commitment, and validation to their partner. The researchers found that people were moderately accurate at judging their partner’s relationship-specific attachment anxiety and avoidance.
However, their perceptions were also shaped by three specific biases. First, a directional bias appeared, meaning people tended to overestimate how insecure their partners were compared to what the partners reported about themselves. Second, the scientists noted a projection bias, which happens when people assume their partner shares their own attachment traits.
Third, the study provided evidence for a complementarity bias. This bias occurs when an individual’s own insecurity leads them to view their partner as having the opposite type of insecurity. For instance, an anxiously attached person might incorrectly assume their partner is highly avoidant and emotionally distant.
Despite noticing their partner’s insecurities, the participants in the first study did not provide extra reassurance during the personal goal discussions. The authors suggest that discussing individual goals might not have caused enough visible emotional distress to trigger the need for a comforting response. Many of these discussions also took place over video calls, which might have limited the natural expression of emotional support.
To test different contexts, the researchers designed a second study involving 147 community couples from the northeastern United States. These couples were generally older, ranging in age from 20 to 73, and had been together for an average of over twelve years. In this study, the participants completed surveys about both their relationship-specific attachment and their global attachment patterns.
After completing the initial surveys, the couples participated in a ten-day tracking period using a method called ecological momentary assessment. This involved filling out short surveys four times a day to report how much physical, verbal, and practical affection they gave their partner in daily life. Following the ten-day tracking period, the couples visited a laboratory to engage in two seven-minute discussions about personal stressors.
Similar to the first study, the scientists found that people perceived their partner’s relationship-specific and global attachment with moderate accuracy. The participants were actually better at accurately judging their partner’s global relationship insecurities than their specific insecurities within the current romance. The same biases appeared again, with people overestimating their partner’s insecurities and showing both projection and complementarity biases.
During the second study, perceptions of attachment anxiety did predict supportive behavior. People who believed their partners were highly anxious provided more affection and reassurance in their daily lives. They also offered more comfort and expressions of love during the laboratory discussions about personal stressors. This suggests that perceiving a partner as anxious prompts people to use safe strategies to ease those fears during stressful moments and routine interactions.
In addition to the main results, the scientists found an unexpected pattern related to age and cultural assumptions in a supplementary analysis. “One finding that surprised us emerged in some supplemental analyses,” Sun explained. “We expected that people might be influenced by common gender stereotypes when judging their partners’ attachment styles, for example, perceiving women as more anxiously attached and men as more avoidantly attached, because these attachment patterns overlap with stereotypically feminine and masculine relationship behaviors.”
The data revealed a split between the two samples. “Interestingly, we found evidence consistent with this idea among the older community couples in our second study, but not among the younger undergraduate couples in our first study,” Sun told PsyPost. “Although this was not one of our primary findings and will require further research, it raises interesting questions about whether cultural beliefs about gender shape how people perceive their partners’ emotional needs and insecurities, and whether these perceptions may differ across generations.”
Overall, the studies highlight the complex nature of interpreting a partner’s feelings. “People appear to be paying attention to their partners’ attachment-related tendencies, and those perceptions may shape how they respond in the relationship,” Sun said. “Even though our perceptions are not perfectly accurate and are influenced by our own insecurities, they may still help us identify when a partner needs reassurance.”
Because these judgments are partly clouded by bias, relying solely on observation has limits. “At the same time, our findings suggest that it is worth remaining curious about a partner’s actual experiences rather than assuming we know exactly how they feel,” Sun added. “People tend to bring their own biases into how they see their partners, so open communication may be just as important as intuition when trying to understand a partner’s needs.”
While the findings help explain how couples support each other, there are a few limitations to keep in mind. The studies relied entirely on self-reported questionnaires to determine the true nature of a person’s attachment style. People are not always entirely self-aware, so future research could use observational methods or reports from close friends to better define actual attachment behaviors.
The researchers also point out that the associations observed do not prove a direct chain of events. “One important limitation is that our studies were correlational,” Sun noted. “Although people who perceived their partners as more anxiously attached tended to provide more reassurance, we cannot conclude that those perceptions directly caused the reassurance. Other factors may contribute to both.”
“Another point to keep in mind is that our findings describe average patterns across many couples,” she said. “Not every couple will fit these patterns. Some people may be highly accurate in perceiving their partner’s attachment tendencies, whereas others may be much less accurate. Similarly, not everyone who perceives a partner as insecure will respond with greater reassurance.”
Looking ahead, the researchers hope to explore other ways partners react to one another’s fears. “Our long-term goal is to understand how people use their perceptions of a partner’s attachment orientation to guide relationship behavior,” Sun said. “In this project, we focused on reassurance because it is thought to be especially helpful for people high in attachment anxiety.”
“Future work could examine whether perceptions of attachment also predict other forms of support, conflict behavior, caregiving, and communication across different relationship contexts,” she said. “Ultimately, we hope this research will help identify how partners can most effectively respond to one another’s emotional needs and strengthen their relationships.”
The study, “Perceiving to Provide: How Partner Attachment Perceptions Inform Reassurance Provision in Romantic Relationships,” was authored by Elina R. Sun, Xiangjing Kong, Jason A. Mitala, Jeewon Oh, and Brett K. Jakubiak.
-------------------------------------------------
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 #AttachmentStyles #RomanticRelationships #PerceptionBias #AnxiousAttachment #AvoidantAttachment #RelationshipSupport #ReassuranceIn Relationships #LoveAndSecurity #BufferingInRelationships #PsychologyResearch
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DATE: June 13, 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: Are we actually any good at guessing our partner’s attachment style? New research says yes, but there is a catch
People in romantic relationships can detect their partner’s attachment insecurities with a fair degree of accuracy, but they also tend to view their partner through a biased lens. Recognizing these insecurities prompts people to offer more affection and comfort to their partners in daily life and during stressful moments. These findings, published in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, provide evidence that how we perceive a partner’s relationship fears plays a role in how we support them.
Adult attachment orientations describe the typical ways people think, feel, and behave in their closest relationships. These orientations generally fall into two broad categories of insecurity: attachment anxiety and attachment avoidance. Attachment anxiety describes a strong fear of abandonment, a worry about being unlovable, and an intense desire for closeness. People high in attachment anxiety often monitor their relationships for signs that their partner might leave them.
Attachment avoidance involves a deep discomfort with intimacy, a strong preference for self-reliance, and low trust in others. People high in attachment avoidance tend to keep an emotional distance from their partners to protect themselves. These insecure patterns can be global, meaning they apply to how a person views close relationships in general. They can also be relationship-specific, meaning they apply only to the dynamics of one particular romantic partnership.
When partners feel insecure, their relationships can suffer from increased conflict and lower overall satisfaction. To help manage these negative outcomes, partners can use specific buffering strategies. Buffering occurs when one person acts in a way that directly eases the specific insecurities of their partner. For an anxiously attached partner, a recommended buffering strategy is offering reassurance that the relationship is safe. Reassurance involves directly expressing love, commitment, and care to quiet the anxious person’s fear of abandonment.
“Attachment styles have become part of popular culture, and many people confidently describe their partners as ‘anxiously attached’ or ‘avoidantly attached,'” said Elina Sun, lead author of the study and a recent doctoral graduate in social psychology at Syracuse University. “That raised an interesting question for us: Are people actually good at identifying their partner’s attachment tendencies?”
Sun noted the extensive teamwork involved in the research, which included Brett Jakubiak, an associate professor of psychology at Syracuse University. “This project was a collaborative effort among several graduate students (Xiangjing Kong, Jason Mitala, and myself) and faculty members (Brett Jakubiak and Jeewon Oh),” Sun said.
The authors wanted to understand the behavioral results of noticing these traits. “We also wanted to know whether those perceptions matter,” Sun explained. “If someone sees their partner as especially anxious about the relationship, do they naturally provide more reassurance? Understanding these processes can tell us not only how accurately people understand their partners, but also how partners may help buffer one another’s insecurities and strengthen their relationships.”
To examine this, the researchers used a framework known as the Truth and Bias Model. This model allows scientists to measure how accurately someone perceives a trait in another person, while simultaneously measuring any systematic errors or biases in those perceptions. The first study included 108 undergraduate couples recruited from a private university in the United States. On average, these couples had been dating for about a year and a half.
The participants filled out background surveys assessing their own relationship-specific attachment anxiety and avoidance. In the same surveys, they reported how they perceived their partner’s relationship-specific attachment insecurities. Next, each partner took a turn discussing a personal goal for eight minutes while being recorded on video. These goals were individual objectives that did not require the active involvement of the partner.
The researchers wanted to see if people who thought their partner was highly anxious would offer more reassurance while discussing these personal goals. After the discussion, the participants rated how much they showed care, commitment, and validation to their partner. The researchers found that people were moderately accurate at judging their partner’s relationship-specific attachment anxiety and avoidance.
However, their perceptions were also shaped by three specific biases. First, a directional bias appeared, meaning people tended to overestimate how insecure their partners were compared to what the partners reported about themselves. Second, the scientists noted a projection bias, which happens when people assume their partner shares their own attachment traits.
Third, the study provided evidence for a complementarity bias. This bias occurs when an individual’s own insecurity leads them to view their partner as having the opposite type of insecurity. For instance, an anxiously attached person might incorrectly assume their partner is highly avoidant and emotionally distant.
Despite noticing their partner’s insecurities, the participants in the first study did not provide extra reassurance during the personal goal discussions. The authors suggest that discussing individual goals might not have caused enough visible emotional distress to trigger the need for a comforting response. Many of these discussions also took place over video calls, which might have limited the natural expression of emotional support.
To test different contexts, the researchers designed a second study involving 147 community couples from the northeastern United States. These couples were generally older, ranging in age from 20 to 73, and had been together for an average of over twelve years. In this study, the participants completed surveys about both their relationship-specific attachment and their global attachment patterns.
After completing the initial surveys, the couples participated in a ten-day tracking period using a method called ecological momentary assessment. This involved filling out short surveys four times a day to report how much physical, verbal, and practical affection they gave their partner in daily life. Following the ten-day tracking period, the couples visited a laboratory to engage in two seven-minute discussions about personal stressors.
Similar to the first study, the scientists found that people perceived their partner’s relationship-specific and global attachment with moderate accuracy. The participants were actually better at accurately judging their partner’s global relationship insecurities than their specific insecurities within the current romance. The same biases appeared again, with people overestimating their partner’s insecurities and showing both projection and complementarity biases.
During the second study, perceptions of attachment anxiety did predict supportive behavior. People who believed their partners were highly anxious provided more affection and reassurance in their daily lives. They also offered more comfort and expressions of love during the laboratory discussions about personal stressors. This suggests that perceiving a partner as anxious prompts people to use safe strategies to ease those fears during stressful moments and routine interactions.
In addition to the main results, the scientists found an unexpected pattern related to age and cultural assumptions in a supplementary analysis. “One finding that surprised us emerged in some supplemental analyses,” Sun explained. “We expected that people might be influenced by common gender stereotypes when judging their partners’ attachment styles, for example, perceiving women as more anxiously attached and men as more avoidantly attached, because these attachment patterns overlap with stereotypically feminine and masculine relationship behaviors.”
The data revealed a split between the two samples. “Interestingly, we found evidence consistent with this idea among the older community couples in our second study, but not among the younger undergraduate couples in our first study,” Sun told PsyPost. “Although this was not one of our primary findings and will require further research, it raises interesting questions about whether cultural beliefs about gender shape how people perceive their partners’ emotional needs and insecurities, and whether these perceptions may differ across generations.”
Overall, the studies highlight the complex nature of interpreting a partner’s feelings. “People appear to be paying attention to their partners’ attachment-related tendencies, and those perceptions may shape how they respond in the relationship,” Sun said. “Even though our perceptions are not perfectly accurate and are influenced by our own insecurities, they may still help us identify when a partner needs reassurance.”
Because these judgments are partly clouded by bias, relying solely on observation has limits. “At the same time, our findings suggest that it is worth remaining curious about a partner’s actual experiences rather than assuming we know exactly how they feel,” Sun added. “People tend to bring their own biases into how they see their partners, so open communication may be just as important as intuition when trying to understand a partner’s needs.”
While the findings help explain how couples support each other, there are a few limitations to keep in mind. The studies relied entirely on self-reported questionnaires to determine the true nature of a person’s attachment style. People are not always entirely self-aware, so future research could use observational methods or reports from close friends to better define actual attachment behaviors.
The researchers also point out that the associations observed do not prove a direct chain of events. “One important limitation is that our studies were correlational,” Sun noted. “Although people who perceived their partners as more anxiously attached tended to provide more reassurance, we cannot conclude that those perceptions directly caused the reassurance. Other factors may contribute to both.”
“Another point to keep in mind is that our findings describe average patterns across many couples,” she said. “Not every couple will fit these patterns. Some people may be highly accurate in perceiving their partner’s attachment tendencies, whereas others may be much less accurate. Similarly, not everyone who perceives a partner as insecure will respond with greater reassurance.”
Looking ahead, the researchers hope to explore other ways partners react to one another’s fears. “Our long-term goal is to understand how people use their perceptions of a partner’s attachment orientation to guide relationship behavior,” Sun said. “In this project, we focused on reassurance because it is thought to be especially helpful for people high in attachment anxiety.”
“Future work could examine whether perceptions of attachment also predict other forms of support, conflict behavior, caregiving, and communication across different relationship contexts,” she said. “Ultimately, we hope this research will help identify how partners can most effectively respond to one another’s emotional needs and strengthen their relationships.”
The study, “Perceiving to Provide: How Partner Attachment Perceptions Inform Reassurance Provision in Romantic Relationships,” was authored by Elina R. Sun, Xiangjing Kong, Jason A. Mitala, Jeewon Oh, and Brett K. Jakubiak.
-------------------------------------------------
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 #AttachmentStyles #RomanticRelationships #PerceptionBias #AnxiousAttachment #AvoidantAttachment #RelationshipSupport #ReassuranceIn Relationships #LoveAndSecurity #BufferingInRelationships #PsychologyResearch
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I find it absolutely shocking that in the US, they send women home on the same day they removed their uterus. Like wtf? It's absolutely unimaginable in my country
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I find it absolutely shocking that in the US, they send women home on the same day they removed their uterus. Like wtf? It's absolutely unimaginable in my country
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🚨 New Article - Exploring AI Data Sovereignty: The Role of Spectral Sovereignty in AI Systems
In this post, we will explore the nuances of AI data sovereignty, its implications for policy, and the emerging idea of spectral sovereignty in AI systems as a critical dimension of this debate.
#LLM #MedicalNLP #LegalTech #MedTech #AIethics #AIgovernance #cryptoreg
#healthcare #ArtificialIntelligence #NLP #aifutures #lawstodon
#tech #agustinvstartari #linguistics #ai #LRM -
🚨 New Article - Exploring AI Data Sovereignty: The Role of Spectral Sovereignty in AI Systems
In this post, we will explore the nuances of AI data sovereignty, its implications for policy, and the emerging idea of spectral sovereignty in AI systems as a critical dimension of this debate.
#LLM #MedicalNLP #LegalTech #MedTech #AIethics #AIgovernance #cryptoreg
#healthcare #ArtificialIntelligence #NLP #aifutures #lawstodon
#tech #agustinvstartari #linguistics #ai #LRM -
DATE: June 13, 2026 at 07:00AM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: Psychopathic traits linked to disrupted physical synchronization during natural dialogue
When people engage in face-to-face dialogue, their bodies and emotions naturally fall into a shared rhythm. A recent study published in Cognition and Emotion found that certain psychopathic traits correspond with a drop in this shared emotional and physiological response. The results suggest that studying empathy in actual social settings reveals alternative perspectives on how people with these traits process the emotions of their peers.
Empathy acts as a social glue that encourages humans to connect and function cooperatively. The concept is generally divided into two main categories: cognitive empathy and affective empathy. Cognitive empathy is the ability to accurately infer what someone else is feeling from their physical or verbal cues. Affective empathy involves a more visceral reaction, where a person actually experiences a shadow of the other individual’s emotional state.
Psychologists often refer to this emotional mirroring as affective sharing. Beyond the mind, empathy can also manifest physically. During an engaging interaction, two people might synchronize their unconscious bodily functions like heart rhythms and sweating.
According to a framework known as the Perception-Action Model of Empathy, individuals comprehend another person’s feelings by generating a shared emotional state. This internal generation often happens automatically and outside a person’s conscious control. This model relies heavily on the concept of physiological synchrony to initiate an emotional connection.
Past research has documented this physical synchronization between mothers and infants, as well as between therapists and their patients. This physical mirroring is thought to support the sharing of emotional experiences, which helps individuals resonate with each other.
Despite empathy being an inherently social action, researchers frequently study it in isolated laboratory setups. Participants are often asked to fill out written questionnaires or gaze at static photographs of facial expressions. They might also watch pre-recorded videos to gauge their emotional responses.
Matthias Burghart, a researcher at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Crime, Security and Law, targeted this limitation. He recognized that isolated experiments remove the defining features of empathy. Real empathy relies on a dynamic exchange between two or more interacting individuals.
Burghart and a team of researchers from Victoria University of Wellington wanted to observe empathy as it unfolds during genuine conversations. They were specifically interested in individuals who exhibit psychopathic traits. Psychopathy involves characteristics like superficial charm, poor impulse control, risk-taking, and emotional detachment.
In previous laboratory experiments, people scoring high in psychopathic traits often exhibited deficits across various forms of empathy. But because past experiments lacked real-world social context, the research team questioned if those deficits would remain the same during a natural conversation. A dynamic social setting provides body language, tone of voice, and conversational history that might aid in emotional recognition.
To test these assumptions, the research team recruited pairs of adults from the general population in New Zealand. Roughly half of the pairs were friends or romantic partners, while the other half were strangers who had never met. The researchers fitted the participants with specialized vests that continuously recorded their physical responses.
The vests tracked heart rates and skin conductance. Skin conductance measures microscopic changes in sweat gland activity on the palms, which serves as a reliable indicator of physiological arousal. Once the equipment was fitted, the participants rested to allow the researchers to record a baseline measurement.
The conversational pairs then sat together to discuss four specific topics. They were prompted to talk about a major positive life event, a major negative life event, a moment of deep regret, and a time of great pride. Each conversation lasted six minutes, and participants were instructed to let the discussion unfold as naturally as possible.
After the conversations ended, the participants went into separate rooms to watch video recordings of their interactions. As they watched, they used a computer mouse to continuously rate their own emotional intensity during the exchange on a moment-by-moment basis. Then, they watched the same videos a second time to rate how intensely they thought their partner was feeling at any given moment.
As part of the study, participants completed a questionnaire to measure specific psychopathic tendencies. The assessment broke psychopathy down into three categories: fearless dominance, self-centered impulsivity, and coldheartedness. Fearless dominance indicates social boldness and a lack of fear. Self-centered impulsivity reflects a disregard for the consequences of one’s actions, while coldheartedness describes an indifference to the feelings of others.
This setup allowed the researchers to measure both cognitive and affective empathy. They evaluated cognitive empathy by comparing one person’s guess about their partner’s emotions to the partner’s actual self-reported feelings. They assessed affective sharing by checking how closely the two individuals’ self-rated emotional intensities matched each other in real time.
They also fed the physical data through statistical models to account for time lags in bodily responses. In any conversation, one person’s body might take a moment to catch up to the other person’s physical state.
The results indicated that people who knew each other well had superior cognitive empathy. Friends and romantic partners were better at estimating each other’s emotional intensity than strangers were. Even so, the strangers still demonstrated a basic, functional ability to read each other accurately.
The presence of psychopathic traits was not linked to a deficit in this cognitive form of empathy. Participants with higher scores in these traits were just as capable of identifying their partner’s emotional state. The researchers suspect that the rich context of a real conversation provides sufficient clues for people to read emotions, even if they have psychopathic tendencies.
Affective sharing produced different results. The researchers found that familiarity played no role in whether two individuals shared the same emotional intensity. People naturally mirrored the emotional intensity of the person across from them, regardless of whether they were close friends or complete strangers.
However, participants who scored higher in self-centered impulsivity showed lower levels of affective sharing. This specific psychopathic trait features a tendency toward recklessness and poor planning. In this study, it was associated with a damped ability to automatically mirror a partner’s emotions.
The physiological data yielded a similar split. While heart rates did not synchronize between the conversational pairs, their skin conductance did. The subtle fluctuations in sweat gland activity correlated with each other as the participants talked, regardless of how well they knew each other.
Once again, a different psychopathic trait was linked to a change in this physical mirroring. Participants with higher scores in coldheartedness, a trait marked by a general detachment to the well-being of others, experienced lower levels of physiological synchrony. The results suggest that different psychopathic traits might correspond to different biological responses during the empathetic process.
The researchers noted a few limitations to their experimental design. The statistical power of the sample size was relatively modest, and the specific findings were not statistically significant across all analytical models. These initial findings will need replication in larger, more varied demographics to confirm the patterns.
The mix of gender-diverse and same-gender pairs also introduced variables that the current dataset could not fully untangle. Analyzing conversational dynamics is difficult because some participants naturally dominate discussions while others remain quiet. Future research might try to track conversational speaking times to adjust for this variability.
Future investigations will also need to dissect how different relationship types influence these dynamics over time. The investigative team recommends that future experiments maintain the focus on naturalistic conversations. This approach provides a direct window into how humans actually build social bridges.
The study, “Empathy, physiological synchrony, and psychopathy: preliminary insights from naturalistic dyadic interactions,” was authored by Matthias Burghart, Roydon Goldsack, Areito Echevarria, and Hedwig Eisenbarth.
-------------------------------------------------
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-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #EmpathyInDialogue #PhysiologicalSynchrony #PsychopathyAndEmpathy #AffectiveSharing #CognitionAndEmotion #SocialConnection #ConvergentPhysiology #HeartRateSync #SkinConductance #NaturalisticInteractions
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DATE: June 13, 2026 at 07:00AM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: Psychopathic traits linked to disrupted physical synchronization during natural dialogue
When people engage in face-to-face dialogue, their bodies and emotions naturally fall into a shared rhythm. A recent study published in Cognition and Emotion found that certain psychopathic traits correspond with a drop in this shared emotional and physiological response. The results suggest that studying empathy in actual social settings reveals alternative perspectives on how people with these traits process the emotions of their peers.
Empathy acts as a social glue that encourages humans to connect and function cooperatively. The concept is generally divided into two main categories: cognitive empathy and affective empathy. Cognitive empathy is the ability to accurately infer what someone else is feeling from their physical or verbal cues. Affective empathy involves a more visceral reaction, where a person actually experiences a shadow of the other individual’s emotional state.
Psychologists often refer to this emotional mirroring as affective sharing. Beyond the mind, empathy can also manifest physically. During an engaging interaction, two people might synchronize their unconscious bodily functions like heart rhythms and sweating.
According to a framework known as the Perception-Action Model of Empathy, individuals comprehend another person’s feelings by generating a shared emotional state. This internal generation often happens automatically and outside a person’s conscious control. This model relies heavily on the concept of physiological synchrony to initiate an emotional connection.
Past research has documented this physical synchronization between mothers and infants, as well as between therapists and their patients. This physical mirroring is thought to support the sharing of emotional experiences, which helps individuals resonate with each other.
Despite empathy being an inherently social action, researchers frequently study it in isolated laboratory setups. Participants are often asked to fill out written questionnaires or gaze at static photographs of facial expressions. They might also watch pre-recorded videos to gauge their emotional responses.
Matthias Burghart, a researcher at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Crime, Security and Law, targeted this limitation. He recognized that isolated experiments remove the defining features of empathy. Real empathy relies on a dynamic exchange between two or more interacting individuals.
Burghart and a team of researchers from Victoria University of Wellington wanted to observe empathy as it unfolds during genuine conversations. They were specifically interested in individuals who exhibit psychopathic traits. Psychopathy involves characteristics like superficial charm, poor impulse control, risk-taking, and emotional detachment.
In previous laboratory experiments, people scoring high in psychopathic traits often exhibited deficits across various forms of empathy. But because past experiments lacked real-world social context, the research team questioned if those deficits would remain the same during a natural conversation. A dynamic social setting provides body language, tone of voice, and conversational history that might aid in emotional recognition.
To test these assumptions, the research team recruited pairs of adults from the general population in New Zealand. Roughly half of the pairs were friends or romantic partners, while the other half were strangers who had never met. The researchers fitted the participants with specialized vests that continuously recorded their physical responses.
The vests tracked heart rates and skin conductance. Skin conductance measures microscopic changes in sweat gland activity on the palms, which serves as a reliable indicator of physiological arousal. Once the equipment was fitted, the participants rested to allow the researchers to record a baseline measurement.
The conversational pairs then sat together to discuss four specific topics. They were prompted to talk about a major positive life event, a major negative life event, a moment of deep regret, and a time of great pride. Each conversation lasted six minutes, and participants were instructed to let the discussion unfold as naturally as possible.
After the conversations ended, the participants went into separate rooms to watch video recordings of their interactions. As they watched, they used a computer mouse to continuously rate their own emotional intensity during the exchange on a moment-by-moment basis. Then, they watched the same videos a second time to rate how intensely they thought their partner was feeling at any given moment.
As part of the study, participants completed a questionnaire to measure specific psychopathic tendencies. The assessment broke psychopathy down into three categories: fearless dominance, self-centered impulsivity, and coldheartedness. Fearless dominance indicates social boldness and a lack of fear. Self-centered impulsivity reflects a disregard for the consequences of one’s actions, while coldheartedness describes an indifference to the feelings of others.
This setup allowed the researchers to measure both cognitive and affective empathy. They evaluated cognitive empathy by comparing one person’s guess about their partner’s emotions to the partner’s actual self-reported feelings. They assessed affective sharing by checking how closely the two individuals’ self-rated emotional intensities matched each other in real time.
They also fed the physical data through statistical models to account for time lags in bodily responses. In any conversation, one person’s body might take a moment to catch up to the other person’s physical state.
The results indicated that people who knew each other well had superior cognitive empathy. Friends and romantic partners were better at estimating each other’s emotional intensity than strangers were. Even so, the strangers still demonstrated a basic, functional ability to read each other accurately.
The presence of psychopathic traits was not linked to a deficit in this cognitive form of empathy. Participants with higher scores in these traits were just as capable of identifying their partner’s emotional state. The researchers suspect that the rich context of a real conversation provides sufficient clues for people to read emotions, even if they have psychopathic tendencies.
Affective sharing produced different results. The researchers found that familiarity played no role in whether two individuals shared the same emotional intensity. People naturally mirrored the emotional intensity of the person across from them, regardless of whether they were close friends or complete strangers.
However, participants who scored higher in self-centered impulsivity showed lower levels of affective sharing. This specific psychopathic trait features a tendency toward recklessness and poor planning. In this study, it was associated with a damped ability to automatically mirror a partner’s emotions.
The physiological data yielded a similar split. While heart rates did not synchronize between the conversational pairs, their skin conductance did. The subtle fluctuations in sweat gland activity correlated with each other as the participants talked, regardless of how well they knew each other.
Once again, a different psychopathic trait was linked to a change in this physical mirroring. Participants with higher scores in coldheartedness, a trait marked by a general detachment to the well-being of others, experienced lower levels of physiological synchrony. The results suggest that different psychopathic traits might correspond to different biological responses during the empathetic process.
The researchers noted a few limitations to their experimental design. The statistical power of the sample size was relatively modest, and the specific findings were not statistically significant across all analytical models. These initial findings will need replication in larger, more varied demographics to confirm the patterns.
The mix of gender-diverse and same-gender pairs also introduced variables that the current dataset could not fully untangle. Analyzing conversational dynamics is difficult because some participants naturally dominate discussions while others remain quiet. Future research might try to track conversational speaking times to adjust for this variability.
Future investigations will also need to dissect how different relationship types influence these dynamics over time. The investigative team recommends that future experiments maintain the focus on naturalistic conversations. This approach provides a direct window into how humans actually build social bridges.
The study, “Empathy, physiological synchrony, and psychopathy: preliminary insights from naturalistic dyadic interactions,” was authored by Matthias Burghart, Roydon Goldsack, Areito Echevarria, and Hedwig Eisenbarth.
-------------------------------------------------
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 #EmpathyInDialogue #PhysiologicalSynchrony #PsychopathyAndEmpathy #AffectiveSharing #CognitionAndEmotion #SocialConnection #ConvergentPhysiology #HeartRateSync #SkinConductance #NaturalisticInteractions
-
DATE: June 13, 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: Neuroscientists discover previously unknown cognitive benefits of reading physical books
A new study published in the journal PLOS ONE provides evidence that reading comic books on physical paper helps the brain absorb and connect story details more easily than reading on a digital tablet. The findings suggest that physical books provide stable spatial and tactile cues that lower the brain’s workload when a reader tries to recall complex plot points later. This research offers fresh insights into how digital reading formats might subtly alter human reading comprehension and memory.
Reading a book involves a complex series of mental tasks. A reader must decode words, interpret pictures, and connect new information to what they already know. To do this efficiently, the human brain builds what scientists call a story schema. A story schema is an internal mental framework that helps a person organize characters, timelines, and spatial relationships as a narrative unfolds.
The physical format of a book might play a hidden role in constructing this mental framework. Scientists suspect that physical paper provides reliable sensory anchors, such as the thickness of the pages on either side of the binding and the fixed location of text on a page. These physical anchors might help the brain map out the narrative in a physical space. When reading on a digital screen, these sensory anchors are largely absent because the screen remains physically identical while the text simply changes.
The authors of the current study wanted to know if the cognitive effects of paper extend to reading visual narratives. They chose Japanese manga, which are comic books with rich visual and narrative structures, to see how different reading mediums affect brain activity.
Kuniyoshi L. Sakai, a professor in the Department of Basic Science at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at the University of Tokyo, explains that the study originated from an industry question. “This research project began with an inquiry from COAMIX INC., one of the major publishers of Japanese manga, whether we could investigate any values of paper books scientifically,” Sakai said. “As a neuroscientist working on the human brain, especially on its language function, I decided to compare brain activation between paper and digital reading.”
To conduct the experiment, the researchers had to overcome a technical hurdle related to measuring brain activity. Magnetic resonance imaging scanners use powerful magnets to track blood flow in the brain, which provides a real-time map of neural activity.
“When comparing a paper book and an electronic tablet, we cannot bring the latter device into the scanning room, because the scanner is a huge magnet,” Sakai said. “Then, I had an idea of scanning the brain after one’s reading a book on paper or tablet. This was a long shot, and the right results we obtained surprised us.”
The researchers recruited 25 right-handed university students who were native Japanese speakers. The scientists used a popular manga series where each story is split into two halves. These halves depict the exact same events but from the different perspectives of a couple experiencing conflicting feelings. This unique format allowed the scientists to test how well readers integrate information across different viewpoints.
Participants were randomly assigned to read the first half of a manga story on either a physical paper book or an electronic tablet. This reading took place in a normal room outside of the scanning machinery. The scientists ensured that both the paper book and the tablet were similar in physical size. They also used light meters to match the brightness of the room’s light reflecting off the paper with the backlight shining from the tablet.
After finishing the first half, the participants entered the scanner. While lying inside the machine, participants wore special digital goggles to read the second half of the story. During this reading phase, the participants periodically rated their empathy toward the characters on a four-point scale to ensure they were actively engaged with the plot.
Finally, while still inside the scanner, the participants answered multiple-choice questions about the story they had just finished. The scientists divided these questions into two distinct categories. Set one included questions that could be answered just by remembering the first half of the story. Set two contained more demanding questions that required the reader to combine details from both halves of the narrative.
The behavioral measurements showed that participants answered the questions with similar accuracy regardless of the medium they initially used. However, their response times differed based on their original reading format. When answering the complex questions from set two, participants who read the first half on a tablet took longer to respond than those who read on paper. The scientists noted that tablet readers required more time to mentally piece together the two halves of the story.
The brain scans provided evidence that matched these behavioral differences. When participants read the second half of the story, those who had started the story on paper showed reduced activity in the left lateral premotor cortex and inferior frontal gyrus. These specific left-sided brain regions are deeply involved in language processing and narrative integration. Lower activity in these areas suggests that the brain did not have to work as hard to understand the new information.
Because the paper readers had already built a strong mental foundation during the first half of the story, integrating the second half required less mental effort. In contrast, tablet readers showed much higher activation in these exact same left frontal brain regions. When answering the complex set two questions, tablet readers also showed increased activity in the right frontal regions of the brain. The scientists explain that these right-sided areas act as a supportive neural system when the brain faces difficult mental tasks.
“We found that both left and right hemispheres, which work during reading mostly for proper linguistic functions and supportive roles, respectively, are less engaged when manga contents are well understood through reading on paper, compared with digital reading,” Sakai told PsyPost. “This neuroscientific result is the first to show such an immediate effect of reading on paper, which would eventually change your brain.”
The amount of activity in these right frontal regions directly correlated with how accurately the tablet readers answered the questions. This indicates that tablet readers had to rely on excessive mental integration processes to achieve the same level of accuracy as the paper readers. The scientists also noticed heightened activity in a brain region called the right angular gyrus among the tablet users. This region is associated with processing spatial relationships, suggesting the tablet readers had to work harder to reconstruct the visual layout of the comic book panels in their minds.
As with all research, there are some limitations. The study specifically used visual narratives, and a reader might wonder if plain text novels would produce the exact same brain patterns.
“The same results would be obtained for reading a novel or other conventional texts, because story lines and contextual flow are basically the same among them,” Sakai said. “One important advantage of using manga stories is that manga has visual narratives, which provide rich pictorial information that facilitates the comprehension of scenes.”
Another factor is the physical difference between the devices themselves. The paper books reflected light from the room, while the tablets used a glowing backlight. Flipping a physical page also takes a fraction of a second longer than tapping a digital screen, which might subtly alter the reading rhythm and give the brain an extra moment to process information.
A reader might misinterpret these findings to mean that digital reading prevents learning, but the accuracy rates show that tablet readers still understood the material. They simply required more cognitive effort and time to reach that understanding. The paper format tends to make the reading experience smoother by providing a consistent physical anchor for the memory.
Future research will likely explore these variables in greater detail and expand to other forms of media interaction. “Using a similar method, we are now examining any effects of writing with a pen or a keyboard,” Sakai said. “This would be a natural next step for comparing paper and electronic devices.”
The study, “Manga reading on paper vs. digital devices: Prospective effects on core and supportive integration processes in the brain,” was authored by Keita Umejima, Yuki Sunada, and Kuniyoshi L. Sakai.
-------------------------------------------------
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 #ReadingOnPaper #Neuroscience #MangaReading #CognitiveBenefits #PaperVsDigital #BrainScience #ReadingComprehension #LeftFrontalLobe #MemoryAndNarrative #PLOSOne
-
DATE: June 13, 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: Neuroscientists discover previously unknown cognitive benefits of reading physical books
A new study published in the journal PLOS ONE provides evidence that reading comic books on physical paper helps the brain absorb and connect story details more easily than reading on a digital tablet. The findings suggest that physical books provide stable spatial and tactile cues that lower the brain’s workload when a reader tries to recall complex plot points later. This research offers fresh insights into how digital reading formats might subtly alter human reading comprehension and memory.
Reading a book involves a complex series of mental tasks. A reader must decode words, interpret pictures, and connect new information to what they already know. To do this efficiently, the human brain builds what scientists call a story schema. A story schema is an internal mental framework that helps a person organize characters, timelines, and spatial relationships as a narrative unfolds.
The physical format of a book might play a hidden role in constructing this mental framework. Scientists suspect that physical paper provides reliable sensory anchors, such as the thickness of the pages on either side of the binding and the fixed location of text on a page. These physical anchors might help the brain map out the narrative in a physical space. When reading on a digital screen, these sensory anchors are largely absent because the screen remains physically identical while the text simply changes.
The authors of the current study wanted to know if the cognitive effects of paper extend to reading visual narratives. They chose Japanese manga, which are comic books with rich visual and narrative structures, to see how different reading mediums affect brain activity.
Kuniyoshi L. Sakai, a professor in the Department of Basic Science at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at the University of Tokyo, explains that the study originated from an industry question. “This research project began with an inquiry from COAMIX INC., one of the major publishers of Japanese manga, whether we could investigate any values of paper books scientifically,” Sakai said. “As a neuroscientist working on the human brain, especially on its language function, I decided to compare brain activation between paper and digital reading.”
To conduct the experiment, the researchers had to overcome a technical hurdle related to measuring brain activity. Magnetic resonance imaging scanners use powerful magnets to track blood flow in the brain, which provides a real-time map of neural activity.
“When comparing a paper book and an electronic tablet, we cannot bring the latter device into the scanning room, because the scanner is a huge magnet,” Sakai said. “Then, I had an idea of scanning the brain after one’s reading a book on paper or tablet. This was a long shot, and the right results we obtained surprised us.”
The researchers recruited 25 right-handed university students who were native Japanese speakers. The scientists used a popular manga series where each story is split into two halves. These halves depict the exact same events but from the different perspectives of a couple experiencing conflicting feelings. This unique format allowed the scientists to test how well readers integrate information across different viewpoints.
Participants were randomly assigned to read the first half of a manga story on either a physical paper book or an electronic tablet. This reading took place in a normal room outside of the scanning machinery. The scientists ensured that both the paper book and the tablet were similar in physical size. They also used light meters to match the brightness of the room’s light reflecting off the paper with the backlight shining from the tablet.
After finishing the first half, the participants entered the scanner. While lying inside the machine, participants wore special digital goggles to read the second half of the story. During this reading phase, the participants periodically rated their empathy toward the characters on a four-point scale to ensure they were actively engaged with the plot.
Finally, while still inside the scanner, the participants answered multiple-choice questions about the story they had just finished. The scientists divided these questions into two distinct categories. Set one included questions that could be answered just by remembering the first half of the story. Set two contained more demanding questions that required the reader to combine details from both halves of the narrative.
The behavioral measurements showed that participants answered the questions with similar accuracy regardless of the medium they initially used. However, their response times differed based on their original reading format. When answering the complex questions from set two, participants who read the first half on a tablet took longer to respond than those who read on paper. The scientists noted that tablet readers required more time to mentally piece together the two halves of the story.
The brain scans provided evidence that matched these behavioral differences. When participants read the second half of the story, those who had started the story on paper showed reduced activity in the left lateral premotor cortex and inferior frontal gyrus. These specific left-sided brain regions are deeply involved in language processing and narrative integration. Lower activity in these areas suggests that the brain did not have to work as hard to understand the new information.
Because the paper readers had already built a strong mental foundation during the first half of the story, integrating the second half required less mental effort. In contrast, tablet readers showed much higher activation in these exact same left frontal brain regions. When answering the complex set two questions, tablet readers also showed increased activity in the right frontal regions of the brain. The scientists explain that these right-sided areas act as a supportive neural system when the brain faces difficult mental tasks.
“We found that both left and right hemispheres, which work during reading mostly for proper linguistic functions and supportive roles, respectively, are less engaged when manga contents are well understood through reading on paper, compared with digital reading,” Sakai told PsyPost. “This neuroscientific result is the first to show such an immediate effect of reading on paper, which would eventually change your brain.”
The amount of activity in these right frontal regions directly correlated with how accurately the tablet readers answered the questions. This indicates that tablet readers had to rely on excessive mental integration processes to achieve the same level of accuracy as the paper readers. The scientists also noticed heightened activity in a brain region called the right angular gyrus among the tablet users. This region is associated with processing spatial relationships, suggesting the tablet readers had to work harder to reconstruct the visual layout of the comic book panels in their minds.
As with all research, there are some limitations. The study specifically used visual narratives, and a reader might wonder if plain text novels would produce the exact same brain patterns.
“The same results would be obtained for reading a novel or other conventional texts, because story lines and contextual flow are basically the same among them,” Sakai said. “One important advantage of using manga stories is that manga has visual narratives, which provide rich pictorial information that facilitates the comprehension of scenes.”
Another factor is the physical difference between the devices themselves. The paper books reflected light from the room, while the tablets used a glowing backlight. Flipping a physical page also takes a fraction of a second longer than tapping a digital screen, which might subtly alter the reading rhythm and give the brain an extra moment to process information.
A reader might misinterpret these findings to mean that digital reading prevents learning, but the accuracy rates show that tablet readers still understood the material. They simply required more cognitive effort and time to reach that understanding. The paper format tends to make the reading experience smoother by providing a consistent physical anchor for the memory.
Future research will likely explore these variables in greater detail and expand to other forms of media interaction. “Using a similar method, we are now examining any effects of writing with a pen or a keyboard,” Sakai said. “This would be a natural next step for comparing paper and electronic devices.”
The study, “Manga reading on paper vs. digital devices: Prospective effects on core and supportive integration processes in the brain,” was authored by Keita Umejima, Yuki Sunada, and Kuniyoshi L. Sakai.
-------------------------------------------------
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 #ReadingOnPaper #Neuroscience #MangaReading #CognitiveBenefits #PaperVsDigital #BrainScience #ReadingComprehension #LeftFrontalLobe #MemoryAndNarrative #PLOSOne
-
Since the beginning of my shift this morning, it has been a very exhausting day. With so many patients, I am doing my best to give all my energy to support them and ease their suffering. Despite that, I still need your support and donations to help me pay my rent. I only need €300.
https://chuffed.org/project/171063
#gazaverified #mutualaid #MutualAidRequest #MutualAidBoost #freepalestine #trump #israel #gazahelp #mastodon #healthcare @peopleunitedbehavioralhealth
#gaza #genocide #palestine #iran
@aral -
Since the beginning of my shift this morning, it has been a very exhausting day. With so many patients, I am doing my best to give all my energy to support them and ease their suffering. Despite that, I still need your support and donations to help me pay my rent. I only need €300.
https://chuffed.org/project/171063
#gazaverified #mutualaid #MutualAidRequest #MutualAidBoost #freepalestine #trump #israel #gazahelp #mastodon #healthcare @peopleunitedbehavioralhealth
#gaza #genocide #palestine #iran
@aral -
Cannabis-based pharmaceuticals are transforming modern healthcare.
From chronic pain management to neurological disorders, research into cannabinoid-based medicines continues to expand worldwide.
Explore the latest trends and regulatory challenges:
https://harisharandevgan.com/blogs/cannabis-based-pharmaceuticals/
#CannabisMedicine #MedicalCannabis #PharmaceuticalInnovation #Healthcare
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[#TRADESHOW] 2026 The #Health #Industry Series – #ASEAN will be held from July 28 to 30, 2026, at Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre in #Malaysia. As a #healthcare, #pharmaceutical, and #hospital construction #trade #expo in Southeast #Asia, the #exhibition #event serves as a #B2B #platform for #companies to enter or expand in the ASEAN healthcare #market. It brings together #business #suppliers, #buyers, institutions, and #investors across multiple healthcare #sectors. https://cnbusinessforum.com/event/2026-the-health-industry-series-asean/
-
[#TRADESHOW] 2026 The #Health #Industry Series – #ASEAN will be held from July 28 to 30, 2026, at Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre in #Malaysia. As a #healthcare, #pharmaceutical, and #hospital construction #trade #expo in Southeast #Asia, the #exhibition #event serves as a #B2B #platform for #companies to enter or expand in the ASEAN healthcare #market. It brings together #business #suppliers, #buyers, institutions, and #investors across multiple healthcare #sectors. https://cnbusinessforum.com/event/2026-the-health-industry-series-asean/
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How Biology Is Used in Healthcare, Agriculture and Research
From hospitals to farms to cutting-edge labs, discover how Biology shapes healthcare, agriculture, and scientific breakthroughs worldwide. Read more: https://indiatutor.in/blogs/how-biology-is-used-in-healthcare-agriculture-and-research/
#Biology #Science #Healthcare #Agriculture #Research #Education
-
How Biology Is Used in Healthcare, Agriculture and Research
From hospitals to farms to cutting-edge labs, discover how Biology shapes healthcare, agriculture, and scientific breakthroughs worldwide. Read more: https://indiatutor.in/blogs/how-biology-is-used-in-healthcare-agriculture-and-research/
#Biology #Science #Healthcare #Agriculture #Research #Education
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So I was out today in public (ran into an estate sale on the way back from a routine doctor's appt) and fascinating to hear the chatter among the people waiting in line to get in. A bunch of people complaining about healthcare costs, the greed of CEOs... *multiple* people who had to drive their kids to another hospital because our local hospital was taken over by HCA and wouldn't accept them as patients; complaints about how the hospital only cares about profits, and how different it is (with no blame to doctors and nurses, only the company and its executives). It was a lot of people nodding and agreeing, and (as far as I could tell) a very mixed political demographic and socioeconomic factors. Healthcare and hospital system CEOs may be one of the most hated groups of people in the world. #random #healthcare #economy
-
So I was out today in public (ran into an estate sale on the way back from a routine doctor's appt) and fascinating to hear the chatter among the people waiting in line to get in. A bunch of people complaining about healthcare costs, the greed of CEOs... *multiple* people who had to drive their kids to another hospital because our local hospital was taken over by HCA and wouldn't accept them as patients; complaints about how the hospital only cares about profits, and how different it is (with no blame to doctors and nurses, only the company and its executives). It was a lot of people nodding and agreeing, and (as far as I could tell) a very mixed political demographic and socioeconomic factors. Healthcare and hospital system CEOs may be one of the most hated groups of people in the world. #random #healthcare #economy
-
"[T]he first three years she was filled with sadness. And then she started to get mad."
"She's mad because Jeff's death, just like the more than 18,179 British Columbians killed by unregulated drugs since April 14, 2016, was preventable."
———————————————
Title: BC's Toxic Drug Crisis Hits a Grim 10-Year Anniversary
Author: Michelle Gamage
Publication: The Tyee
April 14, 2026
———————————————
#BritishColumbia #Canada #Healthcare #Labour #Drugs
https://thetyee.ca/News/2026/04/14/BC-Toxic-Drug-Crisis-10-Year-Anniversary/ -
Pregnant patients with a history of substance abuse often feel stigmatized by the #healthcare system.
Some #Colorado hospitals are offering them a welcoming space for them and their newborns.
https://theconversation.com/how-colorado-hospitals-are-caring-for-pregnant-patients-with-substance-use-disorders-by-overcoming-stigma-283551
#health -
Pregnant patients with a history of substance abuse often feel stigmatized by the #healthcare system.
Some #Colorado hospitals are offering them a welcoming space for them and their newborns.
https://theconversation.com/how-colorado-hospitals-are-caring-for-pregnant-patients-with-substance-use-disorders-by-overcoming-stigma-283551
#health -
Washington state might create new workplace policies for people with menopause. Governor Bob Ferguson signed an executive order last week that creates a work group to look into this question. Any new policies could impact some 600,000 Washington workers. To get an expert's opinion on this, KUOW’s Kim Malcolm spoke to Dr. Susan Reed, an OBGYN and professor emeritus at the University of Washington School of Medicine.
https://www.kuow.org/stories/menopause-expert-hopeful-about-wa-workplace-developments
#KUOW #News #Government #Health #HealthCare -
Washington state might create new workplace policies for people with menopause. Governor Bob Ferguson signed an executive order last week that creates a work group to look into this question. Any new policies could impact some 600,000 Washington workers. To get an expert's opinion on this, KUOW’s Kim Malcolm spoke to Dr. Susan Reed, an OBGYN and professor emeritus at the University of Washington School of Medicine.
https://www.kuow.org/stories/menopause-expert-hopeful-about-wa-workplace-developments
#KUOW #News #Government #Health #HealthCare -
DATE: June 12, 2026 at 08:00PM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: The quality of your sleep appears to shape your political behavior
URL: https://www.psypost.org/a-good-night-of-sleep-might-be-the-key-to-higher-voter-turnout/
A steady night of restful sleep is associated with a greater likelihood of showing up at the polls to vote, while tossing and turning is linked to a higher chance of participating in non-traditional political acts like boycotts and protests. These varied political behaviors are tied to our biological need for restorative rest. The research on sleep and civic engagement was recently published in the journal Political Psychology.
Voting and participating in civic life require substantial reserves of time and mental energy. For decades, political scientists used a resource model to understand why certain groups of people are more likely to participate in their government. This model traditionally focused on material resources. Individuals with higher incomes, advanced educational degrees, and flexible job schedules tend to have more capacity to stay informed and show up at the polling booth.
Recently, scholars began looking at human biology as another fundamental resource for political participation. Maintaining a healthy physical and mental state requires ongoing biological maintenance. Getting adequate rest builds cognitive capacity, regulates mood, and preserves physical health. Unlike money or educational certificates, rest is a biological resource that individuals cannot accumulate and store away for future use.
Previous studies in this emerging subfield demonstrated that the sheer amount of time a person spends asleep relates to their likelihood of voting. Researchers also found links between a person’s chronotype, whether they naturally favor early mornings or late nights, and their eventual political behavior.
However, clocking eight hours in bed does not guarantee a person wakes up feeling refreshed. Sleep quality is a distinct measurement from sleep duration. It encompasses how easily someone falls asleep, how often they wake up during the night, and whether they feel restored in the morning. An individual might spend nine hours in bed but still suffer from a high degree of restlessness.
Lead author Fatih Erol, a political scientist at the University of Idaho, collaborated with researchers Nathan K. Micatka and Aleksander Ksiazkiewicz to see if how well a person sleeps informs how they engage with their government. The research team hypothesized that better sleep quality would coordinate with greater voter turnout. They also predicted that bad sleep might prompt people to participate in alternative political activities outside of traditional elections.
To test these assumptions, the researchers analyzed survey responses from twelve European democracies. The primary data source was the European Social Survey, which included data from thousands of participants across Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. The survey asked respondents to rate how frequently they felt rested upon waking over the past week.
These respondents also detailed their recent political actions. They reported whether they cast a ballot in their country’s last general election. They also indicated if they had participated in non-electoral political activities over the previous twelve months. These alternative actions included signing petitions, taking part in lawful demonstrations, contacting politicians, boycotting products, and working for a political party.
Because many different factors influence political behavior, the researchers adjusted their statistical models to account for a wide range of variables. They accounted for the age, educational background, household income, political ideology, and the physical and mental health status of each respondent. By isolating these factors, the researchers aimed to evaluate the specific association of rest rather than the influence of other demographic traits.
Across the pooled European data, the researchers found a positive association between restedness and voting. Individuals who reported experiencing high-quality sleep were more likely to vote. This pattern supported the idea that feeling physically and mentally restored equips citizens with the necessary energy to navigate the rigid schedules of election days. Voting requires showing up at a specific place during a preset window of time, an act that can be challenging for someone suffering from chronic fatigue.
A separate pattern emerged for those who routinely woke up feeling tired. Poor sleep quality was associated with a higher likelihood of engaging in non-electoral participatory behaviors, such as protesting or signing petitions.
The researchers theorize that tired individuals might seek alternative avenues to express their dissatisfaction because conventional voting feels inadequate for addressing their immediate concerns. Citizens suffering from chronic sleep disruptions may develop grievances about social conditions, such as long work schedules or poor healthcare access. Because traditional elections happen infrequently, these individuals might favor protests and boycotts. These alternative actions offer flexible timing and allow citizens to directly address the issues affecting their daily lives.
Another biological pathway involves how sleep affects mood and social behavior. Chronic lack of quality rest can impair the brain’s social cognition network, which manages the mental processes necessary for social decision-making. Sleep deprivation often leads to social withdrawal. This biological reality provides a reason why tired individuals might shy away from the highly social environment of a polling place.
Normally, electoral and non-electoral participation happen in tandem, as people who vote are also the individuals most likely to attend demonstrations. However, poor sleep appears to interrupt this connection. Because sleep-deprived individuals often retreat from civic associations, they lack the traditional social bridges that encourage voting. They remain motivated by their personal grievances but lack the social capital to channel that energy into the ballot box.
When looking at specific countries, the association varied. In nations like Finland, Germany, and the United Kingdom, the link between good sleep and voting held firm, while in other countries, the association was not statistically significant. The connection between bad sleep and non-traditional participation was strongest in places like France, Ireland, and Sweden.
The team then tested their models using different datasets from the United States and Germany to verify their findings. The German data allowed them to track individuals over time, confirming that a person’s immediate sleep quality aligns with both their past voting reports and future voting intentions. The American dataset included a multidimensional measure of sleep quality, which reaffirmed the validity of the single-question measure used in the European survey.
The American dataset also allowed the researchers to examine the relationship between sleep quality and the total hours spent sleeping. They found that the length of time a person sleeps only relates to their voting habits if their sleep quality is poor. For people who do not sleep well, logging more hours in bed seems to compensate for the poor quality, restoring just enough energy to allow them to go vote. For individuals who already get high-quality sleep, sleeping an extra hour or two does not change their likelihood of voting.
Because the study relies on observational survey data, the researchers cannot establish direct causation. It is possible that unobserved variables affect both a person’s rest and their political involvement simultaneously. The surveys also measured recent sleep quality against political actions that occurred months or years in the past. The researchers worked under the assumption that a person’s general sleep habits act as a stable psychological trait over long periods.
The findings raise distinct concerns regarding political representation and the health of democratic systems. In a functioning representative democracy, policymakers rely on the electorate to communicate the needs of the public. If elected officials primarily listen to the demographic that votes, they might overlook the policy preferences of constituencies struggling with sleep health issues.
Future studies could explore how sudden, acute disruptions in sleep affect political choices in real-time. Unpredictable events, such as a localized natural disaster, pandemic lockdowns, or a stressful news cycle, could theoretically alter rest patterns just before an election. Researchers also plan to investigate how specific policy choices, such as daylight saving time or workplace noise ordinances, directly impact the rest and the democratic participation of the public.
The study, “Waking up to politics: How sleep quality relates to political participation,” was authored by Fatih Erol, Nathan K. Micatka, and Aleksander Ksiazkiewicz.
URL: https://www.psypost.org/a-good-night-of-sleep-might-be-the-key-to-higher-voter-turnout/
-------------------------------------------------
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 #SleepAndCivicEngagement #SleepQualityVote #RestToVote #SleepHealthPolitics #CivicParticipation #VotingBehavior #SleepBiology #PoliticalPsychology #RestedCitizen #SleepAndProtest
-
DATE: June 12, 2026 at 08:00PM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: The quality of your sleep appears to shape your political behavior
URL: https://www.psypost.org/a-good-night-of-sleep-might-be-the-key-to-higher-voter-turnout/
A steady night of restful sleep is associated with a greater likelihood of showing up at the polls to vote, while tossing and turning is linked to a higher chance of participating in non-traditional political acts like boycotts and protests. These varied political behaviors are tied to our biological need for restorative rest. The research on sleep and civic engagement was recently published in the journal Political Psychology.
Voting and participating in civic life require substantial reserves of time and mental energy. For decades, political scientists used a resource model to understand why certain groups of people are more likely to participate in their government. This model traditionally focused on material resources. Individuals with higher incomes, advanced educational degrees, and flexible job schedules tend to have more capacity to stay informed and show up at the polling booth.
Recently, scholars began looking at human biology as another fundamental resource for political participation. Maintaining a healthy physical and mental state requires ongoing biological maintenance. Getting adequate rest builds cognitive capacity, regulates mood, and preserves physical health. Unlike money or educational certificates, rest is a biological resource that individuals cannot accumulate and store away for future use.
Previous studies in this emerging subfield demonstrated that the sheer amount of time a person spends asleep relates to their likelihood of voting. Researchers also found links between a person’s chronotype, whether they naturally favor early mornings or late nights, and their eventual political behavior.
However, clocking eight hours in bed does not guarantee a person wakes up feeling refreshed. Sleep quality is a distinct measurement from sleep duration. It encompasses how easily someone falls asleep, how often they wake up during the night, and whether they feel restored in the morning. An individual might spend nine hours in bed but still suffer from a high degree of restlessness.
Lead author Fatih Erol, a political scientist at the University of Idaho, collaborated with researchers Nathan K. Micatka and Aleksander Ksiazkiewicz to see if how well a person sleeps informs how they engage with their government. The research team hypothesized that better sleep quality would coordinate with greater voter turnout. They also predicted that bad sleep might prompt people to participate in alternative political activities outside of traditional elections.
To test these assumptions, the researchers analyzed survey responses from twelve European democracies. The primary data source was the European Social Survey, which included data from thousands of participants across Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. The survey asked respondents to rate how frequently they felt rested upon waking over the past week.
These respondents also detailed their recent political actions. They reported whether they cast a ballot in their country’s last general election. They also indicated if they had participated in non-electoral political activities over the previous twelve months. These alternative actions included signing petitions, taking part in lawful demonstrations, contacting politicians, boycotting products, and working for a political party.
Because many different factors influence political behavior, the researchers adjusted their statistical models to account for a wide range of variables. They accounted for the age, educational background, household income, political ideology, and the physical and mental health status of each respondent. By isolating these factors, the researchers aimed to evaluate the specific association of rest rather than the influence of other demographic traits.
Across the pooled European data, the researchers found a positive association between restedness and voting. Individuals who reported experiencing high-quality sleep were more likely to vote. This pattern supported the idea that feeling physically and mentally restored equips citizens with the necessary energy to navigate the rigid schedules of election days. Voting requires showing up at a specific place during a preset window of time, an act that can be challenging for someone suffering from chronic fatigue.
A separate pattern emerged for those who routinely woke up feeling tired. Poor sleep quality was associated with a higher likelihood of engaging in non-electoral participatory behaviors, such as protesting or signing petitions.
The researchers theorize that tired individuals might seek alternative avenues to express their dissatisfaction because conventional voting feels inadequate for addressing their immediate concerns. Citizens suffering from chronic sleep disruptions may develop grievances about social conditions, such as long work schedules or poor healthcare access. Because traditional elections happen infrequently, these individuals might favor protests and boycotts. These alternative actions offer flexible timing and allow citizens to directly address the issues affecting their daily lives.
Another biological pathway involves how sleep affects mood and social behavior. Chronic lack of quality rest can impair the brain’s social cognition network, which manages the mental processes necessary for social decision-making. Sleep deprivation often leads to social withdrawal. This biological reality provides a reason why tired individuals might shy away from the highly social environment of a polling place.
Normally, electoral and non-electoral participation happen in tandem, as people who vote are also the individuals most likely to attend demonstrations. However, poor sleep appears to interrupt this connection. Because sleep-deprived individuals often retreat from civic associations, they lack the traditional social bridges that encourage voting. They remain motivated by their personal grievances but lack the social capital to channel that energy into the ballot box.
When looking at specific countries, the association varied. In nations like Finland, Germany, and the United Kingdom, the link between good sleep and voting held firm, while in other countries, the association was not statistically significant. The connection between bad sleep and non-traditional participation was strongest in places like France, Ireland, and Sweden.
The team then tested their models using different datasets from the United States and Germany to verify their findings. The German data allowed them to track individuals over time, confirming that a person’s immediate sleep quality aligns with both their past voting reports and future voting intentions. The American dataset included a multidimensional measure of sleep quality, which reaffirmed the validity of the single-question measure used in the European survey.
The American dataset also allowed the researchers to examine the relationship between sleep quality and the total hours spent sleeping. They found that the length of time a person sleeps only relates to their voting habits if their sleep quality is poor. For people who do not sleep well, logging more hours in bed seems to compensate for the poor quality, restoring just enough energy to allow them to go vote. For individuals who already get high-quality sleep, sleeping an extra hour or two does not change their likelihood of voting.
Because the study relies on observational survey data, the researchers cannot establish direct causation. It is possible that unobserved variables affect both a person’s rest and their political involvement simultaneously. The surveys also measured recent sleep quality against political actions that occurred months or years in the past. The researchers worked under the assumption that a person’s general sleep habits act as a stable psychological trait over long periods.
The findings raise distinct concerns regarding political representation and the health of democratic systems. In a functioning representative democracy, policymakers rely on the electorate to communicate the needs of the public. If elected officials primarily listen to the demographic that votes, they might overlook the policy preferences of constituencies struggling with sleep health issues.
Future studies could explore how sudden, acute disruptions in sleep affect political choices in real-time. Unpredictable events, such as a localized natural disaster, pandemic lockdowns, or a stressful news cycle, could theoretically alter rest patterns just before an election. Researchers also plan to investigate how specific policy choices, such as daylight saving time or workplace noise ordinances, directly impact the rest and the democratic participation of the public.
The study, “Waking up to politics: How sleep quality relates to political participation,” was authored by Fatih Erol, Nathan K. Micatka, and Aleksander Ksiazkiewicz.
URL: https://www.psypost.org/a-good-night-of-sleep-might-be-the-key-to-higher-voter-turnout/
-------------------------------------------------
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 #SleepAndCivicEngagement #SleepQualityVote #RestToVote #SleepHealthPolitics #CivicParticipation #VotingBehavior #SleepBiology #PoliticalPsychology #RestedCitizen #SleepAndProtest
-
As a reminder, presidents are chosen specifically by the rich, to distract from the misdeeds and corruption that goes on behind the scenes, there's a lot of charisma, showmanship, stage presence, photogenics, oratory, likeability, and appearing larger than life involved, sold by a trillion dollar hype machine, to get elected. They are admired as celebrities, by people who want a taste of the spotlight. They live in a big eurocentric doll house, on 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, designed to cement the colonial empire of the USA, chosen in color to legitimize white supremacy, to whitewash the genocide of Natives of the land. All paid for, by us, the people, some of whom are starving.
https://we-glue-earth.gitlab.io/when-was-america-great/
Did you know that the investigation into the 2008 stock market crash, and the #corruption involved, was stopped under the Obama administration, and cleverly moved out of the spotlight of the news cycle? Presidents, of both parties are there in the spotlight to cover up what's happening in the darkness outside the spotlight.
#Healthcare was complicated and expensive. People want #UniversalHealthcare. So #Obama sold us #ObamaCare. Now, healthcare is complicated, expensive AND mandatory. More money for the "healthcare industry".
"But Obama would NEVER do such things, surely. Look at him! He's so charming. I like Obama!!! He's a man of character!" 😂😂😂
Politicians are NOT your friends. They're stand-ins for corrupt capitalists.
Here's a TED talk by Dr. Lawrence Lessig on the subject:
-
As a reminder, presidents are chosen specifically by the rich, to distract from the misdeeds and corruption that goes on behind the scenes, there's a lot of charisma, showmanship, stage presence, photogenics, oratory, likeability, and appearing larger than life involved, sold by a trillion dollar hype machine, to get elected. They are admired as celebrities, by people who want a taste of the spotlight. They live in a big eurocentric doll house, on 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, designed to cement the colonial empire of the USA, chosen in color to legitimize white supremacy, to whitewash the genocide of Natives of the land. All paid for, by us, the people, some of whom are starving.
https://we-glue-earth.gitlab.io/when-was-america-great/
Did you know that the investigation into the 2008 stock market crash, and the #corruption involved, was stopped under the Obama administration, and cleverly moved out of the spotlight of the news cycle? Presidents, of both parties are there in the spotlight to cover up what's happening in the darkness outside the spotlight.
#Healthcare was complicated and expensive. People want #UniversalHealthcare. So #Obama sold us #ObamaCare. Now, healthcare is complicated, expensive AND mandatory. More money for the "healthcare industry".
"But Obama would NEVER do such things, surely. Look at him! He's so charming. I like Obama!!! He's a man of character!" 😂😂😂
Politicians are NOT your friends. They're stand-ins for corrupt capitalists.
Here's a TED talk by Dr. Lawrence Lessig on the subject:
-
"[N]ew body camera videos — [..] never provided to the inspectors — show that Wade was left lying on the concrete floor of her jail cell for hours before anyone sounded the alarm."
"Even then, more than 20 minutes lapsed before nurses began to administer CPR."
———————————————
Authors: Doug Livingston, Mark Puente, & Brittany Hailer
Publication: The Marshall Project
April 14, 2026
———————————————
#Ohio #USA #Incarceration #Healthcare
https://www.themarshallproject.org/2026/04/14/cuyahoga-jail-death-wade-ohio -
"Harris' Kafkaesque journey isn't unusual for perimenopausal and menopausal people in prison, where access to information about this life transition is scarce."
"The vast majority of people that we talked to were confused and scared."
———————————————
Title: What It's Like to Go Through Perimenopause and Menopause in Prison
Author: Rebecca McCray
Publication: The Marshall Project
April 14, 2026
———————————————
#USA #Healthcare #Incarceration
https://www.themarshallproject.org/2026/04/14/menopause-perimenopause-prison-life-women -
"I see floating traces of friends and family."
"I see ghosts stumbling on the shoreline."
"The state just shrugs its shoulders or worse, cannot even be bothered to acknowledge the mass death and disabling crisis it has created and enables."
———————————————
Title: Emergency decade
Author: Tyson Singh Kelsall ਟਾਈਸਨ ਸਿੰਘ
Publication: The Mainlander
April 14, 2026
———————————————
#BritishColumbia #Canada #Drugs #Healthcare
https://themainlander.com/2026/04/14/emergency-decade/ -
DATE: June 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: Noninvasive brain stimulation reduces Parkinson’s motor symptoms in new trial
Researchers have developed a noninvasive way to reduce movement problems in people with Parkinson’s disease by applying overlapping electrical currents to the scalp. The technique reaches deep into the brain without requiring surgery, producing noticeable improvements in slowness and tremors for at least an hour after a single session. These results were published in the peer-reviewed journal eBioMedicine.
Parkinson’s disease is a progressive neurological condition that affects movement and physical coordination. People with the disorder often experience tremors, muscle stiffness, and an overall slowness of motion known as bradykinesia. These symptoms arise from pathological changes in the brain’s basal ganglia, a group of structures located deep beneath the cerebral cortex that help control voluntary movements. One specific structure within this network is the subthalamic nucleus, which plays a central role in regulating motor function.
For patients with advanced symptoms, doctors sometimes recommend an invasive procedure known as deep brain stimulation. This surgery involves drilling small holes into the skull and implanting permanent metallic electrodes directly into regions like the subthalamic nucleus. Electrical impulses from a pacemaker-like device then modulate the abnormal brain activity, offering relief from movement difficulties. The surgery carries inherent physical risks, such as infection or bleeding inside the brain, and requires ongoing management of the implanted hardware.
Because of these surgical risks and the high financial costs involved, less than three percent of the global population with Parkinson’s disease receives deep brain stimulation. Medical professionals need alternative therapies that can target the same deep brain areas without cutting into the brain itself. A relatively new technique called transcranial temporal interference stimulation offers a potential solution to this problem.
This method uses two sets of temporary electrodes placed on the outside of the head to deliver high-frequency electrical currents. By themselves, these high-frequency fields pass through brain tissue without altering cellular activity. When the two electrical fields cross deep inside the brain, they create a new, lower-frequency wave exactly at the point of intersection. This newly formed wave pulses at a rate slow enough to influence brain cell behavior in a targeted area, all while leaving the surface of the brain completely unaffected.
A research team sought to determine whether this technology could safely target the subthalamic nucleus to relieve motor symptoms. The study was led by Chenhao Yang, a researcher at the Key Laboratory of Exercise and Health Sciences at the Shanghai University of Sport in China, along with colleagues from several international academic institutions. The team wanted to know if a single, customized session of this electrical therapy would be tolerable for patients and whether it would produce measurable improvements in physical movement.
To answer these questions, the research group recruited thirty adults with early-to-mid-stage Parkinson’s disease. The participants were all capable of walking without assistance and had maintained stable medication routines for at least four weeks prior to the trial. Before the experiment began, each person underwent a magnetic resonance imaging scan of their brain. The researchers used these detailed scans to build individualized computer models of each person’s cranial anatomy.
These personalized models allowed the scientists to calculate the exact placement of the scalp electrodes needed to guide the electrical fields to each individual’s subthalamic nucleus. The researchers set the equipment to generate a specific frequency difference of roughly one hundred and thirty hertz at the deep brain intersection point. They chose this specific frequency because it matches the standard electrical rhythm utilized in traditional surgical deep brain stimulation.
The trial used a randomized, double-blind crossover design, meaning every participant experienced both the real therapy and a fake treatment on two separate days. The fake treatment, or sham, served as a baseline comparison for the scientists. During the sham session, the device delivered electrical currents that recreated a mild tingling sensation on the scalp but did not produce the intersecting waves deep in the brain. Neither the participants nor the staff conducting the clinical evaluations knew which version was being administered on a given day.
On the days of the experiment, participants abstained from taking their regular Parkinson’s medications for at least twelve hours. They then received twenty minutes of either the real brain stimulation or the sham version while resting in a chair. Certified clinical examiners evaluated each participant’s movement abilities using a standardized motor symptom rating scale. These formal assessments took place right before the machine was turned on, immediately after the twenty minutes ended, thirty minutes later, and a final time a full hour after the session.
The evaluations showed clear differences between the two testing conditions. Following the real temporal interference stimulation, seventy percent of the participants experienced a clinically meaningful reduction in their motor symptoms. After the sham treatment, only fifteen percent of the volunteers reached that same threshold of improvement. The real stimulation led to larger overall reductions in motor symptom scores compared to the fake treatment at every time point checked after the machine was turned off.
When breaking down the specific physical symptoms, the researchers found the largest improvements in slowness of movement and resting tremors. These benefits were clear immediately and persisted for the full hour of observation. Changes in muscle stiffness and overall postural balance were less consistent across the group, with some improvements in rigidity only becoming evident at the sixty-minute mark.
The procedure also proved to be safe and well tolerated by the volunteers. No serious adverse events happened during either visit to the clinic. Mild side effects, such as a temporary tingling or a feeling of warmth on the scalp, occurred at similar rates regardless of whether the person was receiving the actual therapy or the fake version. The lack of differences in adverse physical sensations was not statistically significant, which helped ensure that the blinding process worked, as most participants could not accurately guess which treatment they had received.
“One of the most promising aspects of this work is the ability to individualize stimulation based on each patient’s own brain anatomy,” said Brad Manor, a senior scientist at the Hinda and Arthur Marcus Institute for Aging Research at Hebrew SeniorLife. He explained, “That level of precision could become increasingly important as we learn how to tailor neuromodulation therapies to different Parkinson’s symptoms and different patients.”
While the initial data show promise, the research team acknowledged several limitations to their current work. The study involved a relatively small number of participants, all of whom were of Asian descent and most of whom were women. This restricted demographic profile means the results might not automatically apply to other populations with different cranial anatomies or distinct genetic backgrounds. The researchers noted that multi-center trials involving more diverse groups of people are needed to confirm these early observations.
Another limitation is that the researchers relied entirely on computer modeling to predict where the electrical fields would intersect inside the head. They do not yet have direct brain imaging evidence to prove that the electrical interference was entirely isolated to the subthalamic nucleus. Because this part of the brain is very small, it is possible that the electrical fields also affected neighboring brain regions that help control mood and cognitive function. Future studies will need to incorporate advanced brain scans to see exactly how the therapy impacts surrounding tissues.
The study was also designed to measure only the immediate aftermath of a single twenty-minute session, and three participants dropped out before completing both visits. Medical professionals do not yet know how long the improvements in movement might last after that initial hour. “These early results are promising, so we are already moving forward, together with our collaborators from Shanghai University of Sport, the UK and Germany, to conduct larger studies applying multiple sessions of stimulation in subsequent days to induce lasting effects and determine how long the benefits can last, how treatments should be spaced, and which patients are most likely to respond,” said Junhong Zhou, a co-corresponding author of the paper.
If repeated treatments prove to be safe and capable of offering sustained relief, this electrical technique could expand the available options for managing the disease. A purely external device might eventually help patients delay the need for invasive brain surgeries or serve as an additional tool alongside traditional medications. Until those longer and larger trials are completed, the technology remains an experimental but highly encouraging prospect.
The study, “Transcranial temporal interference stimulation targeting the subthalamic region for motor symptoms in Parkinson’s disease: a pilot, randomised, double-blind, sham-controlled crossover study,” was authored by Chenhao Yang, Yongxin Xu, Yichao Du, Xiaonan Shen, Tingting Li, Nan Chen, Yulian Zhu, Lingyan Huang, Jiaojiao Lu, Lu Li, Zhenyu Qian, Zhen Wang, Ulf Ziemann, Nir Grossman, Brad Manor, Alvaro Pascual-Leone, Junhong Zhou, Chencheng Zhang, and Yu Liu.
-------------------------------------------------
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 #TranscranialTemporalInterferenceStimulation #ParkinsonsDisease #NoninvasiveBrainStimulation #SubthalamicNucleus #Bradykinesia #TremorReduction #Neuromodulation #eBioMedicine #ShamControlledTrial #PersonalizedBrainModulation
-
DATE: June 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: Noninvasive brain stimulation reduces Parkinson’s motor symptoms in new trial
Researchers have developed a noninvasive way to reduce movement problems in people with Parkinson’s disease by applying overlapping electrical currents to the scalp. The technique reaches deep into the brain without requiring surgery, producing noticeable improvements in slowness and tremors for at least an hour after a single session. These results were published in the peer-reviewed journal eBioMedicine.
Parkinson’s disease is a progressive neurological condition that affects movement and physical coordination. People with the disorder often experience tremors, muscle stiffness, and an overall slowness of motion known as bradykinesia. These symptoms arise from pathological changes in the brain’s basal ganglia, a group of structures located deep beneath the cerebral cortex that help control voluntary movements. One specific structure within this network is the subthalamic nucleus, which plays a central role in regulating motor function.
For patients with advanced symptoms, doctors sometimes recommend an invasive procedure known as deep brain stimulation. This surgery involves drilling small holes into the skull and implanting permanent metallic electrodes directly into regions like the subthalamic nucleus. Electrical impulses from a pacemaker-like device then modulate the abnormal brain activity, offering relief from movement difficulties. The surgery carries inherent physical risks, such as infection or bleeding inside the brain, and requires ongoing management of the implanted hardware.
Because of these surgical risks and the high financial costs involved, less than three percent of the global population with Parkinson’s disease receives deep brain stimulation. Medical professionals need alternative therapies that can target the same deep brain areas without cutting into the brain itself. A relatively new technique called transcranial temporal interference stimulation offers a potential solution to this problem.
This method uses two sets of temporary electrodes placed on the outside of the head to deliver high-frequency electrical currents. By themselves, these high-frequency fields pass through brain tissue without altering cellular activity. When the two electrical fields cross deep inside the brain, they create a new, lower-frequency wave exactly at the point of intersection. This newly formed wave pulses at a rate slow enough to influence brain cell behavior in a targeted area, all while leaving the surface of the brain completely unaffected.
A research team sought to determine whether this technology could safely target the subthalamic nucleus to relieve motor symptoms. The study was led by Chenhao Yang, a researcher at the Key Laboratory of Exercise and Health Sciences at the Shanghai University of Sport in China, along with colleagues from several international academic institutions. The team wanted to know if a single, customized session of this electrical therapy would be tolerable for patients and whether it would produce measurable improvements in physical movement.
To answer these questions, the research group recruited thirty adults with early-to-mid-stage Parkinson’s disease. The participants were all capable of walking without assistance and had maintained stable medication routines for at least four weeks prior to the trial. Before the experiment began, each person underwent a magnetic resonance imaging scan of their brain. The researchers used these detailed scans to build individualized computer models of each person’s cranial anatomy.
These personalized models allowed the scientists to calculate the exact placement of the scalp electrodes needed to guide the electrical fields to each individual’s subthalamic nucleus. The researchers set the equipment to generate a specific frequency difference of roughly one hundred and thirty hertz at the deep brain intersection point. They chose this specific frequency because it matches the standard electrical rhythm utilized in traditional surgical deep brain stimulation.
The trial used a randomized, double-blind crossover design, meaning every participant experienced both the real therapy and a fake treatment on two separate days. The fake treatment, or sham, served as a baseline comparison for the scientists. During the sham session, the device delivered electrical currents that recreated a mild tingling sensation on the scalp but did not produce the intersecting waves deep in the brain. Neither the participants nor the staff conducting the clinical evaluations knew which version was being administered on a given day.
On the days of the experiment, participants abstained from taking their regular Parkinson’s medications for at least twelve hours. They then received twenty minutes of either the real brain stimulation or the sham version while resting in a chair. Certified clinical examiners evaluated each participant’s movement abilities using a standardized motor symptom rating scale. These formal assessments took place right before the machine was turned on, immediately after the twenty minutes ended, thirty minutes later, and a final time a full hour after the session.
The evaluations showed clear differences between the two testing conditions. Following the real temporal interference stimulation, seventy percent of the participants experienced a clinically meaningful reduction in their motor symptoms. After the sham treatment, only fifteen percent of the volunteers reached that same threshold of improvement. The real stimulation led to larger overall reductions in motor symptom scores compared to the fake treatment at every time point checked after the machine was turned off.
When breaking down the specific physical symptoms, the researchers found the largest improvements in slowness of movement and resting tremors. These benefits were clear immediately and persisted for the full hour of observation. Changes in muscle stiffness and overall postural balance were less consistent across the group, with some improvements in rigidity only becoming evident at the sixty-minute mark.
The procedure also proved to be safe and well tolerated by the volunteers. No serious adverse events happened during either visit to the clinic. Mild side effects, such as a temporary tingling or a feeling of warmth on the scalp, occurred at similar rates regardless of whether the person was receiving the actual therapy or the fake version. The lack of differences in adverse physical sensations was not statistically significant, which helped ensure that the blinding process worked, as most participants could not accurately guess which treatment they had received.
“One of the most promising aspects of this work is the ability to individualize stimulation based on each patient’s own brain anatomy,” said Brad Manor, a senior scientist at the Hinda and Arthur Marcus Institute for Aging Research at Hebrew SeniorLife. He explained, “That level of precision could become increasingly important as we learn how to tailor neuromodulation therapies to different Parkinson’s symptoms and different patients.”
While the initial data show promise, the research team acknowledged several limitations to their current work. The study involved a relatively small number of participants, all of whom were of Asian descent and most of whom were women. This restricted demographic profile means the results might not automatically apply to other populations with different cranial anatomies or distinct genetic backgrounds. The researchers noted that multi-center trials involving more diverse groups of people are needed to confirm these early observations.
Another limitation is that the researchers relied entirely on computer modeling to predict where the electrical fields would intersect inside the head. They do not yet have direct brain imaging evidence to prove that the electrical interference was entirely isolated to the subthalamic nucleus. Because this part of the brain is very small, it is possible that the electrical fields also affected neighboring brain regions that help control mood and cognitive function. Future studies will need to incorporate advanced brain scans to see exactly how the therapy impacts surrounding tissues.
The study was also designed to measure only the immediate aftermath of a single twenty-minute session, and three participants dropped out before completing both visits. Medical professionals do not yet know how long the improvements in movement might last after that initial hour. “These early results are promising, so we are already moving forward, together with our collaborators from Shanghai University of Sport, the UK and Germany, to conduct larger studies applying multiple sessions of stimulation in subsequent days to induce lasting effects and determine how long the benefits can last, how treatments should be spaced, and which patients are most likely to respond,” said Junhong Zhou, a co-corresponding author of the paper.
If repeated treatments prove to be safe and capable of offering sustained relief, this electrical technique could expand the available options for managing the disease. A purely external device might eventually help patients delay the need for invasive brain surgeries or serve as an additional tool alongside traditional medications. Until those longer and larger trials are completed, the technology remains an experimental but highly encouraging prospect.
The study, “Transcranial temporal interference stimulation targeting the subthalamic region for motor symptoms in Parkinson’s disease: a pilot, randomised, double-blind, sham-controlled crossover study,” was authored by Chenhao Yang, Yongxin Xu, Yichao Du, Xiaonan Shen, Tingting Li, Nan Chen, Yulian Zhu, Lingyan Huang, Jiaojiao Lu, Lu Li, Zhenyu Qian, Zhen Wang, Ulf Ziemann, Nir Grossman, Brad Manor, Alvaro Pascual-Leone, Junhong Zhou, Chencheng Zhang, and Yu Liu.
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#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #TranscranialTemporalInterferenceStimulation #ParkinsonsDisease #NoninvasiveBrainStimulation #SubthalamicNucleus #Bradykinesia #TremorReduction #Neuromodulation #eBioMedicine #ShamControlledTrial #PersonalizedBrainModulation
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DATE: June 12, 2026 at 05:01PM
SOURCE: HEALTHCARE INFO SECURITYDirect article link at end of text block below.
#Ozempic Drug Maker Loses Clinical Trial Data in Hack https://t.co/VFXolx5Rrv
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#security #healthcare #doctors #itsecurity #hacking #doxxing #psychotherapy #securitynews #psychotherapist #mentalhealth #psychiatry #hospital #socialwork #datasecurity #webbeacons #cookies #HIPAA #privacy #datanalytics #healthcaresecurity #healthitsecurity #patientrecords @infosec #telehealth #netneutrality #socialengineering
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DATE: June 12, 2026 at 05:01PM
SOURCE: HEALTHCARE INFO SECURITYDirect article link at end of text block below.
#Ozempic Drug Maker Loses Clinical Trial Data in Hack https://t.co/VFXolx5Rrv
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Articles can be found by scrolling down the page at https://www.healthcareinfosecurity.com/ under the title "Latest"
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DATE: June 12, 2026 at 04:54PM
SOURCE: HEALTHCARE INFO SECURITYDirect article link at end of text block below.
#VAHealth #AI Chat Tools Lack Oversight, Agency Warns https://t.co/mCQrEcYXfM
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DATE: June 12, 2026 at 04:54PM
SOURCE: HEALTHCARE INFO SECURITYDirect article link at end of text block below.
#VAHealth #AI Chat Tools Lack Oversight, Agency Warns https://t.co/mCQrEcYXfM
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For my #Healthcare peeps:
The thing about #Botox for #sialorrhea is that saliva is part liquid & part mucous. Botox reduces production of the liquid bit, but the mucous? She gets THICC.
Ya gotta be very cautious about that kinda thing if a patient already has trouble swallowing. It can get dicey. If a neuro is pushing to inject, tap the brakes until there's plan in the event it goes south.
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DATE: June 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: New study sheds light on a hidden barrier stopping men from stopping sexual harassment
URL: https://www.psypost.org/the-hidden-barrier-stopping-men-from-stopping-sexual-harassment/
When societal expectations shift to suggest men are adopting traits historically associated with women, men who cling to traditional gender ideals become less likely to step in and stop workplace sexual harassment. These perceived changes can trigger defensive reactions that suppress a person’s intention to help targets of harassment. The research was published in Sex Roles.
Harassment is a widespread issue in professional environments. To counter it, organizations often rely on bystander intervention. Bystanders are individuals who witness harassment and have the choice to either step in or remain passive.
The likelihood of someone intervening depends strongly on their gender. Men are routinely less likely to help targets of harassment than women are. This hesitation is strongly tied to societal ideas about masculinity.
Traditional masculine ideals often demand dominance, emotional restraint, and the rejection of vulnerability. One core part of this ideology is the antifemininity norm. This norm dictates that men should actively avoid behaviors or traits perceived as feminine, such as deep empathy or nurturing others.
Checking in on a colleague or reporting bad behavior requires moral concern and emotional engagement. As a result, sticking strictly to the antifemininity norm creates a major barrier to prosocial actions like bystander intervention.
However, social expectations surrounding gender continually change. Modern men are increasingly taking on caregiving roles and expressing their emotions openly. Giulia Valsecchi, a psychology researcher at the University of Geneva, wanted to know how these shifting expectations influence the way men react to harassment.
Valsecchi conducted the research alongside University of Geneva colleagues Vincenzo Iacoviello and Juan Manuel Falomir-Pichastor. The team considered two conflicting psychological theories to explain male behavior.
One perspective, known as social role theory, suggests that as men take on more communal roles, they will naturally adopt the empathetic traits required to be active bystanders. In this scenario, witnessing men become more feminine might encourage others to conform and offer help.
Alternatively, precarious manhood theory suggests that masculinity is a fragile status that must be constantly defended. When traditional boundaries between men and women start to blur, men might perceive a threat to their identity. Under this theory, suggesting that men are becoming more feminine might trigger defensive reactions. Men might double down on traditional ideals, making them less willing to intervene.
To find out which theory held true, the researchers set up three distinct experiments. The first study involved 244 heterosexual men living in the United Kingdom. First, the participants answered questions designed to measure how strongly they endorsed the antifemininity norm. High scores indicated a strong belief that boys should play with trucks rather than dolls or that men should watch sports rather than soap operas.
Next, the researchers split the men into two groups to read a brief article. One group read a piece claiming that men are becoming more feminine over time and that the line between genders is disappearing. The second group read an article claiming that men are as masculine as ever and that the distinction between genders remains rigid.
The participants then read a hypothetical scenario set in a hospital. In the vignette, a male boss continuously asks a female colleague on a date despite her visible discomfort. The boss eventually tells her that he will not fire her over the rejection.
Participants had to rate whether they thought the event was harassment. They also rated their willingness to intervene using several options. They could report the event to human resources or confront the boss directly. They could also take softer approaches, like asking the targeted colleague if she wanted to talk, or they could simply pretend they saw nothing.
The results supported the idea of precarious manhood. Men who strongly believed in avoiding femininity were less willing to act when they read the article about men becoming more feminine.
Reading that gender norms were shifting triggered a defensive response in these participants, rather than encouraging empathy. The data also showed that strict adherence to the antifemininity norm impaired a person’s ability to even recognize the scenario as harassment.
The second study involved 217 American men. Instead of just measuring their existing beliefs, the team tried to momentarily alter how the men felt about their own gender presentation. To do this, the investigators gave the participants a fake personality test. The test asked them to evaluate themselves on traits like independence or nurturing behavior.
The researchers then assigned random scores to the participants. Half were told they had a highly masculine personality. The other half were told their personality was predominately feminine.
Earning a feminine score was meant to threaten their sense of masculinity. The participants then read the same articles about society either changing or staying the same, followed by the hospital scenario.
The results regarding a person’s willingness to intervene were not statistically significant in this second group. The statistical analysis fell short of conventional thresholds. Yet the data did reveal patterns related to the fake personality test. Men whose masculinity was threatened by the feminine personality score were much less likely to recognize the hospital scenario as sexual harassment.
The third experiment included 153 men located in Switzerland and other parts of Western Europe. The researchers wanted to see if changing gender norms caused men to actually justify bad behavior.
Recognizing a situation as harassment is different from evaluating it morally. Sometimes people recognize an action is wrong but still attempt to legitimize it by blaming the victim.
The researchers used the same reading exercise comparing shifting modern norms against strict traditional ones. They asked participants if they felt sympathy for the boss because modern women say no too often. They also asked if the participants felt men were unfairly perceived as harassers simply for flirting.
The experimental manipulation affected how participants judged the harasser’s behavior. Men who strongly avoided femininity were much more likely to legitimize the harassment if they were exposed to the article claiming men are becoming more feminine. Feeling defensive about shifting societal expectations directly altered their moral evaluations of the workplace behavior.
To make sense of the full project, the researchers combined the data from all three studies into a single analysis. Pooling the data increases statistical reliability. It allows scientists to identify consistent patterns across multiple groups of people.
The combined data showed a highly consistent pattern across different geographies. When men who strongly hold traditional gender beliefs perceive that men as a whole are becoming more feminine, their willingness to act as a bystander decreases. The researchers labeled this a resistance dynamic.
The opposite idea, known as a conformity dynamic, did not happen. Men who did not hold strict gender beliefs maintained a steady willingness to intervene regardless of the articles they read. Because they were not invested in strict gender roles, the articles did not trigger any defensive reactions that would alter their intent to help.
The researchers noted a few limitations to the experimental design. The studies relied on how people think they would act in a hypothetical situation. In real life, people often overestimate their own moral courage. Actual responses to emotionally charged events can differ wildly from responses on a digital survey.
The written scenario also involved a boss and a subordinate. This specific power dynamic might have influenced the answers. Employees are routinely hesitant to intervene against direct superiors to avoid retaliation. Testing different situations in the future could offer a better picture of bystander behavior.
The participants across all three studies were also predominately white. Race and ethnicity often shape how people perceive sexual violence. Testing more diverse groups would help ensure the results apply to the broader population.
Future investigations could observe actual behavior in real-world settings rather than relying on written responses. The research team suggested that organizations design prevention programs that specifically address deep-seated beliefs about masculinity.
Training should move past strict legal definitions to focus on the cultural behaviors that enable harassment in the first place. Clinicians might use these insights when working with men who struggle with interpersonal boundaries. Human resources departments should understand that strictly following procedural rules is not enough. Policies need to challenge the types of emotional restraint and dominance that keep employees from helping one another.
The study, “Evolving Masculinity Norms Shape Men’s Willingness to Intervene in Workplace Sexual Harassment,” was authored by Giulia Valsecchi, Vincenzo Iacoviello, and Juan Manuel Falomir-Pichastor.
URL: https://www.psypost.org/the-hidden-barrier-stopping-men-from-stopping-sexual-harassment/
-------------------------------------------------
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-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #EvolvingMasculinityNorms #BystanderIntervention #WorkplaceHarassment #GenderRoles #MasculinityStudies #AntifemininityNorm #PrecariousManhood #EmpathyInWorkplace #SexRolesJournal #HarassmentPrevention
-
DATE: June 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: New study sheds light on a hidden barrier stopping men from stopping sexual harassment
URL: https://www.psypost.org/the-hidden-barrier-stopping-men-from-stopping-sexual-harassment/
When societal expectations shift to suggest men are adopting traits historically associated with women, men who cling to traditional gender ideals become less likely to step in and stop workplace sexual harassment. These perceived changes can trigger defensive reactions that suppress a person’s intention to help targets of harassment. The research was published in Sex Roles.
Harassment is a widespread issue in professional environments. To counter it, organizations often rely on bystander intervention. Bystanders are individuals who witness harassment and have the choice to either step in or remain passive.
The likelihood of someone intervening depends strongly on their gender. Men are routinely less likely to help targets of harassment than women are. This hesitation is strongly tied to societal ideas about masculinity.
Traditional masculine ideals often demand dominance, emotional restraint, and the rejection of vulnerability. One core part of this ideology is the antifemininity norm. This norm dictates that men should actively avoid behaviors or traits perceived as feminine, such as deep empathy or nurturing others.
Checking in on a colleague or reporting bad behavior requires moral concern and emotional engagement. As a result, sticking strictly to the antifemininity norm creates a major barrier to prosocial actions like bystander intervention.
However, social expectations surrounding gender continually change. Modern men are increasingly taking on caregiving roles and expressing their emotions openly. Giulia Valsecchi, a psychology researcher at the University of Geneva, wanted to know how these shifting expectations influence the way men react to harassment.
Valsecchi conducted the research alongside University of Geneva colleagues Vincenzo Iacoviello and Juan Manuel Falomir-Pichastor. The team considered two conflicting psychological theories to explain male behavior.
One perspective, known as social role theory, suggests that as men take on more communal roles, they will naturally adopt the empathetic traits required to be active bystanders. In this scenario, witnessing men become more feminine might encourage others to conform and offer help.
Alternatively, precarious manhood theory suggests that masculinity is a fragile status that must be constantly defended. When traditional boundaries between men and women start to blur, men might perceive a threat to their identity. Under this theory, suggesting that men are becoming more feminine might trigger defensive reactions. Men might double down on traditional ideals, making them less willing to intervene.
To find out which theory held true, the researchers set up three distinct experiments. The first study involved 244 heterosexual men living in the United Kingdom. First, the participants answered questions designed to measure how strongly they endorsed the antifemininity norm. High scores indicated a strong belief that boys should play with trucks rather than dolls or that men should watch sports rather than soap operas.
Next, the researchers split the men into two groups to read a brief article. One group read a piece claiming that men are becoming more feminine over time and that the line between genders is disappearing. The second group read an article claiming that men are as masculine as ever and that the distinction between genders remains rigid.
The participants then read a hypothetical scenario set in a hospital. In the vignette, a male boss continuously asks a female colleague on a date despite her visible discomfort. The boss eventually tells her that he will not fire her over the rejection.
Participants had to rate whether they thought the event was harassment. They also rated their willingness to intervene using several options. They could report the event to human resources or confront the boss directly. They could also take softer approaches, like asking the targeted colleague if she wanted to talk, or they could simply pretend they saw nothing.
The results supported the idea of precarious manhood. Men who strongly believed in avoiding femininity were less willing to act when they read the article about men becoming more feminine.
Reading that gender norms were shifting triggered a defensive response in these participants, rather than encouraging empathy. The data also showed that strict adherence to the antifemininity norm impaired a person’s ability to even recognize the scenario as harassment.
The second study involved 217 American men. Instead of just measuring their existing beliefs, the team tried to momentarily alter how the men felt about their own gender presentation. To do this, the investigators gave the participants a fake personality test. The test asked them to evaluate themselves on traits like independence or nurturing behavior.
The researchers then assigned random scores to the participants. Half were told they had a highly masculine personality. The other half were told their personality was predominately feminine.
Earning a feminine score was meant to threaten their sense of masculinity. The participants then read the same articles about society either changing or staying the same, followed by the hospital scenario.
The results regarding a person’s willingness to intervene were not statistically significant in this second group. The statistical analysis fell short of conventional thresholds. Yet the data did reveal patterns related to the fake personality test. Men whose masculinity was threatened by the feminine personality score were much less likely to recognize the hospital scenario as sexual harassment.
The third experiment included 153 men located in Switzerland and other parts of Western Europe. The researchers wanted to see if changing gender norms caused men to actually justify bad behavior.
Recognizing a situation as harassment is different from evaluating it morally. Sometimes people recognize an action is wrong but still attempt to legitimize it by blaming the victim.
The researchers used the same reading exercise comparing shifting modern norms against strict traditional ones. They asked participants if they felt sympathy for the boss because modern women say no too often. They also asked if the participants felt men were unfairly perceived as harassers simply for flirting.
The experimental manipulation affected how participants judged the harasser’s behavior. Men who strongly avoided femininity were much more likely to legitimize the harassment if they were exposed to the article claiming men are becoming more feminine. Feeling defensive about shifting societal expectations directly altered their moral evaluations of the workplace behavior.
To make sense of the full project, the researchers combined the data from all three studies into a single analysis. Pooling the data increases statistical reliability. It allows scientists to identify consistent patterns across multiple groups of people.
The combined data showed a highly consistent pattern across different geographies. When men who strongly hold traditional gender beliefs perceive that men as a whole are becoming more feminine, their willingness to act as a bystander decreases. The researchers labeled this a resistance dynamic.
The opposite idea, known as a conformity dynamic, did not happen. Men who did not hold strict gender beliefs maintained a steady willingness to intervene regardless of the articles they read. Because they were not invested in strict gender roles, the articles did not trigger any defensive reactions that would alter their intent to help.
The researchers noted a few limitations to the experimental design. The studies relied on how people think they would act in a hypothetical situation. In real life, people often overestimate their own moral courage. Actual responses to emotionally charged events can differ wildly from responses on a digital survey.
The written scenario also involved a boss and a subordinate. This specific power dynamic might have influenced the answers. Employees are routinely hesitant to intervene against direct superiors to avoid retaliation. Testing different situations in the future could offer a better picture of bystander behavior.
The participants across all three studies were also predominately white. Race and ethnicity often shape how people perceive sexual violence. Testing more diverse groups would help ensure the results apply to the broader population.
Future investigations could observe actual behavior in real-world settings rather than relying on written responses. The research team suggested that organizations design prevention programs that specifically address deep-seated beliefs about masculinity.
Training should move past strict legal definitions to focus on the cultural behaviors that enable harassment in the first place. Clinicians might use these insights when working with men who struggle with interpersonal boundaries. Human resources departments should understand that strictly following procedural rules is not enough. Policies need to challenge the types of emotional restraint and dominance that keep employees from helping one another.
The study, “Evolving Masculinity Norms Shape Men’s Willingness to Intervene in Workplace Sexual Harassment,” was authored by Giulia Valsecchi, Vincenzo Iacoviello, and Juan Manuel Falomir-Pichastor.
URL: https://www.psypost.org/the-hidden-barrier-stopping-men-from-stopping-sexual-harassment/
-------------------------------------------------
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 #EvolvingMasculinityNorms #BystanderIntervention #WorkplaceHarassment #GenderRoles #MasculinityStudies #AntifemininityNorm #PrecariousManhood #EmpathyInWorkplace #SexRolesJournal #HarassmentPrevention
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"The massive accumulation of waste, the lack of regular collection, and the proliferation of stagnant water and sewage around the tents have created an ideal breeding ground for flies, mosquitoes, and rodents."
———————————————
Title: Gaza: A Healthcare System on the Brink of Collapse
Author: Sarah Emad Al-Zaq
Publication: The Rover
April 13, 2026
———————————————
#Gaza #Palestine #Israel #Aid #Animals #Healthcare #Food #Genocide
https://therover.ca/gaza-a-healthcare-system-on-the-brink-of-collapse/ -
"[S]ystematic targeting of the basic elements of life."
"The baby formula crisis comes amid a cluster of interconnected shortages that have hit Gaza [..] with Israel continuing to enforce heavy restrictions on the entry of humanitarian aid."
———————————————
Author: Tareq S. Hajjaj
Publication: Mondoweiss
April 13, 2026
———————————————
#Gaza #Palestine #Israel #Aid #Healthcare #Food #Water
https://mondoweiss.net/2026/04/gaza-health-officials-warn-of-irreversible-harm-to-entire-generation-of-children-amid-shortages-in-baby-formula-bread/ -
DATE: June 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: Los Angeles drug checking data reveals staggering levels of daily fentanyl consumption
A recent study published in the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence provides evidence that people who regularly use illicit fentanyl consume doses equivalent to nearly 9,000 milligrams of oral morphine every day. These findings suggest that standard medical treatments for opioid dependence might need significant adjustments to account for the extremely high tolerance levels seen in today’s illicit drug market. By quantifying exactly how much of the drug people are using, scientists hope to improve recovery outcomes.
Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid that has become the primary driver of the overdose crisis in North America over the past decade. Because it is inexpensive to produce and highly potent, it has largely replaced drugs derived from the opium poppy, such as heroin, in the illicit market. This high potency tends to make it very easy for people to consume more than they intend, which increases the risk of a fatal overdose.
When doctors prescribe opioid pain relievers, they measure doses using a standard metric called milligrams of morphine equivalent. This unit allows medical professionals to compare the strength and risk of different opioid drugs against a standard baseline of oral morphine. Clinical guidelines for chronic pain typically recommend keeping prescriptions below 90 milligrams of morphine equivalent per day.
In the illicit market, the lack of quality control means that people are often completely unaware of exactly how much active drug they are actually consuming. This creates significant challenges for medical professionals trying to treat opioid use disorder. Opioid use disorder is a medical condition characterized by a problematic pattern of opioid use that causes significant impairment or distress in a person’s daily life.
The research team consisted of scientists from the University of California, Los Angeles, alongside Dr. Joseph Friedman of the University of California, San Diego, and researchers from the University of Toronto. Morgan Godvin, the study’s lead author, drew inspiration for the project from her own lived experience with opioid use disorder. She recognized a massive gap between the clinical knowledge of pharmaceutical opioids and the clinical understanding of street drugs.
“We had been treating illicit-opioid doses as a black box, an unknowable, a curiosity,” Godvin said. “Public health has precise quantification methods for other exposures, such as for tobacco or alcohol. If at the molecular level, fentanyl is fentanyl, we should be able to quantify exposure, so we decided to estimate it with the Drug Checking Los Angeles data. The results surprised us all.”
Without knowing how much fentanyl a person is accustomed to taking, it is incredibly difficult for doctors to manage withdrawal symptoms safely. It also makes it hard to prescribe effective replacement medications, such as methadone or buprenorphine, which are used to stabilize patients and reduce cravings. Medications for opioid use disorder are highly effective in reducing overdose mortality, but many patients report severe challenges starting and staying on them due to the intensity of fentanyl withdrawal.
To gather their data, the researchers utilized Drug Checking Los Angeles, a research and public health program founded by Chelsea Shover, associate professor-in-residence at the University of California, Los Angeles, and the study’s senior author. They analyzed 509 drug samples collected between September 2023 and January 2026. These samples were obtained at multiple harm reduction sites across Los Angeles County, where participants voluntarily and anonymously provided small amounts of their street drugs for chemical testing.
The scientists analyzed these samples at a national laboratory using liquid chromatography mass spectrometry. This is an advanced laboratory technique that separates, identifies, and measures the specific chemical components hidden within a complex mixture. This allowed the team to determine the exact percentage of active fentanyl hidden inside the powders and pills sold on the street.
In addition to testing the drugs, the researchers invited the individuals providing the samples to answer a confidential survey about their current drug use habits. The survey captured responses from 47 individuals who reported using fentanyl regularly over the previous thirty days. These participants provided information on how many grams of the drug they consumed daily, as well as how they administered it.
Almost all the respondents reported smoking or vaporizing the fentanyl. A smaller portion of the group reported injecting the drug, and a few reported snorting it nasally. Because the body absorbs different amounts of the drug depending on how it is taken, the researchers gathered data from previous scientific literature to estimate the absorption rate for each specific method.
Using this information, the researchers calculated the daily milligrams of morphine equivalent consumed by the participants. Because variables like drug purity, total powder consumed, and bodily absorption carry some uncertainty, the team used a complex statistical method called bootstrapping. This involved running one million computer simulated scenarios to account for all the possible variations and combinations of these factors.
The data showed that participants consumed an average of 1.07 grams of raw illicit fentanyl powder per day. When the researchers tested the actual street samples, they found that the average purity of the fentanyl was 12.5 percent. One gram of this average street product, which sells for about one hundred dollars in Los Angeles, would contain roughly 125 milligrams of active fentanyl.
“Now, we find that people are regularly exposed to doses of opioids that would have seemed impossible to me before I started this work,” Shover said. “To put it in perspective, in the hospital settings, fentanyl is often dosed in 100 microgram vials. One gram of average purity fentanyl that we tested had a dose equivalent to more than 1,200 of these vials. So people are getting daily doses that are on par with injecting hundreds of the hospital vials or taking 440 Percocet pills.”
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention notes that for an individual without a tolerance to opioids, just two milligrams of fentanyl can be lethal. According to the study, the average consumer of fentanyl in Los Angeles takes in roughly sixty times that amount every day. Shover indicated that tolerance develops not just to the intoxicating effects of a drug, but also to the respiratory depression that leads to an overdose.
Combining the amount of powder consumed, the varying purity, and how the body processes the drug, the scientists estimated the overall daily dosage. The average daily consumption for individuals in this sample was estimated at roughly 8,888 milligrams of morphine equivalent. Even in their most restrictive statistical model, the estimated average was still above 5,000 milligrams of morphine equivalent per day.
This means that a typical consumer of illicit fentanyl is taking a dose several orders of magnitude higher than the maximum daily limit typically recommended for prescription painkillers. These findings help explain why people who use illicit fentanyl develop such extreme physical tolerance to opioids. Because the street supply is so incredibly strong, standard doses of treatment medications often fail to meet the patient’s physical needs.
“Of course, starting MOUD is going to be harder for fentanyl than it is for heroin,” Shover said, using a common acronym for medications for opioid use disorder. “This study is a great example of where our science was directly informed by lived experience. It is a call to take withdrawal management seriously, with adjuvant therapies, and compassionate approaches.”
While the data provides important insights into the modern drug crisis, the authors note a few limitations to keep in mind. The study relied on a relatively small group of 47 survey respondents from a specific geographic area that saw a later arrival of illicit fentanyl compared to the rest of the country. The individuals who voluntarily utilize drug checking services might also represent a convenience sample, meaning they could consume higher volumes of drugs than the average person and may not reflect the full range of the regional drug supply.
Additionally, there are very few sources of data about the purity of street drugs at the consumer level, with fewer than ten cities in North America currently tracking this information. The researchers also had to rely on existing scientific literature to estimate how much of the drug actually enters the bloodstream when smoked or injected. The team only measured two specific types of fentanyl, leaving out a few trace analogs that might have slightly altered the final calculations.
Because the purity of street fentanyl varies so widely, it is possible for some people to consume amounts much closer to standard medical maximums, while others consume vastly more. However, Shover noted that even if a region’s drug supply is only half as pure as what is found in Los Angeles, the resulting dosages remain dramatic. A person should not assume that every individual who uses fentanyl possesses the exact same extreme level of tolerance.
Future research will need to involve larger groups of people across different regions to confirm these consumption patterns. Gaining a more detailed understanding of how people dose themselves throughout the day will help medical professionals tailor addiction treatments to individual needs. Translating street drug usage into clinical measurements appears to be a necessary step for improving patient care, alongside implementing adjuvant therapies, which are supportive treatments given to help manage severe withdrawal symptoms.
“It’s no longer, ‘how do we treat someone who smokes a gram of fentanyl per day,’ it’s ‘how do we treat someone using thousands of MMEs of oral morphine in fentanyl per day?’” Shover said. “That question and its answers feel more accessible, less abstract to clinicians.”
The study, “Estimating the Daily Milligrams of Morphine Equivalent of Illicit Fentanyl Use in Los Angeles: Clinical and Epidemiological Implications,” was authored by Morgan Godvin, Joseph R. Friedman, Caitlin A. Molina, Adam J. Koncsol, Ruby Romero, David N. Juurlink, and Chelsea L. Shover.
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#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #FentanylCrisis #OpioidUseDisorder #MOUD #IllicitFentanyl #HarmReduction #DrugCheckingLA #OverdosePrevention #MorphineEquivalents #PublicHealthResearch #LosAngelesStudy
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DATE: June 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: Los Angeles drug checking data reveals staggering levels of daily fentanyl consumption
A recent study published in the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence provides evidence that people who regularly use illicit fentanyl consume doses equivalent to nearly 9,000 milligrams of oral morphine every day. These findings suggest that standard medical treatments for opioid dependence might need significant adjustments to account for the extremely high tolerance levels seen in today’s illicit drug market. By quantifying exactly how much of the drug people are using, scientists hope to improve recovery outcomes.
Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid that has become the primary driver of the overdose crisis in North America over the past decade. Because it is inexpensive to produce and highly potent, it has largely replaced drugs derived from the opium poppy, such as heroin, in the illicit market. This high potency tends to make it very easy for people to consume more than they intend, which increases the risk of a fatal overdose.
When doctors prescribe opioid pain relievers, they measure doses using a standard metric called milligrams of morphine equivalent. This unit allows medical professionals to compare the strength and risk of different opioid drugs against a standard baseline of oral morphine. Clinical guidelines for chronic pain typically recommend keeping prescriptions below 90 milligrams of morphine equivalent per day.
In the illicit market, the lack of quality control means that people are often completely unaware of exactly how much active drug they are actually consuming. This creates significant challenges for medical professionals trying to treat opioid use disorder. Opioid use disorder is a medical condition characterized by a problematic pattern of opioid use that causes significant impairment or distress in a person’s daily life.
The research team consisted of scientists from the University of California, Los Angeles, alongside Dr. Joseph Friedman of the University of California, San Diego, and researchers from the University of Toronto. Morgan Godvin, the study’s lead author, drew inspiration for the project from her own lived experience with opioid use disorder. She recognized a massive gap between the clinical knowledge of pharmaceutical opioids and the clinical understanding of street drugs.
“We had been treating illicit-opioid doses as a black box, an unknowable, a curiosity,” Godvin said. “Public health has precise quantification methods for other exposures, such as for tobacco or alcohol. If at the molecular level, fentanyl is fentanyl, we should be able to quantify exposure, so we decided to estimate it with the Drug Checking Los Angeles data. The results surprised us all.”
Without knowing how much fentanyl a person is accustomed to taking, it is incredibly difficult for doctors to manage withdrawal symptoms safely. It also makes it hard to prescribe effective replacement medications, such as methadone or buprenorphine, which are used to stabilize patients and reduce cravings. Medications for opioid use disorder are highly effective in reducing overdose mortality, but many patients report severe challenges starting and staying on them due to the intensity of fentanyl withdrawal.
To gather their data, the researchers utilized Drug Checking Los Angeles, a research and public health program founded by Chelsea Shover, associate professor-in-residence at the University of California, Los Angeles, and the study’s senior author. They analyzed 509 drug samples collected between September 2023 and January 2026. These samples were obtained at multiple harm reduction sites across Los Angeles County, where participants voluntarily and anonymously provided small amounts of their street drugs for chemical testing.
The scientists analyzed these samples at a national laboratory using liquid chromatography mass spectrometry. This is an advanced laboratory technique that separates, identifies, and measures the specific chemical components hidden within a complex mixture. This allowed the team to determine the exact percentage of active fentanyl hidden inside the powders and pills sold on the street.
In addition to testing the drugs, the researchers invited the individuals providing the samples to answer a confidential survey about their current drug use habits. The survey captured responses from 47 individuals who reported using fentanyl regularly over the previous thirty days. These participants provided information on how many grams of the drug they consumed daily, as well as how they administered it.
Almost all the respondents reported smoking or vaporizing the fentanyl. A smaller portion of the group reported injecting the drug, and a few reported snorting it nasally. Because the body absorbs different amounts of the drug depending on how it is taken, the researchers gathered data from previous scientific literature to estimate the absorption rate for each specific method.
Using this information, the researchers calculated the daily milligrams of morphine equivalent consumed by the participants. Because variables like drug purity, total powder consumed, and bodily absorption carry some uncertainty, the team used a complex statistical method called bootstrapping. This involved running one million computer simulated scenarios to account for all the possible variations and combinations of these factors.
The data showed that participants consumed an average of 1.07 grams of raw illicit fentanyl powder per day. When the researchers tested the actual street samples, they found that the average purity of the fentanyl was 12.5 percent. One gram of this average street product, which sells for about one hundred dollars in Los Angeles, would contain roughly 125 milligrams of active fentanyl.
“Now, we find that people are regularly exposed to doses of opioids that would have seemed impossible to me before I started this work,” Shover said. “To put it in perspective, in the hospital settings, fentanyl is often dosed in 100 microgram vials. One gram of average purity fentanyl that we tested had a dose equivalent to more than 1,200 of these vials. So people are getting daily doses that are on par with injecting hundreds of the hospital vials or taking 440 Percocet pills.”
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention notes that for an individual without a tolerance to opioids, just two milligrams of fentanyl can be lethal. According to the study, the average consumer of fentanyl in Los Angeles takes in roughly sixty times that amount every day. Shover indicated that tolerance develops not just to the intoxicating effects of a drug, but also to the respiratory depression that leads to an overdose.
Combining the amount of powder consumed, the varying purity, and how the body processes the drug, the scientists estimated the overall daily dosage. The average daily consumption for individuals in this sample was estimated at roughly 8,888 milligrams of morphine equivalent. Even in their most restrictive statistical model, the estimated average was still above 5,000 milligrams of morphine equivalent per day.
This means that a typical consumer of illicit fentanyl is taking a dose several orders of magnitude higher than the maximum daily limit typically recommended for prescription painkillers. These findings help explain why people who use illicit fentanyl develop such extreme physical tolerance to opioids. Because the street supply is so incredibly strong, standard doses of treatment medications often fail to meet the patient’s physical needs.
“Of course, starting MOUD is going to be harder for fentanyl than it is for heroin,” Shover said, using a common acronym for medications for opioid use disorder. “This study is a great example of where our science was directly informed by lived experience. It is a call to take withdrawal management seriously, with adjuvant therapies, and compassionate approaches.”
While the data provides important insights into the modern drug crisis, the authors note a few limitations to keep in mind. The study relied on a relatively small group of 47 survey respondents from a specific geographic area that saw a later arrival of illicit fentanyl compared to the rest of the country. The individuals who voluntarily utilize drug checking services might also represent a convenience sample, meaning they could consume higher volumes of drugs than the average person and may not reflect the full range of the regional drug supply.
Additionally, there are very few sources of data about the purity of street drugs at the consumer level, with fewer than ten cities in North America currently tracking this information. The researchers also had to rely on existing scientific literature to estimate how much of the drug actually enters the bloodstream when smoked or injected. The team only measured two specific types of fentanyl, leaving out a few trace analogs that might have slightly altered the final calculations.
Because the purity of street fentanyl varies so widely, it is possible for some people to consume amounts much closer to standard medical maximums, while others consume vastly more. However, Shover noted that even if a region’s drug supply is only half as pure as what is found in Los Angeles, the resulting dosages remain dramatic. A person should not assume that every individual who uses fentanyl possesses the exact same extreme level of tolerance.
Future research will need to involve larger groups of people across different regions to confirm these consumption patterns. Gaining a more detailed understanding of how people dose themselves throughout the day will help medical professionals tailor addiction treatments to individual needs. Translating street drug usage into clinical measurements appears to be a necessary step for improving patient care, alongside implementing adjuvant therapies, which are supportive treatments given to help manage severe withdrawal symptoms.
“It’s no longer, ‘how do we treat someone who smokes a gram of fentanyl per day,’ it’s ‘how do we treat someone using thousands of MMEs of oral morphine in fentanyl per day?’” Shover said. “That question and its answers feel more accessible, less abstract to clinicians.”
The study, “Estimating the Daily Milligrams of Morphine Equivalent of Illicit Fentanyl Use in Los Angeles: Clinical and Epidemiological Implications,” was authored by Morgan Godvin, Joseph R. Friedman, Caitlin A. Molina, Adam J. Koncsol, Ruby Romero, David N. Juurlink, and Chelsea L. Shover.
-------------------------------------------------
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 #FentanylCrisis #OpioidUseDisorder #MOUD #IllicitFentanyl #HarmReduction #DrugCheckingLA #OverdosePrevention #MorphineEquivalents #PublicHealthResearch #LosAngelesStudy
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DATE: June 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: Democrats rejected Trump’s speaking style more than Republicans rejected Harris’s
A recent study published in the American Behavioral Scientist suggests that American voters judge the communication styles of the Democratic and Republican parties in highly unequal ways. The research provides evidence that voters show different levels of tolerance toward opposing political candidates, with Donald Trump facing significantly more rejection from rival voters than Kamala Harris.
In the United States, two main political factions dominate the government. This environment creates a system where people tend to align strongly with their chosen side. Over the past few years, the political climate has experienced high levels of polarization. Polarization refers to a deep divide in society where people split into opposing groups that struggle to agree on basic facts or shared realities.
The conflict surrounding the results of the 2020 U.S. presidential election created deep divisions in American society. Partisan identity began to shape not only political opinions but also how people assessed factual circumstances. A similar division occurred with the public perception of the events at the United States Capitol in 2021. These events highlight a growing trend where voters split into mutually exclusive groups with entirely different views of social reality.
In a polarized society, individuals often experience something called homophily. Homophily is the human tendency to seek out and associate with people who share similar beliefs and values. This desire for similarity extends to the media people consume, which algorithms on social platforms often reinforce by showing users content they already agree with. When people only interact with like-minded individuals, they often develop affective polarization.
Affective polarization describes a situation where voters not only disagree with the opposing side but actually feel a deep emotional dislike toward them. A healthy democracy relies on the idea of political tolerance, meaning citizens accept a politician’s right to express ideas even if they disagree with the policies. This concept is closely tied to political legitimacy. Political legitimacy is the general public belief that a political group or leader is socially acceptable and operates within normal rules.
Lluc Vila-Boix, a PhD candidate at the Blanquerna School of Communication and International Relations at Ramon Llull University, and his fellow authors designed their study to understand how American voters perceive the legitimacy of the communication styles used by major candidates. They aimed to test whether people reject just the political ideas of their opponents or if they actively reject the way those opponents communicate.
“We were interested in a dimension of polarization that receives little attention: not what politicians say, but how they communicate and whether voters tolerate or reject that style, regardless of the ideological content,” Vila-Boix said.
“Previous research on U.S. polarization had focused on media consumption, vote behavior, or perceptions of electoral results,” he added. “We wanted to study whether intolerance had reached the very form of political discourse itself, and whether that asymmetry could be measured systematically across electoral cycles.”
To investigate this topic, the scientists partnered with the Emerson College Polling Center to survey a representative group of American adults. The data collection took place on October 13, 2024, approximately one month before the presidential election. The sample included exactly 1,000 respondents. Participants answered surveys through text message links and online panels.
The polling team weighted the responses according to the electoral significance of different regions across the country. They selected these individuals to match the general population in terms of age, gender, race, and education. This weighting ensures that the final data accurately reflects the demographic makeup of the national electorate.
The survey asked participants to rate the communication styles of four specific subjects. These subjects were Donald Trump, Kamala Harris, the Democratic Party, and the Republican Party. For each one, respondents chose from five options ranging from completely unacceptable to completely acceptable. The scientists grouped these answers into three main categories for their analysis.
The “Rejection” category included people who found the communication unacceptable or completely unacceptable. The “Acceptance” category included those who found it acceptable or completely acceptable. Finally, the “Tolerance” category combined the acceptance group with those who felt neutral or indifferent. The analysis revealed noticeable differences in how voters view their own parties.
“Intolerance toward political communication is not symmetrical across the political spectrum,” Vila-Boix noted. “We found that Republican voters were generally more tolerant of the Democratic communication style than Democratic voters were of the Republican style. Furthermore, Kamala Harris enjoyed significantly higher levels of acceptance and tolerance among both her supporters and rival voters compared to Donald Trump.”
Both Democrats and Republicans showed an overall tolerance level of around 90 percent for their own side. However, the intensity of this support varied. About 33 percent of Democratic voters found their party’s communication completely acceptable. In contrast, Republican voters were more evenly split, with many choosing a neutral response rather than full acceptance.
When looking at the specific candidates, the scientists found that Kamala Harris enjoyed higher approval from her own base than Donald Trump did from his. About 86 percent of Democratic voters accepted Harris’s communication style. On the other hand, Trump’s acceptance rate among Republican voters sat at 72 percent.
“We were surprised by the extreme level of ‘Complete Rejection’ among Democrats toward Donald Trump’s communication style (69%), in comparison with the Republicans’ complete rejection of Harris’s style (41%),” Vila-Boix told PsyPost.
The data indicated that Republican voters hardly differentiate between Donald Trump and the broader party. For Democrats, voters accepted Kamala Harris’s communication style more than that of the Democratic Party itself. This pattern suggests that Harris possessed a personal appeal that outpaced her party’s institutional reputation.
“Additionally, Harris showed a ‘charismatic leadership’ effect, where her personal communication style was perceived more favorably than the Democratic Party as an institution, even among some rival voters,” Vila-Boix said.
As with all research, there are a few limitations. The study relies on a cross-sectional design, meaning the researchers collected all the data at a single point in time. Because of this, the authors cannot prove a cause-and-effect relationship between political identity and views on communication.
“It is crucial to distinguish between agreeing with a message and tolerating the ‘form’ or style in which it is delivered; our study focuses on the latter,” Vila-Boix noted. “Also, the data represents a snapshot in time (October 2024) following major campaign events, and as a cross-sectional study, it cannot definitively prove if style causes polarization or if pre-existing partisan identities filter how style is perceived.”
The timing of the survey also presents a potential limitation. The researchers gathered the data shortly after a highly turbulent period in U.S. politics. This specific context might have amplified people’s emotional reactions to the candidates.
“A citizen may strongly disagree with someone’s opinion but still accept that the other person has the right to defend it,” Vila-Boix explained. “Our study focuses on that second layer: not whether voters agree with the message, but whether they can tolerate the way it is delivered.”
To address these gaps, the authors suggest that future research could track voter opinions over a longer period. Observing how public perception changes in response to specific campaign events would provide a deeper understanding of political tolerance.
“Our long-term goal is to use the quantitative tool developed in this study to monitor changes in political polarization across future electoral cycles,” Vila-Boix said. “We also plan to delve deeper into the different dimensions of legitimacy, pragmatic, moral, and cognitive, to see which aspects of rhetorical style are most impactful.”
The researchers note that these evolving dynamics have real consequences for society. A functioning government relies on mutual respect and shared standards.
“When even the style of communication is rejected as illegitimate, the common democratic framework begins to erode,” Vila-Boix said. “The study underscores that tolerance of opposing communication styles is vital for democratic stability. When voters reject the very way an opponent communicates as ‘illegitimate,’ it erodes the common political framework necessary for a healthy pluralist society.”
The study, “Perceived Legitimacy and Polarization in Political Communication: Evidence from the 2024 U.S. Election,” was authored by Lluc Vila-Boix, Miguel Franco Pérez, Giorgia Miotto, and Alicia Blanco-González.
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#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #PoliticalCommunication #Polarization #PoliticalTolerance #DemocratsVsRepublicans #TrumpHarris #PublicOpinion #VoterBehavior #MediaConsumption #LegitimacyInPolitics #AffectivePolarization
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DATE: June 12, 2026 at 08:10AM
SOURCE: PsiAN Psychotherapy Action NetworkTITLE: Aetna's Reimbursement Cuts: What Therapists Need to Know
URL: https://www.psian.org/blog/aetna-psychotherapy-reimbursement-cuts
Recent announcements by Alma/Spring Health of significant reductions in reimbursement rates for those with Aetna insurance plans and other policy changes have made waves in the mental health space. These changes will reduce access to psychotherapy for the public and further impinge on therapists’ capacity to manage their practices and earn a living wage, at a time when the need for effective mental healthcare is concerningly high.
Starting in July 2026, clinicians billing Aetna through Alma/Spring Health will see a significant reduction in reimbursement rates. Reimbursement rates for those with doctoral degrees will decrease to match the master’s-level rates. A common 53-60-minute psychotherapy session will no longer be appropriately valued; it will be paid at the same rate as if only 38-52 minutes of patient care were provided.
Aetna also announced the introduction of its own mental health platform, Mental Health On Demand, coming in 2027. It will be staffed by individuals trained in “single-session interventions” and will include an AI agent that responds to new patient inquiries within 13 seconds.
So, within one week, we see Aetna reduce payments for psychotherapy while promoting its own AI single-session tool. Taken together, Aetna seems to be communicating that the future of mental healthcare for its customers is a single acute-crisis-management session.
What We DidWe wrote to Aetna, Spring Health, and Alma, voicing our concerns over these misguided policies that will likely only make it harder for the public to access psychotherapy. We hope our letters represent your concerns and are a strong support for the public and the therapy professions. We will keep you posted about the responses we receive.
The Bigger PictureThese announcements are not an isolated incident. They are part of a larger attack on mental health therapists and independent practice, and the further deprofessionalization of clinical care. They are a stark continuation of the insurance industry's discriminatory payment and administrative policies, which have reduced access to care and pushed psychotherapists to leave or refrain from participating in insurance networks.
To increase access to mental healthcare, the exact opposite needs to happen. Therapists must be paid more, not less, so that longstanding inequities between mental healthcare and medical/surgical care are eliminated. Also, sufficient time must be allotted for therapy to work and for healing to occur.
Psychotherapy Action Network (PsiAN) is committed to education, empowerment, and long-term actions needed to push back against the intrusions of venture capital and for-profit health insurance companies seeking to profit at therapists' expense, control the market, dictate care, and data-mine client and clinician information. Our mission is to advocate for greater access to psychotherapy and to support the clinicians who provide that care.
We believe that when therapists have the independence and autonomy to practice ethically and responsibly, our patients receive the best possible care. We don’t need more middlemen siphoning off profit and getting between therapists and their clients, dictating how and under what conditions psychotherapy should be done. What therapists need is appropriate reimbursement, adequate support from the healthcare system, and the removal of barriers to serving their communities.
These issues will not be solved overnight or by any single individual or organization. We invite you to join us in the long haul to fight for the soul of our profession. We also want to share a few resources to help therapists create and sustain their own independent practice.
What You Can Do
Educate yourself
•Read our letter to Aetna, Spring Health, and Alma
•
•Read our research report to understand how Alma and similar companies operate: New Research Reveals Therapists’ Concerns About Corporate Practice Management Companies (PMCs).
•
•Visit our Private Practice Toolkit to learn business tips on how to create your own independent private practice, and also the key questions you need to ask prior to using a practice management company.
•
•Read this new article, Holding the Frame in an Era of Corporate Care, by our Chair and Co-Founder, Linda Michaels, to understand how and why the erosion of clinicians’ autonomy is so problematic.
•
If you work with Alma, sign this
•If you work with Alma, sign this petition drafted by the Mental Health Insurance Reform Task Force of Build Better Health.
•
Contact your elected officials
•Regardless of whether or not you work with Alma or any practice management company, contact your state and national elected representatives and tell them you support mental health parity (such as Illinois HB1085) and anti-vertical-integration policies (such as S. 3822: Break Up Big Medicine Act). PsiAN is supporting the Break Up Big Medicine Act and is a member of the coalition fighting for it. Tell your elected officials why this is important to you and how you are being negatively impacted by private equity, venture capital, big tech, and big insurance.
•See a sample statement below.*
•
•Find your representatives here.
•
•
Get connected, stay involved
•Join us at PsiAN and become a sustaining member. Through the power of our collective action, we can push back and successfully stand up for the principles and ethics of effective psychotherapy.
•
•If you are a leader of a professional association or group, reach out to us to partner on advocacy efforts.
•
•Don’t lose hope! These problems were created by humans and can be solved with collective action. This is absolutely not “just the way it is.” A better, more equitable environment for both therapists and our clients is possible.
•
Sample letter, please customize as indicated below and include your own personal thoughts and experiencesDear Representative [Last Name],
I hope this letter finds you well. My name is [Your Full Name], and I am a constituent residing at [Your Address] in [Your City, State, ZIP Code]. I am a psychotherapist with a degree in [Your discipline] and have been in practice for [X] years. I am writing to express my concerns about the intrusion of venture capital and for-profit health insurance companies into the therapy and mental health fields, and to urge you to take action on this matter.
As your constituent, I strongly believe that legislation is needed to limit vertical integration and market consolidation in healthcare, as well as the intrusion of venture capital, to avoid further degradation of care quality. Mental health services, such as psychotherapy, are unique in the healthcare space in that they require a high level of personal involvement, a trusting relationship with a clinician, time to achieve healing, and the sharing of highly sensitive information with providers. The therapeutic space and intimate patient information must be protected from outside influence and privacy intrusions.
I support S. 3822, the Break Up Big Medicine Act, and state-level legislation such as HB1085 in Illinois, and I respectfully ask that you do the same. These are vital steps needed to ensure people can access private, ethical, and effective mental health services. This issue is deeply personal to me because [share a brief personal connection or impact].
Thank you for your time and attention to this critical issue. I trust that you will represent the best interests of our district and would appreciate a response outlining your position on this matter. Please do not hesitate to contact me at [Your Phone Number] or [Your Email Address] if you require additional information.
Sincerely,[Your Full Name][Your Address][City, State, ZIP Code]
URL: https://www.psian.org/blog/aetna-psychotherapy-reimbursement-cuts
-------------------------------------------------
The Psychotherapy Action Network (PsiAN) advocates for awareness, policies and access to psychotherapies that create meaningful change. They offer membership and educational events.
Learn more at https://www.psian.org .
The PsiAN blog can be found at: https://www.psian.org/blog
This news robot is NOT officially affiliated with PsiAN. It merely rebroadcasts from their blog. Responses posted here are not monitored by PsiAN.
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #PsiAN #psychotherapist #psychoanalytic #psychodynamic #depththerapy #AetnasReimbursementCuts #TherapistPayRights #MentalHealthParity #PrivatePracticeAdvocacy #BreakUpBigMedicine #PracticeManagementCompanies #PsychotherapyAccess #AlmaSpringHealth #PsiAN #IndependentPracticeMatter
