#psychiatry — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #psychiatry, aggregated by home.social.
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DATE: September 26, 2026 at 07:30AM
SOURCE: SCIENCE DAILY MIND-BRAIN FEEDTITLE: REM sleep paradox: Dreaming may drain the brain’s energy even as fuel supply rises
URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/09/260925093206.htm
Scientists discovered a surprising energy paradox in the brain during REM sleep, the stage most closely associated with dreaming. Blood supply to the brain begins increasing even before REM starts, but neurons’ immediately available energy, measured as ATP, then drops. The finding suggests that dreaming may require such intense internal processing that neurons consume energy faster than it can be replenished.
URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/09/260925093206.htm
-------------------------------------------------
Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org
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#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #REMsleep #Dreaming #BrainEnergy #Neuroscience #SleepResearch #ATP #EnergyParadox #SleepScience #NeuralMetabolism #Dreams
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DATE: September 26, 2026 at 07:30AM
SOURCE: SCIENCE DAILY MIND-BRAIN FEEDTITLE: REM sleep paradox: Dreaming may drain the brain’s energy even as fuel supply rises
URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/09/260925093206.htm
Scientists discovered a surprising energy paradox in the brain during REM sleep, the stage most closely associated with dreaming. Blood supply to the brain begins increasing even before REM starts, but neurons’ immediately available energy, measured as ATP, then drops. The finding suggests that dreaming may require such intense internal processing that neurons consume energy faster than it can be replenished.
URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/09/260925093206.htm
-------------------------------------------------
Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org
Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #REMsleep #Dreaming #BrainEnergy #Neuroscience #SleepResearch #ATP #EnergyParadox #SleepScience #NeuralMetabolism #Dreams
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DATE: September 26, 2026 at 07:30AM
SOURCE: SCIENCE DAILY MIND-BRAIN FEEDTITLE: REM sleep paradox: Dreaming may drain the brain’s energy even as fuel supply rises
URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/09/260925093206.htm
Scientists discovered a surprising energy paradox in the brain during REM sleep, the stage most closely associated with dreaming. Blood supply to the brain begins increasing even before REM starts, but neurons’ immediately available energy, measured as ATP, then drops. The finding suggests that dreaming may require such intense internal processing that neurons consume energy faster than it can be replenished.
URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/09/260925093206.htm
-------------------------------------------------
Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org
Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #REMsleep #Dreaming #BrainEnergy #Neuroscience #SleepResearch #ATP #EnergyParadox #SleepScience #NeuralMetabolism #Dreams
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DATE: September 26, 2026 at 08:00AM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: Scientists replace mouse cortex with human brain tissue to study neurological disorders
Researchers have developed a new method to study the developing human brain by growing human brain tissue inside the skulls of genetically modified mice. The study, published in Nature, indicates that replacing the mouse’s native cortex with human stem-cell-derived brain tissue allows the human cells to grow substantially, form long-distance connections, and respond to injuries. This approach provides a new way to observe how human brain circuits function and react to diseases in a living organism.
“The main motivation was a fundamental limitation in studying disorders of the human brain,” senior author Sergiu P. Pașca, the Uytengsu Family Founding Director of the Stanford Brain Organogenesis Program at Stanford University, told PsyPost. “Many neurological and psychiatric conditions begin during development, but living human brain tissue is largely inaccessible, and animal models cannot fully reproduce human genetics or aspects of biology that may be specific to our species.”
To bypass this limitation, scientists often grow human neural organoids in the laboratory. These organoids are three-dimensional spheres of brain tissue cultivated from human stem cells. “Over the years, organoids and assembloids have given us increasingly powerful ways to study human brain development in the laboratory,” Pașca explained. “But they still lack many features of an intact nervous system, including a normal blood supply, sensory inputs and motor outputs.”
While lab-grown organoids can mimic basic cellular processes, they lack the complex environment of a real body. A 2024 study involving the transplantation of similar lab-grown neural clusters into mice indicated that transplanted human cells can mature and respond to inflammation. “It is also difficult in a dish to connect changes in human neural circuits to functional consequences,” Pașca added.
Pașca and his colleagues sought a way to let these human brain clusters mature in a living animal. “So the question was whether we could create a model in which human cortical tissue could develop more extensively, integrate into an intact nervous system and allow us to study human biology from cells and circuits all the way to functional readouts,” he told PsyPost.
In traditional transplants, however, the human cells must squeeze into whatever physical space is left in the animal’s intact skull. They also have to compete with the host’s existing neural circuits. “The two parallel developing systems are in competition for turf,” Pașca noted. To achieve this, the researchers genetically modified mice to lack a neocortex and hippocampus.
The neocortex is the folded outer layer of the brain involved in higher-level functions like sensory perception and spatial reasoning, while the hippocampus manages memory. By using a specific genetic targeting strategy, the team prompted the cells destined to become the cortex to die off early in the mouse’s development.
The resulting animals, termed apallial mice, lose about half of their total brain volume. Despite lacking these major brain structures, the mice survive and can walk around relatively normally. “Our findings suggest that, when cortical circuitry is lost very early in development, the cortex may not be solely responsible for all of the functions traditionally attributed to it,” Pașca said. “Other brain regions may compensate for some of the missing cortical circuitry as the brain develops.”
The researchers then took human cortical organoids and transplanted them into the empty brain cavities of newborn apallial mice, referring to this large-scale grafting procedure as xenocortication. The human grafts grew massively over the next few months. By the third month, the transplanted human tissue exhibited a 4.7-fold increase in size, occupying nearly 92 percent of the available cortical space in the mouse’s brain.
The human cells developed into a diverse array of mature neural cell types. Notably, the graft successfully generated layer 5 extratelencephalic projection neurons. In humans, this specific class of neurons includes von Economo neurons, which are large, specialized cells found in apes and humans that are associated with social behavior and certain psychiatric conditions.
Organoids grown in laboratory dishes almost never generate these specific neurons, but the transplanted organoids in the mice produced them in abundance. “This cell type appears to be particularly vulnerable in frontotemporal dementia, a neurodegenerative disorder that can begin in midlife,” Pașca explained. “Yet here they were, sitting in the xenocortical mice’s human tissue. Now we can generate these rare cells from a healthy person and study them in a living, behaving animal to learn more about what they’re doing.”
The researchers also observed extensive physical integration between the human tissue and the mouse host. Using fluorescent tracing techniques, they saw human nerve fibers extending deep into the mouse’s brain and traveling all the way down into the host’s cervical spinal cord. In return, the mouse’s lower brain regions sent connection fibers up into the human graft.
To test if the human brain tissue was actually functioning, the team used advanced imaging and electrical recording techniques. They detected synchronized bursts of electrical activity spreading across the human graft, resembling the organized brain waves seen in early human development. This spontaneous neural activity strongly correlated with the physical movements of the mouse’s face, suggesting the human tissue was electrically active and participating in the animal’s nervous system.
Next, the researchers observed the animals’ behavior using a combination of motion-tracking cameras and standard laboratory tasks. Both the completely apallial mice and the mice with human grafts walked at normal speeds and explored their environments. However, the xenocortical mice displayed unique behavioral patterns that sat somewhere between the fully cortex-less mice and normal, healthy mice.
In a working memory task using a Y-shaped maze, normal mice tend to remember which arms of the maze they have already explored and alternate their choices. The apallial mice failed to alternate above chance levels, suggesting a loss of working memory. Interestingly, the mice with the human grafts performed above chance, showing a partial retention of this exploratory memory function.
Finally, the team tested whether the xenocortical mice could be used to model human brain injuries. They exposed the animals to a low-oxygen environment (5 percent oxygen) for five hours to simulate a hypoxic injury, a condition that can cause cerebral palsy and motor deficits in human infants.
A 2012 study evaluating gait in mice with Parkinson’s-like symptoms demonstrated that an automated glass walkway system, known as CatWalk, can precisely measure footprint patterns, limb support, and timing. Using this exact system, the researchers evaluated the walking patterns of the xenocortical mice before and after the low-oxygen injury.
Following the injury, the human grafts showed increased signs of cellular stress and inflammation. Behaviorally, the xenocortical mice altered their walking patterns on the glass walkway. They spent more time supporting their weight on three or four paws at once, adopting a wider stance compared to their pre-injury walking style, which provides evidence that the xenocortical mouse model can successfully translate a cellular injury into a measurable behavioral change.
“Finding out what accounts for this difference could yield clues about human neural susceptibility to oxygen deprivation, shed light on mechanisms underlying cerebral palsy and provide a platform for testing potential therapeutic strategies,” Pașca noted. Furthermore, because researchers can derive organoids from specific individuals, the model opens new doors. “The cells we implant carry the genetic material of the person they’re derived from — whether that person is a patient or a healthy individual — allowing us to study downstream disease effects in brain cells and circuits,” he said.
“The idea that you can make an organoid model with an individual’s unique genetic character and use that to learn what’s gone awry in that individual’s brain is a critical step toward precision medicine,” added Alison Singer, president of the Autism Science Foundation.
As with all research, there are a few things to keep in mind. One primary limitation is the biological mismatch in developmental timing. Mouse brains mature over a matter of weeks, while human brain tissue requires years to fully develop. This discrepancy in speed might restrict how completely the human cells can integrate into the rapid life cycle of a rodent.
It is also unclear exactly how the human graft influences the mouse’s behavior. The observed behaviors are likely a mix of the human graft interacting with the mouse’s preserved lower brain circuits rather than the human tissue exerting complete, top-down control over the animal.
“This is not a ‘human brain in a mouse’,” Pașca told PsyPost. “It is a research model that may allow us to understand why human neural cells and circuits become vulnerable in disease and, ultimately, to test ways of preventing or correcting those changes.”
Generating these advanced models also requires careful ethical oversight. “Throughout several years of experimentation, we have received input from ethicists, neurobiologists with expertise in primate and human cortical biology, patient advocates, philosophers, and legal scholars,” Pașca said. “An overriding argument questioned the ethics of not conducting this research in the face of the suffering of hundreds of millions of people afflicted with neurological disorders that today are uncurable but tomorrow could yield treatments we discover by using this model.”
The study, “Developmental xenocortication using human-derived organoids in mice,” was authored by Konstantin Kaganovsky, Kevin W. Kelley, Tilo Gschwind, Paul M. Harary, John Kochalka, Alexander D. White, Garikoitz Lerma-Usabiaga, Xiaoyu Chen, Omer Revah, Felicity Gore, Ayano Aoyama, Jennifer L. Shadrach, Se-Jin Yoon, Alfredo Valencia, Satoe Ogawa, Noah Reis, Hannes Vogel, Brian Wandell, Julia A. Kaltschmidt, Ivan Soltesz, Karl Deisseroth, and Sergiu P. Pașca.
-------------------------------------------------
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 #Developmental xenocortication #humanorganoids #neuroscience #brainresearch #StanfordPascа #neuralcircuits #cerebralpalsyresearch #precisionmedicine #braininjurymodel #xenotransplantation
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DATE: September 26, 2026 at 08:00AM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: Scientists replace mouse cortex with human brain tissue to study neurological disorders
Researchers have developed a new method to study the developing human brain by growing human brain tissue inside the skulls of genetically modified mice. The study, published in Nature, indicates that replacing the mouse’s native cortex with human stem-cell-derived brain tissue allows the human cells to grow substantially, form long-distance connections, and respond to injuries. This approach provides a new way to observe how human brain circuits function and react to diseases in a living organism.
“The main motivation was a fundamental limitation in studying disorders of the human brain,” senior author Sergiu P. Pașca, the Uytengsu Family Founding Director of the Stanford Brain Organogenesis Program at Stanford University, told PsyPost. “Many neurological and psychiatric conditions begin during development, but living human brain tissue is largely inaccessible, and animal models cannot fully reproduce human genetics or aspects of biology that may be specific to our species.”
To bypass this limitation, scientists often grow human neural organoids in the laboratory. These organoids are three-dimensional spheres of brain tissue cultivated from human stem cells. “Over the years, organoids and assembloids have given us increasingly powerful ways to study human brain development in the laboratory,” Pașca explained. “But they still lack many features of an intact nervous system, including a normal blood supply, sensory inputs and motor outputs.”
While lab-grown organoids can mimic basic cellular processes, they lack the complex environment of a real body. A 2024 study involving the transplantation of similar lab-grown neural clusters into mice indicated that transplanted human cells can mature and respond to inflammation. “It is also difficult in a dish to connect changes in human neural circuits to functional consequences,” Pașca added.
Pașca and his colleagues sought a way to let these human brain clusters mature in a living animal. “So the question was whether we could create a model in which human cortical tissue could develop more extensively, integrate into an intact nervous system and allow us to study human biology from cells and circuits all the way to functional readouts,” he told PsyPost.
In traditional transplants, however, the human cells must squeeze into whatever physical space is left in the animal’s intact skull. They also have to compete with the host’s existing neural circuits. “The two parallel developing systems are in competition for turf,” Pașca noted. To achieve this, the researchers genetically modified mice to lack a neocortex and hippocampus.
The neocortex is the folded outer layer of the brain involved in higher-level functions like sensory perception and spatial reasoning, while the hippocampus manages memory. By using a specific genetic targeting strategy, the team prompted the cells destined to become the cortex to die off early in the mouse’s development.
The resulting animals, termed apallial mice, lose about half of their total brain volume. Despite lacking these major brain structures, the mice survive and can walk around relatively normally. “Our findings suggest that, when cortical circuitry is lost very early in development, the cortex may not be solely responsible for all of the functions traditionally attributed to it,” Pașca said. “Other brain regions may compensate for some of the missing cortical circuitry as the brain develops.”
The researchers then took human cortical organoids and transplanted them into the empty brain cavities of newborn apallial mice, referring to this large-scale grafting procedure as xenocortication. The human grafts grew massively over the next few months. By the third month, the transplanted human tissue exhibited a 4.7-fold increase in size, occupying nearly 92 percent of the available cortical space in the mouse’s brain.
The human cells developed into a diverse array of mature neural cell types. Notably, the graft successfully generated layer 5 extratelencephalic projection neurons. In humans, this specific class of neurons includes von Economo neurons, which are large, specialized cells found in apes and humans that are associated with social behavior and certain psychiatric conditions.
Organoids grown in laboratory dishes almost never generate these specific neurons, but the transplanted organoids in the mice produced them in abundance. “This cell type appears to be particularly vulnerable in frontotemporal dementia, a neurodegenerative disorder that can begin in midlife,” Pașca explained. “Yet here they were, sitting in the xenocortical mice’s human tissue. Now we can generate these rare cells from a healthy person and study them in a living, behaving animal to learn more about what they’re doing.”
The researchers also observed extensive physical integration between the human tissue and the mouse host. Using fluorescent tracing techniques, they saw human nerve fibers extending deep into the mouse’s brain and traveling all the way down into the host’s cervical spinal cord. In return, the mouse’s lower brain regions sent connection fibers up into the human graft.
To test if the human brain tissue was actually functioning, the team used advanced imaging and electrical recording techniques. They detected synchronized bursts of electrical activity spreading across the human graft, resembling the organized brain waves seen in early human development. This spontaneous neural activity strongly correlated with the physical movements of the mouse’s face, suggesting the human tissue was electrically active and participating in the animal’s nervous system.
Next, the researchers observed the animals’ behavior using a combination of motion-tracking cameras and standard laboratory tasks. Both the completely apallial mice and the mice with human grafts walked at normal speeds and explored their environments. However, the xenocortical mice displayed unique behavioral patterns that sat somewhere between the fully cortex-less mice and normal, healthy mice.
In a working memory task using a Y-shaped maze, normal mice tend to remember which arms of the maze they have already explored and alternate their choices. The apallial mice failed to alternate above chance levels, suggesting a loss of working memory. Interestingly, the mice with the human grafts performed above chance, showing a partial retention of this exploratory memory function.
Finally, the team tested whether the xenocortical mice could be used to model human brain injuries. They exposed the animals to a low-oxygen environment (5 percent oxygen) for five hours to simulate a hypoxic injury, a condition that can cause cerebral palsy and motor deficits in human infants.
A 2012 study evaluating gait in mice with Parkinson’s-like symptoms demonstrated that an automated glass walkway system, known as CatWalk, can precisely measure footprint patterns, limb support, and timing. Using this exact system, the researchers evaluated the walking patterns of the xenocortical mice before and after the low-oxygen injury.
Following the injury, the human grafts showed increased signs of cellular stress and inflammation. Behaviorally, the xenocortical mice altered their walking patterns on the glass walkway. They spent more time supporting their weight on three or four paws at once, adopting a wider stance compared to their pre-injury walking style, which provides evidence that the xenocortical mouse model can successfully translate a cellular injury into a measurable behavioral change.
“Finding out what accounts for this difference could yield clues about human neural susceptibility to oxygen deprivation, shed light on mechanisms underlying cerebral palsy and provide a platform for testing potential therapeutic strategies,” Pașca noted. Furthermore, because researchers can derive organoids from specific individuals, the model opens new doors. “The cells we implant carry the genetic material of the person they’re derived from — whether that person is a patient or a healthy individual — allowing us to study downstream disease effects in brain cells and circuits,” he said.
“The idea that you can make an organoid model with an individual’s unique genetic character and use that to learn what’s gone awry in that individual’s brain is a critical step toward precision medicine,” added Alison Singer, president of the Autism Science Foundation.
As with all research, there are a few things to keep in mind. One primary limitation is the biological mismatch in developmental timing. Mouse brains mature over a matter of weeks, while human brain tissue requires years to fully develop. This discrepancy in speed might restrict how completely the human cells can integrate into the rapid life cycle of a rodent.
It is also unclear exactly how the human graft influences the mouse’s behavior. The observed behaviors are likely a mix of the human graft interacting with the mouse’s preserved lower brain circuits rather than the human tissue exerting complete, top-down control over the animal.
“This is not a ‘human brain in a mouse’,” Pașca told PsyPost. “It is a research model that may allow us to understand why human neural cells and circuits become vulnerable in disease and, ultimately, to test ways of preventing or correcting those changes.”
Generating these advanced models also requires careful ethical oversight. “Throughout several years of experimentation, we have received input from ethicists, neurobiologists with expertise in primate and human cortical biology, patient advocates, philosophers, and legal scholars,” Pașca said. “An overriding argument questioned the ethics of not conducting this research in the face of the suffering of hundreds of millions of people afflicted with neurological disorders that today are uncurable but tomorrow could yield treatments we discover by using this model.”
The study, “Developmental xenocortication using human-derived organoids in mice,” was authored by Konstantin Kaganovsky, Kevin W. Kelley, Tilo Gschwind, Paul M. Harary, John Kochalka, Alexander D. White, Garikoitz Lerma-Usabiaga, Xiaoyu Chen, Omer Revah, Felicity Gore, Ayano Aoyama, Jennifer L. Shadrach, Se-Jin Yoon, Alfredo Valencia, Satoe Ogawa, Noah Reis, Hannes Vogel, Brian Wandell, Julia A. Kaltschmidt, Ivan Soltesz, Karl Deisseroth, and Sergiu P. Pașca.
-------------------------------------------------
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 #Developmental xenocortication #humanorganoids #neuroscience #brainresearch #StanfordPascа #neuralcircuits #cerebralpalsyresearch #precisionmedicine #braininjurymodel #xenotransplantation
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DATE: September 26, 2026 at 08:00AM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: Scientists replace mouse cortex with human brain tissue to study neurological disorders
Researchers have developed a new method to study the developing human brain by growing human brain tissue inside the skulls of genetically modified mice. The study, published in Nature, indicates that replacing the mouse’s native cortex with human stem-cell-derived brain tissue allows the human cells to grow substantially, form long-distance connections, and respond to injuries. This approach provides a new way to observe how human brain circuits function and react to diseases in a living organism.
“The main motivation was a fundamental limitation in studying disorders of the human brain,” senior author Sergiu P. Pașca, the Uytengsu Family Founding Director of the Stanford Brain Organogenesis Program at Stanford University, told PsyPost. “Many neurological and psychiatric conditions begin during development, but living human brain tissue is largely inaccessible, and animal models cannot fully reproduce human genetics or aspects of biology that may be specific to our species.”
To bypass this limitation, scientists often grow human neural organoids in the laboratory. These organoids are three-dimensional spheres of brain tissue cultivated from human stem cells. “Over the years, organoids and assembloids have given us increasingly powerful ways to study human brain development in the laboratory,” Pașca explained. “But they still lack many features of an intact nervous system, including a normal blood supply, sensory inputs and motor outputs.”
While lab-grown organoids can mimic basic cellular processes, they lack the complex environment of a real body. A 2024 study involving the transplantation of similar lab-grown neural clusters into mice indicated that transplanted human cells can mature and respond to inflammation. “It is also difficult in a dish to connect changes in human neural circuits to functional consequences,” Pașca added.
Pașca and his colleagues sought a way to let these human brain clusters mature in a living animal. “So the question was whether we could create a model in which human cortical tissue could develop more extensively, integrate into an intact nervous system and allow us to study human biology from cells and circuits all the way to functional readouts,” he told PsyPost.
In traditional transplants, however, the human cells must squeeze into whatever physical space is left in the animal’s intact skull. They also have to compete with the host’s existing neural circuits. “The two parallel developing systems are in competition for turf,” Pașca noted. To achieve this, the researchers genetically modified mice to lack a neocortex and hippocampus.
The neocortex is the folded outer layer of the brain involved in higher-level functions like sensory perception and spatial reasoning, while the hippocampus manages memory. By using a specific genetic targeting strategy, the team prompted the cells destined to become the cortex to die off early in the mouse’s development.
The resulting animals, termed apallial mice, lose about half of their total brain volume. Despite lacking these major brain structures, the mice survive and can walk around relatively normally. “Our findings suggest that, when cortical circuitry is lost very early in development, the cortex may not be solely responsible for all of the functions traditionally attributed to it,” Pașca said. “Other brain regions may compensate for some of the missing cortical circuitry as the brain develops.”
The researchers then took human cortical organoids and transplanted them into the empty brain cavities of newborn apallial mice, referring to this large-scale grafting procedure as xenocortication. The human grafts grew massively over the next few months. By the third month, the transplanted human tissue exhibited a 4.7-fold increase in size, occupying nearly 92 percent of the available cortical space in the mouse’s brain.
The human cells developed into a diverse array of mature neural cell types. Notably, the graft successfully generated layer 5 extratelencephalic projection neurons. In humans, this specific class of neurons includes von Economo neurons, which are large, specialized cells found in apes and humans that are associated with social behavior and certain psychiatric conditions.
Organoids grown in laboratory dishes almost never generate these specific neurons, but the transplanted organoids in the mice produced them in abundance. “This cell type appears to be particularly vulnerable in frontotemporal dementia, a neurodegenerative disorder that can begin in midlife,” Pașca explained. “Yet here they were, sitting in the xenocortical mice’s human tissue. Now we can generate these rare cells from a healthy person and study them in a living, behaving animal to learn more about what they’re doing.”
The researchers also observed extensive physical integration between the human tissue and the mouse host. Using fluorescent tracing techniques, they saw human nerve fibers extending deep into the mouse’s brain and traveling all the way down into the host’s cervical spinal cord. In return, the mouse’s lower brain regions sent connection fibers up into the human graft.
To test if the human brain tissue was actually functioning, the team used advanced imaging and electrical recording techniques. They detected synchronized bursts of electrical activity spreading across the human graft, resembling the organized brain waves seen in early human development. This spontaneous neural activity strongly correlated with the physical movements of the mouse’s face, suggesting the human tissue was electrically active and participating in the animal’s nervous system.
Next, the researchers observed the animals’ behavior using a combination of motion-tracking cameras and standard laboratory tasks. Both the completely apallial mice and the mice with human grafts walked at normal speeds and explored their environments. However, the xenocortical mice displayed unique behavioral patterns that sat somewhere between the fully cortex-less mice and normal, healthy mice.
In a working memory task using a Y-shaped maze, normal mice tend to remember which arms of the maze they have already explored and alternate their choices. The apallial mice failed to alternate above chance levels, suggesting a loss of working memory. Interestingly, the mice with the human grafts performed above chance, showing a partial retention of this exploratory memory function.
Finally, the team tested whether the xenocortical mice could be used to model human brain injuries. They exposed the animals to a low-oxygen environment (5 percent oxygen) for five hours to simulate a hypoxic injury, a condition that can cause cerebral palsy and motor deficits in human infants.
A 2012 study evaluating gait in mice with Parkinson’s-like symptoms demonstrated that an automated glass walkway system, known as CatWalk, can precisely measure footprint patterns, limb support, and timing. Using this exact system, the researchers evaluated the walking patterns of the xenocortical mice before and after the low-oxygen injury.
Following the injury, the human grafts showed increased signs of cellular stress and inflammation. Behaviorally, the xenocortical mice altered their walking patterns on the glass walkway. They spent more time supporting their weight on three or four paws at once, adopting a wider stance compared to their pre-injury walking style, which provides evidence that the xenocortical mouse model can successfully translate a cellular injury into a measurable behavioral change.
“Finding out what accounts for this difference could yield clues about human neural susceptibility to oxygen deprivation, shed light on mechanisms underlying cerebral palsy and provide a platform for testing potential therapeutic strategies,” Pașca noted. Furthermore, because researchers can derive organoids from specific individuals, the model opens new doors. “The cells we implant carry the genetic material of the person they’re derived from — whether that person is a patient or a healthy individual — allowing us to study downstream disease effects in brain cells and circuits,” he said.
“The idea that you can make an organoid model with an individual’s unique genetic character and use that to learn what’s gone awry in that individual’s brain is a critical step toward precision medicine,” added Alison Singer, president of the Autism Science Foundation.
As with all research, there are a few things to keep in mind. One primary limitation is the biological mismatch in developmental timing. Mouse brains mature over a matter of weeks, while human brain tissue requires years to fully develop. This discrepancy in speed might restrict how completely the human cells can integrate into the rapid life cycle of a rodent.
It is also unclear exactly how the human graft influences the mouse’s behavior. The observed behaviors are likely a mix of the human graft interacting with the mouse’s preserved lower brain circuits rather than the human tissue exerting complete, top-down control over the animal.
“This is not a ‘human brain in a mouse’,” Pașca told PsyPost. “It is a research model that may allow us to understand why human neural cells and circuits become vulnerable in disease and, ultimately, to test ways of preventing or correcting those changes.”
Generating these advanced models also requires careful ethical oversight. “Throughout several years of experimentation, we have received input from ethicists, neurobiologists with expertise in primate and human cortical biology, patient advocates, philosophers, and legal scholars,” Pașca said. “An overriding argument questioned the ethics of not conducting this research in the face of the suffering of hundreds of millions of people afflicted with neurological disorders that today are uncurable but tomorrow could yield treatments we discover by using this model.”
The study, “Developmental xenocortication using human-derived organoids in mice,” was authored by Konstantin Kaganovsky, Kevin W. Kelley, Tilo Gschwind, Paul M. Harary, John Kochalka, Alexander D. White, Garikoitz Lerma-Usabiaga, Xiaoyu Chen, Omer Revah, Felicity Gore, Ayano Aoyama, Jennifer L. Shadrach, Se-Jin Yoon, Alfredo Valencia, Satoe Ogawa, Noah Reis, Hannes Vogel, Brian Wandell, Julia A. Kaltschmidt, Ivan Soltesz, Karl Deisseroth, and Sergiu P. Pașca.
-------------------------------------------------
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 #Developmental xenocortication #humanorganoids #neuroscience #brainresearch #StanfordPascа #neuralcircuits #cerebralpalsyresearch #precisionmedicine #braininjurymodel #xenotransplantation
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TRIGGER WARNING: Military Psychology
DATE: September 25, 2026 at 12:57AM
SOURCE: MILIARY PSYCHOLOGY JOURNAL: APA DIVISION 19TITLE: Equipping non-providers for battlefield mental health support: An assessment of the BH GEAR training
URL: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/08995605.2026.2734633?af=R
.
URL: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/08995605.2026.2734633?af=R
-------------------------------------------------
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TRIGGER WARNING: Military Psychology
DATE: September 25, 2026 at 01:33AM
SOURCE: MILIARY PSYCHOLOGY JOURNAL: APA DIVISION 19TITLE: Frontline Perspectives on reintegration: Cognitive dissonance, moral injury-related distress, and psychological strain among security actors in Nigeria’s Operation Safe Corridor
URL: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/08995605.2026.2737911?af=R
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URL: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/08995605.2026.2737911?af=R
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DATE: September 25, 2026 at 12:10PM
SOURCE: SOCIALPSYCHOLOGY.ORGTITLE: TikTok Settles Youth Safety Lawsuit for at Least $100 Million
Source: CBS News - U.S. News
TikTok will pay the state of Alabama at least $100 million and implement a slew of safety features for teens as part of a settlement agreement reached just before the case was set to go to trial. Alabama sued the social media company in 2025, claiming the platform had negative effects on the mental well-being of youths. In addition, the lawsuit argued that TikTok knew that its "addictive properties" were harmful to children.
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DATE: September 25, 2026 at 12:10PM
SOURCE: SOCIALPSYCHOLOGY.ORGTITLE: TikTok Settles Youth Safety Lawsuit for at Least $100 Million
Source: CBS News - U.S. News
TikTok will pay the state of Alabama at least $100 million and implement a slew of safety features for teens as part of a settlement agreement reached just before the case was set to go to trial. Alabama sued the social media company in 2025, claiming the platform had negative effects on the mental well-being of youths. In addition, the lawsuit argued that TikTok knew that its "addictive properties" were harmful to children.
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DATE: September 25, 2026 at 12:10PM
SOURCE: SOCIALPSYCHOLOGY.ORGTITLE: TikTok Settles Youth Safety Lawsuit for at Least $100 Million
Source: CBS News - U.S. News
TikTok will pay the state of Alabama at least $100 million and implement a slew of safety features for teens as part of a settlement agreement reached just before the case was set to go to trial. Alabama sued the social media company in 2025, claiming the platform had negative effects on the mental well-being of youths. In addition, the lawsuit argued that TikTok knew that its "addictive properties" were harmful to children.
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DATE: September 25, 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: Why sex differences in throwing cannot be explained by socialization alone
URL: https://www.psypost.org/why-sex-differences-in-throwing-cannot-be-explained-by-socialization-alone/
Sex differences in overhand throwing cannot be explained by socialization alone, according to a commentary published in Evolutionary Psychological Science that argues biological predispositions and experience work together across development.
Scientists generally reject a simple choice between nature and nurture. Research in evolutionary biology, behavioral genetics, and psychology instead treats behavior as the product of ongoing interactions among genes, hormones, development, learning, and the social environment. Nevertheless, explanations attributing differences between women and men entirely to socialization remain influential in some areas of sex and gender research.
Robert O. Deaner and Michael P. Lombardo examine this tension through a debate about the pronounced sex difference in overhand throwing. This difference is exceptionally large—reaching roughly two standard deviations or more by adulthood, a gap comparable in magnitude to the adult sex difference in height. Their commentary responds to developmental biologist Anne Fausto-Sterling’s critique of their earlier proposal that throwing ability partly reflects adaptations shaped by stronger ancestral selection on males.
Fausto-Sterling argues that differences in children’s early social experiences and opportunities for ball play can account for the development of the throwing gap. Deaner and Lombardo contend that this explanation overlooks relevant evolutionary, anatomical, hormonal, cross-cultural, and performance evidence.
The authors adopt an interactionist framework in which evolved predispositions and environmental influences are complementary rather than competing explanations. Their central hypothesis is that ancestral males experienced stronger selection for forceful and accurate overhand throwing, particularly because males were more frequently involved in violent conflict and warfare.
Hunting and confrontational scavenging (stealing kills from other predators) may have provided additional selection pressures. Over many generations, these recurring demands could have favored anatomical, physiological, and behavioral traits that support throwing performance.
These evolved differences would not need to be fully formed at birth. Like walking or language, throwing develops through the interaction of biological capacities with experience, practice, and social input. Children may receive different levels of encouragement to play with balls, while preexisting differences in interests or physical capacities may also influence the activities they seek out and the responses they receive from caregivers. Socialization can therefore cultivate or amplify an evolved predisposition without having created it entirely.
The authors first dispute the claim that their evolutionary account depends principally on the traditional image of “Man the Hunter.” They say their primary proposed selection pressure is conflict between ancestral groups, especially warfare, with hunting serving as a complementary influence. They also argue that the anthropological evidence continues to show a substantial sexual division of hunting labor. Although women hunt in some societies, quantitative data indicate that men generally hunt more often, pursue larger animals, and obtain considerably more meat. In the authors’ view, such patterns make it plausible that males faced stronger selection for throwing-related abilities.
The authors next argue that the evidence extends well beyond childhood throwing studies. They point to an unusually large performance difference between male and female javelin throwers; differences in throwing accuracy and targeting; research connecting prenatal androgen exposure (levels of male sex hormones experienced in the womb) with male-typical propulsive behavior; and anatomical differences in the shoulder and arm that generally favor male throwing performance.
Large differences have also been observed among children in societies where both sexes receive substantial throwing opportunities or where neither receives much practice, while training improves girls’ performance without consistently eliminating the gap.
Finally, Deaner and Lombardo maintain that Fausto-Sterling’s observations of ten infants (five boys and five girls) cannot establish that maternal interaction caused the children’s differing engagement with balls, particularly because the study did not examine the mature, forceful overhand throw addressed by their hypothesis. More broadly, they argue that presenting developmental experience as an alternative to evolution misunderstand evolutionary theory: adaptations must emerge through developmental processes, and evidence that social experience contributes to a trait does not demonstrate that experience fully accounts for it.
The authors acknowledge that some lines of evidence supporting their account, including evidence concerning targeting, come from only one or a few studies. They also note that available quantitative hunting data may not represent all foraging societies.
By applying an interactionist framework to overhand throwing, the commentary argues that a complete explanation of behavioral sex differences must examine how biological predispositions and social experience jointly shape development.
The paper, “Sex Differences in Overhand Throwing are Completely Due to Socialization: A Blank Slate ‘Hypothesis’ Unconstrained by Evidence,” was authored by Robert O. Deaner and Michael P. Lombardo.
URL: https://www.psypost.org/why-sex-differences-in-throwing-cannot-be-explained-by-socialization-alone/
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DATE: September 25, 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: Why sex differences in throwing cannot be explained by socialization alone
URL: https://www.psypost.org/why-sex-differences-in-throwing-cannot-be-explained-by-socialization-alone/
Sex differences in overhand throwing cannot be explained by socialization alone, according to a commentary published in Evolutionary Psychological Science that argues biological predispositions and experience work together across development.
Scientists generally reject a simple choice between nature and nurture. Research in evolutionary biology, behavioral genetics, and psychology instead treats behavior as the product of ongoing interactions among genes, hormones, development, learning, and the social environment. Nevertheless, explanations attributing differences between women and men entirely to socialization remain influential in some areas of sex and gender research.
Robert O. Deaner and Michael P. Lombardo examine this tension through a debate about the pronounced sex difference in overhand throwing. This difference is exceptionally large—reaching roughly two standard deviations or more by adulthood, a gap comparable in magnitude to the adult sex difference in height. Their commentary responds to developmental biologist Anne Fausto-Sterling’s critique of their earlier proposal that throwing ability partly reflects adaptations shaped by stronger ancestral selection on males.
Fausto-Sterling argues that differences in children’s early social experiences and opportunities for ball play can account for the development of the throwing gap. Deaner and Lombardo contend that this explanation overlooks relevant evolutionary, anatomical, hormonal, cross-cultural, and performance evidence.
The authors adopt an interactionist framework in which evolved predispositions and environmental influences are complementary rather than competing explanations. Their central hypothesis is that ancestral males experienced stronger selection for forceful and accurate overhand throwing, particularly because males were more frequently involved in violent conflict and warfare.
Hunting and confrontational scavenging (stealing kills from other predators) may have provided additional selection pressures. Over many generations, these recurring demands could have favored anatomical, physiological, and behavioral traits that support throwing performance.
These evolved differences would not need to be fully formed at birth. Like walking or language, throwing develops through the interaction of biological capacities with experience, practice, and social input. Children may receive different levels of encouragement to play with balls, while preexisting differences in interests or physical capacities may also influence the activities they seek out and the responses they receive from caregivers. Socialization can therefore cultivate or amplify an evolved predisposition without having created it entirely.
The authors first dispute the claim that their evolutionary account depends principally on the traditional image of “Man the Hunter.” They say their primary proposed selection pressure is conflict between ancestral groups, especially warfare, with hunting serving as a complementary influence. They also argue that the anthropological evidence continues to show a substantial sexual division of hunting labor. Although women hunt in some societies, quantitative data indicate that men generally hunt more often, pursue larger animals, and obtain considerably more meat. In the authors’ view, such patterns make it plausible that males faced stronger selection for throwing-related abilities.
The authors next argue that the evidence extends well beyond childhood throwing studies. They point to an unusually large performance difference between male and female javelin throwers; differences in throwing accuracy and targeting; research connecting prenatal androgen exposure (levels of male sex hormones experienced in the womb) with male-typical propulsive behavior; and anatomical differences in the shoulder and arm that generally favor male throwing performance.
Large differences have also been observed among children in societies where both sexes receive substantial throwing opportunities or where neither receives much practice, while training improves girls’ performance without consistently eliminating the gap.
Finally, Deaner and Lombardo maintain that Fausto-Sterling’s observations of ten infants (five boys and five girls) cannot establish that maternal interaction caused the children’s differing engagement with balls, particularly because the study did not examine the mature, forceful overhand throw addressed by their hypothesis. More broadly, they argue that presenting developmental experience as an alternative to evolution misunderstand evolutionary theory: adaptations must emerge through developmental processes, and evidence that social experience contributes to a trait does not demonstrate that experience fully accounts for it.
The authors acknowledge that some lines of evidence supporting their account, including evidence concerning targeting, come from only one or a few studies. They also note that available quantitative hunting data may not represent all foraging societies.
By applying an interactionist framework to overhand throwing, the commentary argues that a complete explanation of behavioral sex differences must examine how biological predispositions and social experience jointly shape development.
The paper, “Sex Differences in Overhand Throwing are Completely Due to Socialization: A Blank Slate ‘Hypothesis’ Unconstrained by Evidence,” was authored by Robert O. Deaner and Michael P. Lombardo.
URL: https://www.psypost.org/why-sex-differences-in-throwing-cannot-be-explained-by-socialization-alone/
-------------------------------------------------
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-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #SexDifferences #OverhandThrowing #EvolutionaryPsychology #BiologyMeetsEnvironment #NatureNurtureInteraction #EvolutionaryBiology #AnatomicalDifferences #PrenatalAndrogens #ThrowingPerformance #GenderDifferences
-
DATE: September 25, 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: Why sex differences in throwing cannot be explained by socialization alone
URL: https://www.psypost.org/why-sex-differences-in-throwing-cannot-be-explained-by-socialization-alone/
Sex differences in overhand throwing cannot be explained by socialization alone, according to a commentary published in Evolutionary Psychological Science that argues biological predispositions and experience work together across development.
Scientists generally reject a simple choice between nature and nurture. Research in evolutionary biology, behavioral genetics, and psychology instead treats behavior as the product of ongoing interactions among genes, hormones, development, learning, and the social environment. Nevertheless, explanations attributing differences between women and men entirely to socialization remain influential in some areas of sex and gender research.
Robert O. Deaner and Michael P. Lombardo examine this tension through a debate about the pronounced sex difference in overhand throwing. This difference is exceptionally large—reaching roughly two standard deviations or more by adulthood, a gap comparable in magnitude to the adult sex difference in height. Their commentary responds to developmental biologist Anne Fausto-Sterling’s critique of their earlier proposal that throwing ability partly reflects adaptations shaped by stronger ancestral selection on males.
Fausto-Sterling argues that differences in children’s early social experiences and opportunities for ball play can account for the development of the throwing gap. Deaner and Lombardo contend that this explanation overlooks relevant evolutionary, anatomical, hormonal, cross-cultural, and performance evidence.
The authors adopt an interactionist framework in which evolved predispositions and environmental influences are complementary rather than competing explanations. Their central hypothesis is that ancestral males experienced stronger selection for forceful and accurate overhand throwing, particularly because males were more frequently involved in violent conflict and warfare.
Hunting and confrontational scavenging (stealing kills from other predators) may have provided additional selection pressures. Over many generations, these recurring demands could have favored anatomical, physiological, and behavioral traits that support throwing performance.
These evolved differences would not need to be fully formed at birth. Like walking or language, throwing develops through the interaction of biological capacities with experience, practice, and social input. Children may receive different levels of encouragement to play with balls, while preexisting differences in interests or physical capacities may also influence the activities they seek out and the responses they receive from caregivers. Socialization can therefore cultivate or amplify an evolved predisposition without having created it entirely.
The authors first dispute the claim that their evolutionary account depends principally on the traditional image of “Man the Hunter.” They say their primary proposed selection pressure is conflict between ancestral groups, especially warfare, with hunting serving as a complementary influence. They also argue that the anthropological evidence continues to show a substantial sexual division of hunting labor. Although women hunt in some societies, quantitative data indicate that men generally hunt more often, pursue larger animals, and obtain considerably more meat. In the authors’ view, such patterns make it plausible that males faced stronger selection for throwing-related abilities.
The authors next argue that the evidence extends well beyond childhood throwing studies. They point to an unusually large performance difference between male and female javelin throwers; differences in throwing accuracy and targeting; research connecting prenatal androgen exposure (levels of male sex hormones experienced in the womb) with male-typical propulsive behavior; and anatomical differences in the shoulder and arm that generally favor male throwing performance.
Large differences have also been observed among children in societies where both sexes receive substantial throwing opportunities or where neither receives much practice, while training improves girls’ performance without consistently eliminating the gap.
Finally, Deaner and Lombardo maintain that Fausto-Sterling’s observations of ten infants (five boys and five girls) cannot establish that maternal interaction caused the children’s differing engagement with balls, particularly because the study did not examine the mature, forceful overhand throw addressed by their hypothesis. More broadly, they argue that presenting developmental experience as an alternative to evolution misunderstand evolutionary theory: adaptations must emerge through developmental processes, and evidence that social experience contributes to a trait does not demonstrate that experience fully accounts for it.
The authors acknowledge that some lines of evidence supporting their account, including evidence concerning targeting, come from only one or a few studies. They also note that available quantitative hunting data may not represent all foraging societies.
By applying an interactionist framework to overhand throwing, the commentary argues that a complete explanation of behavioral sex differences must examine how biological predispositions and social experience jointly shape development.
The paper, “Sex Differences in Overhand Throwing are Completely Due to Socialization: A Blank Slate ‘Hypothesis’ Unconstrained by Evidence,” was authored by Robert O. Deaner and Michael P. Lombardo.
URL: https://www.psypost.org/why-sex-differences-in-throwing-cannot-be-explained-by-socialization-alone/
-------------------------------------------------
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#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #SexDifferences #OverhandThrowing #EvolutionaryPsychology #BiologyMeetsEnvironment #NatureNurtureInteraction #EvolutionaryBiology #AnatomicalDifferences #PrenatalAndrogens #ThrowingPerformance #GenderDifferences
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DATE: September 25, 2026 at 04:42PM
SOURCE: HEALTHCARE INFO SECURITYDirect article link at end of text block below.
Stop Waiting for Someone Else to Make AI Safe: Forget #AI Doomsday. Defend Against the Agent Already Jimmying the Locks https://t.co/3QmBf3IfLm
Here are any URLs found in the article text:
Articles can be found by scrolling down the page at https://www.healthcareinfosecurity.com/ under the title "Latest"
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DATE: September 25, 2026 at 04:42PM
SOURCE: HEALTHCARE INFO SECURITYDirect article link at end of text block below.
Stop Waiting for Someone Else to Make AI Safe: Forget #AI Doomsday. Defend Against the Agent Already Jimmying the Locks https://t.co/3QmBf3IfLm
Here are any URLs found in the article text:
Articles can be found by scrolling down the page at https://www.healthcareinfosecurity.com/ under the title "Latest"
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Healthcare security & privacy posts not related to IT or infosec are at @HIPAABot . Even so, they mix in some infosec with the legal & regulatory information.
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DATE: September 25, 2026 at 04:42PM
SOURCE: HEALTHCARE INFO SECURITYDirect article link at end of text block below.
Stop Waiting for Someone Else to Make AI Safe: Forget #AI Doomsday. Defend Against the Agent Already Jimmying the Locks https://t.co/3QmBf3IfLm
Here are any URLs found in the article text:
Articles can be found by scrolling down the page at https://www.healthcareinfosecurity.com/ under the title "Latest"
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Healthcare security & privacy posts not related to IT or infosec are at @HIPAABot . Even so, they mix in some infosec with the legal & regulatory information.
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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
-
DATE: September 25, 2026 at 04:42PM
SOURCE: HEALTHCARE INFO SECURITYDirect article link at end of text block below.
Stop Waiting for Someone Else to Make AI Safe: Forget #AI Doomsday. Defend Against the Agent Already Jimmying the Locks https://t.co/3QmBf3IfLm
Here are any URLs found in the article text:
Articles can be found by scrolling down the page at https://www.healthcareinfosecurity.com/ under the title "Latest"
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Healthcare security & privacy posts not related to IT or infosec are at @HIPAABot . Even so, they mix in some infosec with the legal & regulatory information.
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DATE: September 25, 2026 at 11:00AM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: Diverse autism genes converge to disrupt shared biological pathways, study finds
A new mapping of how proteins interact in the brain suggests that many different genetic mutations linked to autism spectrum disorder end up altering the same underlying biological networks. By determining how specific mutations rewire these protein connections, the research offers a potential roadmap for finding targeted treatments for neurodevelopmental conditions. The findings were published in Science.
Autism spectrum disorder is a neurodevelopmental condition characterized by varying challenges with social communication and repetitive behaviors. The genetics underlying the condition are highly complex, with hundreds of different genes implicated. For example, a study covered by PsyPost in 2016 found that thousands of genes might contribute to the condition in different ways. Despite identifying so many risk factors, scientists have struggled to understand how such a wide variety of genetic changes leads to similar developmental outcomes.
“Over the past 15 years, large-scale sequencing studies have identified hundreds of genes associated with autism,” study co-author Nevan J. Krogan, a researcher at the Quantitative Biosciences Institute at the University of California, San Francisco, told PsyPost. “That progress was initially very exciting; in 2012, only a few genes had been clearly implicated, whereas today the list includes several hundred.”
“However, identifying genes and mutations has not, by itself, produced a sufficiently detailed understanding of autism biology or led to many new therapeutic strategies,” Krogan continued. “A list of genes is somewhat like a parts list for a machine. To understand how the machine works, and what happens when one part is altered, you also need to understand the proteins those genes produce and how those proteins interact inside cells. That was the gap we wanted to address.”
To bridge this gap, scientists look to proteins, which are the microscopic machines that carry out most of a cell’s functions. Proteins rarely act alone. Instead, they bind to one another to form larger complexes, much like interlocking puzzle pieces. A 2026 study showed how a single autism-linked mutation can physically disrupt the binding between two partner proteins, impairing how brain cells communicate. Similarly, a 2026 preprint study that has not been peer-reviewed indicated that turning off different autism-associated genes in human brain cells disrupts shared biological pathways.
Mapping these physical connections can be highly useful for medical research. In fact, research covered by PsyPost in 2022 used protein interaction networks to identify existing medications that might counteract the biological processes underlying autism.
Building on this concept, a research team that included Krogan and lead author Belinda Wang sought to map the physical interactions of proteins associated with autism risk genes at a massive scale. They wanted to see if different mutations might converge on the same biological complexes, selectively rewiring how these proteins connect rather than simply destroying their function altogether.
“Through this work, we generated what we believe is the largest protein-protein interaction map assembled for a neuropsychiatric disorder,” Krogan said. “The map provides a molecular framework for understanding how autism-associated mutations may disrupt cellular systems. Importantly, it has also revealed potential therapeutic directions that would not have been visible from genetic information alone.”
“We are now following up on several of those opportunities through drug-development programs,” he noted. “The broader goal is to move beyond cataloging autism-associated genes and toward understanding the underlying biology well enough to identify new strategies for treatment.”
The team focused on 100 genes identified as high-confidence risk factors for autism. They introduced the protein versions of these genes into human embryonic kidney cells. This cell type is widely used in laboratories because it is easy to grow and allows for large-scale analysis of protein interactions. Using a technique called affinity purification and mass spectrometry, which acts like a microscopic fishing hook to pull out a target protein along with everything attached to it, they identified which other proteins bound to their targets.
The resulting map uncovered 1,881 total interactions, 87 percent of which had never been reported before. On average, each autism risk protein interacted with 11 other proteins. The researchers observed a highly interconnected network, meaning that the different autism risk proteins tended to bind to the same central hubs.
To determine which proteins touched directly rather than indirectly, the team used AlphaFold, an artificial intelligence system that predicts the three-dimensional shapes of proteins. They then tested one of the central hubs, a protein complex involving the molecules DCAF7 and DYRK1A, in living systems. They edited the genes of Xenopus, a type of frog often used to study early development, as well as human neural progenitor cells, which are stem cells that develop into brain cells.
Disrupting this shared protein complex impaired the multiplication of the progenitor cells and resulted in a smaller forebrain size in the frog models. This provides evidence that different autism risk proteins work together in the same physical machinery to regulate early brain growth.
The researchers then looked at the impact of the disease-linked mutations themselves. They introduced 54 specific genetic mutations derived from autistic patients into 30 of the risk proteins. They repeated their protein-fishing experiment to see how these mutations changed the interaction network compared to the typical, unmutated proteins.
The mutations caused 253 interactions to be altered, with some connections strengthening and others weakening. The researchers found that completely different mutations often caused the exact same changes in the protein network. For example, three different mutations in a gene called FOXP1 all caused its resulting protein to lose its connection to a partner protein called FOXP4.
To see how this specific severed connection affects brain development, the team grew human forebrain organoids. These are miniature, three-dimensional bundles of brain tissue grown in a dish from stem cells, which mimic the early stages of human brain development.
In organoids carrying the FOXP1 mutations, the loss of the FOXP1 and FOXP4 connection led to the partner protein attaching to the wrong sections of DNA. This biological misstep caused the brain cells to mature too early. The premature maturation altered the proportion of specific types of neurons in the organoids and increased their overall electrical activity.
This overlap in downstream effects was exactly what the researchers were looking for. “The most surprising finding was the degree of biological convergence,” Krogan noted. “We began with roughly 100 genes associated with autism, but the corresponding proteins were not acting independently. Many were connected within a smaller number of shared biological networks.”
“That suggests we may not need a separate treatment for every individual genetic mutation,” he added. “A smaller number of therapies targeting common pathways could potentially benefit multiple groups of patients. That possibility has significant implications for future drug development.”
The findings provide independent researchers a new lens to interpret the thousands of rare mutations identified in recent years.
Lisa Bradley, a senior research associate at The Centre for Applied Genomics at The Hospital for Sick Children Research Institute who was not involved in the study, noted that the research complements existing genomic efforts. “This large-scale study of bona fide high-risk genes specifically looks at the very real possibility that ASD-associated mutations rewire specific protein-protein interactions,” she told PsyPost. “For me, the key takeaway is that this strategy provides a way to move from many different ASD-associated genes toward a smaller number of convergent molecular mechanisms, which otherwise could have remained hidden.”
Bradley found the study’s experimental validation using human forebrain organoids particularly persuasive. “For me, the FOXP1 story was the most convincing because they took an ASD-associated mutation from disruption of a specific protein interaction with FOXP4 through to downstream effects on gene expression and neuronal development in brain organoids,” she said. “Other ASD studies have implicated altered cortical layer development, so this provided an important proof of principle that altered protein interactions can translate into meaningful cellular neurodevelopmental consequences.”
As with all research, there are a few things to keep in mind. The initial protein mapping was conducted in kidney cells rather than brain cells. While the researchers validated key interactions in brain-specific models later, the initial environment might lack some specialized proteins found only in developing neurons.
Bradley cautioned that the findings offer early-stage evidence for molecular mechanisms, “rather than demonstrating that they are causal mechanisms.” She added, “Some of these genes and mutations could also be associated with complex ASD, including co-occurring intellectual disability, so the molecular changes identified may include broader NDD [neurodevelopmental disorder] biology rather than mechanisms unique to autism etiology.”
The study focused on 100 high-confidence autism risk genes, but hundreds more have been linked to the condition, meaning the current map represents only a fraction of the total biological picture. “In this study, we examined a small number of genes and mutations in depth using stem cells, neurons and brain organoids,” Krogan said. “We have now built a pipeline that allows us to apply the same approach more systematically and at a larger scale. Our next goal is to identify which autism-associated mutations and biological pathways are most suitable for therapeutic development.”
Before new therapies can be developed, these molecular interactions must be observed in broader behavioral contexts. “While the molecular and mechanistic evidence is very compelling and is likely to be highly relevant to complex ASD etiology, I would like to see this tested in a mammalian developmental model where social and ASD-relevant behaviors can be examined alongside learning and cognitive impairments,” Bradley said. “This would allow more direct tests of causality for the FOXP1-FOXP4 interaction and how these molecular changes ultimately translate into social behavior.”
Additionally, artificial intelligence predictions of protein structures are estimates and sometimes miss the nuance of how proteins bend and fold in a living organism. Beyond refining these models, future research could expand this network and test additional drug candidates that might stabilize these weakened protein connections. The researchers believe the principles established in this study could eventually stretch to entirely different fields of medicine.
“The concept of biological convergence may extend beyond autism,” Krogan pointed out. “We are applying these tools to other neuropsychiatric conditions, including schizophrenia and obsessive-compulsive disorder, to look for shared pathways. We are also seeing overlap between some genes and proteins implicated in autism and those studied in cancer.”
“Because drugs already exist for certain cancer-related targets, there may be opportunities to investigate whether some of those compounds could be repurposed for neurological or psychiatric conditions,” he continued. “That possibility is still at an early stage, but it opens an unexpected avenue for collaboration and therapeutic research.”
Ultimately, the research team views this extensive protein map as a foundational resource for the scientific community, moving the field past simple catalogs of genetic risks.
“This is an important step between identifying a genetic change and developing a potential treatment,” Krogan concluded. “It is not the final step, and new therapies will still require years of research and testing. That said, our study provides a clearer biological framework for identifying therapeutic opportunities that were not apparent before.”
The study, “Autism mutations rewire protein interaction networks to drive neurodevelopmental pathology,” was authored by Belinda Wang, Rasika Vartak, Kelsey M. Hennick, Yefim Zaltsman, Zun Zar Chi Naing, Benjamin J. Polacco, Ali Bashir, Manon Eckhardt, Mehdi Bouhaddou, Jiewei Xu, Nawei Sun, Micaela C. Lasser, Yuan Zhou, Justin McKetney, Keelan Z. Guiley, Pawel Gniewek, Una Chan, Naufa Amirani, Owen Griffiths, Nishant Chadha, Reshmi Tognatta, Merve Cakir, Martin Gordon, Prachi Khare, Sam Drake, Vanessa Drury, David F. Burke, Silvano Gonzalez, Sahar Alkhairy, Reuben Thomas, Stephanie Lam, Montana Morris, Ethel Bader, Mélanie Dos Santos, Anastassia V. Komarova, Maxwell Bennett, Craig Ennis, Octavio Castillo, Yvonne Lim, Robert Martin, Meghan Seyler, Tierney Baum, Rebecca Krasnoff, George Wang, Sagnik Middya, Sheng Wang, Presley Pham, Juan Arbelaez, Dexter Pratt, Sofia Bali, Shivali Chag, Julia A. Kaye, Nadir Mahmood, Lee Spraggon, Thomas Rolland, Shawn Hervey-Jumper, James S. Fraser, Thomas Bourgeron, Steven Finkbeiner, Caroline Demeret, Danielle L. Swaney, Sourav Bandyopadhyay, Trey Ideker, Pedro Beltrao, Helen Rankin Willsey, Ruth Hüttenhain, Kirsten Obernier, Tomasz J. Nowakowski, Matthew W. State, A. Jeremy Willsey, and Nevan J. Krogan.
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DATE: September 25, 2026 at 11:00AM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: Diverse autism genes converge to disrupt shared biological pathways, study finds
A new mapping of how proteins interact in the brain suggests that many different genetic mutations linked to autism spectrum disorder end up altering the same underlying biological networks. By determining how specific mutations rewire these protein connections, the research offers a potential roadmap for finding targeted treatments for neurodevelopmental conditions. The findings were published in Science.
Autism spectrum disorder is a neurodevelopmental condition characterized by varying challenges with social communication and repetitive behaviors. The genetics underlying the condition are highly complex, with hundreds of different genes implicated. For example, a study covered by PsyPost in 2016 found that thousands of genes might contribute to the condition in different ways. Despite identifying so many risk factors, scientists have struggled to understand how such a wide variety of genetic changes leads to similar developmental outcomes.
“Over the past 15 years, large-scale sequencing studies have identified hundreds of genes associated with autism,” study co-author Nevan J. Krogan, a researcher at the Quantitative Biosciences Institute at the University of California, San Francisco, told PsyPost. “That progress was initially very exciting; in 2012, only a few genes had been clearly implicated, whereas today the list includes several hundred.”
“However, identifying genes and mutations has not, by itself, produced a sufficiently detailed understanding of autism biology or led to many new therapeutic strategies,” Krogan continued. “A list of genes is somewhat like a parts list for a machine. To understand how the machine works, and what happens when one part is altered, you also need to understand the proteins those genes produce and how those proteins interact inside cells. That was the gap we wanted to address.”
To bridge this gap, scientists look to proteins, which are the microscopic machines that carry out most of a cell’s functions. Proteins rarely act alone. Instead, they bind to one another to form larger complexes, much like interlocking puzzle pieces. A 2026 study showed how a single autism-linked mutation can physically disrupt the binding between two partner proteins, impairing how brain cells communicate. Similarly, a 2026 preprint study that has not been peer-reviewed indicated that turning off different autism-associated genes in human brain cells disrupts shared biological pathways.
Mapping these physical connections can be highly useful for medical research. In fact, research covered by PsyPost in 2022 used protein interaction networks to identify existing medications that might counteract the biological processes underlying autism.
Building on this concept, a research team that included Krogan and lead author Belinda Wang sought to map the physical interactions of proteins associated with autism risk genes at a massive scale. They wanted to see if different mutations might converge on the same biological complexes, selectively rewiring how these proteins connect rather than simply destroying their function altogether.
“Through this work, we generated what we believe is the largest protein-protein interaction map assembled for a neuropsychiatric disorder,” Krogan said. “The map provides a molecular framework for understanding how autism-associated mutations may disrupt cellular systems. Importantly, it has also revealed potential therapeutic directions that would not have been visible from genetic information alone.”
“We are now following up on several of those opportunities through drug-development programs,” he noted. “The broader goal is to move beyond cataloging autism-associated genes and toward understanding the underlying biology well enough to identify new strategies for treatment.”
The team focused on 100 genes identified as high-confidence risk factors for autism. They introduced the protein versions of these genes into human embryonic kidney cells. This cell type is widely used in laboratories because it is easy to grow and allows for large-scale analysis of protein interactions. Using a technique called affinity purification and mass spectrometry, which acts like a microscopic fishing hook to pull out a target protein along with everything attached to it, they identified which other proteins bound to their targets.
The resulting map uncovered 1,881 total interactions, 87 percent of which had never been reported before. On average, each autism risk protein interacted with 11 other proteins. The researchers observed a highly interconnected network, meaning that the different autism risk proteins tended to bind to the same central hubs.
To determine which proteins touched directly rather than indirectly, the team used AlphaFold, an artificial intelligence system that predicts the three-dimensional shapes of proteins. They then tested one of the central hubs, a protein complex involving the molecules DCAF7 and DYRK1A, in living systems. They edited the genes of Xenopus, a type of frog often used to study early development, as well as human neural progenitor cells, which are stem cells that develop into brain cells.
Disrupting this shared protein complex impaired the multiplication of the progenitor cells and resulted in a smaller forebrain size in the frog models. This provides evidence that different autism risk proteins work together in the same physical machinery to regulate early brain growth.
The researchers then looked at the impact of the disease-linked mutations themselves. They introduced 54 specific genetic mutations derived from autistic patients into 30 of the risk proteins. They repeated their protein-fishing experiment to see how these mutations changed the interaction network compared to the typical, unmutated proteins.
The mutations caused 253 interactions to be altered, with some connections strengthening and others weakening. The researchers found that completely different mutations often caused the exact same changes in the protein network. For example, three different mutations in a gene called FOXP1 all caused its resulting protein to lose its connection to a partner protein called FOXP4.
To see how this specific severed connection affects brain development, the team grew human forebrain organoids. These are miniature, three-dimensional bundles of brain tissue grown in a dish from stem cells, which mimic the early stages of human brain development.
In organoids carrying the FOXP1 mutations, the loss of the FOXP1 and FOXP4 connection led to the partner protein attaching to the wrong sections of DNA. This biological misstep caused the brain cells to mature too early. The premature maturation altered the proportion of specific types of neurons in the organoids and increased their overall electrical activity.
This overlap in downstream effects was exactly what the researchers were looking for. “The most surprising finding was the degree of biological convergence,” Krogan noted. “We began with roughly 100 genes associated with autism, but the corresponding proteins were not acting independently. Many were connected within a smaller number of shared biological networks.”
“That suggests we may not need a separate treatment for every individual genetic mutation,” he added. “A smaller number of therapies targeting common pathways could potentially benefit multiple groups of patients. That possibility has significant implications for future drug development.”
The findings provide independent researchers a new lens to interpret the thousands of rare mutations identified in recent years.
Lisa Bradley, a senior research associate at The Centre for Applied Genomics at The Hospital for Sick Children Research Institute who was not involved in the study, noted that the research complements existing genomic efforts. “This large-scale study of bona fide high-risk genes specifically looks at the very real possibility that ASD-associated mutations rewire specific protein-protein interactions,” she told PsyPost. “For me, the key takeaway is that this strategy provides a way to move from many different ASD-associated genes toward a smaller number of convergent molecular mechanisms, which otherwise could have remained hidden.”
Bradley found the study’s experimental validation using human forebrain organoids particularly persuasive. “For me, the FOXP1 story was the most convincing because they took an ASD-associated mutation from disruption of a specific protein interaction with FOXP4 through to downstream effects on gene expression and neuronal development in brain organoids,” she said. “Other ASD studies have implicated altered cortical layer development, so this provided an important proof of principle that altered protein interactions can translate into meaningful cellular neurodevelopmental consequences.”
As with all research, there are a few things to keep in mind. The initial protein mapping was conducted in kidney cells rather than brain cells. While the researchers validated key interactions in brain-specific models later, the initial environment might lack some specialized proteins found only in developing neurons.
Bradley cautioned that the findings offer early-stage evidence for molecular mechanisms, “rather than demonstrating that they are causal mechanisms.” She added, “Some of these genes and mutations could also be associated with complex ASD, including co-occurring intellectual disability, so the molecular changes identified may include broader NDD [neurodevelopmental disorder] biology rather than mechanisms unique to autism etiology.”
The study focused on 100 high-confidence autism risk genes, but hundreds more have been linked to the condition, meaning the current map represents only a fraction of the total biological picture. “In this study, we examined a small number of genes and mutations in depth using stem cells, neurons and brain organoids,” Krogan said. “We have now built a pipeline that allows us to apply the same approach more systematically and at a larger scale. Our next goal is to identify which autism-associated mutations and biological pathways are most suitable for therapeutic development.”
Before new therapies can be developed, these molecular interactions must be observed in broader behavioral contexts. “While the molecular and mechanistic evidence is very compelling and is likely to be highly relevant to complex ASD etiology, I would like to see this tested in a mammalian developmental model where social and ASD-relevant behaviors can be examined alongside learning and cognitive impairments,” Bradley said. “This would allow more direct tests of causality for the FOXP1-FOXP4 interaction and how these molecular changes ultimately translate into social behavior.”
Additionally, artificial intelligence predictions of protein structures are estimates and sometimes miss the nuance of how proteins bend and fold in a living organism. Beyond refining these models, future research could expand this network and test additional drug candidates that might stabilize these weakened protein connections. The researchers believe the principles established in this study could eventually stretch to entirely different fields of medicine.
“The concept of biological convergence may extend beyond autism,” Krogan pointed out. “We are applying these tools to other neuropsychiatric conditions, including schizophrenia and obsessive-compulsive disorder, to look for shared pathways. We are also seeing overlap between some genes and proteins implicated in autism and those studied in cancer.”
“Because drugs already exist for certain cancer-related targets, there may be opportunities to investigate whether some of those compounds could be repurposed for neurological or psychiatric conditions,” he continued. “That possibility is still at an early stage, but it opens an unexpected avenue for collaboration and therapeutic research.”
Ultimately, the research team views this extensive protein map as a foundational resource for the scientific community, moving the field past simple catalogs of genetic risks.
“This is an important step between identifying a genetic change and developing a potential treatment,” Krogan concluded. “It is not the final step, and new therapies will still require years of research and testing. That said, our study provides a clearer biological framework for identifying therapeutic opportunities that were not apparent before.”
The study, “Autism mutations rewire protein interaction networks to drive neurodevelopmental pathology,” was authored by Belinda Wang, Rasika Vartak, Kelsey M. Hennick, Yefim Zaltsman, Zun Zar Chi Naing, Benjamin J. Polacco, Ali Bashir, Manon Eckhardt, Mehdi Bouhaddou, Jiewei Xu, Nawei Sun, Micaela C. Lasser, Yuan Zhou, Justin McKetney, Keelan Z. Guiley, Pawel Gniewek, Una Chan, Naufa Amirani, Owen Griffiths, Nishant Chadha, Reshmi Tognatta, Merve Cakir, Martin Gordon, Prachi Khare, Sam Drake, Vanessa Drury, David F. Burke, Silvano Gonzalez, Sahar Alkhairy, Reuben Thomas, Stephanie Lam, Montana Morris, Ethel Bader, Mélanie Dos Santos, Anastassia V. Komarova, Maxwell Bennett, Craig Ennis, Octavio Castillo, Yvonne Lim, Robert Martin, Meghan Seyler, Tierney Baum, Rebecca Krasnoff, George Wang, Sagnik Middya, Sheng Wang, Presley Pham, Juan Arbelaez, Dexter Pratt, Sofia Bali, Shivali Chag, Julia A. Kaye, Nadir Mahmood, Lee Spraggon, Thomas Rolland, Shawn Hervey-Jumper, James S. Fraser, Thomas Bourgeron, Steven Finkbeiner, Caroline Demeret, Danielle L. Swaney, Sourav Bandyopadhyay, Trey Ideker, Pedro Beltrao, Helen Rankin Willsey, Ruth Hüttenhain, Kirsten Obernier, Tomasz J. Nowakowski, Matthew W. State, A. Jeremy Willsey, and Nevan J. Krogan.
-------------------------------------------------
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Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #AutismGenetics #ProteinInteractions #Neurodevelopment #ConvergentBiology #FOXP1FOXP4 #ProteinNetworkMap #NeuropsychiatricResearch #AutismTherapyTargets #BrainDevelopment #ScienceNews
-
DATE: September 25, 2026 at 11:00AM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: Diverse autism genes converge to disrupt shared biological pathways, study finds
A new mapping of how proteins interact in the brain suggests that many different genetic mutations linked to autism spectrum disorder end up altering the same underlying biological networks. By determining how specific mutations rewire these protein connections, the research offers a potential roadmap for finding targeted treatments for neurodevelopmental conditions. The findings were published in Science.
Autism spectrum disorder is a neurodevelopmental condition characterized by varying challenges with social communication and repetitive behaviors. The genetics underlying the condition are highly complex, with hundreds of different genes implicated. For example, a study covered by PsyPost in 2016 found that thousands of genes might contribute to the condition in different ways. Despite identifying so many risk factors, scientists have struggled to understand how such a wide variety of genetic changes leads to similar developmental outcomes.
“Over the past 15 years, large-scale sequencing studies have identified hundreds of genes associated with autism,” study co-author Nevan J. Krogan, a researcher at the Quantitative Biosciences Institute at the University of California, San Francisco, told PsyPost. “That progress was initially very exciting; in 2012, only a few genes had been clearly implicated, whereas today the list includes several hundred.”
“However, identifying genes and mutations has not, by itself, produced a sufficiently detailed understanding of autism biology or led to many new therapeutic strategies,” Krogan continued. “A list of genes is somewhat like a parts list for a machine. To understand how the machine works, and what happens when one part is altered, you also need to understand the proteins those genes produce and how those proteins interact inside cells. That was the gap we wanted to address.”
To bridge this gap, scientists look to proteins, which are the microscopic machines that carry out most of a cell’s functions. Proteins rarely act alone. Instead, they bind to one another to form larger complexes, much like interlocking puzzle pieces. A 2026 study showed how a single autism-linked mutation can physically disrupt the binding between two partner proteins, impairing how brain cells communicate. Similarly, a 2026 preprint study that has not been peer-reviewed indicated that turning off different autism-associated genes in human brain cells disrupts shared biological pathways.
Mapping these physical connections can be highly useful for medical research. In fact, research covered by PsyPost in 2022 used protein interaction networks to identify existing medications that might counteract the biological processes underlying autism.
Building on this concept, a research team that included Krogan and lead author Belinda Wang sought to map the physical interactions of proteins associated with autism risk genes at a massive scale. They wanted to see if different mutations might converge on the same biological complexes, selectively rewiring how these proteins connect rather than simply destroying their function altogether.
“Through this work, we generated what we believe is the largest protein-protein interaction map assembled for a neuropsychiatric disorder,” Krogan said. “The map provides a molecular framework for understanding how autism-associated mutations may disrupt cellular systems. Importantly, it has also revealed potential therapeutic directions that would not have been visible from genetic information alone.”
“We are now following up on several of those opportunities through drug-development programs,” he noted. “The broader goal is to move beyond cataloging autism-associated genes and toward understanding the underlying biology well enough to identify new strategies for treatment.”
The team focused on 100 genes identified as high-confidence risk factors for autism. They introduced the protein versions of these genes into human embryonic kidney cells. This cell type is widely used in laboratories because it is easy to grow and allows for large-scale analysis of protein interactions. Using a technique called affinity purification and mass spectrometry, which acts like a microscopic fishing hook to pull out a target protein along with everything attached to it, they identified which other proteins bound to their targets.
The resulting map uncovered 1,881 total interactions, 87 percent of which had never been reported before. On average, each autism risk protein interacted with 11 other proteins. The researchers observed a highly interconnected network, meaning that the different autism risk proteins tended to bind to the same central hubs.
To determine which proteins touched directly rather than indirectly, the team used AlphaFold, an artificial intelligence system that predicts the three-dimensional shapes of proteins. They then tested one of the central hubs, a protein complex involving the molecules DCAF7 and DYRK1A, in living systems. They edited the genes of Xenopus, a type of frog often used to study early development, as well as human neural progenitor cells, which are stem cells that develop into brain cells.
Disrupting this shared protein complex impaired the multiplication of the progenitor cells and resulted in a smaller forebrain size in the frog models. This provides evidence that different autism risk proteins work together in the same physical machinery to regulate early brain growth.
The researchers then looked at the impact of the disease-linked mutations themselves. They introduced 54 specific genetic mutations derived from autistic patients into 30 of the risk proteins. They repeated their protein-fishing experiment to see how these mutations changed the interaction network compared to the typical, unmutated proteins.
The mutations caused 253 interactions to be altered, with some connections strengthening and others weakening. The researchers found that completely different mutations often caused the exact same changes in the protein network. For example, three different mutations in a gene called FOXP1 all caused its resulting protein to lose its connection to a partner protein called FOXP4.
To see how this specific severed connection affects brain development, the team grew human forebrain organoids. These are miniature, three-dimensional bundles of brain tissue grown in a dish from stem cells, which mimic the early stages of human brain development.
In organoids carrying the FOXP1 mutations, the loss of the FOXP1 and FOXP4 connection led to the partner protein attaching to the wrong sections of DNA. This biological misstep caused the brain cells to mature too early. The premature maturation altered the proportion of specific types of neurons in the organoids and increased their overall electrical activity.
This overlap in downstream effects was exactly what the researchers were looking for. “The most surprising finding was the degree of biological convergence,” Krogan noted. “We began with roughly 100 genes associated with autism, but the corresponding proteins were not acting independently. Many were connected within a smaller number of shared biological networks.”
“That suggests we may not need a separate treatment for every individual genetic mutation,” he added. “A smaller number of therapies targeting common pathways could potentially benefit multiple groups of patients. That possibility has significant implications for future drug development.”
The findings provide independent researchers a new lens to interpret the thousands of rare mutations identified in recent years.
Lisa Bradley, a senior research associate at The Centre for Applied Genomics at The Hospital for Sick Children Research Institute who was not involved in the study, noted that the research complements existing genomic efforts. “This large-scale study of bona fide high-risk genes specifically looks at the very real possibility that ASD-associated mutations rewire specific protein-protein interactions,” she told PsyPost. “For me, the key takeaway is that this strategy provides a way to move from many different ASD-associated genes toward a smaller number of convergent molecular mechanisms, which otherwise could have remained hidden.”
Bradley found the study’s experimental validation using human forebrain organoids particularly persuasive. “For me, the FOXP1 story was the most convincing because they took an ASD-associated mutation from disruption of a specific protein interaction with FOXP4 through to downstream effects on gene expression and neuronal development in brain organoids,” she said. “Other ASD studies have implicated altered cortical layer development, so this provided an important proof of principle that altered protein interactions can translate into meaningful cellular neurodevelopmental consequences.”
As with all research, there are a few things to keep in mind. The initial protein mapping was conducted in kidney cells rather than brain cells. While the researchers validated key interactions in brain-specific models later, the initial environment might lack some specialized proteins found only in developing neurons.
Bradley cautioned that the findings offer early-stage evidence for molecular mechanisms, “rather than demonstrating that they are causal mechanisms.” She added, “Some of these genes and mutations could also be associated with complex ASD, including co-occurring intellectual disability, so the molecular changes identified may include broader NDD [neurodevelopmental disorder] biology rather than mechanisms unique to autism etiology.”
The study focused on 100 high-confidence autism risk genes, but hundreds more have been linked to the condition, meaning the current map represents only a fraction of the total biological picture. “In this study, we examined a small number of genes and mutations in depth using stem cells, neurons and brain organoids,” Krogan said. “We have now built a pipeline that allows us to apply the same approach more systematically and at a larger scale. Our next goal is to identify which autism-associated mutations and biological pathways are most suitable for therapeutic development.”
Before new therapies can be developed, these molecular interactions must be observed in broader behavioral contexts. “While the molecular and mechanistic evidence is very compelling and is likely to be highly relevant to complex ASD etiology, I would like to see this tested in a mammalian developmental model where social and ASD-relevant behaviors can be examined alongside learning and cognitive impairments,” Bradley said. “This would allow more direct tests of causality for the FOXP1-FOXP4 interaction and how these molecular changes ultimately translate into social behavior.”
Additionally, artificial intelligence predictions of protein structures are estimates and sometimes miss the nuance of how proteins bend and fold in a living organism. Beyond refining these models, future research could expand this network and test additional drug candidates that might stabilize these weakened protein connections. The researchers believe the principles established in this study could eventually stretch to entirely different fields of medicine.
“The concept of biological convergence may extend beyond autism,” Krogan pointed out. “We are applying these tools to other neuropsychiatric conditions, including schizophrenia and obsessive-compulsive disorder, to look for shared pathways. We are also seeing overlap between some genes and proteins implicated in autism and those studied in cancer.”
“Because drugs already exist for certain cancer-related targets, there may be opportunities to investigate whether some of those compounds could be repurposed for neurological or psychiatric conditions,” he continued. “That possibility is still at an early stage, but it opens an unexpected avenue for collaboration and therapeutic research.”
Ultimately, the research team views this extensive protein map as a foundational resource for the scientific community, moving the field past simple catalogs of genetic risks.
“This is an important step between identifying a genetic change and developing a potential treatment,” Krogan concluded. “It is not the final step, and new therapies will still require years of research and testing. That said, our study provides a clearer biological framework for identifying therapeutic opportunities that were not apparent before.”
The study, “Autism mutations rewire protein interaction networks to drive neurodevelopmental pathology,” was authored by Belinda Wang, Rasika Vartak, Kelsey M. Hennick, Yefim Zaltsman, Zun Zar Chi Naing, Benjamin J. Polacco, Ali Bashir, Manon Eckhardt, Mehdi Bouhaddou, Jiewei Xu, Nawei Sun, Micaela C. Lasser, Yuan Zhou, Justin McKetney, Keelan Z. Guiley, Pawel Gniewek, Una Chan, Naufa Amirani, Owen Griffiths, Nishant Chadha, Reshmi Tognatta, Merve Cakir, Martin Gordon, Prachi Khare, Sam Drake, Vanessa Drury, David F. Burke, Silvano Gonzalez, Sahar Alkhairy, Reuben Thomas, Stephanie Lam, Montana Morris, Ethel Bader, Mélanie Dos Santos, Anastassia V. Komarova, Maxwell Bennett, Craig Ennis, Octavio Castillo, Yvonne Lim, Robert Martin, Meghan Seyler, Tierney Baum, Rebecca Krasnoff, George Wang, Sagnik Middya, Sheng Wang, Presley Pham, Juan Arbelaez, Dexter Pratt, Sofia Bali, Shivali Chag, Julia A. Kaye, Nadir Mahmood, Lee Spraggon, Thomas Rolland, Shawn Hervey-Jumper, James S. Fraser, Thomas Bourgeron, Steven Finkbeiner, Caroline Demeret, Danielle L. Swaney, Sourav Bandyopadhyay, Trey Ideker, Pedro Beltrao, Helen Rankin Willsey, Ruth Hüttenhain, Kirsten Obernier, Tomasz J. Nowakowski, Matthew W. State, A. Jeremy Willsey, and Nevan J. Krogan.
-------------------------------------------------
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 #AutismGenetics #ProteinInteractions #Neurodevelopment #ConvergentBiology #FOXP1FOXP4 #ProteinNetworkMap #NeuropsychiatricResearch #AutismTherapyTargets #BrainDevelopment #ScienceNews
-
DATE: September 25, 2026 at 09:32AM
SOURCE: SCIENCE DAILY PSYCHIATIRY FEEDTITLE: This “rare” autism-linked genetic disorder may be far more common than scientists thought
URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/09/260924020405.htm
A major analysis suggests Phelan-McDermid syndrome, a genetic disorder closely linked to autism, may affect about 1 in 7,300 people and more than 45,000 Americans. Researchers warn that thousands of cases may remain hidden because genetic testing is often not performed, even as targeted treatments move into clinical trials.
URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/09/260924020405.htm
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Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
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#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #PhelanMcDermidSyndrome #AutismGenetics #RareDisease #GeneticTesting #AutismAwareness #ClinicalTrials #DisorderAwareness #HealthStatistics #Genomics #NeurodevelopmentalDisorders
-
DATE: September 25, 2026 at 09:32AM
SOURCE: SCIENCE DAILY PSYCHIATIRY FEEDTITLE: This “rare” autism-linked genetic disorder may be far more common than scientists thought
URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/09/260924020405.htm
A major analysis suggests Phelan-McDermid syndrome, a genetic disorder closely linked to autism, may affect about 1 in 7,300 people and more than 45,000 Americans. Researchers warn that thousands of cases may remain hidden because genetic testing is often not performed, even as targeted treatments move into clinical trials.
URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/09/260924020405.htm
-------------------------------------------------
Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org
Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #PhelanMcDermidSyndrome #AutismGenetics #RareDisease #GeneticTesting #AutismAwareness #ClinicalTrials #DisorderAwareness #HealthStatistics #Genomics #NeurodevelopmentalDisorders
-
DATE: September 25, 2026 at 09:32AM
SOURCE: SCIENCE DAILY PSYCHIATIRY FEEDTITLE: This “rare” autism-linked genetic disorder may be far more common than scientists thought
URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/09/260924020405.htm
A major analysis suggests Phelan-McDermid syndrome, a genetic disorder closely linked to autism, may affect about 1 in 7,300 people and more than 45,000 Americans. Researchers warn that thousands of cases may remain hidden because genetic testing is often not performed, even as targeted treatments move into clinical trials.
URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/09/260924020405.htm
-------------------------------------------------
Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org
Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #PhelanMcDermidSyndrome #AutismGenetics #RareDisease #GeneticTesting #AutismAwareness #ClinicalTrials #DisorderAwareness #HealthStatistics #Genomics #NeurodevelopmentalDisorders
-
🧠 🌊 Your #Consciousness surfs on #Reality
Is consciousness an isolated, “special” #function of individual #brain regions? Or is there a deeper, fundamental #principle behind it?
🎧 Listen now & learn more!
https://open.spotify.com/episode/09V2KVFLqdjg5PAlygemfS?si=4LQlgSGrQym26zhyXaR4gw
#GeorgNorthoff #ConsciousnessResearch #Neurophilosophy #TTC #CommonCurrency #BrainAndMind #Neuroscience #Zoomposium #BrainResearch #PhilosophyOfMind #Subjectivity #SpaceTimeDynamics #Psychiatry #Science #PodcastTip
-
🧠 🌊 Your #Consciousness surfs on #Reality
Is consciousness an isolated, “special” #function of individual #brain regions? Or is there a deeper, fundamental #principle behind it?
🎧 Listen now & learn more!
https://open.spotify.com/episode/09V2KVFLqdjg5PAlygemfS?si=4LQlgSGrQym26zhyXaR4gw
#GeorgNorthoff #ConsciousnessResearch #Neurophilosophy #TTC #CommonCurrency #BrainAndMind #Neuroscience #Zoomposium #BrainResearch #PhilosophyOfMind #Subjectivity #SpaceTimeDynamics #Psychiatry #Science #PodcastTip
-
🧠 🌊 Your #Consciousness surfs on #Reality
Is consciousness an isolated, “special” #function of individual #brain regions? Or is there a deeper, fundamental #principle behind it?
🎧 Listen now & learn more!
https://open.spotify.com/episode/09V2KVFLqdjg5PAlygemfS?si=4LQlgSGrQym26zhyXaR4gw
#GeorgNorthoff #ConsciousnessResearch #Neurophilosophy #TTC #CommonCurrency #BrainAndMind #Neuroscience #Zoomposium #BrainResearch #PhilosophyOfMind #Subjectivity #SpaceTimeDynamics #Psychiatry #Science #PodcastTip
-
🧠 🌊 Your #Consciousness surfs on #Reality
Is consciousness an isolated, “special” #function of individual #brain regions? Or is there a deeper, fundamental #principle behind it?
🎧 Listen now & learn more!
https://open.spotify.com/episode/09V2KVFLqdjg5PAlygemfS?si=4LQlgSGrQym26zhyXaR4gw
#GeorgNorthoff #ConsciousnessResearch #Neurophilosophy #TTC #CommonCurrency #BrainAndMind #Neuroscience #Zoomposium #BrainResearch #PhilosophyOfMind #Subjectivity #SpaceTimeDynamics #Psychiatry #Science #PodcastTip
-
🧠 🌊 Your #Consciousness surfs on #Reality
Is consciousness an isolated, “special” #function of individual #brain regions? Or is there a deeper, fundamental #principle behind it?
🎧 Listen now & learn more!
https://open.spotify.com/episode/09V2KVFLqdjg5PAlygemfS?si=4LQlgSGrQym26zhyXaR4gw
#GeorgNorthoff #ConsciousnessResearch #Neurophilosophy #TTC #CommonCurrency #BrainAndMind #Neuroscience #Zoomposium #BrainResearch #PhilosophyOfMind #Subjectivity #SpaceTimeDynamics #Psychiatry #Science #PodcastTip
-
DATE: September 25, 2026 at 05:02AM
SOURCE:
NEW YORK TIMES PSYCHOLOGY AND PSYCHOLOGISTS FEEDTITLE: Brain Science Shows Why 18 Is Too Young for the Death Penalty
URL: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/25/opinion/death-penalty-young-brain-development.html
Our brains don’t finish developing until we’re well into our 20s. That matters when deciding who gets the death penalty.
URL: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/25/opinion/death-penalty-young-brain-development.html
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#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #DeathPenalty #JuvenileJustice #BrainDevelopment #CriminalJustice #RuleOfLaw #YouthInjustice #Neuroscience #MentalMaturity #PolicyReform #PublicSafety
-
DATE: September 25, 2026 at 05:02AM
SOURCE:
NEW YORK TIMES PSYCHOLOGY AND PSYCHOLOGISTS FEEDTITLE: Brain Science Shows Why 18 Is Too Young for the Death Penalty
URL: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/25/opinion/death-penalty-young-brain-development.html
Our brains don’t finish developing until we’re well into our 20s. That matters when deciding who gets the death penalty.
URL: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/25/opinion/death-penalty-young-brain-development.html
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-
DATE: September 25, 2026 at 05:02AM
SOURCE:
NEW YORK TIMES PSYCHOLOGY AND PSYCHOLOGISTS FEEDTITLE: Brain Science Shows Why 18 Is Too Young for the Death Penalty
URL: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/25/opinion/death-penalty-young-brain-development.html
Our brains don’t finish developing until we’re well into our 20s. That matters when deciding who gets the death penalty.
URL: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/25/opinion/death-penalty-young-brain-development.html
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-
DATE: September 25, 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: Disgust predicts conservative views most strongly in people with low bodily awareness
People who are easily disgusted tend to hold more conservative political views, but a new study indicates that this connection depends heavily on how well individuals tune into their own bodily sensations. The research suggests that the link between feeling disgust and identifying as a conservative is strongest in those who are less aware of their internal physical states. The findings were published in Politics and the Life Sciences.
To understand these findings, it helps to look at two psychological concepts: disgust sensitivity and interoceptive sensibility. Disgust sensitivity refers to how intensely and easily a person experiences disgust in response to things like germs, taboo sexual acts, or moral violations like lying. Interoceptive sensibility is a person’s conscious awareness of their internal bodily signals. For instance, it involves noticing a racing heartbeat, a tense stomach, or shallow breathing during an emotional moment.
Early studies in political psychology suggested that visceral reactions to threat and disgust drive conservative political beliefs. A 2008 study reported that people with stronger involuntary physical reactions to startling or disturbing images leaned more politically conservative. Following this line of thought, research covered by PsyPost in 2019 found a psychological association in which higher self-reported disgust sensitivity predicted higher endorsement of conservative political beliefs.
Later large-scale replications challenged the biological aspect of this narrative, failing to find a dependable link between physical reactions and political ideology. A 2019 replication study found no evidence that conservatives and liberals actually differ in their automatic physiological responses to threats. Three studies covered by PsyPost in 2020 also failed to reproduce the idea that conservatives exhibit stronger physical threat responses.
This created a puzzle in the field of political psychology. Why do self-reported feelings of disgust consistently predict political ideology, even when automatic bodily reactions do not? The study was conducted by Mariana von Mohr, now a lecturer in social and affective neuroscience at the University of Kent, and Manos Tsakiris at the Centre for the Politics of Feelings. The researchers sought to address this stalemate by testing whether a person’s conscious awareness of their internal bodily signals explains why the connection appears in some people but not others.
“There is a long-standing idea that political attitudes are linked to emotional responses such as disgust, but this relationship has been surprisingly inconsistent across studies,” von Mohr told PsyPost. “We wondered whether interoception might help explain why.”
To explore this, the researchers recruited 632 adults from the United States through an online survey platform. The sample was evenly split by design, featuring 321 participants who identified as Democrats and 311 who identified as Republicans. The participants completed a series of questionnaires designed to measure their bodily awareness, their disgust triggers, and their political leanings.
To measure interoceptive sensibility, participants answered questions about how often they notice changes in their body, whether they trust their physical sensations, and how they use bodily cues to regulate their emotions. To measure disgust sensitivity, the researchers used a scale that divides disgust into three domains. These domains included pathogen disgust (like stepping on dog waste), sexual disgust (like hearing strangers engage in sexual acts), and moral disgust (like deceiving a friend).
Finally, the participants reported their political ideology on a seven-point scale ranging from very liberal to very conservative. They also confirmed their political party affiliation. The researchers then used statistical models to see how disgust sensitivity, bodily awareness, and political ideology interacted with one another.
Overall, the results confirmed past findings: higher overall disgust sensitivity was associated with a greater likelihood of identifying as a Republican and holding a conservative ideology. However, the researchers found that interoceptive sensibility changed the strength of this relationship. The connection between disgust and conservatism was most prominent among individuals who reported low awareness of their bodily sensations.
Among people with low interoceptive sensibility, those who were highly sensitive to disgust were highly likely to identify as Republicans. Statistical estimates showed that a person with high disgust sensitivity and low bodily awareness had a 64.1% probability of identifying as a Republican. They also scored on the more conservative end of the ideology scale.
In contrast, this relationship weakened among people who were highly attuned to their bodily signals. For individuals with high interoceptive sensibility, having high disgust sensitivity resulted in only a 55.4% probability of identifying as a Republican. For this group, the link between feeling easily disgusted and holding conservative views was not statistically significant after certain data corrections were applied.
When the researchers looked at the three specific domains of disgust, they found that moral disgust was the primary driver of these results. Pathogen disgust and sexual disgust did not show the same interaction with bodily awareness. The tendency for low bodily awareness to strengthen the link between disgust and conservatism was specific to situations involving moral violations and broken social norms.
“The main takeaway is that the relationship between disgust and political orientation may be more conditional than is often assumed,” von Mohr noted. “More broadly, our findings suggest that understanding the link between emotions and political attitudes may require looking not only at what people feel, but also at how much they attend to the bodily signals accompanying those feelings.”
The authors suggest that when people are less tuned into their actual physical sensations, they might rely more on socially acquired meanings to interpret their feelings. Disgust is a complex emotion shaped by culture, and conservative political frameworks often place a heavy emphasis on moral purity.
“One possibility is that people who pay less attention to their internal bodily signals may rely more on socially learned expectations to interpret what they are feeling, including ideas about what is disgusting, inappropriate, or morally wrong,” von Mohr explained. “In other words, when bodily cues are less salient, contextual and socially learned information may play a greater role in shaping how an emotion is interpreted.”
If a person is not closely monitoring their internal physical state, they might lean on these cultural scripts to make sense of what they are feeling. On the other hand, individuals who are highly attuned to their internal signals might ground their emotional experiences more in their actual biology. Because they rely more on their direct physical sensations to figure out how they feel, social and political framing might play a smaller role in their emotional interpretations. This could explain why their feelings of disgust do not map as strongly onto their political party or ideology.
There are a few things to keep in mind about this research. The data is based entirely on self-reported surveys at a single point in time, which means the study cannot determine whether feeling disgusted causes someone to become conservative, or vice versa.
“It is important not to interpret these findings as showing that bodily processes determine someone’s political beliefs, or that people with one political orientation are simply more or less ‘in touch’ with their bodies,” von Mohr clarified. She emphasized that the idea that people with lower interoceptive sensibility may rely more on socially learned interpretations is just one possible explanation for the pattern they observed, rather than something they directly tested.
The researchers also note that the direction of this relationship might depend heavily on the specific culture being studied. In a different society where liberals moralize a different set of disgust triggers, the ideological pattern might look different. Additionally, the study did not measure actual physiological responses, such as heart rate or skin conductance. The researchers measured how aware people thought they were of their bodies, rather than their objective ability to detect physical changes.
“The next step is to test the mechanism more directly,” von Mohr said. “A particularly important direction is to incorporate physiological measures, for example by examining autonomic responses such as heart rate or skin conductance while people are exposed to disgust-evoking stimuli.”
“This would allow us to distinguish more clearly between the bodily response itself, how accurately or strongly people perceive that response, and how they subsequently interpret it,” she added. “Ultimately, the broader goal is to understand how physiological responses, awareness of those responses, and socially learned meanings interact in shaping political attitudes, rather than treating emotion, physiology, and ideology as separate influences.”
The study, “The embodied roots of ideology: Interoceptive sensibility moderates the link between disgust sensitivity and political orientation,” was authored by Mariana Von Mohr and Manos Tsakiris.
-------------------------------------------------
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-------------------------------------------------
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-
DATE: September 25, 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: Disgust predicts conservative views most strongly in people with low bodily awareness
People who are easily disgusted tend to hold more conservative political views, but a new study indicates that this connection depends heavily on how well individuals tune into their own bodily sensations. The research suggests that the link between feeling disgust and identifying as a conservative is strongest in those who are less aware of their internal physical states. The findings were published in Politics and the Life Sciences.
To understand these findings, it helps to look at two psychological concepts: disgust sensitivity and interoceptive sensibility. Disgust sensitivity refers to how intensely and easily a person experiences disgust in response to things like germs, taboo sexual acts, or moral violations like lying. Interoceptive sensibility is a person’s conscious awareness of their internal bodily signals. For instance, it involves noticing a racing heartbeat, a tense stomach, or shallow breathing during an emotional moment.
Early studies in political psychology suggested that visceral reactions to threat and disgust drive conservative political beliefs. A 2008 study reported that people with stronger involuntary physical reactions to startling or disturbing images leaned more politically conservative. Following this line of thought, research covered by PsyPost in 2019 found a psychological association in which higher self-reported disgust sensitivity predicted higher endorsement of conservative political beliefs.
Later large-scale replications challenged the biological aspect of this narrative, failing to find a dependable link between physical reactions and political ideology. A 2019 replication study found no evidence that conservatives and liberals actually differ in their automatic physiological responses to threats. Three studies covered by PsyPost in 2020 also failed to reproduce the idea that conservatives exhibit stronger physical threat responses.
This created a puzzle in the field of political psychology. Why do self-reported feelings of disgust consistently predict political ideology, even when automatic bodily reactions do not? The study was conducted by Mariana von Mohr, now a lecturer in social and affective neuroscience at the University of Kent, and Manos Tsakiris at the Centre for the Politics of Feelings. The researchers sought to address this stalemate by testing whether a person’s conscious awareness of their internal bodily signals explains why the connection appears in some people but not others.
“There is a long-standing idea that political attitudes are linked to emotional responses such as disgust, but this relationship has been surprisingly inconsistent across studies,” von Mohr told PsyPost. “We wondered whether interoception might help explain why.”
To explore this, the researchers recruited 632 adults from the United States through an online survey platform. The sample was evenly split by design, featuring 321 participants who identified as Democrats and 311 who identified as Republicans. The participants completed a series of questionnaires designed to measure their bodily awareness, their disgust triggers, and their political leanings.
To measure interoceptive sensibility, participants answered questions about how often they notice changes in their body, whether they trust their physical sensations, and how they use bodily cues to regulate their emotions. To measure disgust sensitivity, the researchers used a scale that divides disgust into three domains. These domains included pathogen disgust (like stepping on dog waste), sexual disgust (like hearing strangers engage in sexual acts), and moral disgust (like deceiving a friend).
Finally, the participants reported their political ideology on a seven-point scale ranging from very liberal to very conservative. They also confirmed their political party affiliation. The researchers then used statistical models to see how disgust sensitivity, bodily awareness, and political ideology interacted with one another.
Overall, the results confirmed past findings: higher overall disgust sensitivity was associated with a greater likelihood of identifying as a Republican and holding a conservative ideology. However, the researchers found that interoceptive sensibility changed the strength of this relationship. The connection between disgust and conservatism was most prominent among individuals who reported low awareness of their bodily sensations.
Among people with low interoceptive sensibility, those who were highly sensitive to disgust were highly likely to identify as Republicans. Statistical estimates showed that a person with high disgust sensitivity and low bodily awareness had a 64.1% probability of identifying as a Republican. They also scored on the more conservative end of the ideology scale.
In contrast, this relationship weakened among people who were highly attuned to their bodily signals. For individuals with high interoceptive sensibility, having high disgust sensitivity resulted in only a 55.4% probability of identifying as a Republican. For this group, the link between feeling easily disgusted and holding conservative views was not statistically significant after certain data corrections were applied.
When the researchers looked at the three specific domains of disgust, they found that moral disgust was the primary driver of these results. Pathogen disgust and sexual disgust did not show the same interaction with bodily awareness. The tendency for low bodily awareness to strengthen the link between disgust and conservatism was specific to situations involving moral violations and broken social norms.
“The main takeaway is that the relationship between disgust and political orientation may be more conditional than is often assumed,” von Mohr noted. “More broadly, our findings suggest that understanding the link between emotions and political attitudes may require looking not only at what people feel, but also at how much they attend to the bodily signals accompanying those feelings.”
The authors suggest that when people are less tuned into their actual physical sensations, they might rely more on socially acquired meanings to interpret their feelings. Disgust is a complex emotion shaped by culture, and conservative political frameworks often place a heavy emphasis on moral purity.
“One possibility is that people who pay less attention to their internal bodily signals may rely more on socially learned expectations to interpret what they are feeling, including ideas about what is disgusting, inappropriate, or morally wrong,” von Mohr explained. “In other words, when bodily cues are less salient, contextual and socially learned information may play a greater role in shaping how an emotion is interpreted.”
If a person is not closely monitoring their internal physical state, they might lean on these cultural scripts to make sense of what they are feeling. On the other hand, individuals who are highly attuned to their internal signals might ground their emotional experiences more in their actual biology. Because they rely more on their direct physical sensations to figure out how they feel, social and political framing might play a smaller role in their emotional interpretations. This could explain why their feelings of disgust do not map as strongly onto their political party or ideology.
There are a few things to keep in mind about this research. The data is based entirely on self-reported surveys at a single point in time, which means the study cannot determine whether feeling disgusted causes someone to become conservative, or vice versa.
“It is important not to interpret these findings as showing that bodily processes determine someone’s political beliefs, or that people with one political orientation are simply more or less ‘in touch’ with their bodies,” von Mohr clarified. She emphasized that the idea that people with lower interoceptive sensibility may rely more on socially learned interpretations is just one possible explanation for the pattern they observed, rather than something they directly tested.
The researchers also note that the direction of this relationship might depend heavily on the specific culture being studied. In a different society where liberals moralize a different set of disgust triggers, the ideological pattern might look different. Additionally, the study did not measure actual physiological responses, such as heart rate or skin conductance. The researchers measured how aware people thought they were of their bodies, rather than their objective ability to detect physical changes.
“The next step is to test the mechanism more directly,” von Mohr said. “A particularly important direction is to incorporate physiological measures, for example by examining autonomic responses such as heart rate or skin conductance while people are exposed to disgust-evoking stimuli.”
“This would allow us to distinguish more clearly between the bodily response itself, how accurately or strongly people perceive that response, and how they subsequently interpret it,” she added. “Ultimately, the broader goal is to understand how physiological responses, awareness of those responses, and socially learned meanings interact in shaping political attitudes, rather than treating emotion, physiology, and ideology as separate influences.”
The study, “The embodied roots of ideology: Interoceptive sensibility moderates the link between disgust sensitivity and political orientation,” was authored by Mariana Von Mohr and Manos Tsakiris.
-------------------------------------------------
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Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #DisgustPolitics #Interoception #Conservatism #DisgustSensitivity #PoliticalPsychology #BodyAwareness #MoralDisgust #PoliticalOrientation #PLOSStudy #EmbodiedPolitics
-
DATE: September 25, 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: Disgust predicts conservative views most strongly in people with low bodily awareness
People who are easily disgusted tend to hold more conservative political views, but a new study indicates that this connection depends heavily on how well individuals tune into their own bodily sensations. The research suggests that the link between feeling disgust and identifying as a conservative is strongest in those who are less aware of their internal physical states. The findings were published in Politics and the Life Sciences.
To understand these findings, it helps to look at two psychological concepts: disgust sensitivity and interoceptive sensibility. Disgust sensitivity refers to how intensely and easily a person experiences disgust in response to things like germs, taboo sexual acts, or moral violations like lying. Interoceptive sensibility is a person’s conscious awareness of their internal bodily signals. For instance, it involves noticing a racing heartbeat, a tense stomach, or shallow breathing during an emotional moment.
Early studies in political psychology suggested that visceral reactions to threat and disgust drive conservative political beliefs. A 2008 study reported that people with stronger involuntary physical reactions to startling or disturbing images leaned more politically conservative. Following this line of thought, research covered by PsyPost in 2019 found a psychological association in which higher self-reported disgust sensitivity predicted higher endorsement of conservative political beliefs.
Later large-scale replications challenged the biological aspect of this narrative, failing to find a dependable link between physical reactions and political ideology. A 2019 replication study found no evidence that conservatives and liberals actually differ in their automatic physiological responses to threats. Three studies covered by PsyPost in 2020 also failed to reproduce the idea that conservatives exhibit stronger physical threat responses.
This created a puzzle in the field of political psychology. Why do self-reported feelings of disgust consistently predict political ideology, even when automatic bodily reactions do not? The study was conducted by Mariana von Mohr, now a lecturer in social and affective neuroscience at the University of Kent, and Manos Tsakiris at the Centre for the Politics of Feelings. The researchers sought to address this stalemate by testing whether a person’s conscious awareness of their internal bodily signals explains why the connection appears in some people but not others.
“There is a long-standing idea that political attitudes are linked to emotional responses such as disgust, but this relationship has been surprisingly inconsistent across studies,” von Mohr told PsyPost. “We wondered whether interoception might help explain why.”
To explore this, the researchers recruited 632 adults from the United States through an online survey platform. The sample was evenly split by design, featuring 321 participants who identified as Democrats and 311 who identified as Republicans. The participants completed a series of questionnaires designed to measure their bodily awareness, their disgust triggers, and their political leanings.
To measure interoceptive sensibility, participants answered questions about how often they notice changes in their body, whether they trust their physical sensations, and how they use bodily cues to regulate their emotions. To measure disgust sensitivity, the researchers used a scale that divides disgust into three domains. These domains included pathogen disgust (like stepping on dog waste), sexual disgust (like hearing strangers engage in sexual acts), and moral disgust (like deceiving a friend).
Finally, the participants reported their political ideology on a seven-point scale ranging from very liberal to very conservative. They also confirmed their political party affiliation. The researchers then used statistical models to see how disgust sensitivity, bodily awareness, and political ideology interacted with one another.
Overall, the results confirmed past findings: higher overall disgust sensitivity was associated with a greater likelihood of identifying as a Republican and holding a conservative ideology. However, the researchers found that interoceptive sensibility changed the strength of this relationship. The connection between disgust and conservatism was most prominent among individuals who reported low awareness of their bodily sensations.
Among people with low interoceptive sensibility, those who were highly sensitive to disgust were highly likely to identify as Republicans. Statistical estimates showed that a person with high disgust sensitivity and low bodily awareness had a 64.1% probability of identifying as a Republican. They also scored on the more conservative end of the ideology scale.
In contrast, this relationship weakened among people who were highly attuned to their bodily signals. For individuals with high interoceptive sensibility, having high disgust sensitivity resulted in only a 55.4% probability of identifying as a Republican. For this group, the link between feeling easily disgusted and holding conservative views was not statistically significant after certain data corrections were applied.
When the researchers looked at the three specific domains of disgust, they found that moral disgust was the primary driver of these results. Pathogen disgust and sexual disgust did not show the same interaction with bodily awareness. The tendency for low bodily awareness to strengthen the link between disgust and conservatism was specific to situations involving moral violations and broken social norms.
“The main takeaway is that the relationship between disgust and political orientation may be more conditional than is often assumed,” von Mohr noted. “More broadly, our findings suggest that understanding the link between emotions and political attitudes may require looking not only at what people feel, but also at how much they attend to the bodily signals accompanying those feelings.”
The authors suggest that when people are less tuned into their actual physical sensations, they might rely more on socially acquired meanings to interpret their feelings. Disgust is a complex emotion shaped by culture, and conservative political frameworks often place a heavy emphasis on moral purity.
“One possibility is that people who pay less attention to their internal bodily signals may rely more on socially learned expectations to interpret what they are feeling, including ideas about what is disgusting, inappropriate, or morally wrong,” von Mohr explained. “In other words, when bodily cues are less salient, contextual and socially learned information may play a greater role in shaping how an emotion is interpreted.”
If a person is not closely monitoring their internal physical state, they might lean on these cultural scripts to make sense of what they are feeling. On the other hand, individuals who are highly attuned to their internal signals might ground their emotional experiences more in their actual biology. Because they rely more on their direct physical sensations to figure out how they feel, social and political framing might play a smaller role in their emotional interpretations. This could explain why their feelings of disgust do not map as strongly onto their political party or ideology.
There are a few things to keep in mind about this research. The data is based entirely on self-reported surveys at a single point in time, which means the study cannot determine whether feeling disgusted causes someone to become conservative, or vice versa.
“It is important not to interpret these findings as showing that bodily processes determine someone’s political beliefs, or that people with one political orientation are simply more or less ‘in touch’ with their bodies,” von Mohr clarified. She emphasized that the idea that people with lower interoceptive sensibility may rely more on socially learned interpretations is just one possible explanation for the pattern they observed, rather than something they directly tested.
The researchers also note that the direction of this relationship might depend heavily on the specific culture being studied. In a different society where liberals moralize a different set of disgust triggers, the ideological pattern might look different. Additionally, the study did not measure actual physiological responses, such as heart rate or skin conductance. The researchers measured how aware people thought they were of their bodies, rather than their objective ability to detect physical changes.
“The next step is to test the mechanism more directly,” von Mohr said. “A particularly important direction is to incorporate physiological measures, for example by examining autonomic responses such as heart rate or skin conductance while people are exposed to disgust-evoking stimuli.”
“This would allow us to distinguish more clearly between the bodily response itself, how accurately or strongly people perceive that response, and how they subsequently interpret it,” she added. “Ultimately, the broader goal is to understand how physiological responses, awareness of those responses, and socially learned meanings interact in shaping political attitudes, rather than treating emotion, physiology, and ideology as separate influences.”
The study, “The embodied roots of ideology: Interoceptive sensibility moderates the link between disgust sensitivity and political orientation,” was authored by Mariana Von Mohr and Manos Tsakiris.
-------------------------------------------------
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 #DisgustPolitics #Interoception #Conservatism #DisgustSensitivity #PoliticalPsychology #BodyAwareness #MoralDisgust #PoliticalOrientation #PLOSStudy #EmbodiedPolitics
-
TRIGGER WARNING: Military Psychology
DATE: September 23, 2026 at 09:30PM
SOURCE: MILIARY PSYCHOLOGY JOURNAL: APA DIVISION 19TITLE: Treatment retention profiles for combat veterans in individual and group therapy following the October 7th War
URL: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/08995605.2026.2737914?af=R
.
URL: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/08995605.2026.2737914?af=R
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DATE: September 24, 2026 at 10:00PM
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: Brain structure changes appear seven years before Alzheimer’s plaques are detected
Structural changes in the brain’s outer layer can be detected years before amyloid-beta proteins reach high levels on brain scans. This discovery suggests that physical alterations to brain tissue might be an earlier sign of Alzheimer’s disease than previously thought. The findings were published in Nature Neuroscience.
Alzheimer’s disease is a progressive neurological condition that destroys memory and other important mental functions. One of the main biological hallmarks of the disease is the accumulation of amyloid-beta, a protein that clumps together to form plaques between nerve cells in the brain. Historically, the standard model of Alzheimer’s assumed that these amyloid plaques build up first and trigger brain shrinkage later. A 2010 study proposed exactly this timeline, arguing that amyloid buildup is the very first event in the disease process, with brain volume loss occurring only as a later consequence.
Earlier research showed that elevated amyloid-beta levels accelerate brain volume loss. For instance, a study covered by PsyPost in 2024 found that people with high amyloid levels exhibited faster brain volume loss even before cognitive symptoms appeared. However, hints emerged that brain tissue might paradoxically swell and change well before amyloid scans turn positive. A 2020 review noted that the outer layer of the brain temporarily thickens or swells in the earliest stages of genetic Alzheimer’s before it begins to waste away.
The new study directly tracks people over time to confirm that these cortical changes can be detected years before amyloid buildup crosses the threshold of detection on brain scans. The cerebral cortex is the wrinkled outer layer of the brain, playing a major role in memory, thinking, and reasoning. The thickness of this layer typically decreases as people age, a process known as cortical thinning. The research, led by James M. Roe and Yunpeng Wang of the University of Oslo, aimed to see if changes in this thinning process happen before a person registers as positive for amyloid-beta.
To investigate this timeline, the researchers analyzed data from three large, long-term studies of cognitive aging. They focused on individuals who were cognitively healthy, meaning they did not show signs of dementia or cognitive impairment. The researchers used magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI, which is a technique that uses magnetic fields to create detailed images of brain structure. This allowed them to measure the thickness of the cerebral cortex over time. They also used positron emission tomography, or PET scans, which use a mildly radioactive tracer to reveal the presence and quantity of amyloid-beta plaques in the brain.
The final sample included 4,570 MRI scans from 1,051 individuals. Among these participants, 691 also had amyloid-beta PET scans available. The research team used the PET scan data to divide the participants into two distinct groups. The first group consisted of 77 converters, which were people who initially had low levels of amyloid-beta but later crossed the threshold into high, positive levels during the study. The second group consisted of 412 individuals who remained negative for high amyloid-beta across all of their available PET scans.
The scientists then looked back at the MRI data. For the converters, they artificially cut off the timeline, excluding any MRI scans taken near or after the time the person tested positive for amyloid-beta. Instead, they focused purely on brain scans taken between one and ten years before the individual’s first positive PET scan. By doing this, they could compare the early brain structures of people who would eventually develop high amyloid-beta to those who never did. In their analyses, the researchers controlled for variables like biological sex, average age, overall brain size, and the specific type of MRI scanner used.
The results provided evidence that individuals who later developed high amyloid levels showed a thicker cerebral cortex compared to those who remained amyloid-negative. These individuals also exhibited a slower rate of age-related cortical thinning over time. Essentially, the expected rate of brain shrinkage was reduced in the years leading up to a positive amyloid scan. These physical differences were detectable in MRI scans taken at least seven years before the participants reached amyloid levels high enough to be classified as positive.
These structural differences were especially prominent in the frontal regions of the brain. The researchers wanted to know if these differences were simply a byproduct of slowly rising amyloid levels that had not yet crossed the positive threshold. When they adjusted their statistical models to account for the exact, continuous levels of amyloid buildup measured in the early PET scans, many of the cortical thickness differences persisted. This indicates that the structural changes to the cortex are at least partly independent of early amyloid accumulation.
The researchers also found a spatial relationship between the brain changes and amyloid buildup. The geographic pattern of cortical thickening closely mapped onto the regions of the brain where amyloid-beta tends to accumulate. In addition, the timing of these structural changes paralleled the spread of the plaques. Brain regions that experienced earlier structural changes tended to be the exact regions where amyloid began to deposit first.
As with all research, there are a few things to keep in mind. The time cutoffs used in the study were based on when an individual was first observed to have high amyloid-beta, not the exact biological moment they crossed the threshold. Because PET scans were taken at intervals, some people might have developed undetected amyloid buildup earlier than their first positive scan recorded. To address this, the researchers used statistical predictions to estimate the exact age of positivity, and the results remained consistent, though this approach relies on mathematical assumptions.
Another detail to consider is that the study only included cognitively healthy older adults. Participants who volunteer for long-term aging studies often represent a particularly healthy and high-performing demographic, which might not completely reflect the general population. It is also important to note that the study did not include measures of tau, another key protein involved in Alzheimer’s disease that strongly affects brain shrinkage. The researchers pointed out that because tau typically accumulates after amyloid-beta, it is unlikely to be driving the structural changes seen seven years prior to amyloid positivity.
Future research will need to explore what exactly causes this early increase in cortical thickness. An apparent increase in thickness on an MRI scan could reflect several different biological processes, such as an inflammatory response to early amyloid deposits, or changes in the supporting cells of the brain, rather than the addition of new neurons. Tracking these changes alongside other biological markers will help clarify whether this early swelling is a protective mechanism or the first step in the neurodegenerative process.
The study, “Cortical thickness changes precede high levels of amyloid by at least 7 years,” was authored by James M. Roe, William J. Jagust, Susan M. Landau, Theresa M. Harrison, Håkon Grydeland, Maksim Slivka, José-Luis Alatorre-Warren, Pablo F. Garrido, Øystein Sørensen, Edvard O. S. Grødem, Tyler J. Ward, Esten H. Leonardsen, Alice Murphy, JiaQie Lee, Tormod Fladby, Atle Bjørnerud, Kristine B. Walhovd, Anders M. Fjell, Didac Vidal-Piñeiro, and Yunpeng Wang.
-------------------------------------------------
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-------------------------------------------------
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-
DATE: September 24, 2026 at 10:00PM
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: Brain structure changes appear seven years before Alzheimer’s plaques are detected
Structural changes in the brain’s outer layer can be detected years before amyloid-beta proteins reach high levels on brain scans. This discovery suggests that physical alterations to brain tissue might be an earlier sign of Alzheimer’s disease than previously thought. The findings were published in Nature Neuroscience.
Alzheimer’s disease is a progressive neurological condition that destroys memory and other important mental functions. One of the main biological hallmarks of the disease is the accumulation of amyloid-beta, a protein that clumps together to form plaques between nerve cells in the brain. Historically, the standard model of Alzheimer’s assumed that these amyloid plaques build up first and trigger brain shrinkage later. A 2010 study proposed exactly this timeline, arguing that amyloid buildup is the very first event in the disease process, with brain volume loss occurring only as a later consequence.
Earlier research showed that elevated amyloid-beta levels accelerate brain volume loss. For instance, a study covered by PsyPost in 2024 found that people with high amyloid levels exhibited faster brain volume loss even before cognitive symptoms appeared. However, hints emerged that brain tissue might paradoxically swell and change well before amyloid scans turn positive. A 2020 review noted that the outer layer of the brain temporarily thickens or swells in the earliest stages of genetic Alzheimer’s before it begins to waste away.
The new study directly tracks people over time to confirm that these cortical changes can be detected years before amyloid buildup crosses the threshold of detection on brain scans. The cerebral cortex is the wrinkled outer layer of the brain, playing a major role in memory, thinking, and reasoning. The thickness of this layer typically decreases as people age, a process known as cortical thinning. The research, led by James M. Roe and Yunpeng Wang of the University of Oslo, aimed to see if changes in this thinning process happen before a person registers as positive for amyloid-beta.
To investigate this timeline, the researchers analyzed data from three large, long-term studies of cognitive aging. They focused on individuals who were cognitively healthy, meaning they did not show signs of dementia or cognitive impairment. The researchers used magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI, which is a technique that uses magnetic fields to create detailed images of brain structure. This allowed them to measure the thickness of the cerebral cortex over time. They also used positron emission tomography, or PET scans, which use a mildly radioactive tracer to reveal the presence and quantity of amyloid-beta plaques in the brain.
The final sample included 4,570 MRI scans from 1,051 individuals. Among these participants, 691 also had amyloid-beta PET scans available. The research team used the PET scan data to divide the participants into two distinct groups. The first group consisted of 77 converters, which were people who initially had low levels of amyloid-beta but later crossed the threshold into high, positive levels during the study. The second group consisted of 412 individuals who remained negative for high amyloid-beta across all of their available PET scans.
The scientists then looked back at the MRI data. For the converters, they artificially cut off the timeline, excluding any MRI scans taken near or after the time the person tested positive for amyloid-beta. Instead, they focused purely on brain scans taken between one and ten years before the individual’s first positive PET scan. By doing this, they could compare the early brain structures of people who would eventually develop high amyloid-beta to those who never did. In their analyses, the researchers controlled for variables like biological sex, average age, overall brain size, and the specific type of MRI scanner used.
The results provided evidence that individuals who later developed high amyloid levels showed a thicker cerebral cortex compared to those who remained amyloid-negative. These individuals also exhibited a slower rate of age-related cortical thinning over time. Essentially, the expected rate of brain shrinkage was reduced in the years leading up to a positive amyloid scan. These physical differences were detectable in MRI scans taken at least seven years before the participants reached amyloid levels high enough to be classified as positive.
These structural differences were especially prominent in the frontal regions of the brain. The researchers wanted to know if these differences were simply a byproduct of slowly rising amyloid levels that had not yet crossed the positive threshold. When they adjusted their statistical models to account for the exact, continuous levels of amyloid buildup measured in the early PET scans, many of the cortical thickness differences persisted. This indicates that the structural changes to the cortex are at least partly independent of early amyloid accumulation.
The researchers also found a spatial relationship between the brain changes and amyloid buildup. The geographic pattern of cortical thickening closely mapped onto the regions of the brain where amyloid-beta tends to accumulate. In addition, the timing of these structural changes paralleled the spread of the plaques. Brain regions that experienced earlier structural changes tended to be the exact regions where amyloid began to deposit first.
As with all research, there are a few things to keep in mind. The time cutoffs used in the study were based on when an individual was first observed to have high amyloid-beta, not the exact biological moment they crossed the threshold. Because PET scans were taken at intervals, some people might have developed undetected amyloid buildup earlier than their first positive scan recorded. To address this, the researchers used statistical predictions to estimate the exact age of positivity, and the results remained consistent, though this approach relies on mathematical assumptions.
Another detail to consider is that the study only included cognitively healthy older adults. Participants who volunteer for long-term aging studies often represent a particularly healthy and high-performing demographic, which might not completely reflect the general population. It is also important to note that the study did not include measures of tau, another key protein involved in Alzheimer’s disease that strongly affects brain shrinkage. The researchers pointed out that because tau typically accumulates after amyloid-beta, it is unlikely to be driving the structural changes seen seven years prior to amyloid positivity.
Future research will need to explore what exactly causes this early increase in cortical thickness. An apparent increase in thickness on an MRI scan could reflect several different biological processes, such as an inflammatory response to early amyloid deposits, or changes in the supporting cells of the brain, rather than the addition of new neurons. Tracking these changes alongside other biological markers will help clarify whether this early swelling is a protective mechanism or the first step in the neurodegenerative process.
The study, “Cortical thickness changes precede high levels of amyloid by at least 7 years,” was authored by James M. Roe, William J. Jagust, Susan M. Landau, Theresa M. Harrison, Håkon Grydeland, Maksim Slivka, José-Luis Alatorre-Warren, Pablo F. Garrido, Øystein Sørensen, Edvard O. S. Grødem, Tyler J. Ward, Esten H. Leonardsen, Alice Murphy, JiaQie Lee, Tormod Fladby, Atle Bjørnerud, Kristine B. Walhovd, Anders M. Fjell, Didac Vidal-Piñeiro, and Yunpeng Wang.
-------------------------------------------------
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-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #AlzheimerPagination #CorticalThickness #BrainStructure #AmyloidBeta #EarlyDetection #MRI #PETScan #Frontotemporal #AgingBrain #NatureNeuroscience
-
DATE: September 24, 2026 at 10:00PM
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: Brain structure changes appear seven years before Alzheimer’s plaques are detected
Structural changes in the brain’s outer layer can be detected years before amyloid-beta proteins reach high levels on brain scans. This discovery suggests that physical alterations to brain tissue might be an earlier sign of Alzheimer’s disease than previously thought. The findings were published in Nature Neuroscience.
Alzheimer’s disease is a progressive neurological condition that destroys memory and other important mental functions. One of the main biological hallmarks of the disease is the accumulation of amyloid-beta, a protein that clumps together to form plaques between nerve cells in the brain. Historically, the standard model of Alzheimer’s assumed that these amyloid plaques build up first and trigger brain shrinkage later. A 2010 study proposed exactly this timeline, arguing that amyloid buildup is the very first event in the disease process, with brain volume loss occurring only as a later consequence.
Earlier research showed that elevated amyloid-beta levels accelerate brain volume loss. For instance, a study covered by PsyPost in 2024 found that people with high amyloid levels exhibited faster brain volume loss even before cognitive symptoms appeared. However, hints emerged that brain tissue might paradoxically swell and change well before amyloid scans turn positive. A 2020 review noted that the outer layer of the brain temporarily thickens or swells in the earliest stages of genetic Alzheimer’s before it begins to waste away.
The new study directly tracks people over time to confirm that these cortical changes can be detected years before amyloid buildup crosses the threshold of detection on brain scans. The cerebral cortex is the wrinkled outer layer of the brain, playing a major role in memory, thinking, and reasoning. The thickness of this layer typically decreases as people age, a process known as cortical thinning. The research, led by James M. Roe and Yunpeng Wang of the University of Oslo, aimed to see if changes in this thinning process happen before a person registers as positive for amyloid-beta.
To investigate this timeline, the researchers analyzed data from three large, long-term studies of cognitive aging. They focused on individuals who were cognitively healthy, meaning they did not show signs of dementia or cognitive impairment. The researchers used magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI, which is a technique that uses magnetic fields to create detailed images of brain structure. This allowed them to measure the thickness of the cerebral cortex over time. They also used positron emission tomography, or PET scans, which use a mildly radioactive tracer to reveal the presence and quantity of amyloid-beta plaques in the brain.
The final sample included 4,570 MRI scans from 1,051 individuals. Among these participants, 691 also had amyloid-beta PET scans available. The research team used the PET scan data to divide the participants into two distinct groups. The first group consisted of 77 converters, which were people who initially had low levels of amyloid-beta but later crossed the threshold into high, positive levels during the study. The second group consisted of 412 individuals who remained negative for high amyloid-beta across all of their available PET scans.
The scientists then looked back at the MRI data. For the converters, they artificially cut off the timeline, excluding any MRI scans taken near or after the time the person tested positive for amyloid-beta. Instead, they focused purely on brain scans taken between one and ten years before the individual’s first positive PET scan. By doing this, they could compare the early brain structures of people who would eventually develop high amyloid-beta to those who never did. In their analyses, the researchers controlled for variables like biological sex, average age, overall brain size, and the specific type of MRI scanner used.
The results provided evidence that individuals who later developed high amyloid levels showed a thicker cerebral cortex compared to those who remained amyloid-negative. These individuals also exhibited a slower rate of age-related cortical thinning over time. Essentially, the expected rate of brain shrinkage was reduced in the years leading up to a positive amyloid scan. These physical differences were detectable in MRI scans taken at least seven years before the participants reached amyloid levels high enough to be classified as positive.
These structural differences were especially prominent in the frontal regions of the brain. The researchers wanted to know if these differences were simply a byproduct of slowly rising amyloid levels that had not yet crossed the positive threshold. When they adjusted their statistical models to account for the exact, continuous levels of amyloid buildup measured in the early PET scans, many of the cortical thickness differences persisted. This indicates that the structural changes to the cortex are at least partly independent of early amyloid accumulation.
The researchers also found a spatial relationship between the brain changes and amyloid buildup. The geographic pattern of cortical thickening closely mapped onto the regions of the brain where amyloid-beta tends to accumulate. In addition, the timing of these structural changes paralleled the spread of the plaques. Brain regions that experienced earlier structural changes tended to be the exact regions where amyloid began to deposit first.
As with all research, there are a few things to keep in mind. The time cutoffs used in the study were based on when an individual was first observed to have high amyloid-beta, not the exact biological moment they crossed the threshold. Because PET scans were taken at intervals, some people might have developed undetected amyloid buildup earlier than their first positive scan recorded. To address this, the researchers used statistical predictions to estimate the exact age of positivity, and the results remained consistent, though this approach relies on mathematical assumptions.
Another detail to consider is that the study only included cognitively healthy older adults. Participants who volunteer for long-term aging studies often represent a particularly healthy and high-performing demographic, which might not completely reflect the general population. It is also important to note that the study did not include measures of tau, another key protein involved in Alzheimer’s disease that strongly affects brain shrinkage. The researchers pointed out that because tau typically accumulates after amyloid-beta, it is unlikely to be driving the structural changes seen seven years prior to amyloid positivity.
Future research will need to explore what exactly causes this early increase in cortical thickness. An apparent increase in thickness on an MRI scan could reflect several different biological processes, such as an inflammatory response to early amyloid deposits, or changes in the supporting cells of the brain, rather than the addition of new neurons. Tracking these changes alongside other biological markers will help clarify whether this early swelling is a protective mechanism or the first step in the neurodegenerative process.
The study, “Cortical thickness changes precede high levels of amyloid by at least 7 years,” was authored by James M. Roe, William J. Jagust, Susan M. Landau, Theresa M. Harrison, Håkon Grydeland, Maksim Slivka, José-Luis Alatorre-Warren, Pablo F. Garrido, Øystein Sørensen, Edvard O. S. Grødem, Tyler J. Ward, Esten H. Leonardsen, Alice Murphy, JiaQie Lee, Tormod Fladby, Atle Bjørnerud, Kristine B. Walhovd, Anders M. Fjell, Didac Vidal-Piñeiro, and Yunpeng Wang.
-------------------------------------------------
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 #AlzheimerPagination #CorticalThickness #BrainStructure #AmyloidBeta #EarlyDetection #MRI #PETScan #Frontotemporal #AgingBrain #NatureNeuroscience
-
DATE: September 24, 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: Intelligence and personality traits do not predict inattentional blindness
URL: https://www.psypost.org/intelligence-and-personality-traits-do-not-predict-inattentional-blindness/
People’s intelligence and personality traits do little to predict whether they will notice an unexpected object while concentrating on another task, according to a study published in Royal Society Open Science. The findings suggest that inattentional blindness may depend more on the demands and design of a situation than on stable differences between individuals.
Inattentional blindness occurs when people fail to see something that is clearly visible because their attention is directed elsewhere. A person counting ball passes in a video, for example, may miss an unusual figure moving through the scene. The failure does not necessarily mean the person has poor eyesight or low intelligence. Instead, attention is limited, and the brain prioritizes information relevant to the task at hand.
Previous research has examined whether some people are consistently better at noticing unexpected events. Possible predictors have included intelligence, working memory (the ability to hold and manipulate information over short periods) and personality traits such as openness or absorption (a tendency to become deeply immersed in sensory and imaginative experiences). However, earlier studies often involved small numbers of participants and produced inconsistent results.
The new research was designed to provide a stronger test. Led by Daniel J. Simons of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the researchers conducted two large online studies across multiple countries. One study examined cognitive ability and included 1,000 participants in the final analyses. The second examined personality and also included 1,000 participants.
Participants completed three inattentional blindness tasks. In one, they judged the length of lines while an unexpected shape briefly appeared. In another, they counted the movements of shapes while an unexpected object traveled through the display. In the third, they searched for a target number among symbols while another object appeared in the scene.
Participants in the cognitive ability study completed tests of visual reasoning and working memory. Those in the personality study completed measures of the Big Five personality traits (extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and open-mindedness), absorption, attention-related symptoms (specifically those related to ADHD) and perfectionism-related characteristics.
The proportion of people who noticed the unexpected object varied between 39% and 66%, depending on the task. In the counting task, about 45% of participants noticed the unexpected object in both the easier and more difficult conditions. This did not reproduce the common finding that a harder main task reduces noticing.
People who noticed an unexpected object in one task were slightly more likely to notice one in another task. However, the relationship was weak, suggesting that there may be a small tendency for some people to notice more often without indicating a strong, stable “noticer” personality.
Some cognitive measures were associated with noticing in particular conditions. For example, higher scores on certain reasoning and working memory tests were linked with slightly greater noticing in the easier condition. But these relationships were small and inconsistent. A measure that predicted more noticing in one condition sometimes predicted less noticing in another.
Personality produced even less evidence of a reliable relationship. None of the personality measures consistently predicted noticing. When the researchers combined the full set of cognitive or personality measures, the models explained very little of the differences between participants.
The authors concluded: “Collectively, we found evidence that individual differences in some cognitive abilities weakly and inconsistently predicted noticing, but little or no evidence that individual differences in personality predicted noticing.”
Some limitations are to be noted. For example, the online format limited experimental control, and the sample included relatively few older adults. Also, noticing an unexpected object is difficult to measure repeatedly because individuals may remember the task and deliberately search for the object the next time.
The study, “Do individual differences in cognitive ability or personality predict noticing in inattentional blindness tasks?”, was authored by Daniel J. Simons, Yifan Ding, Connor M. Hults and Brent W. Roberts.
URL: https://www.psypost.org/intelligence-and-personality-traits-do-not-predict-inattentional-blindness/
-------------------------------------------------
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-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #inattentionalblindness #cognitiveability #personalitytraits #attention #visualreasoning #workingmemory #BigFive #researchstudy #psychologynews #RSOS
-
DATE: September 24, 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: Intelligence and personality traits do not predict inattentional blindness
URL: https://www.psypost.org/intelligence-and-personality-traits-do-not-predict-inattentional-blindness/
People’s intelligence and personality traits do little to predict whether they will notice an unexpected object while concentrating on another task, according to a study published in Royal Society Open Science. The findings suggest that inattentional blindness may depend more on the demands and design of a situation than on stable differences between individuals.
Inattentional blindness occurs when people fail to see something that is clearly visible because their attention is directed elsewhere. A person counting ball passes in a video, for example, may miss an unusual figure moving through the scene. The failure does not necessarily mean the person has poor eyesight or low intelligence. Instead, attention is limited, and the brain prioritizes information relevant to the task at hand.
Previous research has examined whether some people are consistently better at noticing unexpected events. Possible predictors have included intelligence, working memory (the ability to hold and manipulate information over short periods) and personality traits such as openness or absorption (a tendency to become deeply immersed in sensory and imaginative experiences). However, earlier studies often involved small numbers of participants and produced inconsistent results.
The new research was designed to provide a stronger test. Led by Daniel J. Simons of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the researchers conducted two large online studies across multiple countries. One study examined cognitive ability and included 1,000 participants in the final analyses. The second examined personality and also included 1,000 participants.
Participants completed three inattentional blindness tasks. In one, they judged the length of lines while an unexpected shape briefly appeared. In another, they counted the movements of shapes while an unexpected object traveled through the display. In the third, they searched for a target number among symbols while another object appeared in the scene.
Participants in the cognitive ability study completed tests of visual reasoning and working memory. Those in the personality study completed measures of the Big Five personality traits (extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and open-mindedness), absorption, attention-related symptoms (specifically those related to ADHD) and perfectionism-related characteristics.
The proportion of people who noticed the unexpected object varied between 39% and 66%, depending on the task. In the counting task, about 45% of participants noticed the unexpected object in both the easier and more difficult conditions. This did not reproduce the common finding that a harder main task reduces noticing.
People who noticed an unexpected object in one task were slightly more likely to notice one in another task. However, the relationship was weak, suggesting that there may be a small tendency for some people to notice more often without indicating a strong, stable “noticer” personality.
Some cognitive measures were associated with noticing in particular conditions. For example, higher scores on certain reasoning and working memory tests were linked with slightly greater noticing in the easier condition. But these relationships were small and inconsistent. A measure that predicted more noticing in one condition sometimes predicted less noticing in another.
Personality produced even less evidence of a reliable relationship. None of the personality measures consistently predicted noticing. When the researchers combined the full set of cognitive or personality measures, the models explained very little of the differences between participants.
The authors concluded: “Collectively, we found evidence that individual differences in some cognitive abilities weakly and inconsistently predicted noticing, but little or no evidence that individual differences in personality predicted noticing.”
Some limitations are to be noted. For example, the online format limited experimental control, and the sample included relatively few older adults. Also, noticing an unexpected object is difficult to measure repeatedly because individuals may remember the task and deliberately search for the object the next time.
The study, “Do individual differences in cognitive ability or personality predict noticing in inattentional blindness tasks?”, was authored by Daniel J. Simons, Yifan Ding, Connor M. Hults and Brent W. Roberts.
URL: https://www.psypost.org/intelligence-and-personality-traits-do-not-predict-inattentional-blindness/
-------------------------------------------------
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 #inattentionalblindness #cognitiveability #personalitytraits #attention #visualreasoning #workingmemory #BigFive #researchstudy #psychologynews #RSOS
-
DATE: September 24, 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: Intelligence and personality traits do not predict inattentional blindness
URL: https://www.psypost.org/intelligence-and-personality-traits-do-not-predict-inattentional-blindness/
People’s intelligence and personality traits do little to predict whether they will notice an unexpected object while concentrating on another task, according to a study published in Royal Society Open Science. The findings suggest that inattentional blindness may depend more on the demands and design of a situation than on stable differences between individuals.
Inattentional blindness occurs when people fail to see something that is clearly visible because their attention is directed elsewhere. A person counting ball passes in a video, for example, may miss an unusual figure moving through the scene. The failure does not necessarily mean the person has poor eyesight or low intelligence. Instead, attention is limited, and the brain prioritizes information relevant to the task at hand.
Previous research has examined whether some people are consistently better at noticing unexpected events. Possible predictors have included intelligence, working memory (the ability to hold and manipulate information over short periods) and personality traits such as openness or absorption (a tendency to become deeply immersed in sensory and imaginative experiences). However, earlier studies often involved small numbers of participants and produced inconsistent results.
The new research was designed to provide a stronger test. Led by Daniel J. Simons of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the researchers conducted two large online studies across multiple countries. One study examined cognitive ability and included 1,000 participants in the final analyses. The second examined personality and also included 1,000 participants.
Participants completed three inattentional blindness tasks. In one, they judged the length of lines while an unexpected shape briefly appeared. In another, they counted the movements of shapes while an unexpected object traveled through the display. In the third, they searched for a target number among symbols while another object appeared in the scene.
Participants in the cognitive ability study completed tests of visual reasoning and working memory. Those in the personality study completed measures of the Big Five personality traits (extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and open-mindedness), absorption, attention-related symptoms (specifically those related to ADHD) and perfectionism-related characteristics.
The proportion of people who noticed the unexpected object varied between 39% and 66%, depending on the task. In the counting task, about 45% of participants noticed the unexpected object in both the easier and more difficult conditions. This did not reproduce the common finding that a harder main task reduces noticing.
People who noticed an unexpected object in one task were slightly more likely to notice one in another task. However, the relationship was weak, suggesting that there may be a small tendency for some people to notice more often without indicating a strong, stable “noticer” personality.
Some cognitive measures were associated with noticing in particular conditions. For example, higher scores on certain reasoning and working memory tests were linked with slightly greater noticing in the easier condition. But these relationships were small and inconsistent. A measure that predicted more noticing in one condition sometimes predicted less noticing in another.
Personality produced even less evidence of a reliable relationship. None of the personality measures consistently predicted noticing. When the researchers combined the full set of cognitive or personality measures, the models explained very little of the differences between participants.
The authors concluded: “Collectively, we found evidence that individual differences in some cognitive abilities weakly and inconsistently predicted noticing, but little or no evidence that individual differences in personality predicted noticing.”
Some limitations are to be noted. For example, the online format limited experimental control, and the sample included relatively few older adults. Also, noticing an unexpected object is difficult to measure repeatedly because individuals may remember the task and deliberately search for the object the next time.
The study, “Do individual differences in cognitive ability or personality predict noticing in inattentional blindness tasks?”, was authored by Daniel J. Simons, Yifan Ding, Connor M. Hults and Brent W. Roberts.
URL: https://www.psypost.org/intelligence-and-personality-traits-do-not-predict-inattentional-blindness/
-------------------------------------------------
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DATE: September 24, 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: Plant-based meat labels make food seem less masculine, study finds
URL: https://www.psypost.org/plant-based-meat-labels-make-food-seem-less-masculine-study-finds/
A new study indicates that simply labeling a dish as a plant-based meat alternative makes meat-eaters view it as less masculine, leading to more negative evaluations. This resistance to plant-based options tends to be strongest among people who hold hostile sexist beliefs. The findings were published in Social Psychological and Personality Science.
Animal farming places a heavy burden on the environment and raises broad ethical and public health concerns. Plant-based meat alternatives, which are foods made from textured plant protein designed to imitate the taste, appearance, and texture of real meat, offer a way to reduce this impact. But many meat-eaters remain highly resistant to these alternatives. The divide is heavily gendered. For example, a 2024 study covered by PsyPost found that vegetarianism has grown steadily among women over a 15-year period, while rates among men have barely budged.
Researchers suspect this resistance is tied to the cultural symbolism of food. A 2012 study demonstrated that people across multiple cultures subconsciously associate meat with maleness and masculinity. Because meat is symbolically linked to strength and power, cutting it out of a diet can feel like a loss of status. Building on this idea, a 2023 paper conceptualized giving up meat as a direct threat to a man’s sense of manhood, which triggers psychological resistance.
More recently, scientists have noticed that these dietary choices are linked to broader beliefs about social dominance. A 2020 study provided empirical evidence that hostile sexist attitudes are strongly tied to the belief that humans should dominate animals and the natural world. Hostile sexism involves negative evaluations of women and femininity, along with the belief that women are inferior to men.
“There is now quite a lot of evidence that meat is culturally associated with masculinity, and that vegetarians and vegans (particularly vegan men) can be perceived as less masculine,” Kristof Dhont, a reader in psychology at the University of Kent and director of the SHARK Lab, told PsyPost.
“We wanted to find out whether these associations also have implications for perceptions and evaluations of plant-based meat alternatives themselves, even when they closely resemble conventional meat,” Dhont said. “In this sense, the symbolic meaning attached to ‘plant-based’ food could be a barrier to its acceptance.”
The research, led by Alina Salmen alongside Dhont, aimed to see if merely labeling a dish as plant-based alters how people perceive its masculinity and appeal. They also wanted to test whether hostile sexism would amplify these effects, making people who endorse male dominance the most likely to reject feminine-coded alternatives.
To test this, the researchers conducted two experiments. In the first experiment, they recruited 216 university students in the United Kingdom who eat meat. Participants viewed nine images of food, such as burgers, meatballs, and tacos. The images were exactly the same for everyone, but the text labels accompanying them were randomly rotated.
A third of the participants saw a specific dish labeled as “regular meat,” another third saw it labeled as “plant-based meat,” and the final third saw it labeled as “cultured meat.” Cultured meat is real animal tissue grown in a lab from cell cultures, eliminating the need for animal slaughter. Participants rated each dish’s appeal, expected smell, expected taste, and their likelihood of eating it on a 7-point scale. They also rated the perceived masculinity of each dish on a scale ranging from extremely feminine to extremely masculine, and they completed a questionnaire measuring their endorsement of hostile sexism.
Even though the food images were identical, dishes labeled as plant-based were rated as less masculine than dishes labeled as regular meat. The plant-based label also led to worse evaluations in terms of expected taste, smell, and overall appeal. Cultured meat was also evaluated more negatively than regular meat.
When the researchers looked closer, they found that lower masculinity ratings were linked to these negative evaluations, but only for participants who scored higher in hostile sexism. Those with lower levels of sexism did not evaluate the food worse just because they perceived it as less masculine.
In the second experiment, the research team recruited a larger sample of 1,182 adults in the United States, evenly split between men and women, all of whom were meat-eaters. Participants viewed six identical food images, with the labels rotated between “regular meat” and “plant-based meat.” They rated the same qualities as in the first experiment, but the researchers also added a measure of “food distancing.” Participants indicated how much they agreed with statements like, “I would not want to be seen eating this dish in public.”
The second experiment replicated the findings of the first. On a 7-point scale, the average overall evaluation dropped from 5.64 for regular meat to 4.74 for plant-based meat. The perceived masculinity dropped from an average of 4.40 to 3.96. The participants also indicated a stronger desire to distance themselves from the dishes labeled as plant-based.
The researchers identified a psychological chain reaction in the data. The plant-based label led people to view the dish as less masculine, which prompted a desire to distance themselves from the food. This urge to avoid being associated with the dish then predicted a worse overall evaluation.
Hostile sexism played a powerful role in this chain reaction. People with higher levels of hostile sexism were especially likely to distance themselves from dishes they viewed as lacking masculinity, driving their negative evaluations.
“It is perhaps worth highlighting that the effects of the plant-based label were clearly observed not only among men but also among women,” Dhont noted. Both men and women in the study showed this pattern, suggesting that hostile sexism shapes food choices across genders.
“The size of these shifts clearly differs between people,” Dhont explained. “For the overall evaluations the effect was roughly twice the size among those higher in sexism compared with those lower in sexism. The gap between people higher and lower in sexism was even larger when it came to how strongly the label affected perceived masculinity and self-distancing.”
The findings align with research covered by PsyPost in 2023, which found that men who identify as more masculine consume more meat and are highly resistant to adopting plant-based diets. It is worth noting, however, that the 2023 study measured men’s personal masculine identities, whereas the new study focused on the perceived masculinity of the food itself and the observer’s sexist beliefs.
“One key takeaway is that our evaluations of food are not determined only by the food itself,” Dhont said. “The societal stigma surrounding plant-based diets and veganism, including the perceived lack of masculine value, can negatively affect evaluations of plant-based meat alternatives.”
As with all research, there are some caveats to consider. First, the researchers measured perceived masculinity rather than actively manipulating it in a controlled way. This means they cannot say for sure that the loss of masculine symbolism directly caused the negative evaluations. Masculinity and femininity were also measured on a single continuous scale. It is possible that food can hold both masculine and feminine associations at the same time, which future studies might try to measure separately.
There are a few things to keep in mind regarding the participants’ past experiences. Some people might have had prior bad experiences eating actual plant-based meats, which could have influenced their ratings of the images.
“These were judgments of images rather than actual purchasing or eating behavior, so the size of the effect in real-world food choices remains an important question for future research,” Dhont said.
“It would be interesting to see how such findings play out when people actually taste the food or in actual consumption and purchasing behavior,” he added. “For example, we could let people taste plant-based products while experimentally varying how they are labeled, or observe behavioral choices and purchases when people select items from a menu or buffet.”
To successfully promote plant-based diets, marketing strategies might need to account for these psychological barriers. The authors suggest that framing meat alternatives in ways that appeal to modern, flexible ideals of masculinity might help overcome the stigma associated with vegan and vegetarian options.
“Another big question is how we can change the symbolism surrounding meat versus plant-based products, and in turn people’s perceptions and reactions to them,” Dhont said. “What strategies can increase openness to plant-based alternatives without simply reinforcing traditional gender stereotypes?”
The study, “Masculinity Perceptions and Hostile Sexism Shape Evaluations of Plant-Based Meat Alternatives,” was authored by Alina Salmen, Nadira S. Faber, Victoria C. Krings, and Kristof Dhont.
URL: https://www.psypost.org/plant-based-meat-labels-make-food-seem-less-masculine-study-finds/
-------------------------------------------------
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-------------------------------------------------
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-
DATE: September 24, 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: Plant-based meat labels make food seem less masculine, study finds
URL: https://www.psypost.org/plant-based-meat-labels-make-food-seem-less-masculine-study-finds/
A new study indicates that simply labeling a dish as a plant-based meat alternative makes meat-eaters view it as less masculine, leading to more negative evaluations. This resistance to plant-based options tends to be strongest among people who hold hostile sexist beliefs. The findings were published in Social Psychological and Personality Science.
Animal farming places a heavy burden on the environment and raises broad ethical and public health concerns. Plant-based meat alternatives, which are foods made from textured plant protein designed to imitate the taste, appearance, and texture of real meat, offer a way to reduce this impact. But many meat-eaters remain highly resistant to these alternatives. The divide is heavily gendered. For example, a 2024 study covered by PsyPost found that vegetarianism has grown steadily among women over a 15-year period, while rates among men have barely budged.
Researchers suspect this resistance is tied to the cultural symbolism of food. A 2012 study demonstrated that people across multiple cultures subconsciously associate meat with maleness and masculinity. Because meat is symbolically linked to strength and power, cutting it out of a diet can feel like a loss of status. Building on this idea, a 2023 paper conceptualized giving up meat as a direct threat to a man’s sense of manhood, which triggers psychological resistance.
More recently, scientists have noticed that these dietary choices are linked to broader beliefs about social dominance. A 2020 study provided empirical evidence that hostile sexist attitudes are strongly tied to the belief that humans should dominate animals and the natural world. Hostile sexism involves negative evaluations of women and femininity, along with the belief that women are inferior to men.
“There is now quite a lot of evidence that meat is culturally associated with masculinity, and that vegetarians and vegans (particularly vegan men) can be perceived as less masculine,” Kristof Dhont, a reader in psychology at the University of Kent and director of the SHARK Lab, told PsyPost.
“We wanted to find out whether these associations also have implications for perceptions and evaluations of plant-based meat alternatives themselves, even when they closely resemble conventional meat,” Dhont said. “In this sense, the symbolic meaning attached to ‘plant-based’ food could be a barrier to its acceptance.”
The research, led by Alina Salmen alongside Dhont, aimed to see if merely labeling a dish as plant-based alters how people perceive its masculinity and appeal. They also wanted to test whether hostile sexism would amplify these effects, making people who endorse male dominance the most likely to reject feminine-coded alternatives.
To test this, the researchers conducted two experiments. In the first experiment, they recruited 216 university students in the United Kingdom who eat meat. Participants viewed nine images of food, such as burgers, meatballs, and tacos. The images were exactly the same for everyone, but the text labels accompanying them were randomly rotated.
A third of the participants saw a specific dish labeled as “regular meat,” another third saw it labeled as “plant-based meat,” and the final third saw it labeled as “cultured meat.” Cultured meat is real animal tissue grown in a lab from cell cultures, eliminating the need for animal slaughter. Participants rated each dish’s appeal, expected smell, expected taste, and their likelihood of eating it on a 7-point scale. They also rated the perceived masculinity of each dish on a scale ranging from extremely feminine to extremely masculine, and they completed a questionnaire measuring their endorsement of hostile sexism.
Even though the food images were identical, dishes labeled as plant-based were rated as less masculine than dishes labeled as regular meat. The plant-based label also led to worse evaluations in terms of expected taste, smell, and overall appeal. Cultured meat was also evaluated more negatively than regular meat.
When the researchers looked closer, they found that lower masculinity ratings were linked to these negative evaluations, but only for participants who scored higher in hostile sexism. Those with lower levels of sexism did not evaluate the food worse just because they perceived it as less masculine.
In the second experiment, the research team recruited a larger sample of 1,182 adults in the United States, evenly split between men and women, all of whom were meat-eaters. Participants viewed six identical food images, with the labels rotated between “regular meat” and “plant-based meat.” They rated the same qualities as in the first experiment, but the researchers also added a measure of “food distancing.” Participants indicated how much they agreed with statements like, “I would not want to be seen eating this dish in public.”
The second experiment replicated the findings of the first. On a 7-point scale, the average overall evaluation dropped from 5.64 for regular meat to 4.74 for plant-based meat. The perceived masculinity dropped from an average of 4.40 to 3.96. The participants also indicated a stronger desire to distance themselves from the dishes labeled as plant-based.
The researchers identified a psychological chain reaction in the data. The plant-based label led people to view the dish as less masculine, which prompted a desire to distance themselves from the food. This urge to avoid being associated with the dish then predicted a worse overall evaluation.
Hostile sexism played a powerful role in this chain reaction. People with higher levels of hostile sexism were especially likely to distance themselves from dishes they viewed as lacking masculinity, driving their negative evaluations.
“It is perhaps worth highlighting that the effects of the plant-based label were clearly observed not only among men but also among women,” Dhont noted. Both men and women in the study showed this pattern, suggesting that hostile sexism shapes food choices across genders.
“The size of these shifts clearly differs between people,” Dhont explained. “For the overall evaluations the effect was roughly twice the size among those higher in sexism compared with those lower in sexism. The gap between people higher and lower in sexism was even larger when it came to how strongly the label affected perceived masculinity and self-distancing.”
The findings align with research covered by PsyPost in 2023, which found that men who identify as more masculine consume more meat and are highly resistant to adopting plant-based diets. It is worth noting, however, that the 2023 study measured men’s personal masculine identities, whereas the new study focused on the perceived masculinity of the food itself and the observer’s sexist beliefs.
“One key takeaway is that our evaluations of food are not determined only by the food itself,” Dhont said. “The societal stigma surrounding plant-based diets and veganism, including the perceived lack of masculine value, can negatively affect evaluations of plant-based meat alternatives.”
As with all research, there are some caveats to consider. First, the researchers measured perceived masculinity rather than actively manipulating it in a controlled way. This means they cannot say for sure that the loss of masculine symbolism directly caused the negative evaluations. Masculinity and femininity were also measured on a single continuous scale. It is possible that food can hold both masculine and feminine associations at the same time, which future studies might try to measure separately.
There are a few things to keep in mind regarding the participants’ past experiences. Some people might have had prior bad experiences eating actual plant-based meats, which could have influenced their ratings of the images.
“These were judgments of images rather than actual purchasing or eating behavior, so the size of the effect in real-world food choices remains an important question for future research,” Dhont said.
“It would be interesting to see how such findings play out when people actually taste the food or in actual consumption and purchasing behavior,” he added. “For example, we could let people taste plant-based products while experimentally varying how they are labeled, or observe behavioral choices and purchases when people select items from a menu or buffet.”
To successfully promote plant-based diets, marketing strategies might need to account for these psychological barriers. The authors suggest that framing meat alternatives in ways that appeal to modern, flexible ideals of masculinity might help overcome the stigma associated with vegan and vegetarian options.
“Another big question is how we can change the symbolism surrounding meat versus plant-based products, and in turn people’s perceptions and reactions to them,” Dhont said. “What strategies can increase openness to plant-based alternatives without simply reinforcing traditional gender stereotypes?”
The study, “Masculinity Perceptions and Hostile Sexism Shape Evaluations of Plant-Based Meat Alternatives,” was authored by Alina Salmen, Nadira S. Faber, Victoria C. Krings, and Kristof Dhont.
URL: https://www.psypost.org/plant-based-meat-labels-make-food-seem-less-masculine-study-finds/
-------------------------------------------------
Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org
Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #PlantBasedMeat #MasculinityInFood #PlantBasedLunch #MeatlessMonday #SustainableEating #HostileSexism #FoodMarketing #VeganMeat #EnvironmentallyFriendly #FoodPsychology
-
DATE: September 24, 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: Plant-based meat labels make food seem less masculine, study finds
URL: https://www.psypost.org/plant-based-meat-labels-make-food-seem-less-masculine-study-finds/
A new study indicates that simply labeling a dish as a plant-based meat alternative makes meat-eaters view it as less masculine, leading to more negative evaluations. This resistance to plant-based options tends to be strongest among people who hold hostile sexist beliefs. The findings were published in Social Psychological and Personality Science.
Animal farming places a heavy burden on the environment and raises broad ethical and public health concerns. Plant-based meat alternatives, which are foods made from textured plant protein designed to imitate the taste, appearance, and texture of real meat, offer a way to reduce this impact. But many meat-eaters remain highly resistant to these alternatives. The divide is heavily gendered. For example, a 2024 study covered by PsyPost found that vegetarianism has grown steadily among women over a 15-year period, while rates among men have barely budged.
Researchers suspect this resistance is tied to the cultural symbolism of food. A 2012 study demonstrated that people across multiple cultures subconsciously associate meat with maleness and masculinity. Because meat is symbolically linked to strength and power, cutting it out of a diet can feel like a loss of status. Building on this idea, a 2023 paper conceptualized giving up meat as a direct threat to a man’s sense of manhood, which triggers psychological resistance.
More recently, scientists have noticed that these dietary choices are linked to broader beliefs about social dominance. A 2020 study provided empirical evidence that hostile sexist attitudes are strongly tied to the belief that humans should dominate animals and the natural world. Hostile sexism involves negative evaluations of women and femininity, along with the belief that women are inferior to men.
“There is now quite a lot of evidence that meat is culturally associated with masculinity, and that vegetarians and vegans (particularly vegan men) can be perceived as less masculine,” Kristof Dhont, a reader in psychology at the University of Kent and director of the SHARK Lab, told PsyPost.
“We wanted to find out whether these associations also have implications for perceptions and evaluations of plant-based meat alternatives themselves, even when they closely resemble conventional meat,” Dhont said. “In this sense, the symbolic meaning attached to ‘plant-based’ food could be a barrier to its acceptance.”
The research, led by Alina Salmen alongside Dhont, aimed to see if merely labeling a dish as plant-based alters how people perceive its masculinity and appeal. They also wanted to test whether hostile sexism would amplify these effects, making people who endorse male dominance the most likely to reject feminine-coded alternatives.
To test this, the researchers conducted two experiments. In the first experiment, they recruited 216 university students in the United Kingdom who eat meat. Participants viewed nine images of food, such as burgers, meatballs, and tacos. The images were exactly the same for everyone, but the text labels accompanying them were randomly rotated.
A third of the participants saw a specific dish labeled as “regular meat,” another third saw it labeled as “plant-based meat,” and the final third saw it labeled as “cultured meat.” Cultured meat is real animal tissue grown in a lab from cell cultures, eliminating the need for animal slaughter. Participants rated each dish’s appeal, expected smell, expected taste, and their likelihood of eating it on a 7-point scale. They also rated the perceived masculinity of each dish on a scale ranging from extremely feminine to extremely masculine, and they completed a questionnaire measuring their endorsement of hostile sexism.
Even though the food images were identical, dishes labeled as plant-based were rated as less masculine than dishes labeled as regular meat. The plant-based label also led to worse evaluations in terms of expected taste, smell, and overall appeal. Cultured meat was also evaluated more negatively than regular meat.
When the researchers looked closer, they found that lower masculinity ratings were linked to these negative evaluations, but only for participants who scored higher in hostile sexism. Those with lower levels of sexism did not evaluate the food worse just because they perceived it as less masculine.
In the second experiment, the research team recruited a larger sample of 1,182 adults in the United States, evenly split between men and women, all of whom were meat-eaters. Participants viewed six identical food images, with the labels rotated between “regular meat” and “plant-based meat.” They rated the same qualities as in the first experiment, but the researchers also added a measure of “food distancing.” Participants indicated how much they agreed with statements like, “I would not want to be seen eating this dish in public.”
The second experiment replicated the findings of the first. On a 7-point scale, the average overall evaluation dropped from 5.64 for regular meat to 4.74 for plant-based meat. The perceived masculinity dropped from an average of 4.40 to 3.96. The participants also indicated a stronger desire to distance themselves from the dishes labeled as plant-based.
The researchers identified a psychological chain reaction in the data. The plant-based label led people to view the dish as less masculine, which prompted a desire to distance themselves from the food. This urge to avoid being associated with the dish then predicted a worse overall evaluation.
Hostile sexism played a powerful role in this chain reaction. People with higher levels of hostile sexism were especially likely to distance themselves from dishes they viewed as lacking masculinity, driving their negative evaluations.
“It is perhaps worth highlighting that the effects of the plant-based label were clearly observed not only among men but also among women,” Dhont noted. Both men and women in the study showed this pattern, suggesting that hostile sexism shapes food choices across genders.
“The size of these shifts clearly differs between people,” Dhont explained. “For the overall evaluations the effect was roughly twice the size among those higher in sexism compared with those lower in sexism. The gap between people higher and lower in sexism was even larger when it came to how strongly the label affected perceived masculinity and self-distancing.”
The findings align with research covered by PsyPost in 2023, which found that men who identify as more masculine consume more meat and are highly resistant to adopting plant-based diets. It is worth noting, however, that the 2023 study measured men’s personal masculine identities, whereas the new study focused on the perceived masculinity of the food itself and the observer’s sexist beliefs.
“One key takeaway is that our evaluations of food are not determined only by the food itself,” Dhont said. “The societal stigma surrounding plant-based diets and veganism, including the perceived lack of masculine value, can negatively affect evaluations of plant-based meat alternatives.”
As with all research, there are some caveats to consider. First, the researchers measured perceived masculinity rather than actively manipulating it in a controlled way. This means they cannot say for sure that the loss of masculine symbolism directly caused the negative evaluations. Masculinity and femininity were also measured on a single continuous scale. It is possible that food can hold both masculine and feminine associations at the same time, which future studies might try to measure separately.
There are a few things to keep in mind regarding the participants’ past experiences. Some people might have had prior bad experiences eating actual plant-based meats, which could have influenced their ratings of the images.
“These were judgments of images rather than actual purchasing or eating behavior, so the size of the effect in real-world food choices remains an important question for future research,” Dhont said.
“It would be interesting to see how such findings play out when people actually taste the food or in actual consumption and purchasing behavior,” he added. “For example, we could let people taste plant-based products while experimentally varying how they are labeled, or observe behavioral choices and purchases when people select items from a menu or buffet.”
To successfully promote plant-based diets, marketing strategies might need to account for these psychological barriers. The authors suggest that framing meat alternatives in ways that appeal to modern, flexible ideals of masculinity might help overcome the stigma associated with vegan and vegetarian options.
“Another big question is how we can change the symbolism surrounding meat versus plant-based products, and in turn people’s perceptions and reactions to them,” Dhont said. “What strategies can increase openness to plant-based alternatives without simply reinforcing traditional gender stereotypes?”
The study, “Masculinity Perceptions and Hostile Sexism Shape Evaluations of Plant-Based Meat Alternatives,” was authored by Alina Salmen, Nadira S. Faber, Victoria C. Krings, and Kristof Dhont.
URL: https://www.psypost.org/plant-based-meat-labels-make-food-seem-less-masculine-study-finds/
-------------------------------------------------
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-
DATE: September 24, 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: New study reveals that fluctuating—not just intense—brain signals play a hidden role in overeating
URL: https://www.psypost.org/fluctuating-brain-signals-linked-to-higher-body-weight-and-erratic-eating/
A recent study found that people with higher body mass index and tendencies toward disinhibited eating experience more fluctuating brain responses to food rewards. The findings, published in Translational Psychiatry, suggest that inconsistent reward signals in the brain may play a role in overweight and overeating. Meanwhile, individuals with binge eating disorder showed specific inconsistencies in how much they consciously desired food from moment to moment.
Binge eating disorder involves recurrent episodes of eating large quantities of food while experiencing a loss of control. People with this condition frequently experience high rates of overweight and obesity. Previous research into eating disorders has primarily focused on the average strength of brain signals when people encounter food cues.
One major psychological theory suggests that repeated exposure to highly rewarding foods sensitizes the brain’s motivational pathways. Over time, this sensitization could cause food cues to trigger heightened arousal and cravings. However, hunger and satiety naturally fluctuate.
If eating for pleasure repeatedly overrides the body’s natural fullness signals, a person’s response to food might become highly variable rather than uniformly strong. Instead of just looking at average brain activity, researchers suspected that fluctuations in these signals from moment to moment might better explain erratic eating patterns. To test this idea, cognitive neuroscientist Nils B. Kroemer, psychology researcher Mechteld M. van den Hoek Ostende, and their colleagues at the University of Tübingen in Germany investigated whether variability in reward processing is higher in people with binge eating disorder.
The researchers focused on the nucleus accumbens, a region deep in the brain that plays a central role in processing rewards, anticipating pleasure, and driving motivation. They also looked at the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, a brain area involved in cognitive control, impulse regulation, and weighing the costs and benefits of a potential action.
The researchers recruited 79 women for the study. The sample included 35 participants diagnosed with binge eating disorder, 21 with subsyndromal binge eating disorder who experienced less frequent episodes, and 23 control participants with no history of binge eating. The groups were matched so that their average body mass index was similar, allowing the researchers to separate the effects of the eating disorder from the effects of body weight.
During the first session, participants completed a behavioral experiment called a grip force effort allocation task. They were asked to squeeze a specialized handgrip device to earn either monetary rewards or small snack foods. The researchers calibrated the task to each person’s maximum grip strength.
This calibration ensured that the relative effort required was identical for everyone, regardless of their baseline physical fitness. In some trials, the required effort was explicitly shown on a screen, making the physical cost obvious. In other trials, the difficulty was hidden to create uncertainty.
After each round, participants rated how much they subjectively wanted the reward and how much effort they felt they had exerted. The points earned during the task were later exchanged for actual cash or snack calories. This allowed the researchers to quantify the physical effort participants would exert for a specific prize.
The researchers found that participants with binge eating disorder showed higher variability in their trial-by-trial ratings of wanting food. Their conscious desire for the food fluctuated widely from one moment to the next, especially during the uncertain trials. This high variability in subjective desire was not seen when they played for money.
However, their actual physical effort to obtain the rewards did not vary in the same way. The researchers noted that this disconnect might mean people with binge eating disorder rely more on external cues or habitual responses to decide how much effort to expend. This could cause their physical behavior to remain steady even while their internal feelings of desire fluctuate.
For the second phase of the study, 59 of the women returned to the laboratory after an overnight fast. They completed a similar version of the handgrip task while lying inside a functional magnetic resonance imaging scanner. This machine tracks blood flow in the brain, providing an indirect measure of neural activity in real time.
The researchers specifically measured the brain’s activity during the anticipation phase, which occurred exactly when the participants first saw the reward cue but before they started squeezing the handgrip. They calculated how much the neural signals in the nucleus accumbens and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex fluctuated across the trials.
Trial-by-trial fluctuations in the nucleus accumbens were positively associated with a higher body mass index. Across all groups, participants with higher body weight exhibited more variable reward signals in this brain region. Participants who reported higher levels of disinhibited eating on a standard eating behavior questionnaire also displayed greater variability in the nucleus accumbens.
The researchers found a similar pattern in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. A higher body mass index was linked to more fluctuating activity in this cognitive control region. To ensure these fluctuations were not just random brain noise, the researchers checked control regions in the temporal lobe that are not involved in reward processing.
Those control regions did not show the same variability, indicating the effect was specific to the reward and control centers. The results for binge eating disorder specifically were less definitive. While participants with the disorder showed slightly elevated variability in the nucleus accumbens compared to the control group, the evidence was not statistically significant.
The highly variable brain responses were more closely tied to overall body weight and a general tendency to eat without restraint, rather than a clinical diagnosis of the eating disorder. The study’s design includes several limitations that affect how the results can be applied. The research only included female participants, meaning the observed patterns might not generalize to men.
Sex hormones can influence eating behaviors and reward processing, which the study could not account for. The laboratory setting also tightly controlled when participants ate and minimized changes in their mood. Real-world binge eating episodes are often triggered by shifting emotional states and metabolic changes, which the sterile experimental environment was designed to eliminate.
Additionally, the researchers did not measure actual food consumption during the experiment. The study measured the willingness to work for food and the brain’s anticipation of it, rather than how much participants actually ate. Future studies tracking daily food intake would be needed to link these fluctuating brain signals directly to binge eating episodes.
Finally, slight head movements inside a brain scanner can sometimes look like variable neural activity. People with higher body weight sometimes move slightly more in scanners. While the researchers used mathematical models to correct for head movement, imaging experts often view residual motion artifacts as a potential complication in imaging research.
The study, “Obesity is associated with greater variability of reward signals in the nucleus accumbens,” was authored by Mechteld M. van den Hoek Ostende, Anne Kühnel, Monja P. Neuser, Thomas Dresler, Jennifer Svaldi, and Nils B. Kroemer.
URL: https://www.psypost.org/fluctuating-brain-signals-linked-to-higher-body-weight-and-erratic-eating/
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#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #Overeating #BingeEatingDisorder #RewardSignals #NucleusAccumbens #DLPFC #BrainVariability #FoodCues #ObesityResearch #EatingBehavior #TranslationalPsychiatry
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DATE: September 24, 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: New study reveals that fluctuating—not just intense—brain signals play a hidden role in overeating
URL: https://www.psypost.org/fluctuating-brain-signals-linked-to-higher-body-weight-and-erratic-eating/
A recent study found that people with higher body mass index and tendencies toward disinhibited eating experience more fluctuating brain responses to food rewards. The findings, published in Translational Psychiatry, suggest that inconsistent reward signals in the brain may play a role in overweight and overeating. Meanwhile, individuals with binge eating disorder showed specific inconsistencies in how much they consciously desired food from moment to moment.
Binge eating disorder involves recurrent episodes of eating large quantities of food while experiencing a loss of control. People with this condition frequently experience high rates of overweight and obesity. Previous research into eating disorders has primarily focused on the average strength of brain signals when people encounter food cues.
One major psychological theory suggests that repeated exposure to highly rewarding foods sensitizes the brain’s motivational pathways. Over time, this sensitization could cause food cues to trigger heightened arousal and cravings. However, hunger and satiety naturally fluctuate.
If eating for pleasure repeatedly overrides the body’s natural fullness signals, a person’s response to food might become highly variable rather than uniformly strong. Instead of just looking at average brain activity, researchers suspected that fluctuations in these signals from moment to moment might better explain erratic eating patterns. To test this idea, cognitive neuroscientist Nils B. Kroemer, psychology researcher Mechteld M. van den Hoek Ostende, and their colleagues at the University of Tübingen in Germany investigated whether variability in reward processing is higher in people with binge eating disorder.
The researchers focused on the nucleus accumbens, a region deep in the brain that plays a central role in processing rewards, anticipating pleasure, and driving motivation. They also looked at the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, a brain area involved in cognitive control, impulse regulation, and weighing the costs and benefits of a potential action.
The researchers recruited 79 women for the study. The sample included 35 participants diagnosed with binge eating disorder, 21 with subsyndromal binge eating disorder who experienced less frequent episodes, and 23 control participants with no history of binge eating. The groups were matched so that their average body mass index was similar, allowing the researchers to separate the effects of the eating disorder from the effects of body weight.
During the first session, participants completed a behavioral experiment called a grip force effort allocation task. They were asked to squeeze a specialized handgrip device to earn either monetary rewards or small snack foods. The researchers calibrated the task to each person’s maximum grip strength.
This calibration ensured that the relative effort required was identical for everyone, regardless of their baseline physical fitness. In some trials, the required effort was explicitly shown on a screen, making the physical cost obvious. In other trials, the difficulty was hidden to create uncertainty.
After each round, participants rated how much they subjectively wanted the reward and how much effort they felt they had exerted. The points earned during the task were later exchanged for actual cash or snack calories. This allowed the researchers to quantify the physical effort participants would exert for a specific prize.
The researchers found that participants with binge eating disorder showed higher variability in their trial-by-trial ratings of wanting food. Their conscious desire for the food fluctuated widely from one moment to the next, especially during the uncertain trials. This high variability in subjective desire was not seen when they played for money.
However, their actual physical effort to obtain the rewards did not vary in the same way. The researchers noted that this disconnect might mean people with binge eating disorder rely more on external cues or habitual responses to decide how much effort to expend. This could cause their physical behavior to remain steady even while their internal feelings of desire fluctuate.
For the second phase of the study, 59 of the women returned to the laboratory after an overnight fast. They completed a similar version of the handgrip task while lying inside a functional magnetic resonance imaging scanner. This machine tracks blood flow in the brain, providing an indirect measure of neural activity in real time.
The researchers specifically measured the brain’s activity during the anticipation phase, which occurred exactly when the participants first saw the reward cue but before they started squeezing the handgrip. They calculated how much the neural signals in the nucleus accumbens and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex fluctuated across the trials.
Trial-by-trial fluctuations in the nucleus accumbens were positively associated with a higher body mass index. Across all groups, participants with higher body weight exhibited more variable reward signals in this brain region. Participants who reported higher levels of disinhibited eating on a standard eating behavior questionnaire also displayed greater variability in the nucleus accumbens.
The researchers found a similar pattern in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. A higher body mass index was linked to more fluctuating activity in this cognitive control region. To ensure these fluctuations were not just random brain noise, the researchers checked control regions in the temporal lobe that are not involved in reward processing.
Those control regions did not show the same variability, indicating the effect was specific to the reward and control centers. The results for binge eating disorder specifically were less definitive. While participants with the disorder showed slightly elevated variability in the nucleus accumbens compared to the control group, the evidence was not statistically significant.
The highly variable brain responses were more closely tied to overall body weight and a general tendency to eat without restraint, rather than a clinical diagnosis of the eating disorder. The study’s design includes several limitations that affect how the results can be applied. The research only included female participants, meaning the observed patterns might not generalize to men.
Sex hormones can influence eating behaviors and reward processing, which the study could not account for. The laboratory setting also tightly controlled when participants ate and minimized changes in their mood. Real-world binge eating episodes are often triggered by shifting emotional states and metabolic changes, which the sterile experimental environment was designed to eliminate.
Additionally, the researchers did not measure actual food consumption during the experiment. The study measured the willingness to work for food and the brain’s anticipation of it, rather than how much participants actually ate. Future studies tracking daily food intake would be needed to link these fluctuating brain signals directly to binge eating episodes.
Finally, slight head movements inside a brain scanner can sometimes look like variable neural activity. People with higher body weight sometimes move slightly more in scanners. While the researchers used mathematical models to correct for head movement, imaging experts often view residual motion artifacts as a potential complication in imaging research.
The study, “Obesity is associated with greater variability of reward signals in the nucleus accumbens,” was authored by Mechteld M. van den Hoek Ostende, Anne Kühnel, Monja P. Neuser, Thomas Dresler, Jennifer Svaldi, and Nils B. Kroemer.
URL: https://www.psypost.org/fluctuating-brain-signals-linked-to-higher-body-weight-and-erratic-eating/
-------------------------------------------------
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#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #Overeating #BingeEatingDisorder #RewardSignals #NucleusAccumbens #DLPFC #BrainVariability #FoodCues #ObesityResearch #EatingBehavior #TranslationalPsychiatry
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DATE: September 24, 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: New study reveals that fluctuating—not just intense—brain signals play a hidden role in overeating
URL: https://www.psypost.org/fluctuating-brain-signals-linked-to-higher-body-weight-and-erratic-eating/
A recent study found that people with higher body mass index and tendencies toward disinhibited eating experience more fluctuating brain responses to food rewards. The findings, published in Translational Psychiatry, suggest that inconsistent reward signals in the brain may play a role in overweight and overeating. Meanwhile, individuals with binge eating disorder showed specific inconsistencies in how much they consciously desired food from moment to moment.
Binge eating disorder involves recurrent episodes of eating large quantities of food while experiencing a loss of control. People with this condition frequently experience high rates of overweight and obesity. Previous research into eating disorders has primarily focused on the average strength of brain signals when people encounter food cues.
One major psychological theory suggests that repeated exposure to highly rewarding foods sensitizes the brain’s motivational pathways. Over time, this sensitization could cause food cues to trigger heightened arousal and cravings. However, hunger and satiety naturally fluctuate.
If eating for pleasure repeatedly overrides the body’s natural fullness signals, a person’s response to food might become highly variable rather than uniformly strong. Instead of just looking at average brain activity, researchers suspected that fluctuations in these signals from moment to moment might better explain erratic eating patterns. To test this idea, cognitive neuroscientist Nils B. Kroemer, psychology researcher Mechteld M. van den Hoek Ostende, and their colleagues at the University of Tübingen in Germany investigated whether variability in reward processing is higher in people with binge eating disorder.
The researchers focused on the nucleus accumbens, a region deep in the brain that plays a central role in processing rewards, anticipating pleasure, and driving motivation. They also looked at the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, a brain area involved in cognitive control, impulse regulation, and weighing the costs and benefits of a potential action.
The researchers recruited 79 women for the study. The sample included 35 participants diagnosed with binge eating disorder, 21 with subsyndromal binge eating disorder who experienced less frequent episodes, and 23 control participants with no history of binge eating. The groups were matched so that their average body mass index was similar, allowing the researchers to separate the effects of the eating disorder from the effects of body weight.
During the first session, participants completed a behavioral experiment called a grip force effort allocation task. They were asked to squeeze a specialized handgrip device to earn either monetary rewards or small snack foods. The researchers calibrated the task to each person’s maximum grip strength.
This calibration ensured that the relative effort required was identical for everyone, regardless of their baseline physical fitness. In some trials, the required effort was explicitly shown on a screen, making the physical cost obvious. In other trials, the difficulty was hidden to create uncertainty.
After each round, participants rated how much they subjectively wanted the reward and how much effort they felt they had exerted. The points earned during the task were later exchanged for actual cash or snack calories. This allowed the researchers to quantify the physical effort participants would exert for a specific prize.
The researchers found that participants with binge eating disorder showed higher variability in their trial-by-trial ratings of wanting food. Their conscious desire for the food fluctuated widely from one moment to the next, especially during the uncertain trials. This high variability in subjective desire was not seen when they played for money.
However, their actual physical effort to obtain the rewards did not vary in the same way. The researchers noted that this disconnect might mean people with binge eating disorder rely more on external cues or habitual responses to decide how much effort to expend. This could cause their physical behavior to remain steady even while their internal feelings of desire fluctuate.
For the second phase of the study, 59 of the women returned to the laboratory after an overnight fast. They completed a similar version of the handgrip task while lying inside a functional magnetic resonance imaging scanner. This machine tracks blood flow in the brain, providing an indirect measure of neural activity in real time.
The researchers specifically measured the brain’s activity during the anticipation phase, which occurred exactly when the participants first saw the reward cue but before they started squeezing the handgrip. They calculated how much the neural signals in the nucleus accumbens and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex fluctuated across the trials.
Trial-by-trial fluctuations in the nucleus accumbens were positively associated with a higher body mass index. Across all groups, participants with higher body weight exhibited more variable reward signals in this brain region. Participants who reported higher levels of disinhibited eating on a standard eating behavior questionnaire also displayed greater variability in the nucleus accumbens.
The researchers found a similar pattern in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. A higher body mass index was linked to more fluctuating activity in this cognitive control region. To ensure these fluctuations were not just random brain noise, the researchers checked control regions in the temporal lobe that are not involved in reward processing.
Those control regions did not show the same variability, indicating the effect was specific to the reward and control centers. The results for binge eating disorder specifically were less definitive. While participants with the disorder showed slightly elevated variability in the nucleus accumbens compared to the control group, the evidence was not statistically significant.
The highly variable brain responses were more closely tied to overall body weight and a general tendency to eat without restraint, rather than a clinical diagnosis of the eating disorder. The study’s design includes several limitations that affect how the results can be applied. The research only included female participants, meaning the observed patterns might not generalize to men.
Sex hormones can influence eating behaviors and reward processing, which the study could not account for. The laboratory setting also tightly controlled when participants ate and minimized changes in their mood. Real-world binge eating episodes are often triggered by shifting emotional states and metabolic changes, which the sterile experimental environment was designed to eliminate.
Additionally, the researchers did not measure actual food consumption during the experiment. The study measured the willingness to work for food and the brain’s anticipation of it, rather than how much participants actually ate. Future studies tracking daily food intake would be needed to link these fluctuating brain signals directly to binge eating episodes.
Finally, slight head movements inside a brain scanner can sometimes look like variable neural activity. People with higher body weight sometimes move slightly more in scanners. While the researchers used mathematical models to correct for head movement, imaging experts often view residual motion artifacts as a potential complication in imaging research.
The study, “Obesity is associated with greater variability of reward signals in the nucleus accumbens,” was authored by Mechteld M. van den Hoek Ostende, Anne Kühnel, Monja P. Neuser, Thomas Dresler, Jennifer Svaldi, and Nils B. Kroemer.
URL: https://www.psypost.org/fluctuating-brain-signals-linked-to-higher-body-weight-and-erratic-eating/
-------------------------------------------------
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 #Overeating #BingeEatingDisorder #RewardSignals #NucleusAccumbens #DLPFC #BrainVariability #FoodCues #ObesityResearch #EatingBehavior #TranslationalPsychiatry
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DATE: September 24, 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: Humor makes taboo words less distracting
URL: https://www.psypost.org/humor-makes-taboo-words-less-distracting/
Taboo words slowed people’s ability to identify font colors, but this distraction was reduced when the words were also funny, according to research published in Cognition & Emotion.
Taboo words—including profanity, insults, slurs, and sexual terms—can interfere with language processing. In the “taboo Stroop effect” (a variation of the standard Stroop effect, a psychological phenomenon where reading a word interferes with naming its ink color), people take longer to identify the font color of a taboo word than that of a neutral word. Researchers have generally attributed this delay to emotional arousal (a state of heightened physiological and psychological activity). Taboo words capture attention or make it harder to disengage from their meaning, leaving fewer attentional resources available for identifying their color.
However, taboo words are not exclusively offensive or unpleasant; some are also perceived as humorous. Because humor can itself be arousing but may help people shift attention more flexibly, Lise Abrams and colleagues examined whether humor would intensify or lessen the distracting effect of taboo words.
Experiment 1 involved 59 participants recruited via Prolific (an online platform used to recruit research subjects) after exclusions. Eligible participants were native English speakers living in the United States, between ages 18-29 years, and did not report color blindness, dyslexia, or ADHD. Participants saw 48 taboo and 48 neutral words, selected using previous nine-point ratings of tabooness, humor, and arousal. Each word appeared once in red, blue, green, and yellow, producing 384 randomly intermixed trials. Participants pressed one of four keys to identify the font color as quickly and accurately as possible, after completing color-key training and 40 practice trials. They also completed a demographic questionnaire.
Experiment 2 included 102 Prolific participants using the same eligibility criteria. The researchers selected 32 words divided into four groups based on the same nine-point norms: high-taboo/high-humor, high-taboo/low-humor, low-taboo/high-humor, and low-taboo/low-humor. The words were presented in separate blocks, along with neutral filler blocks, for a total of 256 trials. Participants again identified each word’s font color by keypress, and the researchers measured response time and accuracy.
In Experiment 1, participants identified the colors of taboo words more slowly than those of neutral words, demonstrating the taboo Stroop effect. This interference was strongest during the first set of trials and diminished with repeated exposure, suggesting that participants gradually became accustomed to the taboo words. Words rated as more taboo produced slower responses, but humor did not independently predict response speed or alter the effect of tabooness when taboo and neutral words were intermixed.
Experiment 2 again showed that taboo words slowed color identification. This time, however, humor changed the size of the effect: highly taboo words interfered with performance whether they were high or low in humor, but the interference was significantly smaller for the more humorous taboo words. Humor alone did not affect response times, suggesting that it did not simply make color identification easier; instead, it specifically reduced how strongly taboo content captured attention when words were presented in separate blocks.
The limited number of suitable words made it difficult to match the four word categories on characteristics such as emotional valence (the intrinsic positive or negative quality of a stimulus) and arousal. The young, US-based online sample and presentation of isolated words also limit how readily the findings can be generalized to other populations, cultures, or real-world language contexts.
Overall, the findings suggest that people’s responses to taboo language depend not only on how offensive a word is but also on whether it is funny, revealing a more complex relationship among humor, arousal, and attention.
The research, “When an F-bomb bonks your funny bone: humor attenuates the taboo Stroop effect,” was authored by Lise Abrams, Lori E. James, Maria-Elisabeth Lootus, and Meredith A. Shafto.
URL: https://www.psypost.org/humor-makes-taboo-words-less-distracting/
-------------------------------------------------
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 #HumorReducesTabooStroop #TabooWordsAttention #HumorAndArousal #CognitionAndEmotion #StroopEffect #HumorInResearch #ColorIdentificationTask #TabooWordsProcessing #HumorAttenuatesDistraction #CognitivePsychology Findings
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DATE: September 24, 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: Humor makes taboo words less distracting
URL: https://www.psypost.org/humor-makes-taboo-words-less-distracting/
Taboo words slowed people’s ability to identify font colors, but this distraction was reduced when the words were also funny, according to research published in Cognition & Emotion.
Taboo words—including profanity, insults, slurs, and sexual terms—can interfere with language processing. In the “taboo Stroop effect” (a variation of the standard Stroop effect, a psychological phenomenon where reading a word interferes with naming its ink color), people take longer to identify the font color of a taboo word than that of a neutral word. Researchers have generally attributed this delay to emotional arousal (a state of heightened physiological and psychological activity). Taboo words capture attention or make it harder to disengage from their meaning, leaving fewer attentional resources available for identifying their color.
However, taboo words are not exclusively offensive or unpleasant; some are also perceived as humorous. Because humor can itself be arousing but may help people shift attention more flexibly, Lise Abrams and colleagues examined whether humor would intensify or lessen the distracting effect of taboo words.
Experiment 1 involved 59 participants recruited via Prolific (an online platform used to recruit research subjects) after exclusions. Eligible participants were native English speakers living in the United States, between ages 18-29 years, and did not report color blindness, dyslexia, or ADHD. Participants saw 48 taboo and 48 neutral words, selected using previous nine-point ratings of tabooness, humor, and arousal. Each word appeared once in red, blue, green, and yellow, producing 384 randomly intermixed trials. Participants pressed one of four keys to identify the font color as quickly and accurately as possible, after completing color-key training and 40 practice trials. They also completed a demographic questionnaire.
Experiment 2 included 102 Prolific participants using the same eligibility criteria. The researchers selected 32 words divided into four groups based on the same nine-point norms: high-taboo/high-humor, high-taboo/low-humor, low-taboo/high-humor, and low-taboo/low-humor. The words were presented in separate blocks, along with neutral filler blocks, for a total of 256 trials. Participants again identified each word’s font color by keypress, and the researchers measured response time and accuracy.
In Experiment 1, participants identified the colors of taboo words more slowly than those of neutral words, demonstrating the taboo Stroop effect. This interference was strongest during the first set of trials and diminished with repeated exposure, suggesting that participants gradually became accustomed to the taboo words. Words rated as more taboo produced slower responses, but humor did not independently predict response speed or alter the effect of tabooness when taboo and neutral words were intermixed.
Experiment 2 again showed that taboo words slowed color identification. This time, however, humor changed the size of the effect: highly taboo words interfered with performance whether they were high or low in humor, but the interference was significantly smaller for the more humorous taboo words. Humor alone did not affect response times, suggesting that it did not simply make color identification easier; instead, it specifically reduced how strongly taboo content captured attention when words were presented in separate blocks.
The limited number of suitable words made it difficult to match the four word categories on characteristics such as emotional valence (the intrinsic positive or negative quality of a stimulus) and arousal. The young, US-based online sample and presentation of isolated words also limit how readily the findings can be generalized to other populations, cultures, or real-world language contexts.
Overall, the findings suggest that people’s responses to taboo language depend not only on how offensive a word is but also on whether it is funny, revealing a more complex relationship among humor, arousal, and attention.
The research, “When an F-bomb bonks your funny bone: humor attenuates the taboo Stroop effect,” was authored by Lise Abrams, Lori E. James, Maria-Elisabeth Lootus, and Meredith A. Shafto.
URL: https://www.psypost.org/humor-makes-taboo-words-less-distracting/
-------------------------------------------------
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 #HumorReducesTabooStroop #TabooWordsAttention #HumorAndArousal #CognitionAndEmotion #StroopEffect #HumorInResearch #ColorIdentificationTask #TabooWordsProcessing #HumorAttenuatesDistraction #CognitivePsychology Findings