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Author Topic: Recent Psychology News!  (Read 6939 times)  Share 

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sweetiepi

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Recent Psychology News!
« on: December 30, 2018, 11:38:43 am »
+13


Psychology is not all about Pavlov's dog or research methods, there's a lot more to it! Occasionally I'll post up some articles I find on the net relating to psychology- but feel free to share some too! ^-^


To start:

A BBC article about a hospital providing solace from shell shock in WW1 (BBC)

Uncover the secret to not overspend by uncovering the psychology behind buying (The Conversation)

Imaginary friends can boost children's development (The Conversation)

A short article about where dreams come from (The Conversation)

How lockdowns traumatise schoolkids. (MSN/Washington Post)

The opioid overdose epidemic is evolving and getting worse. (CNN)

The joy associated with giving lasts longer than the joy of getting. (Science Daily)

A new insight into how our memories work! (Science Daily)

A mechanism has been found that explains how the brain can rapidly focus attention (Science Daily)

One for the foodies out there: A study has shown that your brain rewards you twice when eating! (Science Daily)
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Bri MT

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Re: Recent Psychology News!
« Reply #1 on: January 07, 2019, 12:13:08 pm »
+3
Psychology is not all about Pavlov's dog or research methods, there's a lot more to it!

:o


Here's an article I've found recently: solving phantom limb pain - science is getting closer (The Conversation)



Thanks insanipi for the great start to a promising thread! :)

sweetiepi

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Re: Recent Psychology News!
« Reply #2 on: January 07, 2019, 02:59:21 pm »
+3
Thanks insanipi for the great start to a promising thread! :)
Anytime haha <3

Another couple that I've found:

- Obese mice that have 'zombie cells' leave the brain become less anxious! (ScienceDaily)

- Find out about controlling neurons with light! (ScienceDaily)
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sweetiepi

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Re: Recent Psychology News!
« Reply #3 on: January 21, 2019, 04:53:20 pm »
+3
Two more articles I've recently found (again on ScienceAlert):

Exercises in hapiness could boost mood of those recovering from substance use disorder.
Summary
Short self-administered text-based exercises can increase the instant happiness in those that are recovering from substance use disorders. This study is the first of its kind to test the effects of positive psychology on instantaneous happiness levels on people recovering from substance abuse.

The cerebrum has been found to have a surprising role in social behaviours and reard.
Summary
Researchers have found a direct neural connection between the cerebrum (most famously known for its role in motor coordination) and ventral tegmental area (involved in reward processing and encoding). Researchers used optogenetics to activate the neurons with light pulses- and have seen a connection between the two areas. They then tested for preference of reward, and then a social task for the mice.
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whys

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Re: Recent Psychology News!
« Reply #4 on: January 20, 2020, 06:27:45 pm »
+7
(Hope you don't mind me posting in this topic, it's been a year)

I found an interesting article that describes evidence congruent to the restorative theory here. This is interesting considering the restorative theory, evolution theory and other theories regarding reasons why we sleep are not proved/disproved - rather each theory has advantages and disadvantages that are evaluated to determine the theory's accuracy. Hopefully we will see advancements in knowledge of sleep (one of those grey areas).
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whys

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Re: Recent Psychology News!
« Reply #5 on: January 21, 2020, 03:12:59 pm »
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Another one for you psych nerds about how sugar alters the brain. Thanks science for confirming that I'm officially addicted to sugar!

Also, thanks psych for giving me evidence to tell my parents that no, I shouldn't be studying 24/7, but should also pursue my interest of art and drawing!

Also good to know that science is coming closer to finding cures for chronic illness and disease, such as Alzheimer's.
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caffinatedloz

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Re: Recent Psychology News!
« Reply #6 on: January 25, 2020, 07:00:00 am »
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I saw an interesting article this week saying that there might be a genetic link to anxiety, and that there are six specific variant genes that seem to correlate with anxiety. However, this study was not conducted on a random sample from the population, but rather military veterans. Do you think that genetics significantly influence mental health? Do you think that the conclusions from this study can be considered valid, considering the population it was conducted on?

There was also another, slightly more recent article written using a similar study on veterans looking at cognitive function in people with mental illnesses including bipolar and schizophrenia and comparing their cognitive function with that of the general population.

I also found this article about the way that cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), a very popular behavioural therapy that emphasises people connecting the way they think to the way they feel, can actually have an effect on cells. Read that here. Do you think that CBT actually has an effect on ageing, or is just effective at treating anxiety disorders which could cause premature ageing?

Also, for some cute animal/human news: Dogs process numerical quantities in similar brain regions as humans! How cute! :-*

Erutepa

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Re: Recent Psychology News!
« Reply #7 on: January 26, 2020, 05:11:01 pm »
+5
Do you think that genetics significantly influence mental health? Do you think that the conclusions from this study can be considered valid, considering the population it was conducted on?
I don't know if I would say that I think genetics significantly influences mental health. From a bit of reading, it seems across most mental health disorders there is a range of different findings suggesting different severities of correlation between mental health disorders and genetics. I think its becoming increasingly accepted that mental health disorders are associated with genetic risk factors, but what remains to further characterised is the extent to which genetics play this role. It is likely that this is dependent on the mental disorder itself as I imagine some disorders are far more influenced by environmental risk factors than others might be.
I do think these findings are still reasonably valid and at least very insightfull. While its perhaps hard to generalise these findings to populations outside of these military veterans, I think its important to realise that its really hard to actually get perfect populations of the general population, particularly for these mass genonomic analyses.
Do you think that CBT actually has an effect on ageing, or is just effective at treating anxiety disorders which could cause premature ageing?
My understanding from the article was that the authors of the scientific study interpreted their results as indicating CBT prevents the increased cellular ageing associated with anxiety disorders. From this I would imagine that CBT prevents this aging, not by having an inherent anti-ageing effect itself, but by combating axiety symptoms which may cause the increased cellular ageing. Although, as it goes with science, more research will have to be conducted before this relationship can be properly explained.


I was just going though some Psych News and saw this article on science daily about further developments in Alzheimer'sresearch. This is an area that I find quite interesting and it seems to be an increasingly popular area in research. This particular article highlights the discovery of a new gene and its associated protein within the pathology of alzheimer's. This new protein 'aggregatin' has been found associated with the plaques formed by amyloid  beta plaques and may potentially play a role in the disease.
« Last Edit: January 26, 2020, 05:16:00 pm by Erutepa »
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caffinatedloz

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Re: Recent Psychology News!
« Reply #8 on: January 27, 2020, 04:55:12 pm »
+4
I don't know if I would say that I think genetics significantly influences mental health. From a bit of reading, it seems across most mental health disorders there is a range of different findings suggesting different severities of correlation between mental health disorders and genetics. I think its becoming increasingly accepted that mental health disorders are associated with genetic risk factors, but what remains to further characterised is the extent to which genetics play this role. It is likely that this is dependent on the mental disorder itself as I imagine some disorders are far more influenced by environmental risk factors than others might be.
I've seen that a lot. Especially with mental illnesses like schizophrenia (schizo-effective and schizoid personality). The other link that has been established, (but ofd course the extent is not known), is that females who have a mother with depression are at a higher risk of having it. Genetics is an area of science where there is still so much to learn; this is especially true when considering the role that the environment plays on genetics.

I do think these findings are still reasonably valid and at least very insightfull. While its perhaps hard to generalise these findings to populations outside of these military veterans, I think its important to realise that its really hard to actually get perfect populations of the general population, particularly for these mass genonomic analyses.
That's true. I was more thinking about the way that both genetics and environment affect phenotype, so knowing to what extent the genes are influencing the development of mental health conditions in veterans may be difficult because of the trauma that they may have been exposed to and the impact that has had on them. I guess that this can still be considered as everyone in the group has been through similar traumatic events, and it has disproportionately lead to the development of mental illnesses in people with certain genes.

My understanding from the article was that the authors of the scientific study interpreted their results as indicating CBT prevents the increased cellular ageing associated with anxiety disorders. From this I would imagine that CBT prevents this aging, not by having an inherent anti-ageing effect itself, but by combating axiety symptoms which may cause the increased cellular ageing. Although, as it goes with science, more research will have to be conducted before this relationship can be properly explained.
Do you think that CBT could be helpful to everyone in slowing down ageing, as it may help people who are feeling stressed (but do not have a diagnosed anxiety condition) to manage how they are feeling and thus prevent premature ageing, or do you think that this is a kind of therapy that would only prevent premature aging when people are dealing with significant amounts of anixety due to the effect that that has on the body?

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Re: Recent Psychology News!
« Reply #9 on: February 01, 2020, 12:08:51 pm »
+5
How about this one? ;D New research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences have identified that "New brain networks come 'online' during adolescence, allowing teenagers to develop more complex adult social skills, but potentially putting them at increased risk of mental illness".. What are your thoughts on this?

We know that there are genetic predispositions for mental illness, so could we potentially link genes to how connections between neutrons are re-modelled in the brain during adolescence? Idk, I found this article really interesting and thought-provoking

So... turns out my parents may not be wrong when they say that my sister and I are the reason for their grey hairs. Scientists have investigated the link between stress and grey hair.
I reckon that by the end of this year I will have a full head of grey hair.

Turns out, just as you can drown, so too can your brain. "Following a stroke, dysfunction in the glymphatic system causes cerebrospinal fluid to flood the brain, drowning neurons, and triggering cerebral edema."

"Hailed by many as a breakthrough for neuroscience research, a new study reports brain-in-a-dish models may not be as useful as reported previously. The study reports instead of differentiating normally into the brain’s distinctive cell types, cerebral organoids often express mixed genes normally found in different kinds of cells."

This one saddens me! I went to a stem cell talk around 4 months ago and they were raving on about how awesome cerebral organoids were and that they think they might follow a circadian rhythm due to the different levels of neuronal activity throughout a 24 hour period. They were talking about how they can be used to study Alzheimers and all that, but yeah. This article brings up a different perspective.
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sweetiepi

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Re: Recent Psychology News!
« Reply #10 on: February 08, 2020, 07:58:27 pm »
+5
A couple of recent news articles in the world of psychology!

This article is all about how the human brain solves complex problems using model based control.

Want to decrease the likelihood of getting Alzheimers? This article suggests aerobic exercise may be key.

New findings on the genetic distinction between three mood disorders.

Who knew that baby-talk could boost language development? Some researchers do!
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ArtyDreams

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Re: Recent Psychology News!
« Reply #11 on: February 09, 2020, 05:12:21 pm »
+4
Some interesting articles I was reading about today:

 (This really wondered and amazed me as a kid ha ha)
Why do you see patterns when you close your eyes?
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/why-do-i-see-patterns-when-i-close-my-eyes_b_7597438

How to choose your dreams:
https://dreamingandsleeping.com/how-to-dream-about-what-you-want/

Lucid Dreaming:
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/323077.php

How does our sense of taste work?
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK279408/

And some articles on myopia because I wanted to know whats really wrong with me ha ha.
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/nearsightedness/symptoms-causes/syc-20375556
https://www.aoa.org/news/clinical-eye-care/multifocal-contact-lens-effective-at-treating-myopia-in-kids


whys

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Re: Recent Psychology News!
« Reply #13 on: February 19, 2020, 08:57:29 pm »
+2
Something EXTREMELY relevant to the current world is anxiety due to climate change. Today, many young generations are faced with this issue and want to change for the benefit of the environment. Self-initiated change is appreciated and welcome, however, the anxiety comes from the compelling need to do so due to inaction/slow action by higher authority. Normalising such counterproductive trauma is not where we want to be heading.

Why do we weep? Yes, the lacrimal reflex can be triggered by a variety of stimuli - perhaps something is stuck in your eye, or your emotions overwhelm you (namely sadness). This article examines the social significance of tears - something I found intriguing and eye-opening. Perhaps you will find it as such too!

Examining moral character and good deeds - and what this achieves. Perhaps a 'good samaritan' act is not as it seems.

Why do you feel so upset over the loss of influentials you've never met? Using Kobe Bryant as an example, this article's relevance is not only to today, but any time. I know I have personally felt affected by the death of one celebrity, however I was never sure why. This article examines why and the psychological prospects associated with such loss, especially when it is tragic.

I'm sure many of you know that the loss of someone significant in your life, whether social distancing or death, can break your heart both literally and figuratively. People suffering from such severe grief have a much higher chance of suffering from a heart attack or other heart anomaly than the general population. (Psychology students! Such grief can be a precipitating factor (or another factor, depending on the scenario) to developing a mental health problem/mental illness!) Should there be a development of novel drugs to prevent this? Well, such drugs may already exist. Those in bereavement should definitely be taking note of any chest pain or other symptoms during this time. This article addresses an experiment conducted with 85 particpants given certain drugs or a placebo. Certainly, an interesting as well as an important read. It may not seem to have much significance, but prevention of death no matter the cause is crucial albeit the rare appearance of broken heart syndrome.
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Erutepa

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Re: Recent Psychology News!
« Reply #14 on: February 22, 2020, 09:27:56 pm »
+2
Here are another couple of pieces of Psych News!

I am sure we have all heard of the concept of later school starts - to start school later in the day inline with adolescents forward shifted sleep cycle (as a result of delayed melatonin relase). These delayed school starts in theory allow for teenagers to get more sleep and presumably perform better in various aspects of school and in general welbeing. This study shows looks into the differences between adolescent crash rates before and after a delayed school start time was intoruced and concludes and observs a decrease in this incident rate, highlighting a potential knock on effect of delaying school's start time. The researchers suggest that the increased sleep obtained by these adolescents due to this delayed school start provides them with better judgment which reduces car incidents.

This article here not summarises the findings of a study which identifies foods associated with poor cardiovascular health and memory loss, but further identifies how these foods associated with these health problems differ throughout the lifespan, highlighting the importance of age-specific healthy dietary guidelines rather than just a one-size fits all aproach.

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