Tag: psychology and psychiatry

  • Science & Tech

    Major moral decisions use general-purpose brain circuits to manage uncertainty

    Harvard researchers have found that humans can make difficult moral decisions using the same brain circuits as those used in more mundane choices related to money and food. These circuits, also found in other animals, put together two critical pieces of information:  How good or bad are the things that might happen?  What are the…

    3–4 minutes
  • Health

    Warnings of suicidal intent

    Two powerful new tests developed by Harvard psychologists show great promise in predicting patients’ risk of attempting suicide, researchers say. These tests may help clinicians to overcome their reliance on self-reporting by at-risk individuals, information that often proves misleading when suicidal patients wish to hide their intentions.  Both tests are easily administered within minutes on…

    2–4 minutes
  • Health

    Post Traumatic Stress Disorder knows no international boundaries

    The diagnosis and treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder has come a long way since the 1970s, with research now showing it is both more common and more treatable than once thought. While early doubters dismissed the condition as a Western phenomenon that arose because researchers pathologized a nonmedical condition, subsequent research identified physiological changes to…

    2–3 minutes
  • Science & Tech

    Face it:

    Gay men are most attracted to the most masculine-faced men, while straight men prefer the most feminine-faced women, according to the results of a new study by a Harvard researcher. The findings suggest that regardless of sexual orientation, men’s brains are wired for attraction to sexually dimorphic faces — those with facial features that are…

    2–3 minutes
  • Science & Tech

    Neuroimaging suggests truthfulness requires no act of will for honest people

    A new study of the cognitive processes involved with honesty suggests that truthfulness depends more on absence of temptation than active resistance to temptation. Using neuroimaging, psychologists looked at the brain activity of people given the chance to gain money dishonestly by lying and found that honest people showed no additional neural activity when telling…

    3–5 minutes
  • Science & Tech

    Childhood adversity may affect processing in the brain’s reward pathways

    New research shows that childhood adversity is associated with diminished neural activity in certain regions of the brain. Harvard researchers used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to monitor brain activity as participants played a game involving cues that predicted monetary re-wards and penalties. “We found that, in comparison to community controls, young adults who had…

    3–4 minutes
  • Science & Tech

    Study: Women more likely than men to reject unattractive babies

    Women are more likely than men to reject unattractive-looking babies, according to a study by researchers at Harvard-affiliated McLean Hospital, possibly reflecting an evolutionary-derived need for diverting limited resources towards the nurturing of healthy offspring. The findings also challenge the idea of unconditional maternal love. “Our study shows how beauty can affect parental attitudes,” said…

    3–4 minutes
  • Health

    ‘Super-recognizers’ never forget a face

    Some people say they never forget a face, a claim now bolstered by psychologists at Harvard University who’ve discovered a group they call “super-recognizers”: those who can easily recognize someone they met in passing, even many years later.  The new study suggests that skill in facial recognition might vary widely among humans. Previous research has…

    2–3 minutes
  • Health

    A mother’s criticism touches nerve in formerly depressed

    Formerly depressed women show patterns of brain activity when they are criticized by their mothers that are distinctly different from the patterns shown by never-depressed controls, according to a new study from Harvard University. The participants reported being completely well and fully recovered, yet their neural activity resembled that which has been observed in depressed…

    3–5 minutes
  • Health

    Hearing could hold key to unlocking schizophrenia mystery

    Measuring brain waves in response to hearing a variety of tones appears to be a useful way to begin understanding the underlying genetic abnormalities associated with schizophrenia, says a study headed by researchers at Harvard-affiliated McLean Hospital. In the paper “Reductions in the N1 and P2 Auditory Event-Related Potentials in First-Hospitalized and Chronic Schizophrenia,” available…

    3–4 minutes
  • Science & Tech

    Do you know what makes you happy?

    Want to know what will make you happy? Then ask a total stranger — or so says a new study from Harvard University, which shows that another person’s experience is often more informative than your own best guess. The study, which appears in the current issue of Science, was led by Daniel Gilbert, professor of…

    2–4 minutes
  • Health

    The Improvising Brain

    What’s involved when a musician sits down at the piano and plays flurries of notes in a free fall, without a score, without knowing much about what will happen moment to moment? Is it possible to find the sources of a creative process? Is it possible to determine how improvisation occurs? Aaron Berkowitz, a Harvard…

    4–6 minutes
  • Science & Tech

    “My genome, my self”

    One of the perks of being a psychologist is access to tools that allow you to carry out the injunction to know thyself. I have been tested for vocational interest (closest match: psychologist), intelligence (above average), personality (open, conscientious, agreeable, average in extraversion, not too neurotic) and political orientation (neither leftist nor rightist, more libertarian…

    1–2 minutes
  • Science & Tech

    Leon Eisenberg to receive Juan Jose Lopes Ibor Award

    Professor Leon Eisenberg, MD, will receive the Juan José López Ibor Award from the World Psychiatric Association on September 23, 2008, in Prague, Czech Republic.  The Award, named after Juan José López Ibor – one of the most important leaders of the world psychiatry in the second half of the 20th Century – was created…

    3–4 minutes
  • Health

    Researchers find sleep selectively preserves emotional memories

    As poets, songwriters and authors have described, our memories range from misty water-colored recollections to vividly detailed images of the times of our lives. Now, a study led by Harvard researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) and Boston College offers new insights into the specific components of emotional memories, suggesting that sleep plays…

    3–5 minutes
  • Science & Tech

    New study outlines formula for effective community partnerships with a lens on mental health of students in urban schools

    Addressing and improving mental health outcomes for students is a particularly complex issue in urban public schools. Proposed solutions to critical situations are usually prepackaged suggestions from research conducted outside of the communities seeking help. A new study approaches community partnerships and their ability to problem-solve in-depth right in their own backyards. In an article…

    2–3 minutes
  • Science & Tech

    Susan Carey receives David E. Rumelhart Prize

    Susan Carey, a Harvard psychologist whose work has explored fundamental issues surrounding the nature of the human mind, has been awarded the 2009 David E. Rumelhart Prize, given annually since 2001 for significant contributions to the theoretical foundation of human cognition. Carey, the Henry A. Morss Jr. and Elisabeth W. Morss Professor of Psychology in…

    1–2 minutes
  • Science & Tech

    Neuroimaging fails to demonstrate ESP is real

    Psychologists at Harvard University have developed a new method to study extrasensory perception that, they argue, can resolve the century-old debate over its existence. According to the authors, their study not only illustrates a new method for studying such phenomena, but also provides the strongest evidence yetobtained against the existence of extrasensory perception, or ESP.…

    3–4 minutes
  • Science & Tech

    Percentage of Katrina survivors with mental disorders increasing

    According to the most comprehensive survey yet conducted of people affected by Hurricane Katrina, the percentage of pre-hurricane residents of the affected areas in Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi who have mental disorders has increased significantly compared to the situation five to eight months after the hurricane. These findings, which were presented last week to the…

    5–7 minutes
  • Campus & Community

    A short history: Psychiatry in modern Africa

    Psychiatrists working in Africa during the colonial period held to the belief that Africans did not suffer from depression. They based this idea on the assumption that Africans lacked the ability to be self-reflective or self-critical and therefore depression had no chance of gaining a foothold in their psyches. Later research during the 1950s showed…

    1–2 minutes
  • Campus & Community

    More blacks ‘misperceive’ weight problem

    Overweight black Americans are two to three times more likely than heavy white Americans to say they are of average weight – even after being diagnosed as overweight or obese by their doctors, according to a new study led by Dana-Farber Cancer Institute researchers. Weight misperception was most common among black men and women, and…

    1–2 minutes
  • Campus & Community

    Children are attracted to the fortunate more than the unfortunate

    Children as young as 5 prefer lucky individuals over the less fortunate, according to new research by psychologists at Harvard and Stanford University. This phenomenon, the researchers say, could clarify the origins of human attitudes toward differing social groups and help explain the persistence of social inequality. The work, by Kristina R. Olson and her…

    2–3 minutes
  • Campus & Community

    Not unusual to forget childhood sexual abuse

    When questioned closely by psychologists from Harvard University about their feelings, victims of childhood sexual abuse revealed some surprising impressions.

    1–2 minutes
  • Science & Tech

    Under-diagnosed rage disorder more prevalent than previously thought

    A seldom-studied mental illness called Intermittent Explosive Disorder, characterized by recurrent episodes of angry and potentially violent outbursts — seen in cases of road rage or spousal abuse — has been found to be much more common than previously thought. Depending upon how broadly it is defined, this disorder affects as many as 7.3 percent…

    1–2 minutes
  • Campus & Community

    ‘Face-blindness’ disorder may not be so rare

    Researchers at Harvard University and University College London have developed diagnostic tests for prosopagnosia, a socially disabling inability to recognize or distinguish faces. They’ve already used the new test and a related Web site (http://www.faceblind.org) to identify hundreds of “face-blind” individuals, far more than scientists had identified previously. The researchers, led by Ken Nakayama and…

    2–3 minutes
  • Campus & Community

    Bad times make for more accurate memories

    Pleasurable experiences are more fun to relive than negative ones, but a new study by psychologists at Harvard University reveals that memories of good times can be less accurate than those of bad times.

    2–3 minutes
  • Health

    Prayers don’t help heart surgery patients

    Many – if not most people – believe that prayer will help you through a medical crisis such as heart bypass surgery. If a large group of people outside yourself, your family, and your friends joined in intercessory prayer, that should be even more helpful, so such reasoning goes. Researchers have been trying to prove…

    1–2 minutes
  • Campus & Community

    Whites more likely than blacks to die soon after spouse’s death

    A longitudinal study of 410,272 elderly American couples indicates that the “widowhood effect” – the increased probability of death among new widows and widowers – is large and enduring among white couples but undetectable among black couples, suggesting that blacks may somehow manage to extend marriage’s well-documented health benefits into widowhood. The results, by Harvard…

    1–2 minutes
  • Health

    The ‘widow effect’ is real

    In findings that highlight how health effects can reverberate through a social network, a researcher at HMS and his colleague report that the serious illness of an elderly spouse increases the risk of death of a husband or wife. In fact, a few illnesses in a spouse, such as dementia, may pose more of a…

    1–2 minutes
  • Health

    All placebos not created equal

    While researchers usually use placebos in clinical trials to test the effectiveness of a new treatment, a trial reported in the Feb. 1, 2006 British Medical Journal pitted one placebo against another.

    2–3 minutes