Your Psychology Psychology articles and news

While scientists have speculated on a link between obsessive-compulsive disorder and childhood infections like strep for more than two decades, a psychology researcher in Israel has now scientifically demonstrated that strep can lead to brain dysfunction and OCD. The breakthrough could lead to new drugs for treating OCD, and may in the future prevent the psychiatric disorder altogether.

In a report published in the Oct. 20 issue of Science Translational Medicine, researchers at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center say animal and human data suggest gene therapy to the brain may be able to treat patients with major depression who do not respond to traditional drug treatment…

By delivering an innovative, interdisciplinary approach to drug abuse and addiction research, The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) has been renewed as a “Center of Excellence” by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, part of the National Institutes of Health…

For most Americans, vacation is just a memory. The kids are back in school. The 9-5 routine is in full swing. There is less free time. And for many, that equals more stress. Time and the perception of time and stress are definitely correlated, according to Dr. Tejinder Billing, as assistant professor of management in the Rohrer College of Business at Rowan University, Glassboro, N.J…

Researchers from the University of Valencia (UV) have identified the effects of the way parents bring up their children on social structure in Spain. Their conclusions show that punishment, deprivation and strict rules impact on a family’s self esteem…

A child who grows up in the midst of political conflict, such as war or terrorism, can exhibit severe emotional scars. But certain qualities, which psychologists call “resilience factors,” can help overcome this adversity. Psychologists have developed a program to help children develop these resilience factors and avoid the psychological disabilities that may arise from stress.

Neuroscientists offer evidence that it is easier to rewire the brain early in life. The researchers found that a small part of the brain’s visual cortex that processes motion became reorganized only in the brains of subjects who had been born blind, not those who became blind later in life.

After the campus shootings at Virginia Tech in 2007 and Northern Illinois University in 2008, hundreds of affected students turned to social media websites to share their grief and search for solace. A new study of these students found that their online activities neither helped nor harmed their long-term psychological health…

For some women, the effects of breast cancer, the most common cancer affecting women, do not end when they leave the hospital. Now, researchers in the University of Missouri School of Health Professions have studied the lives of breast cancer patients following chemotherapy and found that their environments and available support systems help determine the quality of their lives…

What do we mean by “common sense” when we talk about a disease? What affects the ideas and beliefs that patients have of their disease? Researchers at the University of Granada have developed a test for measuring and assessing chronic patients’ cognitive representation of their disease…