Your Psychology Psychology articles and news

Using a placebo pill appearing identical to the real thing, researchers have found that how the brain responds to antidepressant medication may be influenced by its remembering past antidepressant exposure.

Though autism is often not diagnosed until the age of three, some children begin to show signs of developmental delay before they turn a year old. While not all infants and toddlers with delays will develop autism spectrum disorders, experts point to early detection of these signs as key to capitalizing on early diagnosis and intervention, which is believed to improve developmental outcomes.

People enjoy watching tragedy movies like “Titanic” because they deliver what may seem to be an unlikely benefit: tragedies actually make people happier in the short-term.

Specialized training of complex motor skills may induce sports-specific structural changes in the human brain.

A major research trial to test the effectiveness of extra support for smokers calling an NHS quitline – on top of what is already offered by the service – has found the additional help does not improve success rates for quitting the habit. The pilot scheme offered smokers additional help in the form of free nicotine patches and extra telephone counselling from the English National Quitline…

A study published by University of Kentucky researchers shows that survivors of multiple cancers report unhealthier behaviors post-diagnosis than control counterparts. Published in the Annals of Behavioral Medicine, the study recorded answers regarding health status and health behaviors from 404,525 adults using the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System survey…

Obese white teenage girls who lose weight may benefit physically, but the weight change does not guarantee they are going to feel better about themselves, according to a Purdue University study. “We found that obese black and white teenage girls who transitioned out of obesity continued to see themselves as fat, despite changes in their relative body mass,” said Sarah A…

Scripps Research Institute scientists and their colleagues have successfully harnessed neurons in mouse brains, allowing them to at least partially control a specific memory…

It’s said that we are social animals and now there is scientific proof. BMC Public Health, an open access, peer-reviewed journal, has an article this week from Dr Laura Pulkki-Raback, who led a research at the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health. Their work shows that people living alone are more likely to use antidepressant medication…

The number of people living on their own has doubled, over the last three decades, to one in three in the UK and US. New research published in BioMed Central’s open access journal BMC Public Health shows that the risk of depression, measured by people taking antidepressants, is almost 80% higher for those living alone compared to people living in any kind of social or family group…