Psych-So-Easy

Welcome to Psych & Soma's new blog

Psych-So-Easy replaces the PsychDigest blog, as PsychDigest (the news digest) is no longer published. Table-of-contents for all the PsychDigest editions, from April 2007 (Vol. 1 no. 1) to April 2009 (Vol. 2 no. 12), are still available from the PsychDigest blog.

Psych-So-Easy will strive to provide the same  quality of information that subscribers found in PsychDigest, but with updates several times a week instead of once a month. If you wish to be notified when new articles are published, you can subscribe to the Psych-So-Easy news feed, or request email updates.

We hope you enjoy the new format!
Martie & Thomas Groenewald (editors)

Babies prepared for bilingualism before birth

Babies who heard two languages regularly during pregnancy are better prepared to listen to and learn about both languages, than infants who were exposed to only one language. Both groups are able to discriminate between the two languages, providing a mechanism from the first moments of life that helps ensure bilingual infants do not confuse their two languages.

Read the full press release at ScienceDaily.

Oxytocin improves social behaviour in autism

The inhalation of oxytocin, a hormone known to promote mother-infant bonds and social relationships, can significantly improve the abilities of autistic patients to interact with other individuals.

Autism is characterized by difficulties in communicating effectively with other people and developing social relationships.

Oxytocin is a hormone that promotes delivery and lactation. It plays a crucial role in enhancing social and emotional behaviour. Previous studies that measured the levels of this hormone in the blood of patients showed that it was deficient in those with autism.

Read the full press release at ScienceDaily, or the original article in PNAS (15 February 2010).

Hypertension may predict dementia in older adults with cognitive impairment

In older patients with impaired executive function, hypertension can be a predictor of progression to dementia. This is not true for patients with memory dysfunction.

The study, published in the February 2010 issue of Archives of Neurology, suggests that controlling hypertension in older adults with cognitive impairment can slow down the progression to dementia.

Read the full press release at Medscape (free registration required).

Two studies in consumer psychology

If you believe in karma, you're more likely to have higher expectations, according to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research.

Some consumers strategically lower their expectations in order to try to increase their satisfaction with a product or experience, write authors Praveen K. Kopalle (Dartmouth College), Donald R. Lehmann (Columbia University), and John U. Farley (Dartmouth College). But people who believe in karma tend to have a more long-term orientation, which decreases the importance of momentary happiness.

Read the press release at EurekAlert!

Positive emotions might make a consumer more eager to buy, but the kind of positive emotion plays an important role. Pride and contentment will lead to two different types of product.

Read the press release at EurekAlert!

Can painkillers alleviate heartache?

The kind of pain that you feel when you get rejected socially feels different from the hurt you feel when you break your leg or scald your hand, but neurologically speaking, they're closely related. As researcher Naomi Eisenberger has shown, circuitry underlying both sorts of pain are found in the anterior cingulate cortex.

But if that's the case, can a drug that dulls pain in the body have a similar effect on one's emotions? A surprising new study suggests that the answer is yes.

Article from the Extreme Fear blog, by Jeff Wise.

Mindfulness improves mood, working memory

Mindfulness—the ability to be “in” the present moment without reacting to it emotionally or otherwise—has been linked to improvements in mood and working memory.

Working memory is the cognitive term for complex thought, problem solving and cognitive control of emotions.

The study, during which a high-stress US military group preparing for deployment to Iraq was trained in mindfulness, also suggests that a sufficient practice of mindfulness may protect against functional impairments associated with high-stress challenges that require a tremendous amount of cognitive control, self-awareness, situational awareness and emotional regulation.

These study results are similar to those of other studies into the beneficial effects of mindfulness training.

The full press release is available from ScienceDaily.

Depression round-up

Excessive Internet use linked to depression

Researchers from the University of Leeds have found a correlation between high Internet use and symptoms of depression. This was the first large-scale study of its kind in the West, showing conspicuous evidence that some users have developed a compulsive Internet habit, replacing real-life social interaction with online chat rooms and social networking sites. The results suggest that this type of addictive surfing can have a serious impact on mental health.

Read the press release at ScienceDaily, or the original article by Morrison and Gore in Psychopathology, vol. 42, no. 2.

Depression raises risk of diabetes complications

Depression raises the risk of advanced and severe complications from diabetes. These complications include kidney failure or blindness, the result of small vessel damage, as well as vessel problems leading to heart attack or stroke.

The full press release is available from ScienceDaily.

Acupuncture effective against depression in pregnancy

Acupuncture may be an effective treatment for depression during pregnancy. In the study, women randomized to receive acupuncture specific for depression experienced a significantly greater decrease in depression severity than controls. About 10% of pregnant women meet the criteria for major depression, and almost 20% have increased symptoms of depression during pregnancy.

Read the press release at ScienceDaily.

“Early to bed” may prevent depression in adolescents

Adolescents whose bedtime is midnight or later are 24% more likely to suffer from depression, and 20% more likely to have suicidal thoughts, than adolescents whose bedtime is 10 pm or earlier. In addition, adolescents who reported that they usually sleep for five or fewer hours per night were 71% more likely to suffer from depression, and 48% more likely to think about committing suicide than those who reported getting eight hours of sleep. The results suggest that earlier bedtimes could protect against depression by lengthening sleep duration and increasing the likelihood of getting enough sleep, strengthening the argument that inadequate sleep could play a role in the aetiology of depression.

Read the press release  at ScienceDaily.

Efficacy of antidepressants depend on severity of symptoms

Antidepressants may have little effect on mild to moderate symptoms of depression, while patients with severe depressive symptoms seem to derive a substantial benefit from their use. These results are from a meta-analysis of randomized trials, involving more than 700 patients.

Read the press release at ScienceDaily or the original article in the January edition of JAMA.

Antidepressants don’t target key brain protein involved in depression

During clinical depression, there are significantly increased levels of monoamine oxidase A (MAO-A) in the brain, yet the commonly used antidepressants have no effect on this key brain protein. MAO-A digests multiple brain chemicals, including serotonin, that help maintain healthy mood. High MAO-A levels excessively remove these brain chemicals. The findings of this study may help explain why antidepressant do no always work. Rather than reversing the problem of MAO-A breaking down several chemicals, most antidepressants only raise serotonin. Some early antidepressant medications did target MAO-A, but these MAO-A inhibitors fell out of favour in the 1970s due to adverse interactions with certain foods.

Read the press release at ScienceDaily, or the original article in the December 2009 edition of Archives of General Psychiatry.

“Pay it forward” pays

Seeing someone else do a good deed can move us to follow their example. The warm, fuzzy feeling we get when watching others do good deeds—especially if they are helping another person—is called elevation, and can inspire altruistic behaviour in others.

Read the press release at EurekAlert!, or the original article in the upcoming issue of Psychological Science.

Househusbands

In the USA, the number of stay-at-home fathers has risen, while that of working mothers who are the sole breadwinners in their families are at a record high. This shift in traditional gender roles is said to be cause partly by massive job losses.

According to the researchers, in many cases both parents were working until the husband was laid off or retired, while the wife remained in her job. In other situations, a non-working wife may have rejoined the labour force, in a growing industry such as teaching or healthcare, to sustain the family income after the husband was let go.

Read the full story at iol.co.za

The Lancet retracts paper linking autism to MMR vacdine

The Lancet has formally retracted the paper that linked the three-in-one childhood vaccine MMR (measles, mumps, and rubella) with autism. The paper, published in 1998 and authored by British doctor Andrew Wakefield, caused a great deal of controversy, including moving many parents to refuse the vaccination for their children.

This move is the latest in a series of findings that have suggested that Wakefield’s study was flawed, including the accusation that the study was funded by trial lawyers who were investigating the possibility of suing vaccine manufacturers for "vaccine injury." One of the results of the controversy is that measles once again became endemic in the UK, fourteen years after the local transmission of measles was halted.

Respectful Insolence has a good write-up of the story, including links to previous relevant posts.

Sport builds character? Not as much as you might think

Playing sports in a club has much less impact on the psychological and social development of children and adolescents than was once thought, according to Stefan Wagnsson, whose recently published dissertation at Karlstad University in Sweden monitored more than 1200 children and adolescents over a two year period.

The results of the study showed that young people who took part in club sports reported a stronger sense of self, experienced themselves as physically and socially more competent, perceived themselves as having fewer problems with their health, acted somewhat more ethically, drank less alcohol, and smoked less often than their peers who were not active in a sports club.

However, developments in both groups over time were largely similar, and the differences between the two groups are primarily ascribable to the fact that children and adolescents who come from favourable conditions are over-represented in club sports.

http://www.alphagalileo.org/ViewItem.aspx?ItemId=65123&CultureCode=en

Teenagers use violence to boost their social standing

Study published in the journal Psicothema: A new study looks in depth at the social relationships between male and female teenagers, relational violence, and psycho-social adjustment factors such as loneliness, self-esteem and satisfaction with life. The results show that young people who want to be better appreciated and respected within their group are the most likely to be violent.

Teenagers use violence to boost their social standing

School interventions improve children’s well-being

A study from the University of Bologna shows that brief psychological interventions in school increase well-being among adolescents, and that these results persist after 6 months. The study has been published in the current issue of the Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry.

Is only Christmas which makes children happier? Psychological well-being can be improved with school interventions

The role of learning in synaesthesia

Researchers from the University of Padova, Italy, have discovered that learning may play an important role in synaesthesia, and can lead to synaesthetic behaviour even when the person is not consciously aware of the experience. The study has been published in the February 2010 issue of Cortex, published by Elsevier.

View full article

Crime and Deviance

 

by Tony Lawson & Tim Heaton
Publication date: 27 November 2009
352 pp
ISBN number: 9780230217829 (Paperback)

View article

Reversing the effects of sleep deprivation

Researchers have discovered the enzyme that is responsible for the undesirable effects of sleep deprivation, such as forgetfulness and impaired mental performance. They discovered that sleep deprivation in mice undermines the function of a specific molecular mechanism in the hippocampus, the area of the brain responsible for consolidating new memories. When the researchers inhibited the activity of the PDE4 enzyme, the action counteracted the effects of sleep deprivation.

The results have been published in the 22 October issue of Nature.

View the full article from AlphaGalileo.

Brain activity exposes those who break promises

Patterns of brain activity may be able to predict whether someone will break a promise. Scientists from the University of Zurich have discovered the physiological mechanisms in the brain that underlie broken promises. The findings have been published in the journal Neuron, on 10 December 2009.

Read the press release at AlphaGalileo

Tobacco Smoke and Behavioral Problems in Children

Researchers have shown that children who are exposed to tobacco smoke prenatally and during the first years of life have a higher risk of developing abnormal behavioral symptoms when they are of school age. Moreover, it makes a difference whether the child was exposed to tobacco smoke first after birth or was already confronted with it during prenatal development.

via www.alphagalileo.org

Why more girls are born to less wealthy mothers

Dutch researchers have unearthed a fascinating link between the financial status of a woman and the most likely sex of any children she will have. Under favourable conditions, women can expect to have more sons, while under harsh conditions, more girls are born. The discovery—made while studying more than 95 000 Rwandan women—makes evolutionary sense. Under conditions where children can be expected to thrive, a healthy, strong boy can fight off competition and is more likely to father children, thus perpetuating the family line. Under less favourable conditions, however, boys may be less likely to grow up strong and healthy. Under these conditions, it makes more evolutionary sense to have girls who will not face competition to continue the family line. The study underscores increasing evidence that the sex of a baby is influenced by lifestyle and environment.

Read the press release at www.iol.co.za.

New social psychology and personality journal from SAGE

SAGE has announced the January 2010 launch of a new quarterly journal, Social Psychological and Personality Science (SPPS). SPPS will publish cutting-edge, short reports of single studies, or very succinct reports of multiple studies. The journal's brief, to-the-point research articles will be of broad interest to both professional and lay audiences and will be written in a format accessible to a wide range of readers, including science writers for the popular press. It will feature a speedy review and publication process to allow groundbreaking research to be published quickly.

Read the press release at EurekAlert!

International Conference on Parental Problems: Child Related Issues

Date: 24th-28th Agust 2009
Venue: Herencia Hotel, 14 Eastrop Way, Basingstoke, Hants, RG21 4QD Hampshire, London, UK.

The conference will focus on divorce and family restructuring in relation to children. The
major areas will include, but not be restricted to:

• developmental outcomes for children of divorce/separation;
• children’s experience of divorce and separation;
• children’s residential patterns and relationships after divorce (residence and contact/custody and visitation);
• determinants of residence and contact;
• child support;
• family reformation/blended families and stepfamilies
• children’s involvement in family/legal decision-making
• legal frameworks
• interventions
• methodological issues in researching children and divorce

Throughout the conference we will be seeking to establish:

• what do we currently know?
• what do we need to know?
• how could this be achieved?

The whole meeting is dedicated to research on children and divorce. It is multidisciplinary and multinational with scholars from around the world and from all relevant disciplines. This conference will bring together an almost 300 representatives of NGO's/CBO's and numerous numbers of interested individual participants from all over the world. The conference will be conducted on participatory bases with satellite plenary and simultaneous sessions followed by general and small group discussions

SPONSORSHIP: The conference receives financial support from Bank HSBC Bank London, the United Nations Health Commission and Ford Foundation USA. This sponsorship covers the following:
1. Return airplane travel ticket for selected delegates from their home country to venue of event in London (United Kingdom) and back to their home country.
2. Medical insurance cover for delegates throughout the entire conference duration.
The New York Teen Pregnancy Network will not assume responsibility of any other cost, other than those listed above. Participants will bear responsibility for their own accommodation cost.
 
NOMINATION AND SELECTION OF PARTICIPANTS: Intending participants are requested to nominate between two (2) to five (5) active members to participate, age bracket between 21 years and above. In order to foster gender balance, we would appreciate if your delegation includes one or two female participant(s).

REGISTRATION/INQUIRIES: For purpose of registration to participate in this Conferences, contact: ednaduncan0003@yahoo.com   The program will include:

In addition to the main program, the meeting will also host book launches, artistic and cultural activities and, as with all NY Teen Pregnancy’s events, plenty of space and opportunity for informal networking and alliance-building. All sessions will have interpretation into English and French. Meet us in London to assert a new change for a stronger society.

The neurobiology of wisdom

Researchers have compiled the first-ever review of the neurobiology of wisdom—once the sole province of religion and philosophy.

Defining wisdom is rather subjective, although there are many similarities in definition across time and cultures. New research suggests that there may be a basis in neurobiology for wisdom’s most universal traits.

Components of wisdom are commonly agreed to include attributes such as empathy, compassion or altruism, emotional stability, self-understanding, and pro-social attitudes, including a tolerance for others’ values.

In order to determine if specific brain circuits and pathways might be responsible for wisdom, the researchers examined existing articles, publications and other documents for the attributes most commonly included in the definition of wisdom, and for the brain circuitry associated with those attributes.

They found, for example, that pondering a situation calling for altruism activates the medial pre-frontal cortex, while moral decision-making is a combination of rational (the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, which plays a role in sustaining attention and working memory), emotional/social (medial pre-frontal cortex), and conflict detection (the anterior cingulate cortex, sometimes also associated with a so-called “sixth sense”) functions.

Interestingly, several common brain regions appear to be involved in different components of wisdom. The researchers suggest that the neurobiology of wisdom may involve an optimal balance between more primitive brain regions (the limbic system) and the newest ones (pre-frontal cortex.) Knowledge of the underlying mechanisms in the brain could potentially lead to developing interventions for enhancing wisdom.

Read the press release from the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine.

Read the abstract in the Archives of General Psychiatry (April 2009, vol. 66, no. 4). The full article can be accessed online for $15.

Inflammation-related depression: Key role-player confirmed

Scientists have confirmed the role of an immune-activated enzyme in causing inflammation-related depression-like symptoms in mice. The work clarifies how the immune system can trigger depression and, more broadly, demonstrates the potential of this animal model for exploring the relationship between chronic inflammation—a common feature of diseases such as heart disease, cancer, and diabetes—and depression.

When an individual is infected with viruses or bacteria, cells of the immune system respond by secreting proteins called cytokines. These cytokines not only trigger inflammation and orchestrate the body's immune response against the infection, but they also cause changes in behaviour, such as fatigue and withdrawal.

Beyond these commonly experienced behavioural signs of illness, previous research has shown that cytokines can also cause depression in people with physical illnesses but who have no prior history of mental illness. For instance, around one-third of patients receiving the cytokine interferon-α for treatment of cancer or hepatitis C develop major depression. Clinical evidence has suggested that an enzyme (IDO) activated by these same cytokines might be a key player.

This study demonstrated that mice in which the gene for IDO is knocked out, or in which IDO is chemically blocked, do not exhibit depressive-like effects. The authors conclude that IDO is a necessary step in the development of this immunity-related depression.

The compound used in this work to block IDO may have potential as a treatment for depression in instances when immunotherapy such as interferon-α is used. In addition, chronic, low-grade inflammation is a feature not only of infectious diseases, but conditions such as cancer, diabetes, obesity, and heart disease. Depression co-occurs frequently with these common diseases and is associated with poorer prospects for future health.

Work in this animal model has the potential to provide insight into the role of chronic inflammation in precipitating depression that is often associated with these chronic conditions.

Read the press release from the US National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH).

Read the abstract in the Journal of Immunology (1 March 2009, vol. 182, no. 5). The full article can be accessed online for $10.

Laughter is still good medicine

Lee Berk, DrPH, MPH, a preventive care specialist and psychoneuroimmunologist, examined the effect of “mirthful laughter” on patients with diabetes, and found that laughter, as a preventive adjunct therapy, raised good cholesterol and lowered inflammation.

Berk followed two groups for 12 months—one group acted as a control group, receiving only standard treatment, while the second group viewed self-selected humour for 30 minutes daily, in addition to receiving standard therapies.

The patients in the laughter group had lower epinephrine and norepinephrine levels by the second month, suggesting lower stress levels. They had increased HDL (good) cholesterol. The laughter group also had lower levels of TNF-α, IFN-γ, IL-6 and hs-CRP levels, indicating lower levels of inflammation.

At the end of the 12 months, the research team saw significant improvement in the laughter group: HDL cholesterol had risen by 26%, rising only 3% in the control group. Harmful C-reactive proteins decreased by 66% in the laughter group, vs 26% for the control group.

The study suggests that the addition of an adjunct therapeutic mirthful laughter Rx (a potential modulator of positive mood state) to standard diabetes care may lower stress and inflammatory response and increase “good” cholesterol levels. The authors conclude that mirthful laughter may thus lower the risk of cardiovascular disease associated with diabetes mellitus and metabolic syndrome.

Read the press release from the American Physiological Society.

The findings were presented at the 122nd Annual Meeting of the American Physiological Society, part of the Experimental Biology 2009 scientific conference, held in New Orleans, 18–22 April 2009.

Training your brain can make you happier

A brain fitness program measured initially for its impact on cognitive abilities in older adults also had a significant beneficial impact on symptoms of depression.

Participants in the study who engaged in the computerized brain exercises, which were designed to improve visual speed, accuracy and expanse of processing, had significantly better outcomes in key measures related to mood in one-year and five-year follow-ups than the groups who were taught memory strategies, reasoning, or had no specific activity assigned to them.

The “brain fitness” group experienced an increase in brain processing speed and other quality of life measures that may have made their day to day experiences more positive. In addition, the attention required to carry out the exercises, the rewards of completing the exercises and the learning requirements of the computer program may have stimulated the chemical system or other parts of the brain that affect mood.

Read the press release at Medical News Today.

Read the abstract in the Journals of Gerontology: Medical Sciences (April 2009, vol. 64A, no. 4).

International Seminar on Mind, Brain and Consciousness

Thane, India

14–15 January 2010

Contact: Dr Ajai R. SIngh, Shiva Kripa, Trimurty Road, Mulund, Mumbai, 400 080

tel: +91 022 25332412

Email: mensanamonographs@yahoo.co.uk

Website: http://www.vpmthane.org/Arts-Comm/seminar2010/international_seminar.htm

Living abroad can make you more creative

Living in another country might help expand your mind.

Gaining experience in foreign cultures has long been a classic prescription for artists interested in stimulating their imaginations or honing their crafts. Psychologists investigating whether living abroad can actually make people more creative recently conducted five different studies to explore the link between creativity and living abroad.

In one study, students were asked to solve the Duncker candle problem, a classic test of creative insight. In this problem, individuals are presented with three objects on a table placed next to a cardboard wall: a candle, a pack of matches and a box of tacks. The task is to attach the candle to the wall so that the candle burns properly and does not drip wax on the table or the floor. The correct solution involves using the box of tacks as a candleholder—one should empty the box of tacks and then tack it to the wall, placing the candle inside.

The solution is considered a measure of creative insight as it requires the ability to see beyond the typical uses for an object—i e. the box is not just for the tacks but can also be used as a stand. The results showed that the longer students had spent living abroad, the more likely they were to come up with the creative solution.

In another study, the researchers used a mock negotiation test involving the sale of a gas station. In this negotiation, a deal based solely on sale price was impossible because the minimum price the seller was willing to accept was higher than the buyer's maximum. However, because the two parties’ underlying interests were compatible, a deal could be reached through a creative agreement that satisfied both parties’ interests. Here again, negotiators with experience living abroad were more likely to reach a deal that demanded creative insight.

In both studies, time spent travelling abroad did not matter; only living abroad was related to creativity.

A follow-up study to explore why living abroad was related to creativity revealed that the more students had adapted themselves to the foreign cultures when they lived abroad, the more likely they were to solve the Duncker candle task.

These results show that there is a psychological transformation that occurs when people are living in a foreign country that enhances creativity; this transformation likely occurs when they work to adapt themselves to a new culture.

Although these studies show a strong relationship between living abroad and creativity, they do not prove that living abroad and adapting to a new culture actually cause people to be more creative. The researchers explored this aspect by using a technique called “priming.”

In two experiments, they asked groups of undergraduate students at the Sorbonne in Paris to recall and write about a time they had lived abroad or adapted to a new culture; other groups were asked to write about other experiences, such as going to the supermarket, learning a new sport or simply observing but not adapting to a new culture.

The results showed that priming students to mentally recreate their past experiences living abroad or adapting to a new culture caused students, at least temporarily, to be more creative. For example, these students drew space aliens and solved word games more creatively than students primed to recall other experiences.

Read the press release from the American Psychological Association.

Read the abstract in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (May 2009, vol. 96, no. 5). The full article can be purchased online for $11.95.

Personality predicts response to placebo

The “placebo response”—in which people respond to a “sugar pill” or other form of sham therapy—has puzzled researchers for a long time. The placebo response is a known physiological phenomenon, but how it works or why it works for certain people and not others, is a mystery.

Researchers at McGill University might have found a clue: “novelty seeking” personality types enjoy a stronger placebo response than people with reserved personalities. Novelty-seeking people have a higher drive for seeking out new experiences, and they tend to be more extrovert, impulsive and extravagant than more reserved types.

The team injected a pain-inducing saline solution into the legs of a group of healthy males. The “treatment” was an experimental analgesic cream—in reality a normal skin lotion, to evoke the placebo response. Not everyone reported pain relief from the placebo, but those who did scored higher on tests that gauged novelty-seeking personalities.

Novelty seeking is associated with the neurotransmitter dopamine, which in turn is linked to pleasure and reward. The study hypothesizes that the anticipation of pain relief, in this case triggered by the administration of a placebo, is a special case of reward anticipation, which might explain why people with higher levels of novelty seeking are more likely to respond to placebo treatment.

Read the press release from McGill University.

Read the abstract in the Journal of Neuroscience (15 April 2009, vol. 29, no. 15). The full article can be accessed online for $15.

PsychLits for 26 April — More news on our radar

New research has found that students benefit more from being taught the concepts behind math problems rather than the exact procedures to solve the problems. The findings offer teachers new insights on how best to shape math instruction to have the greatest impact on student learning.

Read the press release in ScienceDaily or the abstract in the Journal of Experimental Child Psychology.

Illusionary relationships with the characters and personalities on favourite TV shows can provide people with feelings of belonging, even in the face of low self esteem or after being rejected by friends or family members. The research provides evidence for the ‘social surrogacy hypothesis,’ which holds that humans can use technologies, like television, to provide the experience of belonging when no real belongingness has been experienced.

Read the press release at the University at Buffalo, or the abstract in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology (February 2009, vol. 45, no. 2).

Researchers have found that cognitive behavioural therapy is helpful for short-term improvement in anger and aggression in adolescents with Tourette syndrome (TS). Parents reported a decrease of 52% in disruptive behaviour in the anger management group, compared with a decrease of 11% in the control group. Clinicians who were unaware of the treatment rated 69% of the children who completed anger management training as improved, compared with 15% in the control group.

Read the press release at Yale University or the abstract in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (April 2009, vol. 48, 4). The full article can be accessed online for $20.

Botox, by preventing you from frowning, may make you happier. Patients who had received Botox treatment to the forehead were found to be significantly less depressed, anxious and irritable than the other group, which had different forms of cosmetic treatment. These results support the theory that our expressions feed back and impact on our emotions. By preventing you from frowning, botox injections prevent the expression of negative emotions, resulting in a happier mood.

Read the press release at Medical News Today. The study was presented at The British Psychological Society Annual Conference held in Brighton, UK, 1–3 April 2009.

Addiction symptoms among US adolescents who play video games

Research shows that 8.5% of US adolescents aged 8 to 18 who play video games show multiple signs of behavioural addiction.

Symptoms include spending increasing amounts of time and money on video games to feel the same level of excitement; irritability or restlessness when play is scaled back; escaping problems through play; skipping chores or homework to spend more time at the controller; lying about the length of playing time; and stealing games or money to play more.

Four times as many boys as girls were considered “pathological gamers.” The study found that 88% of the nation's children ages 8 to 18 play video games.

Read the press release in the Washing Post.

Read the abstract in Psychological Science [Early view article published 13 April 2009).