Children whose mothers are depressed after childbirth are at elevated risk for violence by age 11, especially if the mothers suffered repeated depression, according to new research involving British families. The study also finds that in contrast to their peers, children whose mothers had been depressed at three months postpartum showed more diverse and severe aggressive behaviors than other children. The findings appear in the November issue of Developmental Psychology, a journal published by the A

Just in time for Halloween, a new study of the use of virtual reality to treat spider phobia indicates that touching the fuzzy creepy-crawlers can make the therapy twice as effective.

Researchers at the University of Washington’s Human Interface Technology (HIT) Lab measured aversion and anxiety responses of students, some of whom had a clinical phobia of spiders, before and after undergoing VR therapy. During the therapy, some of the subjects touched a realistic model of a large spide

Recent evidence suggests that oxygen levels were suppressed worldwide 175 million to 275 million years ago and fell to precipitously low levels compared with today’s atmosphere, low enough to make breathing the air at sea level feel like respiration at high altitude.

Now, a University of Washington paleontologist theorizes that low oxygen and repeated short but substantial temperature increases because of greenhouse warming sparked two major mass-extinction events, one of which eradicated

Hospital patients isolated for infection control experience more preventable adverse incidents and report greater dissatisfaction with their treatment, says a new study by University of Toronto and Harvard University researchers.

“Isolated patients were twice as likely as control patients to experience adverse events during their hospitalization,” says Professor Donald Redelmeier of U of T’s Department of Medicine. “Our most significant finding showed that they did not receive adequate

The developing areas of South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa account for more than two million neonatal deaths annually, according to research from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Worldwide, there are an estimated five million deaths, with 98 percent of these deaths taking place in developing countries. South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa represent 40 percent of all neonatal deaths, which are infants who die in their first 28 days of life. The study, “The burden of disease from neonat

Imaging studies yield a potential core marker for reading problems, underscore neurological basis of difficulties

Researchers have additional evidence that reading problems are linked to abnormal sound processing, thanks to high-precision pictures of the brain at work. In a recent study, when children without reading problems tried to distinguish between similar spoken syllables, speech areas in the left brain worked much harder than corresponding areas in the right brain, whose funct

A common drug administered in the first hours following trauma to patients deemed to be at risk of developing post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) reduced the occurrence of PTSD, according to a study led by researchers at the University of Lille, France.
While the study involved a small number of subjects, its results are encouraging, says its senior author, Charles Marmar, MD, associate chief of staff for mental health at the San Francisco VA Medical Center and professor and vice chair of psy

Analysis of DNA samples from patients with obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) and related illnesses suggests that these neuropsychiatric disorders affecting mood and behavior are associated with an uncommon mutant, malfunctioning gene that leads to faulty transporter function and regulation. Norio Ozaki, M.D., Ph.D., and colleagues in the collaborative study explain their findings in the October 23 Molecular Psychiatry.

Researchers funded by the National Institutes of Health have found a m

Opencast mining companies seeking permission for new sites should tackle parents’ fears about their children’s health as early as possible, new research suggests.

A new study, by the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, published in the current edition of the academic journal, Social Science and Medicine (1), indicates that residents are likely to oppose new proposals for opencast mines, even if communities surrounding existing sites have had positive experiences.

Merely turn

Your eyes play tricks. And your brain makes it worse. Both teenagers and adults misjudge how much they pour into glasses. They will pour more into short wide glasses than into tall slender glasses, but perceive the opposite to be true. The delusion of shape even influences experienced bartenders, though to a lesser degree, a researcher at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has found.

How shape can alter a person’s notion of size has been widely investigated. For instance, trian

“I never saw a woman worth thinking twice about after the anchor was a-peak – on shore it is another thing; and I will laugh, sing, dance, and make love, if they like it, with twenty girls.” — Clement Cleveland, in Walter Scott’s “The Pirate”

For long-term relationships, women like dads – men who are kind, compassionate and monogamous. But for short-term relationships, women prefer cads – the classic Romantic dark heroes who are dominant, promiscuous and daring.

That’s acc

A group of German researchers, headed by Gudrun Schneider (University of Munster) explored the characteristics of psychological well-being in an elderly population in an article published in the Nov-Dec 2003 issue of Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics.

Recent gerontological research shows a high variability in the elderly population. The aim of the present study is to investigate by means of cluster analysis, as to whether different ’ageing styles’ can be identified in a sample of cognitivel

Impatience and hostility–two hallmarks of the “type A” behavior pattern–increase young adults’ long-term risk of developing high blood pressure, according to a study funded by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), part of the National Institutes of Health. Further, the more intense the behaviors, the greater the risk.

However, other psychological and social factors, such as competitiveness, depression, and anxiety, did not increase hypertension risk. The research appe

The largest known biomarker study for prostate cancer patients treated with radiation therapy shows that the presence Ki-67 may be a significant predictor of patient outcome for men with prostate cancer treated with both radiation and hormones. The study was sponsored by the Radiation Therapy Oncology Group and was presented today by Alan Pollack, M.D., Ph.D., chairman of radiation oncology at Fox Chase Cancer Center, at the 45th annual meeting of the American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and On

Married heterosexual couples can learn a great deal from gay and lesbian couples, far more than the stereotypical images presented by the television show “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy,” according to the first published observational studies of homosexual relationships.

“Gay and lesbian couples are a lot more mature, more considerate in trying to improve a relationship and have a greater awareness of equality in a relationship than straight couples,” said John Gottman, a University of Wash

Even proficient bilingual speakers always have both languages on the tips of their tongues, according to Penn State researchers. “What appears amazing, is that people do not make extensive mistakes,” says Dr. Judith F. Kroll, professor of psychology and applied linguistics. “We have an exquisite cognitive control system that monitors the code switching between one language and another.” While no one knows exactly how the control system allows even people of limited bilingual ability to speak in a se