Mental Health News and Research

Latest Mental Health News and Research

UMass Lowell expert aims to improve sleep of night-shift workers

A UMass Lowell expert on sleep is examining strategies to help night-shift workers get more restful shuteye, critical to preventing ill health effects.

11 Sep 2019

Brain-computer interface: huge potential benefits and formidable challenges

A new Royal Society report called “iHuman: blurring lines between mind and machine” is for the first time systematically exploring whether it is “right” or not to use neural interfaces – machines implanted in or worn over the body to pick up or stimulate nervous activity in the brain or other parts of the nervous system.

11 Sep 2019

Scientists find a link between brain’s emotion circuit and movement

The brain is a powerful organ that controls all the body processes, including movement. In some athletes, however, they usually experience a phenomenon called “choking,” wherein their performance rapidly declines when they’re under a lot of pressure.

11 Sep 2019

Afternoon sleeps lower heart attack risk

A new study has shown that people who nap during the day have a lower risk of getting heart attacks. According to the researchers, chronic lack of sleep can raise the risk of getting atherosclerosis or build-up of cholesterol plaques within the arteries of the body.

10 Sep 2019

Memory-protective drug for Alzheimer’s on the horizon

Scientists have come up with a new drug which could prevent patients with features of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) from suffering memory loss and brain damage.

10 Sep 2019

New couples-based intervention shows potential to reduce caregiver distress

There is growing evidence that caregivers of patients with cardiovascular disease are vulnerable to developing their own poor cardiovascular health.

10 Sep 2019

New research examines benefit of nutrient supplementation in people with mental disorders

We've all heard that 'food is good for your mood'. Now a new study into mental health and nutrient supplementation has taken a leap forward by establishing the gold standard for which nutrients are proven to assist in the management of a range of mental health disorders.

10 Sep 2019

New oral splint can reduce tics in children and adults with Tourette syndrome

Tourette syndrome is a neurological disorder characterized by vocal and motor tics, which can contribute to anxiety, depression, and low self-esteem.

10 Sep 2019

Teens growing up as minorities more likely to experience anxiety and depression

Puerto Rican teens growing up as minorities in the South Bronx are more likely to experience anxiety and depression than their peers growing up as a majority in Puerto Rico, even under similar conditions of poverty, says a new study in World Psychiatry.

10 Sep 2019

Socioeconomic deprivation linked to suicide rates in rural areas

This is National Suicide Prevention Week, and John Campo--the chief behavior wellness officer at West Virginia University--is examining trends in suicide rates to make suicide prevention more effective.

10 Sep 2019

Salk researchers develop method to reveal epigenetic features of brain cells

The brain's prefrontal cortex, which gives us our ability to solve problems and plan ahead, contains billions of cells. But understanding the large diversity of cell types in this critical region, each with unique genetic and molecular properties, has been challenging.

10 Sep 2019

Intergenerational relationships impact health and well‐being of older immigrants

Filial piety - the traditional value of caring for one's elders - is central to the Chinese concept of family and has long shaped intergenerational relationships, daily life, and well-being, for older Chinese adults.

10 Sep 2019

Brain networks develop differently in boys and girls at puberty, research shows

Scientists have found that brain networks develop differently in males and females at puberty, with boys showing an increase in connectivity in certain brain areas, and girls showing a decrease in connectivity as puberty progresses.

9 Sep 2019

Researchers investigate how to prevent the onset of schizophrenia using mouse model

Although predisposing processes occur earlier, schizophrenia breaks out at young adulthood, suggesting it might involve a pathological transition during late brain development in predisposed individuals.

9 Sep 2019

Neuroscientists discover how brain rhythms organize our visual perception

To investigate how information of different visual features is processed in the brain, the neuroscientists from the German Primate Center - Leibniz Institute of Primate Research in Göttingen, Germany, the Iran University of Science and Technology and the Institute for Research in Fundamental Sciences in Tehran, Iran measured the activity of individual nerve cells in the brain of rhesus monkeys, while the animals performed a visual perception task.

9 Sep 2019

Is your cell phone good for your health?

Many studies have examined the health effects of smartphone abuse, but a new study looks at the sociodemographic features and health indicators of people who have a smartphone but do not use it regularly.

9 Sep 2019

Schizophrenia and brain noise filtering

The sheer abundance of noise that surrounds us makes it necessary for the brain to filter out selective components so that we can focus on what we need or want to hear. This is called filtering. When we hear two sounds that are exactly the same, the brain filters out the second sound by simply reducing the amount of nerve circuits that participate in its reception.

9 Sep 2019

Study offers hope for people suffering from chronic pain

When you experience severe pain, like breaking or shattering a bone, the pain isn't just felt at the sight of the injury.

9 Sep 2019

Criminal justice contact can negatively affect physical and mental health

New research from North Carolina State University finds that being convicted of a crime is associated with a decline in one's physical health, even if the conviction doesn't lead to jail time.

9 Sep 2019

WHO: One person dies every 40 seconds from suicide

The number of countries with national suicide prevention strategies has increased in the five years since the publication of WHO's first global report on suicide, said the World Health Organization in the lead-up to World Suicide Prevention Day on 10 September.

9 Sep 2019