Phobia News and Research

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Fears are a common part of an individual’s life. However, a phobia is more than a simple fear. It starts and develops into something massive when the affected person begins to organise their life around avoiding the feared object – be it an animal, insect, place, situation or just about anything.

Autism study and gene therapy in vision are top scientific achievements in 2009

A landmark autism study and a dramatic success for gene therapy in reversing inherited blindness, both at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, were recognized among the top scientific achievements in 2009, according to three national publications: Time magazine, Discover magazine and the journal Science.

23 Dec 2009

Study on placebo effect

A short time ago, Swedish scientists published a paper suggesting the existence of a genetic disposition to respond to placebo, thus giving rise to debate in the media about a possible "placebo gene." In the current issue of Deutsches Ärzteblatt International (Dtsch Arztebl Int 2009; 106[46]: 751-5), Matthias Breidert and Karl Hofbauer summarize the most recent data about placebos.

28 Nov 2009

Virtual Reality Exposure Treatment to help tackle driving phobias

Researchers at The University of Manchester have recruited volunteers with a variety of driving phobias to test whether virtual reality can be used alongside conventional psychological therapies to help tackle their fears.

From The University of Manchester 20 Oct 2009

Gelotophobia has no cultural barriers

Laughter is an emotional expression that is innate in human beings. This means laughing at others is also believed to be a universal phenomenon. However, the fear of being laughed at causes some people enormous problems in their social lives. This is known as gelotophobia, a disorder that affects people in all cultures alike.

15 Oct 2009

Help is on the way for shy, anxious drinkers

In life today alcohol plays an enormous part in many people's social activities and is often an essential part of a night out with friends.

20 Jul 2009

Neuroscientists locate where fear is stored in the brain

Fear is a powerful emotion and neuroscientists have for the first time located the neurons responsible for fear conditioning in the mammalian brain. Fear conditioning is a form of Pavlovian, or associative, learning and is considered to be a model system for understanding human phobias, post-traumatic stress disorder and other anxiety disorders.

6 Jul 2009

Internet-based programs effective in treating depression – new study

In a discovery that could lead to new treatment approaches for depression, researchers from the University of New South Wales (UNSW) have shown that internet-based therapy programs are as effective as face-to-face therapies in combating the illness.

2 Jun 2009

Extremely shy? - help is at hand

Help is at hand for those who suffer from extreme shyness. Shyness in its extreme form can have a huge impact on peoples' lives because it results in an avoidance of the usual common social situations, such as meeting new people or going on a date, and can also have an impact on work situations.

30 Apr 2009

Lynx2 gene linked to nervous behavior in mice

To measure anxiety in a mouse and suggest it's similar to anxiety in a person may seem like a stretch, but the metrics sound uncannily familiar.

20 Feb 2009

Xenophobia, for men only

Very few people fear dandelions. Or even dangerous things - like Hummers. We may object to outsized automobiles on principle, but the mere sight of them doesn't make us tremble and sweat and run away. On the other hand, even toddlers show an automatic and powerful fear of snakes, including harmless ones.

5 Feb 2009

Migraines linked to mental disorders

Migraine headaches can precede the onset of mental disorders, according to a growing body of knowledge that includes a new study in the January-February 2009 issue of General Hospital Psychiatry.

21 Jan 2009

Discovery of gene variants that impact the placebo effect

It is a well-known fact in drug trials that individuals can respond just as well to placebos, sugar pills, as to the active drug.

3 Dec 2008

People with lower IQs may have greater risk of mental disorders

Researchers have hypothesized that people with lower IQs may have a higher risk of adult mental disorders, but few studies have looked at the relationship between low childhood IQ and psychiatric disorders later in life.

1 Dec 2008

Promising clinical trial for patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder

Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) affects 2% of the population and is considered a psychiatric disorder. It is the number four psychiatric pathology in terms of frequency following phobias, disorders relating to alcohol and drugs, and depression.

12 Nov 2008

Urgent need for research into medication overuse headaches

There is a critical need to review current treatment strategies for the increasingly common problem of medication overuse headaches (MOH), according to a series of international papers in the November issue of Cephalalgia.

4 Nov 2008

Substance abuse and other psychiatric disorders are common among French prisoners

Substance abuse disorders (SUDs) and other psychiatric disorders are common among prison populations.

4 Nov 2008

Three effective treatments for childhood anxiety disorders found

Treatment that combines a certain type of psychotherapy with an antidepressant medication is most likely to help children with anxiety disorders, but each of the treatments alone are also effective, according to a new study funded by the National Institute's of Health's National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) The study was published online Oct. 30, in the New England Journal of Medicine.

30 Oct 2008

Anxiety disorders latest worry in high blood pressure

Family doctors and psychiatrists should carefully monitor the heart health of patients with anxiety disorders, Dr. Simon Bacon told the Canadian Cardiovascular Congress 2008, co-hosted by the Heart and Stroke Foundation and the Canadian Cardiovascular Society. "People with anxiety disorders are four times more likely to develop high blood pressure (hypertension) over one year than those of us who are anxiety free," says Dr. Bacon, a Heart and Stroke Foundation researcher at the Montreal Heart Institute. "Hypertension is a leading risk factor for stroke and heart disease."

27 Oct 2008

Mouse genes guide search for human anxiety disorder genes

We are all familiar with the question - "Are you a man or a mouse?" What if the answer is "a little of both"? Because of the power of molecular genetics research in animals and the maturation of animal models, the path to identifying genes involved in particular types of behavior, such as fear, is much clearer in animals than in humans.

23 Oct 2008