Psychology News and Research

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Psychology is the study of human mental functions, behavior and processes.

Research: Certain brain region may play a key role in gambling behavior

When a group of gamblers gather around a roulette table, individual players are likely to have different reasons for betting on certain numbers. Some may play a "lucky" number that has given them positive results in the past-a strategy called reinforcement learning.

6 May 2011

Health officials concerned with mental health problems after QLD floods

According to health experts Ipswich residents need to look out for the mental health of friends and family with the effects of January’s floods still weighing on many people. The Australian Medical Association of Queensland (AMAQ) launched the See the Signs awareness campaign this week to help people spot symptoms of mental health issues like depression.

5 May 2011

Researchers present evidence from first ever general population survey of autism in adulthood

Not a single person identified with autism or asperger's syndrome during a community survey in England actually knew they had the condition, research led by the University of Leicester reveals.

5 May 2011

Insights into psychiatric disorders

Social deficits are common in several psychiatric disorders, including autism spectrum disorders and schizophrenia. Individuals with severe social dysfunction can experience significant difficulties with everyday functioning.

5 May 2011

Staying up late and sleeping in can increase risk for gaining weight

Staying up late every night and sleeping in is a habit that could put you at risk for gaining weight. People who go to bed late and sleep late eat more calories in the evening, more fast food, fewer fruits and vegetables and weigh more than people who go to sleep earlier and wake up earlier, according to a new Northwestern Medicine study.

5 May 2011

Research experts to speak at brain tumor educational conference

Patients, families and caregivers are invited to attend an educational conference covering many aspects of brain tumors May 14 at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.

5 May 2011

Amygdala predicts spontaneous behavior: Study

A pianist is playing an unknown melody freely without reading from a musical score. How does the listener's brain recognise if this melody is improvised or if it is memorized? Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig investigated jazz musicians to discover which brain areas are especially sensitive to features of improvised behaviour.

4 May 2011

Tips on how to stay safe and heal emotionally after tornado attack

Although the threat of another tornado is gone for now, other potential dangers lurk in the storm's aftermath, said several University of Alabama at Birmingham experts. They recently offered tips on how to stay safe and heal emotionally in the days after the devastating April 27 storm.

3 May 2011

Mental Illness Foundation invites Quebecers to be attentive to loved ones

As part of the 60th National Mental Health Week, which runs from May 1 to 7, 2011, the Mental Illness Foundation invites Quebecers to take action and be attentive to loved ones coping with a mental illness and underlines that the search for good mental health is one of the protective factors in preventing mental illness.

2 May 2011

New study shows that our social status influences our brain activity

Our own social status influences the way our brains respond to others of higher or lower rank, according to a new study reported online on April 28 in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication.

30 Apr 2011

New article on psychology research

Thanks in part to studies that follow subjects for a long time, psychologists are learning more about differences between people. In a new article published in Current Directions in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, the author describes how psychologists can use their data to learn about the different ways that people's minds work.

29 Apr 2011

Five Loyola employees donate kidneys to complete strangers

Loyola University Medical Center is believed to be the first organization in the country, and perhaps the world, in which five employees have each donated kidneys to complete strangers with no strings attached.

28 Apr 2011

Cotinine can reduce plaques linked with dementia and prevent memory loss

Cotinine, a compound derived from tobacco, reduced plaques associated with dementia and prevented memory loss in a mouse model of Alzheimer's disease, a study led by researchers at Bay Pines VA Healthcare System and the University of South Florida found.

28 Apr 2011

Botox injections: Reading and mimicking emotions hampered

In cosmetics, a Botox injection, consisting of a small dose of botulinum toxin, can be used to prevent formation of wrinkles by paralyzing facial muscles and can therefore make users appear less emotional. Now a new study finds that the cosmetic toxin may also make recipients less able to read the emotions of others.

26 Apr 2011

Swearing helps control pain: Study

Researchers have found that swearing when one is in pain can act as a powerful painkiller – at least, for those who don’t normally use expletives. For these people swearing in the face of genuine pain is up to four times more effective than it is for more regular swearers they said.

25 Apr 2011

Study finds link between musical activity and high cognitive aging

A study conducted by Brenda Hanna-Pladdy, PhD, a clinical neuropsychologist in Emory's Department of Neurology, and cognitive psychologist Alicia MacKay, PhD, found that older individuals who spent a significant amount of time throughout life playing a musical instrument perform better on some cognitive tests than individuals who did not play an instrument.

22 Apr 2011

Umass Lowell establishes new Health and Social Sciences Building

UMass Lowell broke ground today on a new $40 million, 69,000-square-foot academic building that will be home to three of the university's most popular majors in health and social sciences and represents the second major construction project underway on campus.

22 Apr 2011

Using dietary supplements may lead to health-risk behaviors

Do you belong to the one-half of the population that frequently uses dietary supplements with the hope that it might be good for you?

22 Apr 2011

Nearly 50% of children with autism elope

Today, the Interactive Autism Network (IAN), www.ianproject.org, the nation's largest online autism research project, reveals the preliminary results of the first major survey on wandering and elopement among individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD), and announces the launch of a new research survey on the association between pregnancy factors and ASD.

21 Apr 2011

Four new Research Units established by the German Research Foundation

The Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) establishes four new Research Units. This decision has just been made by the Senate of the DFG at its meeting in Bonn in April. In Research Units, outstanding researchers work together on a current research topic, often at different locations and across disciplines.

21 Apr 2011