Futurity.org » anxiety

Girls ‘rewire’ brain to beat depression

Brooke Donald-Stanford — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 15:52:22 +0000

STANFORD (US) — Using brain imaging and a video game, teen girls at risk of depression are being taught how to train their brains away from negative situations.

An ongoing study’s early findings using a small sample suggest such rewiring is not only possible, it is surprisingly easy.

Coping with trauma may be genetic

Robin Lally-Rutgers — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 16:00:25 +0000

RUTGERS (US) — Scientists have uncovered why some mice no longer in danger are still fearful, a finding that may help people suffering from PTSD.

Since humans and animals register fear in the brain similarly, the discovery reported in the journal PLoS ONE, is an important step to understanding how genes work in the brain to control learning and memory as well as reactions to fearful and traumatic experiences.

Years after Katrina, minds slow to recover

Morgan Kelly-Princeton — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 17:38:03 +0000

PRINCETON (US) — Survivors of Hurricane Katrina have struggled with poor mental health for years, according to a new study of low-income mothers in the New Orleans area.

The researchers were able to collect data on the participants before Katrina and nearly five years after the August 2005 storm, finding a persistence of poor mental health and gaining insights into how different types of hurricane-related stressors affect mental health.

Jump or not jump: Why we chicken out

Shilo Rea-Carnegie Mellon — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 22:08:44 +0000

CARNEGIE MELLON (US) — Whether it’s investing in stocks, bungee jumping, or speaking in public, why do we often plan to take risks but then back down when the moment of truth arrives?

This “illusion of courage” is one example of an “empathy gap”—that is, our inability to imagine how we will behave in future emotional situations, argue researchers in a new paper in the Journal of Behavioral Decision Making.

Anxious kids: Why the ‘tiger’ mom tactic fails

Andy Henion-Michigan State — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 15:16:38 +0000

MICHIGAN STATE (US) — High-achieving Chinese-American students are more depressed and anxious than their white peers, according to a new study that challenges the “tiger mother” view of parenting.

As defined by the author Amy Chua in her book, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, the Eastern view of parenting holds that children should be pushed to excel at all costs and that parents need not worry about their children’s happiness—only their success.

Anxiety sufferers: Boot up the therapist

David Orenstein-Brown — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 17:07:20 +0000

BROWN U. (US) — A potential anxiety therapy delivered entirely on a computer may be almost as effective as in-person therapy or drugs for treating social anxiety disorder.

Cognitive bias modification (CBM), a therapy in which software helps subjects divert attention away from anxiety and interpret situations more calmly, is expected to offer a new option for anxiety sufferers who can’t find or afford a qualified therapist, who are afraid to try cognitive behavior therapies where they directly confront their fears, or who can’t or don’t want to try medications.

“A lot of people are skeptical, particularly people like me who are clinicians and know how hard it is to help people with anxiety and how much effort and time it takes in therapy,” says Courtney Beard, assistant professor (research) of psychiatry and human behavior at Brown University, and the study’s lead author.

Fast-paced puberty linked to depression

A'ndrea Elyse Messer-Penn State — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 15:00:03 +0000

PENN STATE (US) — Children who go through puberty at a faster rate are more likely to act out and to suffer from anxiety and depression.

The results suggest primary care providers, teachers, and parents should look not only at the timing of puberty in relation to kids’ behavior problems, but also at the tempo of puberty—how fast or slow kids go through puberty.

“Past work has examined the timing of puberty and shown the negative consequences of entering puberty at an early age, but there has been little work done to investigate the effects of tempo,” says Kristine Marceau, a Penn State graduate student and the study’s primary author.

Talk about problems? Boys say why bother

Steven Adams-Missouri — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 14:31:51 +0000

U. MISSOURI (US) — Boys avoid discussing problems not because of some sense of embarrassment, but because they believe that doing so is a waste of time, according to a new study.

“For years, popular psychologists have insisted that boys and men would like to talk about their problems but are held back by fears of embarrassment or appearing weak,” says Amanda Rose, associate professor of psychological sciences at the University of Missouri.

Stress hormone on the back-to-school list?

William Harms-Chicago — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 14:52:30 +0000

U. CHICAGO (US) — Knowing the right way to handle stress in and out of the classroom could be the difference between success and failure for the millions of students going back to school this fall, new research shows.

“We found that cortisol, a hormone released in response to stress, can either be tied to a student’s poor performance on a math test or contribute to success, depending on the frame of mind of the student going into the test,” says Sian Beilock, associate professor in psychology at the University of Chicago and author of Choke: What the Secrets of the Brain Reveal About Getting it Right When You Have To.

In a new paper published in the current issue of the journal Emotion, Beilock and her colleagues explore the topic of performance failure in math and show, for the first time, there is a critical connection between working memory, math anxiety, and salivary cortisol.

Tuned-in parents cut kids’ depression

Bob Roseth-UW — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 20:05:30 +0000

U. WASHINGTON (US) — When raising children, tailor-made parenting that is in tune with the individual child beats one size fits all.

A new three-year study published in the Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology says the right match between parenting styles and the child’s personality led to half as many depression and anxiety symptoms in school-aged children. And mismatches led to twice as many depression and anxiety symptoms during the same three years.