Psychology

Thomas Insel, director of NIMH, made a splash recently with the announcement that NIMH funding will be less strictly tied to the DSM. That by itself would be good news, given all the problems with DSM. But the proposed replacement, the Research Domain Criteria (RDoC), has worried some people that NIMH is pursuing biology to the exclusion of other levels of analysis, as opposed to taking a more integrated approach. We can try to divine NIMH future directions from RDoC description and the director’s blog post, but it’s hard to tell whether mentions of behavior and phenomenology reflect real priorities or just lip service. Likewise for social and cultural factors. They come up in a discussion of “environmental aspects” that might interact with neural circuits, but they do not appear as focal units of analysis in the RDoC matrix, leaving them in a somewhat ambiguous state. Another approach is to look at revealed preferences. Regardless of what anybody is saying, how is NIMH actually going to spend its money? As an early indication, the NIMH RDoC overview page links to 2 funding opportunity announcements (FOAs) that are based on RDoC. Presumably these are examples of where RDoC-driven research is headed. One of the FOAs is for eating disorders. Here is the overview: Eating disorders, including anorexia nervosa (AN), bulimia nervosa (BN), and their variants, are a major source of physical and psychological morbidity and constitute the major contribution to excess mortality from psychiatric disorders.  Clinical presentations of eating disorders are highly heterogeneous, involving broad and often overlapping symptomatology, which is often further complicated by metabolic and nutritional challenges that result from restricted food intake, excessive exercise, and repeated binge and/or purge episodes.  The recognition that relatively specific behaviors, cognitive operations, and affective processes are primarily implemented by particular neural circuits suggests that dysregulated functions and associated neural circuits should be a critical focus of study, and, ultimately, the target of assessment and treatment for eating disorders. Here is a list of words that do not appear anywhere in the eating disorders FOA: social media culture family peer (when not followed by “review” referring to the funding processes) body image self (when not followed by “-report” in a rote recital of the RDoC units of anlaysis) And maybe I shouldn’t get too hung up on a choice of a definite vs. indefinite article, but what’s up with stating that neural circuits should be “ultimately, the target of assessment and treatment”? Eating disorders isn’t my area. So I might have missed something. Perhaps NIMH is planning to issue another RDoC-based eating disorders FOA that invites research on sociocultural factors. Or maybe I’m missing some other important way that they will be incorporated into NIMH’s priorities for studying eating disorders. But if not — if NIMH thinks that basic research on media, on family environments, on peer influence, on self-concept, on cultural norms are not terribly important for understanding and treating eating disorders — well, that’s really hard to defend. And not a good sign of where things are headed more broadly. Tagged: eating disorders, grants, greedy reductionism, nimh, rdoc

Sometimes when we’re exhausted, we gravitate toward activities that drain us even more. Or we think we don’t deserve to take a break, so we ignore our body’s whispers for rest. But only in helping ourselves can we help others and do good work. Just in time for the long Memorial Day weekend, here are 20 ways that can truly help you relax, refresh and recharge. And, if you don’t think you have the time to unwind, don’t worry! Many of these activities take just a few minutes. 1. Use your breath. We often forget to focus on the simplest, shortest (and one of the most restorative) activities available to us: our breath. Yoga teacher Anna Guest-Jelley suggested taking five deep breaths. “As you do, notice the natural pause between your inhale and exhale, and then between your exhale and your next inhale. Your body has a built-in break — how great is that?!” 2. Release the tension in your jaw. “Many of us carry tension in our jaw, often unknowingly,” said Guest-Jelley, also a body empowerment educator and founder of Curvy Yoga. To loosen the tension, “open your mouth wide for half a minute or so, breathing naturally through your nose. When you feel you’ve stretched a bit, allow your mouth to gently close.” 3. Tend to yourself. “When I need to rest and restore, I tend,” said Rachel W. Cole, a life coach and retreat leader. She defines tending as “care with intention.” And it can take many forms. Cole tends to her home by cleaning the sheets, washing windows and “getting rid of unused and unloved items.” She tends to her body with a “hot bath, self-massage and a dab of perfume.” She also whips up delicious and nourishing meals in her kitchen. And on some days, she tends to her finances and “need for a walk in the sunshine. Tending brings calm, order, and a deep reminder that I’m cared for and safe.” (Cole shares other ideas for tending to yourself in this post.) 4. Journal. Some people like to unwind by writing pages in their journal, said Lisa Kaplin, PsyD, a life coach who helps her clients during particularly stressful times in their lives and teaches stress management classes to corporations. Others prefer to jot down one or two lines about their day, she said. But if this becomes another task on your to-do list, skip it, she added. 5. Make a list of the day’s triumphs. Other people like to write down what they’re grateful for, Kaplin said. This is especially helpful for relaxing. “When we’re stressed, we tend to focus on everything that is going wrong, which makes it even harder to unwind,” said Natasha Lindor, a coach and founder of The AND Factor who helps professionals have a successful career while working less and living more. She suggested writing down the top three good things that happen to you today. Can’t think of anything? Focus on the seemingly small things. In her book How to Train a Wild Elephant & Other Adventures in Mindfulness: Simple Daily Mindfulness Practices for Living Life More Fully & Joyfully, author Jan Chozen Bays, M.D., suggests focusing on your hands: “Some Zen teachers say that the way the body takes care of us, without our even being aware of it, is an example of the beautiful and continuous functioning of our Original Nature, the inherent goodness and wisdom of our being. Our hand pulls back from fire before we even register heat, our eyes blink before we are aware of a sharp sound, our hand reaches out to catch something before we know it is falling.” 6. Get clear on what you need to do. It’s hard to unwind when our thoughts keep returning to our endless to-do lists, Kaplin said. “Get clear by sitting down for a few moments, making a list of what can be done today and in what order and then let the rest go until the next day.” 7. Identify what you can and can’t control. Getting clear also includes focusing on what you can and can’t control. That’s what Kaplin does when she feels stressed and overwhelmed. “I think about precisely what I’m concerned about [and] then as

There has been considerable discussion of some comments made by Pope Francis during a brief homily he gave during a daily Mass earlier this week. Here's an English translation of the remarks that drew so much attention: The Lord has redeemed all of us, all of us, with the Blood of Christ: all of us, not just Catholics. Everyone! ‘Father, the atheists?’ Even the atheists. Everyone!".. We must meet one another doing good. ‘But I don’t believe, Father, I am...

Erika Myers, MS, MEd, LPC, NCC - Improving communication within your relationship calls for digging beyond surface-level issues?who's right and who's wrong, for example?to recognize and appreciate your partner's needs....

The association between menopause and memory alterations has been debated for decades. New research finally confirms the assertion that a woman’s change of life may be associated with memory impairments. In the study, published online in Menopause, the journal of The North American Menopause Society (NAMS), researchers used objective tests to prove that when a woman is stressed by hot flashes, her memory may be transformed. In the past, some studies showed that hot flashes were related to memory problems, and some didn’t. Other studies showed that, even though there was a relationship between hot flashes and what women said about memory problems, objective tests didn’t confirm it. In the new study, researchers from the University of Illinois and Northwestern University gave a battery of eight tests of attention and recall to 68 women age 44 to 62 who had at least 35 hot flashes a week. The women also completed questionnaires about their menopause symptoms, mood, and memory. Investigators discovered that women who said they had trouble with memory really did. Also, those who had more trouble with hot flashes did worse on the tests, and women with more hot flashes struggled longer with memory problems than women who had fewer hot flashes. Furthermore, women who reported more negative emotions did worse on the tests than women who had fewer. Source: The North American Menopause Society (NAMS) Woman with her eyes closed holding her head photo by shutterstock.

Childhood obesity is a growing concern in America with nearly one-third of all U.S. children ages 2-17 overweight or obese, finds a new study. Some experts believe this health trend will prevent children from living as long as their parents, and will contribute to the demise of the health care system by the cost associated with caring for premature illness. However, despite these public health challenges, research has been lacking on the contributing factors for childhood obesity. Rachel Kimbro, Ph.D., associate professor of sociology at Rice and study co-author, explains that very little research has been conducted to explore the impact of family structure on this epidemic. In the new study, Kimbro and colleagues found that children living in a traditional two-parent married household are less likely to be obese (17 percent obesity rate) than children living with cohabitating parents, who have a 31 percent obesity rate. The obesity rate is even higher for children living with an adult relative (29 percent), single mother (23 percent) and cohabitating stepparent family (23 percent). The study did not evaluate children of same-sex couples, due to lack of available data. The higher rates for nontraditional parent families were observed even after the researchers accounted for factors associated with childhood obesity, including diet, physical activity and socio-economic status. The exception to this finding was children living with single fathers or in married stepparent households, who had an obesity rate of 15 percent. Study results may be found in the Journal of Applied Research on Children: Informing Policy for Children at Risk. “Previous research has shown that single-father households tend to have more socio-economic resources than single-mother households,” Kimbro said. “And since socio-economic status is the single greatest predictor of health, it serves to explain why children in single-father households may be less likely to be obese.” The study, “Family Structure and Obesity Among U.S. Children,” examined the obesity rates of children living in traditional and nontraditional family structures in the U.S. The research sample of 10,400 children comes from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study–Birth Cohort, a nationally representative study of U.S. children and their families designed to provide information on children’s development. Data collection for the study began in 2001. The primary caregivers of the children participated in the first wave of the in-home interviews when their children were approximately 9 months old. Data was subsequently collected when the children were 2 years old, in preschool (approximately age 4) and in kindergarten. The sample included children from diverse socio-economic, racial and ethnic backgrounds as well as an oversample of Asian, Pacific Islander, Alaska Native, American Indian, twins and low-birth-weight children. Forty-six percent of the children were racial or ethnic minorities, 25 percent were poor and 16 percent of the children had mothers without high school diplomas. The interviews included assessments of the children’s height, weight and other measures of development, such as cognitive functioning. The children were organized in eight mutually exclusive categories designed to account for the children’s current family structure and the one they were born into. The authors hope their research will inspire future studies of nontraditional family structures and their impact on health and weight. “For reasons we cannot fully measure, there appears to be something about people who marry and have a child that is fundamentally different than the other groups, and these factors are also linked to children’s weight,” Kimbro said. “Our hope is that this research will encourage further exploration of this topic,” said Kimbro’s co-author, Jennifer Augustine. “There is substantial research on how family structure matters to other domains of children’s development, yet little research on w

AARP Encourages Brain Health with Launch of AARP Brain Fitness powered by BrainHQ (Press release): “Research shows that AARP members and Americans 50 and older are worried about losing mental capacity. In fact, AARP found that staying mentally sharp is a top concern among AARP members…(Deb) Abernathy (Director for Brain Health at AARP) concluded, “Just like a physical workout session, brain fitness exercise is just one aspect of holistic brain health. AARP is excited to offer more ways for Americans to address their own brain health as they age.” Related articles: AARP’s List of Brain Fitness Best Books Brain Fitness Program Evaluation Checklist

,Researchers have discovered that people with high IQ’s have brains that are more efficient allowing them to have better visual perception. That is, people with high IQ scores aren’t just more intelligent, they also process sensory information differently. The study findings, published in the Cell Press journal Current Biology, explains that the brains of people with high IQ are automatically more selective when it comes to perceiving objects in motion. As such, they are specifically more likely to suppress larger and less relevant background motion. “It is not that people with high IQ are simply better at visual perception,” said Duje Tadin, Ph.D., of the University of Rochester. “Instead, their visual perception is more discriminating. They excel at seeing small, moving objects but struggle in perceiving large, background-like motions.” The discovery was made by asking people to watch videos showing moving bars on a computer screen. Their task was to state whether the bars were moving to the left or to the right. The researchers measured how long the video had to run before the individual could correctly perceive the motion. The results show that individuals with high IQ can pick up on the movement of small objects faster than low-IQ individuals can. That wasn’t unexpected, Tadin says. The surprise came when tests with larger objects showed just the opposite: individuals with high IQ were slower to see what was right there in front of them. “There is something about the brains of high-IQ individuals that prevents them from quickly seeing large, background-like motions,” Tadin adds. In other words, it isn’t a conscious strategy but rather something automatic and fundamentally different about the way their brains work. Researchers believe the ability to block out distraction is a significant advantage – especially in our information-overloaded environment. It helps to explain what makes some brains more efficient than others. An efficient brain “has to be picky,” Tadin says. Source: Cell Press Abstract of a person thinking photo by shutterstock.

Our dopamine neurons, which enable enable our brains to make better choices, based on outcomes, gradually die off as part of the normal aging process. Chowdhury and colleagues have now found that increasing dopamine levels in the brain of healthy older participants increased the rate with which they learned from rewarding outcomes and changed activity in the striatum, a brain region that supports learning from rewards. To relate brain activity and behavior, they utilized fMRI, diffusion tensor imaging, reinforcement learning tasks, and computational models of behavior. Their data might suggest that some variant of the dopamine therapy used for Parkinson's disease patient, might help older people make decisions. Here is their more technical abstract: Senescence affects the ability to utilize information about the likelihood of rewards for optimal decision-making. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging in humans, we found that healthy older adults had an abnormal signature of expected value, resulting in an incomplete reward prediction error (RPE) signal in the nucleus accumbens, a brain region that receives rich input projections from substantia nigra/ventral tegmental area (SN/VTA) dopaminergic neurons. Structural connectivity between SN/VTA and striatum, measured by diffusion tensor imaging, was tightly coupled to inter-individual differences in the expression of this expected reward value signal. The dopamine precursor levodopa (L-DOPA) increased the task-based learning rate and task performance in some older adults to the level of young adults. This drug effect was linked to restoration of a canonical neural RPE. Our results identify a neurochemical signature underlying abnormal reward processing in older adults and indicate that this can be modulated by L-DOPA.