Do Brain Abnormalities Cause Antisocial Behavior in Boys?

"Brain responses to everyday rewards and punishments gradually guide most youngsters' decisions to conform with society's rules. However, when these seriously troubled kids experience rewards and punishments, and make decisions, their brains apparently malfunction," said Thomas Crowley, lead author on the study.

All particpants played a computerized risk-taking game that repeatedly presented a choice between a cautious and a risky behavior. The scientists examined brain activation with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) as the boys decided to press right or left, and then as they experienced wins or losses after presses.

During decision-making, antisocial boys had significantly less brain activity than normals in particular decision-making areas.

As predicted by others not associated with the study, the antisocial boys also had dysphoria, a chronic sad-anxious state, with "reward insensitivity"; in the game their brains responded less than the comparison boys' brains to wins. They also had "punishment hypersensitivity," with greater brain response to losses than comparison boys.

Interestingly, the number of 'risky' decisions was similar in the two groups. The scientists speculate that this occurred because the game forced the boys to deliberate for several seconds before pressing either button.

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It is interesting how they found different brain activity when comparing control to the antisocial boys, this does seem to indicate a fundimental difference between the two groups. But in terms of decision making, both groups made similar decisions.

Does this really suggest a genetic difference for decision making?

Link to Article

The link between popularity, friends and drug consumption

"Our study highlights a correlation between popularity and consumption," says Jean-Sébastien Fallu, lead researcher and professor at the Université de Montréal's School of Psychoeducation. "The teenagers we studied were well-accepted, very sensitive to social codes, and understood the compromises that it takes to be popular."

The findings showed an increase in consumption, as the child got older regardless of their popularity level. However, the more popular a child and their friends were, the greater this consumption was.

"Teenagers don't consume to belong to the group or to increase their popularity level, they do it to remain well-liked," says Fallu. "It's more about keeping their status than increasing it."

Teenagers who aren't considered popular are more inclined to develop violent behaviors than consume alcohol or drugs.

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Is drug taking cool? Maybe it was just the area I grew up in, but popularity in my school wasn't measured in the amount of drugs consumed! This study highlights a motivation for drug consumption that maybe hadn't been considered previously.

But what are your thoughts? Is social popularity the cause of drug consumption in teens? Or is the level of popularity the result of the drug consumption? Is level of social status enough motivation for teenagers to consume drugs? Is this type of peer pressure overt or just expected?

Why is drug taking considered 'cool' behaviour? Is it just because rules are being broken? Or is there another reason?

Let us know what you think.

Link to Article

Teasing about weight and its affect on pre-teens

"We tend to think of adolescence as the time when kids become sensitive about their body image, but our findings suggest that the seeds of body dissatisfaction are actually being sown much earlier," said Timothy D. Nelson.

For the study, Nelson and his colleagues surveyed hundreds of public school students whose average age was 10.8 years. They collected participants' heights and weights and calculated their Body Mass Index, then examined the relationships between weight-related criticism and children's perceptions of themselves.

Their results showed that overweight pre-teens who endured weight-based criticism tended to judge their bodies more harshly and were less satisfied with their body sizes than students who weren't teased about their weight.

Because children who develop such negative views of their bodies are at higher risk for internalizing problems, developing irregular eating behaviors and ongoing victimization, researchers said these results should be a signal for more early identification and intervention efforts at schools.

"There's often a sense that overweight people 'deserve' it, or that if they are continually prodded about their weight, they'll do something about it," said Nelson

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So what do you think?

Do children think about their body weight as much as this study suggests? Are weight-related criticisms found more in groups of girls or boys? Can pre-adolescent taunting really affect children for the rest of their lives?

And what should be done to try and stop this happening in schools?

Are weight issues a problem generated by the media? e.g. super skinny people in magazines and on the tv.
Or are they now being generated by the Health Authority by chastising those who are overweight?

What's your opinion?

Link to Article

Talking yourself into Control

Much like the post yesterday - it seems our ability to verbalise thought affect more of our behaviour than we realise.

Yesterday was Self-regulation and today is self-control:

"New research shows that using your inner voice plays an important role in controlling impulsive behaviour.

"We give ourselves messages all the time with the intent of controlling ourselves -- whether that's telling ourselves to keep running when we're tired, to stop eating even though we want one more slice of cake, or to refrain from blowing up on someone in an argument," says Alexa Tullett, PhD Candidate and lead author on the study. "We wanted to find out whether talking to ourselves in this 'inner voice' actually helps."

Through a series of tests they found that people acted more impulsively when they couldn't use their inner voice or talk themselves through the tasks. It's always been known that people have internal dialogues with themselves, but until now, we've never known what an important function they serve "This study shows that talking to ourselves in this 'inner voice' actually helps us exercise self control and prevents us from making impulsive decisions."

Participants performed a test on a computer. If they saw a particular symbol appear on the screen, they were told to press a button. If they saw a different symbol, they were told to refrain from pushing the button. In order to block their "inner voice," participants were told to repeat one word over and over as they performed the test. This prevented them from talking to themselves."

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The study yesterday talked about how vocabulary helped boys self-regulate, and today talking ourselves through a task has been shown to help us self-control. It seems that a lot of our actions can be enhanced or reduced by talking to ourselves about it.

The knowledge of this can be applied to such things as anger therapy or mild eating disorders, showing how patients could talk themself out of the negative, impulsive actions.

This principle could also be applied to other aspects of our lives, such self-esteem, happiness, mild compulsive disorders, panic attack or phobias.

Link to Article

Vocabulary and Self-regulation

Developing language skills appears to be more important for boys than girls in helping them to develop self-control and, ultimately, succeed in school.

The study is the first to suggest language skills have a bigger impact on boys' self-regulation than on girls'.

As with previous research, Vallotton and Ayoub found that language skills - specifically the building of vocabulary - help children regulate their emotions and behavior and that boys lag behind girls in both language skills and self-regulation.

While girls overall seemed to have a more natural ability to control themselves and focus, boys with a strong vocabulary showed a dramatic increase in this ability to self-regulate.

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But why is self regulation important? Good self-regulation results in better personal-study, which aids school-learning as well, resulting in better exam results. But why does vocabulary change this? Surely if you want to learn, then you'll want to learn - regardless of vocabulary?

Well, perhaps the fact that the child has a strong vocabulary is indicitive of the fact that they enjoy learning in the first place, so is not so much a cause of greater self-regulation but a result of.

In either case, it is another interesting study that shows how early life experience really can shape our future.

Link to Article

Is changing your lifestyle fun?

"According to the authors, approximately one in five U.S. citizens over the age of 12 admits to binge drinking at least once per month, and nearly 10 million people suffer from clinical eating disorders. These epidemics make it critical to examine what can be done to encourage people to regulate consumption.

In one study, the researchers asked participants to hold pieces of candy between their fingers, and put it in their mouths and then take it out. "The goal of this task was to let people perform tasks with the candy but not be able to actually eat the candy," the authors explain.

Once the participants completed the initial tasks they moved on to taking unrelated surveys. But the candy was left on their desks without instruction as to whether they could eat it or not. The researchers measured how much candy the participants consumed and measured how much self-control the participants usually exerted.

"We found that participants who are usually high in self-control perceived the initial candy task - which involved touching, but not eating Skittles and M&Ms - as an opportunity to have fun (they were playing with candy)," - "Participants who are usually low in self-control, however, perceived the initial candy task as an obligation to work."

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The study could also highlight people's motivation to change, those that see therapy and changing their lifestyle as work are likely to be less motivated to make the changes than those that view the changes to their lifestyle, and their therapy, as fun.

Wording of techniques or exercises could make the difference between an individual feeling like their therapy is all hard work and an individual feeling that therapy is fun!

Link to Article

Rumination on violence increases aggressoin

"Playing a violent video game can increase aggression, and when a player keeps thinking about the game, the potential for aggression can last for as long as 24 hours.

This study shows that (for men) ruminating about the game can increase the game's tendency to lead to aggression long after the game has been turned off.

The researchers randomly assigned college students to play one of six different video games for 20 minutes. Half the games were violent (e.g., Mortal Kombat) and half were not (e.g., Guitar Hero).

After 24 hours:
Men who didn't think about the game: the violent video game players tested no more aggressive than men who had played non-violent games.

Men who did think about the game: More aggressive than the other groups.

The researchers also found that women who played the violent video games and thought about the games did not experience increased aggression 24 hours later."

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This study is interesting as it supports the basis of Brief Solution Focused Therapy. When the participants were not thinking about violence (i.e. the violent game) they were no more violent than those who were thinking about non-violence (i.e. the non-violent game.)

But when they were thinking about violence, they themselves became more violent.

To me this just supports the view of BSFT that ruminating on behaviour will encourage that behaviour. For example, those with depression who ruminate on their problem are going to feel worse than those ruminating on the solution (what their life could be like without depression.)

It also makes me wonder if those that play money-making video games are more likely to be better at business than their peers?

Link to Article

Perception of Emotion Is Culture-Specific

An interesting study of other cultures, Tanaka's study shows how we don't necessarily all perceive emotion in the same way:

"A new study examines how Dutch and Japanese people assess others’ emotions and finds that Dutch people pay attention to the facial expression more than Japanese people do."

Most of the research on understanding the emotional state of others has been done on facial expression; Tanaka and his colleagues in Japan and the Netherlands wanted to know how vocal tone and facial expressions work together to give you a sense of someone else’s emotion.

For the study, Tanaka and colleagues made a video of actors saying a phrase with a neutral meaning —“Is that so?”— two ways: angrily and happily.

Then they edited the videos so that they also had recordings of someone saying the phrase angrily but with a happy face, and happily with an angry face.

They found that Japanese participants paid attention to the voice more than Dutch people did — even when they were instructed to judge the emotion by the faces and to ignore the voice.

Akihiro Tanaka: "I think Japanese people tend to hide their negative emotions by smiling, but it’s more difficult to hide negative emotions in the voice.” Therefore, Japanese people may be used to listening for emotional cues. This could lead to confusion when a Dutch person, who is used to the voice and the face matching."

"Our findings can contribute to better communication between different cultures."

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Indeed! The study may also affect therapy sessions, as what may seem to be an obvious emotion to one person, may not be so obvious to another. More specifically, one method of therapy that works in the west may not be as effective in the east.

In any case, it shows how our culture can directly influence our perception of the world and this brings us one step closer to understanding each other.

Link to Article

Prejudice and Mental Health

A decade into the 21st Century and the prejudice towards mental illness is decreasing, at least - that's what we'd hope:

"A joint study by Indiana University and Columbia University researchers found no change in prejudice and discrimination toward people with serious mental illness or substance abuse problems despite a greater embrace by the public of neurobiological explanations for these illnesses."

The "disease like any other" approach, supported by medicine and mental health advocates, had been seen as the primary way to reduce widespread stigma in the United States but 'Prejudice and discrimination in the U.S. aren't moving,' said IU sociologist Bernice Pescosolido.

But more alarmingly: "In fact, in some cases, it may be increasing. It's time to stand back and rethink our approach."

Stigma can produce discrimination in employment, housing, medical care and social relationships, and negatively impact the quality of life for these individuals, their families and friends.

Some key findings include:

2006: 67% of the public attributed major depression to neurobiological causes, compared with 54% in 1996.

Holding a belief in neurobiological causes for these disorders increased the likelihood of support for treatment but was generally unrelated to stigma. Where associated, the effect was to increase, not decrease, community rejection.

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This study amazed me. I'm not naive enough to think that all people had dropped their prejudices toward those with mental illnesses, but I find it incredible that this number may actually be increasing.

This is another case that shows how increased public knowledge of a topic does not necessarily mean increased public intelligence.

Link to Article

The Pain of Discrimination

"In a new study, researchers found that adolescents from Latin American and Asian backgrounds experienced more discrimination than their peers from European backgrounds and that the discrimination came not only from other adolescents but from adults as well. The level of discrimination also impacted these teens' grade-point averages and their health and was associated with depression, distress and lower levels of self-esteem.

601 Teens (equal males and females) kept a daily diary for 2 weeks to record any discriminatory events or comments they experienced. They were also asked to separately record on a four-point scale any physical symptoms, such as headaches, stomach-aches or general pain.

Among the teens in the study, nearly 60% reported experiencing discrimination from other teens, and 63% reported discrimination from adults; 12% reported experiencing discrimination on a daily basis.

The researchers found that teens who reported higher levels of peer or adult discrimination also reported more aches, pains and other symptoms, as well as a lower overall grade-point average. Thus, discrimination may not only tax adolescents' physical and psychological resources but may also affect their ability to achieve in school, the researchers said.

"Discrimination significantly predicted lower GPAs, higher levels of depression, higher levels of distress, lower self-esteem and more physical complaints," Fuligni said. "So the bottom line? Discrimination is harmful."

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This interesting study highlights the link between the personal world, i.e. one's own wellbeing and health, and the social world. This link can be good, in terms of positive interactions and suppport, but, as this study shows, negativity in the social world can create bad results in the personal world.

Although people may think the discrimination is only small, it can mount up on a single individual, much like in the story 'An Inspector Calls' by J.B Preistley, and can manifest itself in a number of physical and psychological problems.

The modern world already seems to be accelerating the number of people that are being diagnosed with depression and ADHD and personality disorders etc, and people are quick to blame the fast paced life and music and videogames. This study is an interesting wake-up call that shows how our interactions with each other, although seemingly harmless, may be commiting more pain than we realise.

Link to article

Benefits of Video Games

We all hear how computer games are bad for youth. They sit inside, are less active, can affect social skills, can affect school work or, in some extreme cases, violent video games have been connected with mass murders. Whether or not these accusations are true is still up for debate - but what is interesting is a study released recently proclaiming the positive benefits of video games, in particular - action games.

"Cognitive scientists from the University of Rochester have discovered that playing action video games trains people to make the right decisions faster. The researchers found that video game players develop a heightened sensitivity to what is going on around them, and this benefit doesn't just make them better at playing video games, but improves a wide variety of general skills that can help with everyday activities like multitasking, driving, reading small print, keeping track of friends in a crowd, and navigating around town."

The researchers tested dozens of 18- to 25-year-olds who were not ordinarily video game players. They split the subjects into two groups. One group played 50 hours of the fast-paced action video games "Call of Duty 2" and "Unreal Tournament," and the other group played 50 hours of the slow-moving strategy game "The Sims 2."

After this training period, all of the subjects were asked to make quick decisions in several tasks designed by the researchers. In the tasks, the participants had to look at a screen, analyze what was going on, and answer a simple question about the action in as little time as possible (i.e. whether a clump of erratically moving dots was migrating right or left across the screen on average).

The action game players were up to 25% faster at coming to a conclusion and answered just as many questions correctly as their strategy game playing peers.

"It's not the case that the action game players are trigger-happy and less accurate: They are just as accurate and also faster," Bavelier said. "Action game players make more correct decisions per unit time. If you are a surgeon or you are in the middle of a battlefield, that can make all the difference."


In short, they concluded that as the brain makes hundreds of calculations every second based on the visual and audial data provided. This is 'Probabilistic inference.' An example provided: "As you drive, for instance, you may see a movement on your right, estimate whether you are on a collision course, and based on that probability make a binary decision: brake or don't brake."

The sci-fi world often talks about humans of the future being faster or stronger or taller - perhaps a future of action-gamers will make this, at least partially possible - just another thought: maybe cars will be faster, to match our faster reflexes or time limits for 'spot the difference' games will have to be reviewed?

Link to article

Portion Control: is it all a matter of perception?

Research suggests that the key to losing weight could lie in manipulating our beliefs about how filling we think food will be before we eat it, suggesting that portion control is all a matter of perception.

Test subjects were more satisfied for longer periods of time after consuming varying quantities of food for which they were led to believe that portion sizes were larger than they actually were.

Memories about how satisfying previous meals were also played a causal role in determining how long those meals staved off hunger. Together, these results suggest that expectations before eating and memory after eating play an important role in governing appetite and satiety.

In the first experiment, participants were shown the ingredients of a fruit smoothie. Half were shown a small portion of fruit and half were shown a large portion. They were then asked to assess the 'expected satiety' of the smoothie and to provide ratings before and three hours after consumption. Participants who were shown the large portion of fruit reported significantly greater fullness, even though all participants consumed the same smaller quantity of fruit.

In a second experiment, researchers manipulated the 'actual' and 'perceived' amount of soup that people thought that they had consumed. Using a soup bowl connected to a hidden pump beneath the bowl, the amount of soup in the bowl was increased or decreased as participants ate, without their knowledge. Three hours after the meal, it was the perceived (remembered) amount of soup in the bowl and not the actual amount of soup consumed that predicted post-meal hunger and fullness ratings.

Dr. Brunstrom: "Labels on 'light' and 'diet' foods might lead us to think we will not be satisfied by such foods, possibly leading us to eat more afterwards - One way to militate against this, and indeed accentuate potential satiety effects, might be to emphasize the satiating properties of a food using labels such as 'satisfying' or 'hunger relieving'."
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So these diet foods could actually be causing us to eat more as we still think we should be hungry? Interesting!

This study really does highlight how that aspects of our lives that we never really considered anything more than biologically driven really can be altered by our psychological state of mind!

This is an interesting situation for advertisers. Do they want to avoid using 'diet' on their labels so people don't feel like they're missing out on food? Or keep using it because the 'diet' part is the reason people keep buying it?

I know I'll be paying more attention to the fine print now!

Link to Article

Non-Invasive Therapy Significantly Improves Depression

"Major depression is a common and disabling brain condition marked not only by the presence of depressed mood but also by its effects on sleep, energy, decision-making, memory and thoughts of death or of suicide."

A unique new therapy that applies electrical stimulation to a major nerve emanating from the brain is showing promise.

In a recently completed clinical trial at UCLA, trigeminal nerve stimulation (TNS) achieved an average of a 70 percent reduction in symptom severity over an eight-week study period. The study's principal investigator, Dr. Ian A. Cook, presented the results at a recent National Institutes of Health conference on depression and other psychiatric disorders, noting that 80 percent of the subjects achieved remission, a highly significant result in this pilot study.

The stimulator that was used in the depression clinical trial is about the size of a large cell phone. Two wires from the stimulator are passed under the clothing and connected to electrodes attached to the forehead by adhesive. The electrodes transmit an electrical current to the nerve. All the patients in the trial used the device for approximately eight hours every night while asleep. In contrast to antidepressants, no major side effects were noted.

In describing TNS, DeGiorgio, co-principal investigator for the depression trial, explained that what is remarkable about the TNS approach is that it is possible to send signals to key structures deep in the brain without penetrating into the skull.

Cook hypothesized that electrical stimulation of the trigeminal nerve generates a cascading sequence of events in the existing neuronal infrastructure. In essence, he said, "TNS provides a high-bandwidth pathway into the brain."

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Does this further evidence that Major Depression is in fact more based in the physical world than the mental world? Although very successful (80%) the people that didn't benefit from this treatment make me wonder if Depression still isn't as simple as people want to believe!

Any thoughts?

Full Article

Paul Grantham on Brief Solution Focused Therapy

Mindfulness Meditation Increases Well-Being in Adolescent Boys

'Mindfulness', the process of learning to become more aware of our ongoing experiences, increases well-being in adolescent boys, a new study reports.

Researchers from the University of Cambridge analyzed 155 boys from two independent UK schools, Tonbridge and Hampton, before and after a four-week crash course in mindfulness. After the trial period, the 14 and 15 year-old boys were found to have increased well-being, defined as the combination of feeling good (including positive emotions such as happiness, contentment, interest and affection) and functioning well.

Professor Felicia Huppert of the Well-being Institute at the University of Cambridge said: "More and more we are realising the importance of supporting the overall mental health of children. Our study demonstrates that this type of training improves well-being in adolescents and that the more they practice, the greater the benefits. Importantly, many of the students genuinely enjoyed the exercises and said they intended to continue them -- a good sign that many children would be receptive to this type of intervention.

"Another significant aspect of this study is that adolescents who suffered from higher levels of anxiety were the ones who benefitted most from the training."

The success of this initial study has recently led to the creation of an exciting 8 week mindfulness curriculum for schools in both the state and private sectors. This new curriculum, which includes games and video clips, should have even greater benefits.

(More information by clicking HERE)

Another link: mindfulnessinschool

Link Between Everyday Stress and Obesity Strenthened

Stress can take a daily toll on us that has broad physical and psychological implications. Science has long documented the effect of extreme stress, such as war, injury or traumatic grief on humans. Typically, such situations cause victims to decrease their food intake and body weight. Recent studies, however, tend to suggest that social stress--public speaking, tests, job and relationship pressures--may have the opposite effect--over-eating and weight gain. With the rise of obesity rates, science has increasingly focused on its causes and effects--including stress.

A recent study conducted by the Departments of Psychiatry and Biomedical Engineering at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, examined the effects of stress on the meal patterns and food intake of animals exposed to the equivalent of everyday stress on humans. The results suggest that, not only does stress have an impact on us in the short term, it can cause metabolic changes in the longer term that contribute to obesity.

Stress is experienced by animals and humans on a daily basis and many individuals experience cycles of stress and recovery throughout the day. If, following stress, we consume larger and less frequent meals, the conditions are favorable for weight gain--especially in the abdomen. We know that belly fat, as well as stress, contributes to the development of cardiovascular disease, immune dysfunction and other metabolic disorders. Further studies using the VBS model will help us understand the relationship between stress and obesity and help us treat and prevent the development of these diseases

(More information on this study can be found by clicking HERE)
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With obesity and body image in the media more and more in recent years, it seems now more than ever trying to maintain a healthy diet and exercise is important - especially if you've had that extra-stressful day at the office!

Possible methods to help you relax? Meditation, Tai Chi or a nice cup of tea!

Smoking-Mind Over Smoking-Matter: Surprising New Study Shows Cigarette Cravings Result from Habit, Not Addiction

A new study from Tel Aviv University shows why patches and nicotine gum are ineffective.

In the new study published in the Journal of Abnormal Psychology, Dr. Reuven Dar of Tel Aviv University's Department of Psychology found that the intensity of cravings for cigarettes had more to do with the psychosocial element of smoking than with the physiological effects of nicotine as an addictive chemical.

"These findings might not be popular with advocates of the nicotine addiction theory, because they undermine the physiological role of nicotine and emphasize mind over matter when it comes to smoking," Dr. Dar says. He hopes this research will help clinicians and health authorities develop more successful smoking cessation programs than those utilizing expensive nicotine patches or gum.

Dr. Dar's studies conclude that nicotine is not addictive as physiological addictions are usually defined. While nicotine does have a physiological role in increasing cognitive abilities such as attention and memory, it's not an addictive substance like heroin, which creates true systemic and biologically-based withdrawal symptoms in the body of the user, he says.

Dr. Dar believes that people who smoke do so for short-term benefits like oral gratification, sensory pleasure and social camaraderie. Once the habit is established, people continue to smoke in response to cues and in situations that become associated with smoking. Dr. Dar believes that understanding smoking as a habit, not an addiction, will facilitate treatment. Smoking cessation techniques should emphasize the psychological and behavioral aspects of the habit and not the biological aspects, he suggests.

More information on this study can be found by clicking HERE