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Magazine
In the May 11 & 25 SN: High-tech cricket farming, AI learns from Minecraft, looking for lithium, a new hominid species is named, signs of life in dead pig brains, Cherokee cave texts decoded, water molecules on the moon and more.
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News
Why war’s emotional wounds run deeper for some kids and not others
04/28/2019 - 08:00 Mental Health, PsychologyAfter her husband’s death in Syria’s civil war, Amouna Sharekh Housh gathered her eight children and headed for safety in the neighboring country of Lebanon. At the Lebanese border, Islamic State militants demanded that Housh hand her children over to them. She refused, even when an ISIS soldier put a gun against the head of her then 9-year-old son, Manar. After passing through that hellish...
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Feature
When anxiety happens as early as preschool, treatments can help
04/21/2019 - 06:00 Psychology, Mental Health, Neuroscience, Clinical TrialsWhen Molly was 10 months old, her parents took her to a Halloween party with other young families. While the other babies explored their surroundings, Molly sat and watched. She’s always been cautious, says Molly’s mom, Rachel. Early on, though, the little girl’s shyness didn’t raise red flags.
By the time Molly turned 4, however, life was getting harder — for everyone. Even though she...
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News
People with stress disorders like PTSD are at higher risk of heart disease
04/16/2019 - 07:00 Health, Mental HealthPeople coping with psychological trauma have a heightened risk of developing cardiovascular disease, a large-scale study finds.
Researchers used national health registers to identify 136,637 Swedish patients with no history of cardiovascular disease who were diagnosed with a stress-related disorder — a cluster of mental health conditions, including post-traumatic stress disorder,...
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50 years ago, drug abuse was higher among physicians than the public
The physician as addict —03/28/2019 - 07:00 Health, Mental HealthThe rate of drug abuse or addiction among physicians is from 30 to 100 times that of the general public.... The American Medical Association estimates that some 60,000 of the country’s 316,000 doctors misuse drugs of various kinds. The drug abuser among physicians has a predisposing personality for addiction, and suffers from overwork and fatigue. Since...
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Feature
The CBD boom is way ahead of the science
03/27/2019 - 06:00 Science & Society, Neuroscience, Mental HealthA few months back, a new storefront appeared in my small Oregon town. Its shelves were packed with tinctures, jars of salve, coffee beans, bath bombs — even beard oil. This motley collection shared a single star ingredient: CBD.
Produced by the cannabis plant, CBD is the straitlaced cousin of marijuana’s more famous component — the THC that delivers a mind-swirling high. CBD, or...
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News
Women have a new weapon against postpartum depression, but it’s costly
03/22/2019 - 14:32 Neuroscience, Mental HealthApproval of the first and only treatment in the United States specifically targeting postpartum depression offers hope for millions of women each year who suffer from the debilitating mental health disorder after giving birth.
The new drug brexanolone — marketed under the name Zulresso and approved on March 19 by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration — is expected to become available to...
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Editor's Note
Brain discoveries open doors to new treatments
For centuries, scientists have strived to figure out the workings of the human brain, but that blob of matter tucked inside a bony shell long resisted efforts to divine its secrets.02/10/2019 - 07:00 Neuroscience, Mental Health, BiomedicineTechniques invented in the early 1900s, including angiography and electroencephalography, made it possible to examine some characteristics of the brain without invading the skull. But it wasn’t until the...
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Feature
Brain-zapping implants that fight depression are inching closer to reality
02/10/2019 - 06:00 Mental Health, Clinical Trials, BiomedicineLike seismic sensors planted in quiet ground, hundreds of tiny electrodes rested in the outer layer of the 44-year-old woman’s brain. These sensors, each slightly larger than a sesame seed, had been implanted under her skull to listen for the first rumblings of epileptic seizures.
The electrodes gave researchers unprecedented access to the patient’s brain. With the woman’s permission,...
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News
Why it’s key to identify preschoolers with anxiety and depression
02/03/2019 - 07:00 Human Development, Mental Health, PsychologyThe task was designed to scare the kids. One by one, adults guided children, ranging in age from 3 to 7, into a dimly lit room containing a mysterious covered mound. To build anticipation, the adults intoned, “I have something in here to show you,” or “Let’s be quiet so it doesn’t wake up.” The adult then uncovered the mound — revealed to be a terrarium — and pulled out a realistic looking...
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Science Stats
Americans are sleeping less than they were 13 years ago
12/21/2018 - 12:00 Health, Mental HealthNearly one-third of American adults sleep less than six hours each night, a broad new survey shows.
Among nearly 400,000 respondents to the annual National Health Interview Survey, 32.9 percent reported this short sleep in 2017 — up from 28.6 percent in 2004 when researchers began noticing a slight drop in sleep time. That’s a 15 percent increase representing “more than 9 million people...