"But one of the largest studies of modern antidepressant drugs has found that they have no clinically significant effect. In other words, they don't workThe finding will send shock waves through the medical profession and patients and raises serious questions about the regulation of the multinational pharmaceutical industry, which was accused ( Read more... )

Neuroscientists at UCLA have shown that lithium, long the standard treatment for bipolar disorder, increases the amount of gray matter in the brains of patients with the illness."When the researchers compared the brains of bipolar patients on lithium with those of people without the disorder and those of bipolar patients not on lithium, they found ( Read more... )

Is psychology still relevant now that we have neuroscience?

Early Daylight Saving didn't save any energy - but a lot of people liked it anyway.

Courtroom confidence, reliable witnesses, and errors. Basically, if you say you're sure of something and you're wrong, that's worse than being kinda unsure and wrong, but being unsure and right carries ( Read more... )

Psychology and political stance

Depression: the great happy pill betrayal

CBT and the legacy of Freud

Scientific American: What a Headache: Migraines in Women Are Linked to the Blues
New study shows that women with chronic headaches are more prone to major depression.

Scientific American: Sleep problems, nightmares linked to suicide

x-posted to plantgirl

ScienceBlog and CogDaily articles on recent studies of the effects of "thinking faster". Very good reading.

Also, CogDaily now has a podcast!

An interesting look at the role of neurogenesis in depression.
Scientific American: Does Sprouting New Brain Cells Cure Depression?

A longer article discussing cognitive therapy as an alternative to ADHD drugs.
Scientific American: Training the BrainThis one may not be surprising given what we already know about dopamine & reward-seeking ( Read more... )

Do Antidepressants Cure or Create Abnormal Brain States?

A secret attraction or defensive loathing? Homophobia, defense, and implicit cognition

The familiar "no pain, no gain" phrase usually associated with exercise may be a thing of the past if results from a study on cherry juice published today in the online version of the British Journal of ( Read more... )

Some of these are older studies, but the information is still relevant and hasn't been surpassed by anything as far as I know.

Here are three on the genetics of depression:
Scientific American: A Marker for Depression?

Scientific American: Passing On Panic and Depression

Scientific American: Gene Variant Helps Stop Stress from Becoming ( Read more... )

Researchers at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center found that stress from bullying can cause genetic changes in the reward circuitry of the brain. These changes correspond to social withdrawal similar to that seen in depression.

Here are several sources for the article:

NIH / National Institute of Mental Health

Science Daily

( Read more... )