http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/07/090723113657.htm

ScienceDaily (July 27, 2009) — Experiencing chronic stress day after day can produce wear and tear on the body physically and mentally, and can have a detrimental effect on learning and emotion. However, acute stress — a short stressful incident — may enhance learning and memory.

Researchers at the University at Buffalo have shown, in trials using rodents as an animal model, that acute stress can produce a beneficial effect on learning and memory, through the effect of the stress hormone corticosterone (cortisol in humans) on the brain’s prefrontal cortex, a key region that controls learning and emotion.

Specifically, they demonstrated that acute stress increases transmission of the neurotransmitter glutamate and improves working memory.

“Stress hormones have both protective and damaging effects on the body,” said Zhen Yan, professor of physiology and biophysics at UB and senior author on the study. “This paper and others we have in the pipeline explain why we need stress to perform better, but don’t want to be stressed out.”

The study appeared July 20 in the online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and will be published in an upcoming print version of the journal. Eunice Y. Yuen, Ph.D., UB research assistant professor of physiology and biophysics, is the first author on the study.

To test the effect of acute stress on working memory, Yan, Yuen and colleagues trained rats in a maze until they could complete it correctly 60-70 percent of the time. When the rodents reached this level of accuracy for two consecutive days, half were put through a 20-minute forced swim, which served as acute stress, and then were put through the maze again.

Results showed that the stressed rats made significantly fewer mistakes as they went through the maze both four hours after the stressful experience and one day post-stress, compared to the non-stressed rats.

To determine if the corticosterone neuropathway was responsible for the improved memory, as they proposed, researchers injected one group of rats before the stressful forced-swim with a medicinal compound that blocks the pathway, and injected another group with saline. Results showed that the saline group, in which the corticosterone neuropathway was not blocked, performed better in the maze than the blocked group.

The researchers also determined that the stressful experience did not increase depression or anxiety-related behavior in the animals.

“It is known that stress has both positive and negative actions in the brain, but the underlying mechanism is elusive,” said Yan. “Several key brain regions involved in cognition and emotions, including the prefrontal cortex, have been identified as the primary target of corticosteroid, the major stress hormone.

“Our current study identifies a novel mechanism that underlies the impact of acute stress on working memory, a cognitive process depending on glutamate receptor-mediated excitatory signals in prefrontal cortex circuits.”

The investigators have expanded this research in several directions. In a paper currently under review, they have identified the key signaling molecules that link acute stress to the enhancement of glutamate receptors and working memory.

“In addition,” noted Yan, “we have discovered that chronic stress suppresses the transmission of glutamate in the prefrontal cortex of male rodents, which is opposite to the facilitating effect of acute stress, and that estrogen receptors in female rodents make them more resilient to chronic stress than male rats.

“All these studies should bring new insights into the complex actions of stress in different circumstances that may be applicable to humans in the future,” she said.

Wenhua Liu, Ph.D., postdoctoral associate, and Jain Feng, Ph.D., associate professor, both in the UB Department of Physiology and Biophysics, are co-authors on the study, along with Ilia N. Karatsoreos, Ph.D., and Bruce S. McEwen, Ph.D., from The Rockefeller University.

The research was supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health to Yan and a National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and Depression Young Investigator Award to Yuen.

Adapted from materials provided by University at Buffalo.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/07/090723113657.htm

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/07/090722110905.htm

ScienceDaily (July 25, 2009) — Unfortunately for us, there is no formula for fulfillment or guide to life satisfaction; however, humans have turned to philosophy, religion and science time and again for answers to our existential questions. We may have come a long way since Confucius and Plato, and science continues to piece together some of the answers, but what have we learned so far?

Psychologists Nansook Park and Christopher Peterson from the University of Michigan turned to their own field to ask, “What is a good life and how can we achieve and sustain it?” In their article recently published in Perspectives in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, the authors explored the many ways psychology has contributed to, and continues to research, the science of living well.

So far we have learned from psychology that a good life includes experiencing more positive than negative feelings, feeling like your life has been lived well, continually using your talents and strengths, having close interpersonal relationships, being engaged at work and other activities, being a part of a social community, perceiving that life has a meaning, and feeling healthy and safe. And while these conclusions may seem like common sense, we as humans fall short on knowing just how to obtain and maintain these qualities.

Psychology still has a ways to go until the perfect formula for a good life is found. As Park and Peterson put it, “At present, psychology knows more about people’s problems and how to solve them than it does about what it means to live well and how to encourage and maintain such a life.” They suggest researchers across all disciplines of psychology come together and collaborate on their findings, perhaps pulling together a more complete picture of the human experience.

“In speaking about the psychological good life, we are fond of saying that other people matter,” the authors concluded, “It appears that other people matter in science as well.”

Journal reference:

1. Park et al. Achieving and Sustaining a Good Life.Perspectives on Psychological Science, 2009; 4 (4): 422 DOI: 10.1111/j.1745-6924.2009.01149.x

Adapted from materials provided by Association for Psychological Science.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/07/090722110905.htm

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/07/090720163719.htm

ScienceDaily (July 21, 2009) — Whether it’s getting a cold during exam time or feeling run-down after a big meeting, we’ve all experienced feeling sick following a particularly stressful time at work or school. Is this merely coincidence, or is it possible that stress can actually make us sick? In a new report in Perspectives on Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, psychologist Janice K. Kiecolt-Glaser from the Ohio State University College of Medicine reviews research investigating how stress can wreak havoc on our bodies and provides some suggestions to further our understanding of this connection.

The field of psychoneuroimmunology (PNI) investigates how stress and negative emotions (such as depression and anxiety) affect our health. Over the past 30 years, researchers in this field have uncovered a number of ways that stress adversely affects our health, and specifically, how stress can damage our immune system. Numerous studies have shown that stressed individuals show weaker immune responses to vaccines, and as Kiecolt-Glaser observes, “The evidence that stress and distress impair vaccine responses has obvious public health relevance because infectious diseases can be so deadly.” Stress and depression have been shown to increase the risk of getting infections and also result in delayed wound healing.

Inflammation is the body’s way of removing harmful stimuli and also starts the process of healing, via release of a variety of chemicals known as proinflammatory cytokines (e.g., interleukin-6). However, too much inflammation can be damaging and has been implicated in the development of many age-related diseases, including Alzheimer’s Disease, Parkinson’s disease, arthritis, and Type II diabetes. Negative emotions and psychological stressors increase the production of proinflammatory cytokines. A recent study revealed that men and women who serve as caregivers to spouses with dementia (and thus are under constant stress) have a four times larger annual rate of increase in serum interleukin-6 levels compared to individuals without caregiving responsibilities.

What’s more, the changes in interleukin-6 levels among former caregivers did not differ from current caregivers, even following the death of the impaired spouse, indicating that chronic stress may cause the immune system to age quickly. Kiecolt-Glaser notes, “These stress-related changes in inflammation provide evidence of one mechanism through which stressors may accelerate risk of a host of age-related diseases.”

Kiecolt-Glaser argues that our environment should be taken into account when studying the link between stress and our health. For instance, diet may modify interactions between psychological and immunological responses: Omega-3 fatty acids (found in fish and walnuts) can reduce production of some proinflammtory chemicals and increasing levels of omega-3 fatty acids may result in positive effects on mood and the immune system. Environmental toxins (such as pesticides and air pollutants) can have extremely negative effects on the immune system and these effects may be intensified in stressed individuals, increasing their risk for developing allergies, asthma, and viral infections.

Kiecolt-Glaser suggests that to most effectively tackle the questions raised by recent PNI research, cross-discipline training needs to be emphasized for students. Psychology students who gain a strong foundation in areas such as biology and physiology will be able to enter into powerful collaborations with scientists conducting immunology research. Kiecolt-Glaser concludes that the questions answered by these collaborations will advance PNI as well as psychology in general.

“By providing key data on how stressful events and the emotions they evoke get translated into health,” she suggested, “psychology will assume a more dominant role in the health sciences, in health promotion, and in public health policy.”

Journal reference:

1. Janice K. Kiecolt-Glaser. Psychoneuroimmunology: Psychology’s Gateway to the Biomedical Future.Perspectives on Psychological Science, 2009; 4 (4): 367 DOI: 10.1111/j.1745-6924.2009.01139.x

Adapted from materials provided by Association for Psychological Science.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/07/090720163719.htm

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/07/090720102019.htm

ScienceDaily (July 20, 2009) — Young men who stay at home with their parents are more violent than those who live independently, according to new research at Queen Mary, University of London.

The new study indicates that men still living at home in their early twenties have fewer responsibilities and more disposable income to spend on alcohol.

This group makes up only four percent of the UK’s male population but they are responsible for 16 per cent of all violent injuries in the last five years.

Delaying social independence and remaining in the parental home have become more common over the past 40 years in both the UK and the USA.

Professor Jeremy Coid and Dr Ming Yang surveyed over 8000 men and women. Participants answered questions about violent behaviour over the past 5 years and mental health problems.

Their results showed for the first time that staying in the parental home is a stronger risk factor for young men’s violence than any other factor.

Professor Coid said: “Young adult men living at home in Britain are no longer influenced by parents to conform to standards of behaviour expected of previous generations.

“Violence outside of the home, mainly involving strangers, is the most common scenario and just one of a series of hedonistic and negative social behaviours such as hazardous drinking, drug misuse, sexual risk taking, and non-violent antisocial behaviour.

“And these are more common among young men who do not have responsibilities of providing their own accommodation, supporting dependent children, or experiencing beneficial effects on their behaviour from living with a female partner.

“Young men who live at home are also more likely to receive financial support from their parents than in the past when the pattern was reversed. However, in this study their earnings or benefits were the same as those who had left home and taken on greater social responsibility. They therefore had more disposable income which may have partly explained why they had more problems with alcohol.”

Journal reference:

1. Coid et al. Violence and delayed social independence among young adult British men. Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology, 2009; DOI: 10.1007/s00127-009-0077-6

Adapted from materials provided by Queen Mary, University of London, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/07/090720102019.htm

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/07/090713222216.htm

ScienceDaily (July 17, 2009) — A Baylor University researcher has found a set of genes that modulates stress responses that could cause some people to take drugs, specifically alcohol consumption.

The study by Dr. Doug Matthews,* professor of psychology and neuroscience at Baylor, appeared in the journal Behavior Genetics.

Matthews found a small section on chromosome one that is responsive to a particular type of stress in animal models. The researchers then identified the genes in this region that could be responsible for the behavioral response to stress, like alcohol consumption.

The study is the first to pinpoint a region on the chromosomes that could be responsible for modulating stress responses involved in complex behaviors like drug abuse.

“This study gives us insight into a common genetic pathway for stress that might be critical in modulating drug taking behavior, especially alcohol consumption since many people report drinking alcohol to reduce stress,” Matthews said. “It also gave us some ideas on where to look in the brain for drug taking behavior and it provided a method to do so.”

Matthews said the researchers used a unique method to do the project by selecting chromosomes from one particular strain of mice and embed them inside the background of a host strain. He pointed out this sophisticated genetic manipulation allowed them to target specific chromosomes so they could get a much more powerful genetic answer.

Researchers from Oak Ridge National Laboratory, University of Memphis, University of Tennessee and University of British Columbia also contributed to the study.

*Matthews research paper was awarded the Fulker Award from the Behavior Genetics Association for the best paper published in the journal in 2008.

Adapted from materials provided by Baylor University.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/07/090713222216.htm

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/07/090715152042.htm

ScienceDaily (July 16, 2009) — Pain symptoms that cannot be attributed, or at least not fully attributed, to an organic origin are more frequently and more severely experienced by patients with depression than by those without. “It is the case that women are much more frequently affected by depression and also by so-called somatoform pain disorder than men,” explains Dirk Frieser, psychologist at the Institute of Psychology at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz.

For the purposes of his doctoral dissertation, Frieser and fellow psychologist Stephanie Körber questioned 308 patients attending two practices of general practitioners in Mainz. Patients were asked about their state of health and their pain symptoms, but also about their anxieties with regard to illness, how they react when ill, what social support they receive, and what psychological stress they experience, together with many other aspects. Subsequently, the pain symptoms reported by the patients were evaluated by their doctors.

Somatoform symptoms, i.e., symptoms that cannot or not fully be explained in medical terms, are an astonishingly widespread phenomenon. According to Frieser “up to 80 percent of the symptoms reported in GP practices are somatoform. However, this does not mean that patients are simply ‘imagining’ that they have these symptoms.” Somatoform symptoms are very real; they impair quality of life, and can also cause clinically relevant disorders that may require psychological treatment, such as cognitive behavioral therapy.

Somatoform disorders, which are often popularly dismissed as ‘hypochondria,’ frequently not only involve pain symptoms but also other symptoms such as dizziness, sensations of hypersensitivity in various regions of the body, and even fatigue or exhaustion. What is important, according to Frieser, is that not everyone who has somatoform symptoms is diagnosed as having a somatoform disorder. The extent to which a patient’s quality of life is impaired and the severity of the psychological problems they experience are the determining factors here.

Taking as their starting point the survey of GP practices in Mainz under the supervision of Professor Wolfgang Hiller of Mainz University, Frieser and Körber decided to investigate what influence depression has on the pain experience of patients and to determine whether this differs if the pain is of clinical origin and if the pain has no medically identifiable cause.

“The results indicate that there is a significantly higher occurrence of somatoform pain in various body regions in patients with existing depression or who suffered depression in the previous 12 months than in patients without depression.” According to Frieser then, it is possible that patients who report to their doctors with multiple pain symptoms that cannot be explained in clinical terms are very probably suffering from a depressive disorder requiring treatment. In cases of major depression, the affected patients often exhibit dejection, despair, swings in appetite and body weight, insomnia or an increased need for sleep, tiredness, lack of energy, and psychomotor disturbances. These patients not infrequently also consider committing suicide. Short term mood swings with a duration of less than two weeks are not considered characteristic elements of this disorder.

The results of the GP survey in Mainz underline the importance of the correct classification and evaluation of pain symptoms for healthcare services; the general practitioners concluded that pain was somatoform in 73 percent of cases, and could be fully explained in medical terms in only 27 percent of cases. Where the pain is attributable to an organic cause, it is irrelevant whether the patient has depression or not: The frequency, duration, and the debilitating effect of the pain are roughly equivalent in both patient groups.

Adapted from materials provided by Mainz, Universitaet, viaAlphaGalileo.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/07/090715152042.htm

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/07/090716113258.htm

ScienceDaily (July 16, 2009) — How well do you know yourself? It’s a question many of us struggle with, as we try to figure out how close we are to who we actually want to be. In a new report inPerspectives on Psychological Science, psychologist Timothy D. Wilson from the University of Virginia describes theories behind self-knowledge (that is, how people form beliefs about themselves), cites challenges psychologists encounter while studying it, and offers ways we can get to know ourselves a little better.

The study of self-knowledge has tended to focus on how accurate we are at determining our own internal states, such as our emotions, personality, and attitudes. However, Wilson notes that self-knowledge can be broadened to include memory, like recalling how we felt in the past, and prospection, predicting how we will feel in the future. Knowing who we were and who we will be are as important to self-knowledge as knowing who we are in the present. And while a number of researchers are conducting studies that are applicable to those various facets of self-knowledge, Wilson observes that there is not much communication between them, one reason this field is challenging to investigate.

Although it can be fairly simple to assess how people’s attitudes change over time–that is, have them predict how they will feel at certain time and then actually measure their feelings at that time– it is more difficult to measure people’s current self-knowledge accurately. Some methods of acquiring accurate information on a person’s feelings or their personality are to compare reports from their peers and study their nonverbal behavior. However, Wilson has “great faith in the methodological creativity” of his “fellow social psychologists” and is confident that questions raised by these types of experiments will be answered in the next few years.

Although Wilson acknowledges all the interesting findings that have come out of new technologies, such as fMRI, he cautions that those type of studies may not be very relevant to studying issues associated with self-knowledge.

There are a number of theories that aim to describe self-knowledge by a dual-process model, pitting the unconscious against the conscious. Wilson notes that these theories are pessimistic in that they view the unconscious as something that cannot be breached. However, he remarks that “self-knowledge is less a matter of careful introspection than of becoming an excellent observer of oneself.”

Wilson suggests some ways that can help us learn more about ourselves, such as really attempting to be objective when considering our behaviors and trying to see ourselves through the eyes of other people. Another way of knowing ourselves better is to become more aware of findings from psychological science. Wilson concludes, “Most of us pay attention to medical findings that inform us about our bodies (e.g., that smoking tobacco is harmful), and can learn about our psychological selves in the same way.”

Journal reference:

1. . Know Thyself. Perspectives on Psychological Science

Adapted from materials provided by Association for Psychological Science.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/07/090716113258.htm

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090615171517.htm

ScienceDaily (June 16, 2009) — High levels of brain energy are required to maintain consciousness, a finding which suggests a new way to understand the properties of this still mysterious state of being, Yale University researchers report.

At its simplest, consciousness can be defined as the ability to respond meaningfully to external stimuli. Most studies of consciousness have used imaging technology to try to pinpoint areas of brain activity during tasks such as memorization or problem solving.

There are two problems with such an approach, said Robert G. Shulman, Sterling Professor Emeritus of molecular biophysics and biochemistry at Yale and lead author of the paper, to be published this week in the online edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. First, functional magnetic resonance imaging has shown that many areas of the brain, not just one or two, are recruited during tasks such as memory tests and are scant help in studying the state of being conscious. Second, the amount of energy used in such tasks is minute, about one percent of baseline energy available to the brain.

“Neuroimaging has been looking at the tip of the iceberg,” Shulman said. “We looked at the rest of the iceberg.”

What is the other 99 percent of energy consumption doing?

Shulman and colleagues have proposed that it is needed to maintain a person in a state of consciousness. Heavily anesthetized people are known to show approximately 50 percent reductions in cerebral energy consumption. When the paws of lightly anesthetized rats with rather high baseline energy levels were stroked, fMRI signals were received in the sensory cortex and in many other areas of the brain. In heavily anesthetized rats the signal stopped at the sensory cortex. Both the total energy and the fMRI signals changed when the person or animal lost consciousness.

“What we propose is that a conscious person requires a high level of brain energy,” Shulman said.

The finding has profound implications for our understanding of the connection between the brain and consciousness, Shulman said. “You can think of consciousness not as a property of the brain, but of the person.”

Anesthesiologists consider a person to be in a behavioral state of consciousness when he or she can respond to simple stimuli. Properties of this state, such as the high energy and the delocalized fMRI signals, allow the person to perform the interconnected activities that make up our everyday lives. Shulman suggests that these more energetic properties of the brain support human behavior and should be considered when interpreting the much weaker signals that are typically recorded during fMRI studies.

Other Yale researchers involved in the study are professors Fahmeed Hyder and Douglas L. Rothman.

The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health.

Adapted from materials provided by Yale University.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090615171517.htm

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/07/090713144122.htm

ScienceDaily (July 14, 2009) — University of Denver (DU) researchers find that couples who live together before they are engaged have a higher chance of getting divorced than those who wait until they are married to live together, or at least wait until they are engaged. In addition, couples who lived together before engagement and then married, reported a lower satisfaction in their marriages.

The research, which appears in theJournal of Family Psychology, was conducted by Galena Rhoades, senior researcher, Scott Stanley, research professor, and Howard Markman, professor of psychology.

“We think that some couples who move in together without a clear commitment to marriage may wind up sliding into marriage partly because they are already cohabiting,” Rhoades says.

“It seems wise to talk about commitment and what living together might mean for the future of the relationship before moving in together, especially because cohabiting likely makes it harder to break up compared to dating,” Stanley says.

The three researchers also studied the reasons why couples decide to live together. That study, which appeared in theJournal of Family Issues, shows that most couples chose to live together in order to spend more time together. The second most popular reason is convenience, followed by testing the relationship. This is different than previous research that found most people cohabit to test the relationship.

“Cohabiting to test a relationship turns out to be associated with the most problems in relationships,” Rhoades says. “Perhaps if a person is feeling a need to test the relationship, he or she already knows some important information about how a relationship may go over time.”

Adapted from materials provided by University of Denver, viaEurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/07/090713144122.htm

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/07/090701082710.htm

ScienceDaily (July 3, 2009) — A study in the journalSleep suggests that postpartum depression may aggravate an already impaired sleep quality, as experiencing difficulties with sleep is a symptom of depression. Twenty-one percent of depressed postpartum women included in the study reported having also been depressed during pregnancy and 46 percent reported at least one previous depressive episode prior to conception, suggesting that new mothers diagnosed with postpartum depression are not merely reporting symptoms of chronic sleep deprivation.

Results indicate that two months after delivery, poor sleep was associated with depression when adjusted for other significant risk factors, such as poor partner relationship, previous depression, depression during pregnancy and stressful life events. Sleep disturbances and subjective sleep quality were the aspects of sleep most strongly associated with depression. Overall, nearly 60 percent of the postpartum women experienced poor global sleep quality, and 16.5 percent had depressive symptoms.

According to lead author Karen Dørheim, MD, PhD, psychiatrist at Stavanger University Hospital in Norway, depression after delivery is often not identified by new mothers, whereas tiredness and lack of sleep are common complaints. These symptoms may be attributed to poor sleep, but the tiredness could also be caused by depression.

“It is important to ask a new mother suffering from tiredness about how poor sleep affects her daytime functioning and whether there are other factors in her life that may contribute to her lack of energy,” said Dørhei. “There are also helpful depression screening questionnaires that can be completed during a consultation. Doctors and other health workers should provide an opportunity for postpartum women to discuss difficult feelings.”

Data were collected between October 2005 and September 2006 from 2,830 women who gave birth to a live child at Stavanger University Hospital in Norway. Sleep was measured using the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) and depressive symptoms using the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS). The mean self-reported nightly sleep duration was 6.5 hours, and sleep efficiency was 73 percent. The mean age of the mothers at the time of reply was 30 years, and the mean age of the infants was 8.4 weeks.

Depression, previous sleep problems, being a first time mother, not exclusively breastfeeding or having a younger or male infant were factors associated with poor postpartum sleep quality. Better maternal sleep was associated with the baby sleeping in a different room.

According to authors, the first three months after delivery are characterized by continually changing sleep parameters. Women who are tired during this period may attribute this to poor sleep, but the tiredness could alternatively be caused by depression; thus talking about sleep problems may provide an entry point for also discussing the woman’s overall well-being. Individual women may react differently to shorter sleep duration and lower sleep efficiency during the postpartum period, and that the sleep of women with a history of depression may be more sensitive to the psychobiological (hormonal, immunological, psychological and social) changes associated with childbirth.

Journal reference:

1. . Sleep and Depression in Postpartum Women: A Population-Based Study. Sleep, July 1, 2009

Adapted from materials provided by American Academy of Sleep Medicine, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/07/090701082710.htm