Traditional polygraph tests to determine whether someone is lying may take a back seat to functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), according to a study appearing in the February issue of Radiology. Researchers from Temple University Hospital in Philadelphia used fMRI to show how specific areas of the brain light up when a person tells a lie. [read the article]

EurekAlert
31 January 2006

People suffering generalised social phobia experience increased brain activity when confronted with threatening faces or frightening social situations, new research shows. The finding could help identify how severe a person's generalised social phobia is and measure the effectiveness of pharmacological and psychological treatments for the condition. [read article]

PsychDaily
23 January 2006

Revenge 'more satisfying for men'
Men appear to get greater satisfaction than women when witnessing retribution, research suggests.

Scientists monitored brain activity in people while they watched someone they either liked, or disliked apparently suffering pain. While women showed signs of empathy with people they both liked and disliked, men appeared to enjoy pain being inflicted on their foes. [read more]

BBC News
19 January 2006

Balding, Wrinkled, and Stoned
The '60s are gone, but for some baby boomers, the drugs aren't. A guide to the cost of a 40-year high. [read the article]

Time Online Edition
15 January 2006

A brain chemical recently found to boost trust appears to work by reducing activity and weakening connections in fear-processing circuitry, a brain imaging study at the National Institutes of Health's (NIH) National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) has discovered. Scans of the hormone oxytocin's effect on human brain function reveal that it quells the brain's fear hub, the amygdala, and its brainstem relay stations in response to fearful stimuli. The work at NIMH and a collaborating site in Germany suggests new approaches to treating diseases thought to involve amygdala dysfunction and social fear, such as social phobia, autism, and possibly schizophrenia, report Andreas Meyer-Lindenberg, M.D., Ph.D., NIMH Genes Cognition and Psychosis Program, and colleagues, in the December 7, 2005 issue of the Journal of Neuroscience. [read more]

NIMH Press Release
7 December 2005

How to Get Smarter, One Breath at a Time
Scientists find that meditation not only reduces stress but also reshapes the brain

By Lisa Takeuchi Cullen
Time Online Edition

Drug Prescriptions for Teens Surge 250 Percent Over Seven Years
Waltham, MA - Psychotropic drug prescriptions for teenagers skyrocketed 250 percent between 1994 and 2001, rising particularly sharply after 1999, when the federal government allowed direct-to-consumer advertising and looser promotion of off-label use of prescription drugs, according to a new Brandeis University study in the journal Psychiatric Services.

This dramatic increase in adolescent visits to health care professionals which resulted in a prescription for a psychotropic drug occurred despite the fact that few psychotropic drugs, typically prescribed for ADHD, depression and other mood disorders, are approved for use in children under 18. The study is one of the first to focus on prescriptions to adolescents, rather than children in general.

3 January 2006
Brandeis News

Your Sweet Tooth May Really Be in Your Brain's 'Pleasure Hotspot'
ANN ARBOR, Mich.—What makes those holiday candies and Christmas cookies look so tempting? University of Michigan researchers have discovered a "pleasure spot" in the brains of rats, helping neuroscientists understand where and how pleasure is generated in humans.

20 December 2005
University of Michigan News Service

Ellis kicked off board of institute he founded
A man who was once proclaimed the second most influential psychologist in the past 100 years has been summarily dumped from the board of the psychotherapy institute he founded nearly a half-century ago.

By Richard E. Gill, Assistant Editor
The National Psychologist
November/December 2005