Look to the side of you to spot threats quickly

People's brains process scared faces more quickly when they are seen in the periphery of one's vision than when they are seen straight ahead. Researchers from the Institut National de la Sante et de la Recherche Medicale in France scanned 11 people's brains while they judged whether faces displayed on a computer screen were happy or not. However, the real point of the experiment lay in subliminally-presented fearful faces either straight ahead on the screen or in the periphery of the participant's vision. The study found that faces in the periphery of people's vision were actually processed much more quickly in a region of the brain known to be involved in processing emotions. This could be, thought the researchers, because fearful faces seen from the side are processed using a quicker, less-sophisticated visual-processing system than faces seen from the front. This might be because unexpected threats are more likely to come from side-on than from straight ahead.

http://bps-research-digest.blogspot.com/2010/01/scared-face-processed-more-quickly-when.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+BpsResearchDigest+%28BPS+Research+Digest%29&utm_content=Google+Reader

Can't recognise faces? Don't worry you're not stupid

Being able to recognise people's faces is an important skill to have but not everyone is as skilled as others at it. Some people can recognise someone they met briefly years ago while others struggle to recognise even close friends and family. Researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Beijing Normal University looked into these variations in a study of 102 pairs of identical twins and 71 pairs of non-identical ones. Identical twins share all the same genes and non-identical ones share 50% of genes so twin studies are a good way of seeing what contributions genes make to a particular trait or condition. The participants were tested on their ability to remember and recognise faces they had been shown for a second. The study found that 39% of the variation in people's ability to recognise faces was due to genetic factors. There was no link between the ability to recognise faces and sharpness of vision, general object recognition abilities, memory or other cognitive abilities. In another study of 321 students the researchers found that the ability to recognise faces was not linked to IQ.

You can find out more about this research at

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/01/100119172758.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sciencedaily+%28ScienceDaily%3A+Latest+Science+News%29&utm_content=Google+Reader

Alzheimer's - the eyes have it

Researchers from University College London are working on a way in which eye tests could be used to diagnose Alzheimer's disease. The test works on the basis that the retina is an extension of the brain and involves a chemical marker being either injected into the arm or administered via eye drops. Once the substance is in the body it highlights dying nerve cells which can then be seen with an infrared camera. Anything more than 20 damaged cells could indicate the onset of Alzheimer's disease and once diagnosed treatment could start immediately.

You can find out more about this research at

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/6988742/Eye-test-could-diagnose-Alzheimers-Disease.html

Cognitive fluctuations and Alzheimer's disease

Cognitive fluctuations include: feeling drowsy or lethargic all the time or several times per day, sleeping two or more hours before 7 p.m., having times when the flow of one's ideas seems disorganized, unclear or illogical and staring into space for long periods. This sounds like fairly typical behaviour in older (and not-so-old) people but researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St Louis have found that it could be linked to an increased risk of Alzheimer's disease. The researchers' study included 511 older adults with memory problems who had an average age of 78. 12% of the sample had three symptoms of cognitive fluctuations and these people were 4.6x more likely to be diagnosed with Alzheimer's. Of the 216 people diagnosed with very mild or mild dementia 25 had cognitive fluctuations whereas of the 295 with no dementia only two did. People with cognitive fluctuations also did worse on tests of memory and thinking than those without.

You can find out more about this research at

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/01/100118161943.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sciencedaily+%28ScienceDaily%3A+Latest+Science+News%29&utm_content=Google+Reader

Hypnotherapy Directory

Hypnotherapy Directory is an online directory of hypnotherapists in the U.K. which can be searched by town or postcode. All the hypnotherapists on the site have a relevant qualification, insurance cover or proof of registration with a professional body. Each hypnotherapist has a profile giving information about which areas they specialise in, their background and their qualifications. The site has information about the different problems that hypnotherapy can help with and a blog about the latest health news.

You can find the Hypnotherapy Directory at

http://www.hypnotherapy-directory.org.uk/

Cannabis and suicide risk

Smoking cannabis is unlikely to increase your risk of killing yourself. Researchers from Cardiff University looked at data on more than 50,000 Swedish military recruits. Sweden has conscription and the study covered 50,087 men and women who were conscripted between 1969 and 1970 when they were aged between 18 and 20. Over the next 30 years 600 of the sample killed themselves. Those who admitted to smoking cannabis when they were conscripted were 62% more likely to kill themselves during the follow-up period. However, once other factors such as childhood behaviour problems, psychological adjustment, mental-health problems, drinking, smoking and parental drug use were taken into account the link between cannabis use and suicide disappeared.

You can find out more about this study at

http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKTRE60E3CB20100115?feedType=RSS&feedName=healthNews

Leafy suburbs and later literacy

Where you live when you go to nursery school could affect your reading comprehension years later - even if you've moved somewhere completely different in the meantime. Researchers from the University of British Columbia followed 2,648 children from nursery to Year Seven when they took a test called the Foundation Skills Assessment. The researchers compared the children's scores in this test to information about the kind of area they lived in when they were in nursery school (kindergarten) and in Year Seven. The children who lived in an area with higher socioeconomic status when they were in kindergarten had higher reading skills in Year Seven regardless of where they lived when they took the test. The researchers thought this might be because children would have better access to good schools, libraries, after-school programmes and bookshops in better-off areas.

You can find out more about this study at

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/01/100114143330.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sciencedaily+%28ScienceDaily%3A+Latest+Science+News%29&utm_content=Google+Reader

Little people hearing voices

Although hearing voices is one of the main symptoms of psychosis there are thought to be many more people who hear voices than who suffer from psychosis. This is particularly true of children and adolescents and the great majority of children who hear voices do not go on to develop psychosis. Researchers from the University of Groningen in the Netherlands looked into the auditory vocal hallucinations of 3,870 seven and eight-year-olds. They found that over the course of the year 9% of the children heard voices. 15% of the children who heard voices suffered psychological distress and/or had problem behaviour. More children heard voices in rural areas but the consequences of doing so were more severe in urban ones. There was no link between the level of the children's development and their propensity to hear voices.

Bartels-Velthuis, Agna A. ... [et al] - Prevalence and correlates of auditory vocal hallucinations in middle childhood British Journal of Psychiatry January 2010, 196(1), 41-46

Drug therapy for borderline personality disorder

Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is characterised by persistently unstable moods, inability to control one's impulses, problems getting on with other people and a poor self image. People with BPD have difficulty forming relationships, can be aggressive, harm themselves and have suicidal thoughts. It is thought that at any one time about 0.7% of the population have BPD with 5.9% of people getting it at some point in their lives. BPD often goes together with mood, anxiety disorders and substance-abuse problems and suicidal behaviour is reported to occur in up to 84% of people. In an article in the January 2010 edition of the British Journal of Psychiatry a team of researchers reviewed studies into the use of drugs to treat BPD. The team looked at 27 different studies and found that the most effective drugs were the mood stabilizers topiramate, lamotrigine and valproate semisodium and the antipsychotic drugs aripiprazole and olanzapine. However, most of the findings were based on single, small studies and there was little evidence that SSRI (serotonin specific reuptake inhibitors) antidepressants were effective. The review concluded that although some of the symptoms of BPD could be tackled on an individual basis by drugs there was little that could influence the overall severity of the condition.

Lieb, Klaus ... [et al] - Pharmacotherapy for borderline personality disorder: Cochrane systematic review of randomised trials British Journal of Psychiatry January 2010, 196(1), 4-12

Blood pressure medication could help with Alzheimer's

Angiotensin receptor blockers (ARBs) are drugs used to treat high blood pressure but they could also help to stave off and slow down Alzheimer's disease. Researchers from Boston University School of Medicine studied the records of five million people on the database of the U.S. Department of Health (Veterans Affairs) and compared those who were taking ARBs with those who had similar blood-pressure problems but who were taking different drugs. They found that patients taking ARBs had up to a 50% lower chance of getting Alzheimer's disease or dementia, and those who took another kind of drug, angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors, as well had a 55% lower risk. Those who already had Alzheimer's disease or dementia had a 67% lower chance of being admitted to nursing homes or dying if they were taking both types of drugs.

You can find out more about this research at

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/01/100112201345.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sciencedaily+%28ScienceDaily%3A+Latest+Science+News%29&utm_content=Google+Reader

Flu and schizophrenia - is there really a link?

Scientists still do not really know what causes schizophrenia although it is likely that there are lots of different factors, including environmental and genetic ones, involved. One of the suspects is exposure to infectious diseases as a child in the womb and some studies have pointed to a link with influenza. Researchers from the University Medical Center, Utrecht, in the Netherlands looked at studies of children whose mothers lived through the Asian flu pandemic of 1957-1958. The researchers looked at 11 international studies comparing the rates of schizophrenia in children who were in the womb during the pandemic and those who were born before or after it. They also analyzed two studies of women who were pregnant and had the flu during the outbreak. Overall they found no increase in the risk of schizophrenia for those who had been in the womb while their mothers suffered from, or lived through, the pandemic.

You can find out more about this research at

http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKTRE60D4RZ20100114?feedType=RSS&feedName=healthNews&sp=true

Diabetes and dementia

Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) is often seen as a precursor to dementia but there is no real way of knowing which people with MCI will go on to suffer from dementia. Researchers from the Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London, followed 103 men and women with MCI over four years and found that 19 of them developed dementia over the course of the study. People who had diabetes - which has previously been linked to an increased risk of Alzheimer's - were nearly three times as likely to develop dementia as those without.

You can find out more about this research at

http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKTRE60D5RH20100114?feedType=RSS&feedName=healthNews

The pushchair pill poppers

Toddlers in the U.S. are being prescribed powerful antipsychotic drugs and the number has doubled over the past decade. Mark Olfson from Columbia University in New York studied the records of children with private medical insurance between 2000 and 2007. He found that the number of children diagnosed with bipolar disorder and prescribed antipsychotics doubled over the course of the study. About 1.5% of all children between the ages of 2 and 5 received some sort of psychotropic drug - either an antipsychotic, a mood stabilizer, a stimulant or an antidepressant - in 2007. Of the children diagnosed with bipolar disorder about half were prescribed an antipsychotic. Antipsychotics - which can have severe side effects - were prescribed to about 1 in 3,000 2 year-olds.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKTRE60E0NC20100115?feedType=RSS&feedName=healthNews&sp=true

Army wives feel the strain

Needless to say serving on the front line can have adverse effects on servicemen and women's mental health but new research from the University of North Carolina's Gillings School of Global Public Health has shown the effect war can have on the wives of servicemen too. The researchers studied the medical records of 250,000 army wives between 2003-2006. Roughly a third each had husbands who were not deployed during that period, who were deployed for between one and eleven months and who were deployed for longer. Relative to the group of wives whose husbands had not been deployed there were 3,500 extra diagnoses of mental-health problems in wives whose husbands served for 1-11 months and 5,300 more diagnoses among wives whose husbands served for longer. Depression, anxiety, sleep disorders, acute stress and adjustment disorders were the most common diagnoses. As well as the natural worry over loved ones, maintaining a household, coping as a single parent and dealing with the marital strain of a prolonged separation all took their toll.

You can find out more about this research at

http://psychcentral.com/news/2010/01/15/mental-health-issues-among-wives-of-deployed/10779.html

Mind the Difference

Mind the difference is an Italian non-profit organization which aims to reduce the stigma around mental illness. They are launching a competition for short videos, between three and five minutes in length exploring the differences between 'normality' and 'insanity.' The competition is international, open to everyone and free to enter.

You can find out more about it at

http://www.mindthedifference.com/?page_id=29&lang=en

Reasons to Go on Living

The Reasons to Go on Living Project is an initiative by McMaster University and St Joseph's Healthcare in Hamilton, Ontario which aims to collect the stories of people who have thought about killing themselves but decided not to. The site aims to help the medical profession understand the changes that take place between people wanting to die and them wanting to live and so develop better ways to help people who are suicidal. You can share your story, in strictest confidence, and find out more about the Reasons to Live initiative at

http://www.thereasons.ca/

Cocaine and sudden death

More than 3% of sudden deaths in Europe are caused by cocaine use. Researchers at the Institute of Legal Medicine in Seville studied sudden deaths in South-West Spain between 2003 and 2006 and found that 3.1% of them were related to taking cocaine which can damage people's hearts and arteries. All of the sudden deaths due to taking cocaine were in men aged between 21 and 45, 81% of whom also smoked and 76% of whom had drunk alcohol as well as taking the drug. It is estimated that about 12 million Europeans use cocaine - about 3.7% of the total adult population between 15 and 64. More than 5% of adults in the U.K., Spain and Italy say they have taken cocaine at least once in their lives.

You can find out more about this research at

http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKTRE60C05P20100113?feedType=RSS&feedName=healthNews&sp=true

High blood pressure and Alzheimer's disease

Researchers from the University of Pittsburgh have added more evidence to support the link between high blood pressure and Alzheimer's disease. They studied 1,424 women aged 65 or over who had their blood pressure checked every year and who had regular MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) scans of their brains. The women who had high blood pressure at the start of the study had significantly more lesions on the white matter in their brains than those with normal blood pressure. The lesions were more common in the frontal lobe of the brain which controls emotions and plays an important part in people's personality.

You can find out more about this research at

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/01/100112121942.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sciencedaily+%28ScienceDaily%3A+Latest+Science+News%29&utm_content=Google+Reader

Gene is linked to reduced Alzheimer's risk

Scientists at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York have found a gene that is associated with a reduced risk of developing Alzheimer's disease. People with two copies of the gene - which is called CETP - had a 70% reduced risk of developing the disease compared to those without it. Those people who had two copies of the gene and Alzheimer's disease had a 50% slower decline in their memory over the course of the study.

You can find out more about this research at

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/6973061/Gene-found-that-cuts-chance-of-dementia.html

Mephedrone is the new drug on the U.K. club scene

People who want to get high and the authorities often engage in a game of cat and mouse with new drugs emerging as old ones are clamped down on. The latest 'legal high' to appear on the U.K. club scene is mephedrone which is usually snorted, although it can also be taken in pill form, mixed with drinks or injected. The drug is sold on the Internet as 'plant food' (it won't improve your geraniums) and is said to produce an effect like a cross between cocaine and ecstasy. In a poll for the dance music magazine Mixmag one in three readers said they had taken the drug. The poll was carried out on behalf of the National Addictions Centre at King's College London and found that 51% of users suffered from headaches, 43% from heart palpitations, 29% from nausea and 15% from cold or blue fingers.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/hi/health/newsid_10000000/newsid_10004300/10004366.stm