Author: dispatchtimes news

A major new study analysing data from more than 128,000 adults suggests that the elevated risk of depression in adulthood among those who experienced parental divorce in childhood may be largely explained by parental mental illness and substance use, rather than the divorce per se. The work, published in Psychiatry Research, scrutinises whether family structure itself accounts for later distress after taking into account other adverse childhood experiences. The researchers, Mary Kate Schilke of Tyndale University and Esme Fuller-Thomson of the University of Toronto, also examine adults whose parents never married. The team used data from the 2021-2024 Behavioral Risk…

A new study to be published in Psychoneuroendocrinology links severe internet addiction with lower long-term cortisol levels measured in hair, suggesting a blunted physiological stress response among those most affected. The research team was led by Hideki Tsumura of Tokushima University and Shuhei Izawa of the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health in Japan, who analysed hair samples from 155 university students. The researchers reported that higher internet addiction symptom scores were associated with lower hair cortisol concentrations overall, and that individuals classified as highly addicted showed lower cortisol on average than those at lower risk. The findings point…

Former citizens of East Germany who endured state-organised soft repression have higher psychological distress and signs of systemic inflammation, according to a study published in The British Journal of Psychiatry. The findings come from a group of researchers led by Ruth Marheinecke and colleagues. Soft repression refers to quieter forms of control that interfere with daily life, rather than overt violence or imprisonment. The researchers describe practices such as surveillance, denunciation, restrictions on speech, harassment, and deliberate obstacles in professional or social life, all of which can foster chronic feelings of insecurity, mistrust and the need to monitor one’s own…

A Stanford University team has used a novel optical‑flow approach to track moving brain activity and found that psychedelic drugs reduce the magnitude of propagating brain waves and curb bottom‑up signals entering the brain’s default mode network. The work, conducted in humans and mice and published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, pinpoints a consistent pattern across MDMA, psilocybin and LSD that may illuminate how these substances reshape subjective experience. The default mode network sits at the top of a processing hierarchy in the brain, with information typically travelling from lower‑order sensory regions up to higher‑order areas…

The Love on the Spectrum reception has sparked a wide-ranging debate among critics, autistic voices and clinicians about its portrayal of dating and autism. The American edition, streaming on Netflix, follows an ensemble of autistic adults navigating romance, and is based on an Australian programme of the same name. Six reviews from autistic adults, journalists and clinical professionals converge on several shared themes, including honesty, warmth, and the programme’s handling of romance. The critics also identify one major area where views diverge: the level of dating coaching and support provided to the cast. The critics describe the series as an…

A new study reveals how the brain processes speaking and listening in real time, showing shared neural codes during short verbal exchanges and distinct timing networks when dealing with longer, overarching ideas. The findings, published in Nature Human Behaviour, map how we navigate the back-and-forth demands of everyday conversation. Conversation is a dynamic task requiring quick context understanding, anticipation, and narrative coherence. To manage this, the brain must integrate language across multiple timescales—from immediate word processing to grasping whole paragraphs and concepts. For decades, researchers have explored language processing with isolated sentences or long narratives. Such work established a hierarchical…

Researchers at APC Microbiome Ireland, a research centre at University College Cork, have found that coffee may influence far more than alertness by altering the gut microbiome and potentially shaping mood, stress, memory and attention through the gut-brain axis. The study, published in Nature Communications and funded by the Institute for Scientific Information on Coffee, examined both caffeinated and decaffeinated coffee’s effects on the body’s digestive and nervous systems. The project involved 62 adults, split into 31 regular coffee drinkers and 31 individuals who did not normally drink coffee. Regular drinkers were defined as those who typically consume 3 to…

A new study published in the Journal of Attention Disorders finds that adults’ feelings about their attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder depend on their specific symptoms, with hyperactive and impulsive traits linked to more positive attitudes and inattentive symptoms tied to less positive views. Led by Gili Katabi of Tel-Aviv University, the researchers sought to test whether these positive feelings vary by whether a person’s ADHD symptoms are primarily hyperactive/impulsive or mainly inattentive. The work builds on a broader shift towards recognising strengths associated with the condition as well as its challenges. The study sits within a growing body of work that has…

A small Finnish study has examined how breast tissue responds to temperature changes, comparing nursing women with non-breastfeeding women and men to explore a potential evolutionary function for permanent breast tissue. The researchers found that breastfeeding women tended to have higher breast surface temperatures and greater resilience to cooling, prompting discussion about a possible role in supporting infant warmth. The work was published in Evolutionary Human Sciences. The study recruited eight currently breastfeeding women, twelve non-breastfeeding women and seven men, all aged 20 to 40. The age range was chosen to represent typical nursing ages while excluding puberty and menopause.…

A new international study has found that popular artificial intelligence programs tend to express more optimistic views about the future of advanced AI than humans do. The research, conducted by a team led by Ljubiša Bojić in Serbia, tested several widely used language models and compared their attitudes to those of human participants from Serbia. The paper also proposes a framework to monitor how AI opinions might influence public opinion over time. The researchers focused on artificial general intelligence, or AGI, a theoretical future system that would demonstrate human‑level cognitive flexibility across domains. They note the topic is central to…