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<td><span style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size:20px;font-weight:bold;">PsyPost – Psychology News</span></td>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/brain-oscillations-reveal-dynamic-shifts-in-creative-thought-during-metaphor-generation/" style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing:-1px;margin:0;padding:0 0 2px;font-weight: bold;font-size: 19px;line-height: 20px;color:#222;">Brain oscillations reveal dynamic shifts in creative thought during metaphor generation</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">May 19th 2025, 10:00</div>
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<p><p>When people generate creative metaphors for scientific ideas, their brains shift through distinct patterns of neural activity over time. A new study published in <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/psyp.70023" target="_blank">Psychophysiology</a></em> used electroencephalography (EEG) and advanced modeling to track these brain dynamics and found that the most creative metaphors were associated with a specific sequence of brain states. Early in the process, higher activity in a brain state marked by alpha-band synchronization predicted greater metaphor novelty. Later on, this pattern flipped, with alpha-band desynchronization becoming more prominent. The findings offer new insight into how the brain supports creativity through time-varying electrical rhythms.</p>
<p>Researchers at the University of Arizona sought to better understand the neural mechanisms behind metaphor generation, a creative skill that plays an important role in how people understand complex concepts and communicate abstract ideas. While previous research has investigated creativity using tasks like alternative uses or story generation, less is known about how the brain supports the creation of metaphors—especially using tools that can capture the fast-changing dynamics of neural activity.</p>
<p>“Making metaphors is a powerful tool for people to learn and communicate difficult concepts,” explained study authors Vicky Tzuyin Lai (an associate professor and director of the <a href="https://sites.arizona.edu/neurolanglab/" target="_blank">Cognitive Neuroscience of Language Laboratory</a>) and <a href="https://mindwindowapp.wixsite.com/my-site" target="_blank">Yuhua Yu</a> (a postdoctoral researcher in the Neuroscience of Emotion and Thought lab).</p>
<p>“Some metaphors are particularly effective because they are novel, clever and appropriate for the situation — in other words, they are creative. In this study, we aim to understand the brain mechanism of generating creative metaphors by leveraging some of the latest developments in neural analytical methods such as the latent states modeling.” </p>
<p>The researchers recorded EEG data from participants while they generated metaphors for science concepts, such as describing the cornea of the eye as a “windshield.” The team aimed to capture the oscillatory brain processes that underlie this form of verbal creativity. Instead of focusing on static measures of brain activity, they used a hidden Markov model to identify distinct “brain states” that participants cycled through while generating their metaphors. These states were defined by patterns of neural oscillations—rhythmic brain activity across different frequency bands.</p>
<p>Forty-three undergraduate students participated in the study. Each trial began with an audio description of a science concept, followed by a period in which participants generated a metaphor describing the concept’s function. After typing their metaphor, they rated it for novelty and aptness. Independent raters also evaluated the quality of each metaphor. During each trial, EEG data were collected from 32 scalp electrodes. The researchers used this data to identify recurring patterns of brain activity across trials and participants.</p>
<p>Using the hidden Markov model, the researchers extracted six distinct brain states, three of which were interpretable in terms of known oscillatory activity. One state was characterized by widespread alpha-band synchronization, typically associated with internal focus and suppression of irrelevant sensory input. Another showed widespread alpha desynchronization, which has been linked to increased arousal or attentional shifts. A third state featured gamma-band synchronization, often associated with bottom-up perceptual processing.</p>
<p>The researchers then examined how the amount of time participants spent in each state predicted the novelty and aptness of the metaphors they generated. Ratings were provided both by the participants themselves and by independent crowd raters. A clear pattern emerged: spending more time in the alpha synchronization state early in the metaphor generation process predicted higher novelty ratings. This finding was consistent across both self- and crowd-ratings. Participants also showed more frequent transitions into the alpha synchronization state when generating metaphors rated as more novel.</p>
<p>Interestingly, for metaphors that participants rated as more novel (but not those that received higher crowd ratings), more time spent in the alpha desynchronization state was also predictive. This effect occurred later in the generation process, suggesting that as people neared the point of formulating their metaphor, their brain activity shifted in a way that might reflect increased arousal or readiness to act. </p>
<p>The researchers also found that when participants generated metaphors they rated as highly novel, their brains showed more transitions between the alpha synchronization and desynchronization states. These findings suggest that creative metaphor generation may involve an interplay between focused internal attention early on and heightened readiness or arousal just before the creative output is finalized.</p>
<p>In contrast, the gamma-band state told a different story. In exploratory analyses, the researchers found that spending more time in the gamma state was negatively associated with metaphor novelty. This relationship held for both self- and crowd-ratings but only emerged when the gamma state was examined in isolation. This suggests that excessive gamma activity—possibly reflecting externally directed attention or sensory processing—may interfere with the internal thought processes needed for creative ideation.</p>
<p>Together, these results paint a picture of creativity as a dynamic, multi-stage process. At first, the brain may suppress distractions through alpha synchronization to allow for deep internal processing and idea exploration. Later, alpha desynchronization may mark a shift toward output and execution, as the idea solidifies. This temporal dance between different brain rhythms appears to support the emergence of novel, creative metaphors.</p>
<p>“Generating creative ideas to achieve a goal is a complex process,” Lai and Yu told PsyPost. “It evolves over time and sometimes involves paradoxical processes. To generate more creative metaphors, as we showed in the study, the brain first exhibits more synchronization in a type of neural oscillation known for inhibiting distractions. But later in the process, the oscillation flips the sign (i.e., more resynchronization), suggesting neural excitation immediately before reporting a creative metaphor.”</p>
<p>The study also highlights the benefits of using dynamic modeling approaches to capture the flow of brain activity over time. Traditional EEG analyses often average signals across trials or time windows, which can obscure the sequence of mental events during sustained thought. By using a hidden Markov model, the researchers were able to untangle these overlapping processes and better understand how the brain orchestrates complex cognitive tasks like metaphor generation.</p>
<p>“It is exciting to see the different involvement of the same neural process, known as the alpha-band oscillation, depending on what stage of generation a person is in,” the researchers said. “This finding consolidates previous theories. It is well known that the neural synchronization in alpha-band is critical for creativity. It has also been shown that the desynchronization in the same band marks excitation. We managed to consolidate the multifaceted roles of the same type of oscillation by focusing on the temporal dynamics in electrophysiological data that comes with high temporal resolution.”</p>
<p>Despite its strengths, the study has some limitations. While the results support a role for alpha oscillations in creativity, the findings related to gamma-band activity are more tentative and need to be replicated in future work. The crowd ratings of metaphor novelty also had lower reliability than ratings of aptness, which could have reduced sensitivity to detect some effects. Additionally, while the study focused on metaphor generation, it remains unclear whether similar brain dynamics would be observed for other types of creative comparison, such as literal analogies.</p>
<p>“We have conducted quantitative analysis of the brain data so far,” Lai and Yu explained. “The next step is to conduct qualitative analysis of the linguistic data, namely, the metaphors created by the study participants. By associating types of metaphors with patterns of brain oscillation, we hope to uncover finer grained details of verbal creativity in the brain.” </p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/psyp.70023" target="_blank">Hidden Brain States Reveal the Temporal Dynamics of Neural Oscillations During Metaphor Generation and Their Role in Verbal Creativity</a>,” was authored by Yuhua Yu, Lindsay Krebs, Mark Beeman, and Vicky T. Lai.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/surprisingly-widespread-brain-activity-supports-economic-decision-making-new-study-finds/" style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing:-1px;margin:0;padding:0 0 2px;font-weight: bold;font-size: 19px;line-height: 20px;color:#222;">Surprisingly widespread brain activity supports economic decision-making, new study finds</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">May 19th 2025, 08:00</div>
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<p><p>A new study published in the <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0572-24.2024" target="_blank">Journal of Neuroscience</a></em> sheds light on how the human brain makes decisions involving risk and reward. Researchers recorded direct electrical activity from multiple brain regions in neurosurgical patients and found that decision-making under uncertainty involves a widely distributed network of brain areas. While different regions contribute unique pieces of information—such as risk or win probability—the final choice emerges from the coordinated activity of many parts of the brain, especially through high-frequency signals that reflect active processing.</p>
<p>Previous research using brain imaging have often pointed to specific areas like the orbitofrontal cortex or striatum as central to evaluating rewards, findings from animal research have increasingly suggested a more distributed pattern. The current study took advantage of a rare opportunity to directly observe human brain activity with high spatial and temporal precision, using data collected from patients undergoing neurosurgery for epilepsy.</p>
<p>“In our daily life, we constantly make decisions that range from the trivial to the complex. However, even the easier decisions, such as what to have for lunch, require the coordinated activity of large areas of your brain,” said study author <a href="http://thesaezlab.com" target="_blank">Ignacio Saez</a>, director of the Laboratory for Human Neurophysiology and an associate professor at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.</p>
<p>“However, how these different areas act in a coordinated fashion to guide decisions has been difficult to pinpoint given how difficult it is to study the underlying biological activity, reflected by electrical activation, in the human brain. Here, we sought to better understand the neurobiological basis of economic decisions by carrying out electrophysiological recordings in multiple brain areas of patients undergoing brain surgery.”</p>
<p>The study involved 34 patients with drug-resistant epilepsy who had been implanted with electrodes in various parts of their brains to help locate seizure origins. While being monitored post-surgery, participants completed a simple gambling task. On each trial, they chose between a guaranteed monetary reward (a “safe bet”) or a riskier gamble offering a higher potential reward but with variable probability. The probability of winning was visually cued, and outcomes were revealed shortly after each choice. This task allowed researchers to isolate decision-making processes without requiring learning or memory.</p>
<p>From the initial group, 20 patients had behavioral and neural data of sufficient quality for analysis. Using intracranial electroencephalography (iEEG), the researchers recorded electrical signals from more than 1,000 electrodes placed in brain regions associated with decision-making, including the prefrontal cortex, motor and parietal areas, and deeper limbic structures such as the amygdala and hippocampus. They examined changes in brain activity across a range of frequency bands, from slow oscillations (like delta and theta) to high-frequency activity (gamma and high-frequency broadband activity, or HFA), which is thought to closely reflect local neuron firing.</p>
<p>The researchers found that during the moment of deliberation—just before a person made their choice—neural activity was modulated across a broad range of frequencies in many regions. However, the most consistent signals related to actual decision-making came from high-frequency activity. In contrast, slower brain waves seemed to reflect other processes, such as attention, goal orientation, or preparing for movement, depending on their location. For instance, increased theta and delta power were common in prefrontal and limbic areas, potentially signaling internal deliberation or memory retrieval, while beta decreases in motor areas may have reflected movement planning.</p>
<p>“In our study, we studied how players made choices between a safe bet and a risky gamble,” Saez told PsyPost. “We study multiple aspects of these decisions, including which types of information need to be considered (e.g. how likely uncertain choices are to result in a rewarding outcome and how risky they were), as well as the resulting final choice (safe bet or gamble). In this study, we surprisingly found that these types of information are much more widespread than previously thought, with many brain regions reflecting each of these different types of information, while maintaining some regional specificity (i.e. not all regions reflect all types of information equally strongly). This balance between regional specificity and global processing had not been previously shown in the human brain during decision-making.”</p>
<p>To better understand how brain signals were organized, the team grouped the observed regions into three broad functional circuits: prefrontal, frontoparietal, and limbic. Each circuit showed distinctive patterns of activity in both frequency and direction (increases or decreases in power), suggesting that different parts of the brain may support different cognitive components of the decision-making process.</p>
<p>Critically, the researchers found that high-frequency activity not only tracked the decision outcome (safe versus risky choice) but also encoded specific variables that inform the decision—such as the probability of winning and the amount of risk. These “choice-related computations” were distributed across many brain areas, but some regions were more involved in particular aspects. For example, the orbitofrontal cortex was especially sensitive to risk, while the postcentral gyrus, a region involved in motor control, represented which side of the screen the participant chose.</p>
<p>Interestingly, signals related to abstract variables like win probability and risk appeared earlier in time than the signal corresponding to the final decision itself. This timing supports the idea that the brain evaluates various components of a decision before settling on a choice. While these early computations were relatively localized, the final decision-related activity was more widespread, showing up across many regions in the form of increased high-frequency activity, especially when participants opted for the safer bet.</p>
<p>The study’s findings align with a growing view that the brain supports decision-making not through isolated modules, but through dynamic, overlapping systems. Unlike traditional brain imaging techniques that often highlight a few “hot spots,” this work demonstrates the value of direct recordings in uncovering more nuanced patterns of neural activity. The results suggest that while some regions may specialize in processing particular aspects of a decision, the final choice arises from a convergence of activity across the brain.</p>
<p>“The main takeaway is that your whole brain becomes active when you make an economic decision, from deep, evolutionarily old brain areas such as the amygdala to more recently evolved areas like the prefrontal cortex,” Saez explained. “Even though different brain areas are primarily implicated in different aspects of the decision (e.g. the orbitofrontal cortex, which has been long known to be implicated in decision-making, is the main area that represents the risk of the upcoming decision), electrical activity in all areas we recorded similarly reflected the nature of the choice (i.e. the participants’ choice). Therefore, we demonstrated that economic decision-making is a highly distributed process that does not uniquely depend on one or a few brain areas.”</p>
<p>As with all research, there are limitations to consider. The participants were epilepsy patients, and while their seizure origins were unrelated to the task at hand, their brain activity may differ in some respects from the general population. Electrode placement was dictated by clinical needs, so some brain regions were sampled more densely than others. Additionally, while the gambling task was useful for isolating key variables, it does not capture the full complexity of real-world decision-making.</p>
<p>“We carried out this research leveraging surgical interventions in epilepsy patients, which provide a unique opportunity to record electrophysiological activity from many brain areas with a high temporal resolution and anatomical precision that is otherwise not possible,” Saez noted. “This results in several caveats, the most important being that we did not have access to all brain areas, since the electrode location was determined on clinical, not research, grounds, and therefore we could not examine the contribution of some brain areas to decision-making. In addition, even though we found no behavioral differences with a healthy control population, all participants in this study were epilepsy patients.”</p>
<p>Despite these caveat, the study provides evidence that economic decision-making under uncertainty relies on a distributed network of brain regions. High-frequency neural activity appears to play a central role in encoding both the computations that guide choices and the decisions themselves. These findings bring new clarity to the neurophysiological basis of human choice and highlight the importance of studying brain function at fine temporal and spatial scales.</p>
<p>“Major psychiatric conditions such as depression or bipolar disorder are characterized by deficits in risky decision-making,” Saez explained. “In addition, new brain stimulation approaches are showing promise for developing neuromodulatory treatment strategies. Better understanding the neural basis of decision-making will allow us to further determine how this behavior is supported by brain activity, how this is affected in psychiatric disorders, and how to devise new neuromodulatory strategies for treating them.”</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0572-24.2024" target="_blank">Distributed Intracranial Activity Underlying Human Decision-making Behavior</a>,” was authored by Jacqueline A. Overton, Karen A. Moxon, Matthew P. Stickle, Logan M. Peters, Jack J. Lin, Edward F. Chang, Robert T. Knight, Ming Hsu, and Ignacio Saez.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/scientists-finds-altered-attention-related-brain-connectivity-in-youth-with-anxiety/" style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing:-1px;margin:0;padding:0 0 2px;font-weight: bold;font-size: 19px;line-height: 20px;color:#222;">Scientists finds altered attention-related brain connectivity in youth with anxiety</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">May 19th 2025, 06:00</div>
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<p><p>A new study published in the journal <em><a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S245190222500062X" target="_blank">Psychophysiology</a></em> highlights how brain connectivity patterns differ in children and adolescents diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder. Researchers found that young people with this condition showed stronger connectivity within a specific brain network that helps detect unexpected events. This heightened connection appeared to fade in those who recovered from the disorder over time, suggesting a potential brain-based marker linked to anxiety symptoms.</p>
<p>Generalized anxiety disorder often begins during childhood or adolescence and is marked by persistent, uncontrollable worry across many areas of life. It can interfere with academic, social, and emotional development and is associated with a greater risk for other mental health challenges later on. Despite its early onset, little is known about how this condition may affect the developing brain.</p>
<p>“Generalized anxiety disorder emerges in childhood or adolescence for some individuals, but lot of what we know about brain connectivity comes from adult studies,” said study authors Sam A. Sievertsen of the Oregon Health & Science University and Jennifer Forsyth of the University of Washington.</p>
<p>The current study aimed to fill that gap by exploring how the brains of youth with generalized anxiety disorder differ in terms of functional connectivity. This refers to how brain regions communicate with each other while the person is at rest. Using brain imaging data from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study—a large, ongoing project following nearly 12,000 youth across the United States—the researchers compared connectivity patterns in children with generalized anxiety disorder to those without any psychiatric diagnoses. They also looked at whether these patterns changed as the children’s symptoms changed over a two-year period.</p>
<p>“The ABCD Study offered us a unique opportunity to look at thousands of youth and assess how large-scale brain networks differ in those who meet criteria for Generalized anxiety disorder at this earlier age from those who do not,” the researchers explained.</p>
<p>The researchers focused on six large-scale brain networks known to be involved in attention, emotion, and self-awareness, as well as six subcortical regions deep in the brain that play important roles in motivation, memory, and emotional processing. They analyzed resting-state brain scans from 164 youth who had been diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder and compared them to scans from over 3,000 youth without any diagnosed mental health conditions.</p>
<p>The team used a statistical model to examine how strongly brain areas within each network were connected and how these networks communicated with the subcortical regions. They also tested whether these connectivity patterns were different in youth with other conditions that often co-occur with generalized anxiety, such as depression or other anxiety disorders.</p>
<p>One of the clearest findings was that youth with generalized anxiety disorder had slightly stronger connectivity within the brain’s ventral attention network. This network is involved in automatically redirecting attention to sudden or important changes in the environment. Stronger connectivity in this network may reflect a heightened sensitivity to potentially threatening or unexpected events—a feature often reported by individuals with anxiety.</p>
<p>“We were struck by the ventral attention network being the signal most specific to youth with generalized anxiety disorder in our study,” Sievertsen and Forsyth told PsyPost. “There were other subcortical region-cortical network connectivity differences in generalized anxiety disorder, but they were less pronounced and less unique to generalized anxiety disorder compared to other diagnoses like depression.”</p>
<p>Interestingly, this connectivity difference appeared to change with the clinical course of the disorder. Among youth who no longer met the criteria for generalized anxiety disorder two years later, the heightened ventral attention network connectivity was reduced. In contrast, those who continued to meet criteria for the disorder showed no significant change. </p>
<p>“Hyperconnectivity went away in youth when their anxiety remitted, implying this pattern shifts with generalized anxiety disorder symptoms,” the researchers said. “The effects we saw were modest and based on observational data, so we can’t say that this causes or is caused by generalized anxiety disorder – but it suggests that the strength of this network’s connectivity is associated with it and should be examined further.”</p>
<p>Beyond this core finding, the researchers also observed stronger connectivity between certain cortical networks and subcortical regions in youth with generalized anxiety disorder. These included the amygdala, which plays a key role in processing emotional stimuli; the caudate and putamen, which are involved in goal-directed behavior and reward processing; and parts of the brain associated with monitoring internal states and maintaining alertness. These connections were generally stronger in the anxiety group compared to healthy controls.</p>
<p>However, not all connectivity differences were specific to generalized anxiety disorder. In some cases, the same connectivity patterns were seen in youth with other conditions, such as depression or separation anxiety. For example, stronger connections between the brain’s control network and the caudate or amygdala were found in multiple groups. This suggests that while some brain changes may be linked to generalized anxiety disorder in particular, others may reflect broader alterations related to mood or anxiety symptoms more generally.</p>
<p>The researchers also examined whether these brain differences were associated with the severity of anxiety symptoms, based on parent and youth reports. They found no strong associations between connectivity measures and symptom severity scores. This may suggest that these brain differences are more closely tied to diagnostic status than to specific levels of worry or fear. Alternatively, it could reflect limitations in how symptom severity was measured or the complexity of linking brain patterns with fluctuating emotional states.</p>
<p>The study was not designed to test treatment effects directly, but most children with generalized anxiety disorder had received some form of mental health care by the two-year follow-up. The researchers did not find strong links between treatment history and brain connectivity changes, though they note that more detailed information about the type and duration of therapy or medication would be needed to better assess this question.</p>
<p>This work has some limitations to consider. “The effect sizes in our study were modest and the clinical groups were still relatively small, so these differences should not be considered diagnostic or biomarkers by any means,” Sievertsen and Forsyth explained. “We also relied on parent-reported diagnoses because they best match clinician interviews at this age, which was helpful, but future work would benefit from using multi-informant or clinician assessments and more than two time points of data.”</p>
<p>Still, this study represents one of the largest efforts to map brain connectivity differences in children with generalized anxiety disorder. Its findings suggest that stronger connections in the ventral attention network may play a role in the condition’s symptoms and could be explored as a potential biomarker in future research. Long-term, the researchers hope to investigate whether this pattern can help predict who develops anxiety, who recovers, and who responds best to treatment.</p>
<p>“A key area of study now is to investigate whether the stronger connectivity we observed really forecasts who is experiencing generalized anxiety disorder, who recovers, or who benefits most from therapy – questions that growing longitudinal datasets and other clinical cohorts are poised to help test,” Sievertsen and Forsyth told PsyPost. “Future studies could pair resting scans with tasks designed to provoke worry, use diagnoses confirmed by both youth and clinicians, track children across more developmental checkpoints, and hone in on finer brain regions and brain-age models to help test the signal we observed and what it someday may mean for the clinic.”</p>
<p>“We really appreciate the families and youth who participated in this research. We also hope that others will build on these findings and help move us toward more precise mental-health care for youth with generalized anxiety disorder.”</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bpsc.2025.02.005" target="_blank">Resting State Cortical Network and Subcortical Hyperconnectivity in Youth With Generalized Anxiety Disorder in the ABCD Study</a>,” was authored by Sam A. Sievertsen, Jinhan Zhu, Angela Fang, and Jennifer K. Forsyth.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/from-fixed-pulses-to-smart-stimulation-parkinsons-treatment-takes-a-leap-forward/" style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing:-1px;margin:0;padding:0 0 2px;font-weight: bold;font-size: 19px;line-height: 20px;color:#222;">From fixed pulses to smart stimulation: Parkinson’s treatment takes a leap forward</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">May 18th 2025, 18:00</div>
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<p><p>Although the brain is our most complex organ, the ways to treat it have historically been rather simple. Typically, surgeons lesioned (damaged) a structure or a pathway in the hope that this would “correct the imbalance” that led to the disease. Candidate structures for lesioning were usually found by trial and error, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1159/000525794">serendipity</a> or experiments in animals.</p>
<p>While performing one such surgery in 1987, French neurosurgeon Alim-Louis Benabid noticed that the electrical stimulation he performed to locate the right spot to lesion had effects similar to the lesion itself. This discovery led to a new treatment: deep brain stimulation. It involved a pacemaker delivering electrical pulses via electrodes implanted in specific spots in the brain.</p>
<p>This treatment has been used to treat advanced Parkinson’s <a href="https://www.ninds.nih.gov/about-ninds/what-we-do/impact/ninds-contributions-approved-therapies/deep-brain-stimulation-dbs-treatment-parkinsons-disease-and-other-movement-disorders">since the early 2000s</a>. However, until today, the stimulator settings had to remain constant once they were set by a specialised doctor or nurse and could only be changed when the patient was next seen in the clinic.</p>
<p>Accordingly, most researchers and doctors thought of stimulation as merely an adjustable and reversible way of lesioning. But these days the field is undergoing a revolution that challenges this view.</p>
<p>Adaptive deep brain stimulation was approved earlier this year by <a href="https://news.medtronic.com/2025-02-24-Medtronic-earns-U-S-FDA-approval-for-the-worlds-first-Adaptive-deep-brain-stimulation-system-for-people-with-Parkinsons">the US</a> and <a href="https://news.medtronic.com/2025-01-13-Medtronic-achieves-CE-Mark-approval-for-BrainSense-TM-Adaptive-deep-brain-stimulation-and-Electrode-Identifier,-a-groundbreaking-advance-in-personalized,-sensing-enabled-care-for-people-with-Parkinsons-through-innovative-brain-computer-interfac">European health authorities</a>. It involves a computer interpreting brain activity and deciding whether to adjust the stimulation amplitude up or down to achieve the best relief of a patient’s symptoms.</p>
<p>Parkinson’s is a complex disorder with fluctuating symptoms that are <a href="https://www.parkinsons.org.uk/information-and-support/dyskinesia-and-wearing">greatly affected</a> by the drugs a patient takes several times a day. While for some patients constant stimulation does a good job controlling their symptoms, for others it is too strong some of the time and overly weak at other times.</p>
<p>Ideally, the treatment should only kick in when it is most helpful.</p>
<p>The discovery that made adaptive stimulation possible was made by scientists at University College London <a href="https://www.jneurosci.org/content/21/3/1033">over two decades ago</a>, around the time when the first patients with Parkinson’s started getting electrodes implanted in the UK National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery.</p>
<p>When recording deep brain activity from these electrodes shortly after the surgery, the <a href="https://www.jneurosci.org/content/21/3/1033">scientists noticed</a> that a particular kind of brain wave appeared when a patient stopped their medication and their symptoms worsened.</p>
<p>The waves went away when the patients took their medication and started feeling better. It took a decade of further research before the same team of scientists first attempted to use the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/ana.23951">brain waves to control stimulation</a>.</p>
<p>The idea is akin to a thermostat controlling an air conditioner. When the waves (temperature) reach a certain threshold, an electronic control circuit turns the stimulator (airconditioner) on. This reduces the waves and when they go away the stimulation can be turned off for a while until the waves re-emerge.</p>
<p>The original setup was bulky and could only be used in the hospital, and it took another decade to make it fit inside a device smaller than a matchbox that could be implanted in a patient’s chest.</p>
<h2>New challenges</h2>
<p>While the option to make brain stimulation adaptive gives new tools to doctors and nurses to fit stimulation to a patient in the best possible way, it comes with new challenges.</p>
<p>Even with the original fixed settings, there are many parameters doctors have to set to ensure effective treatment with minimal side-effects. Making stimulation adaptive adds another layer of complexity and puts extra demand on a clinical team’s time and attention.</p>
<p>In the case of Parkinson’s, stimulation effects are almost immediate so it is relatively easy to see how well particular constant settings work. But an adaptive setting must be tested over at least a few days to see how well it copes with the patient’s daily routine and medication cycles.</p>
<p>Adaptive stimulators also come with sensing abilities. They can record the harmful brain wave levels over days and weeks so that the clinical team can review them and see how well they are controlled.</p>
<p>These possibilities are new in the treatment of Parkinson’s, although similar implanted devices have been in use for years <a href="https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10451003/">by cardiologists</a> and <a href="https://www.neuropace.com/">epileptologists</a> (neurologists who specialise in epilepsy).</p>
<p>Studying brain waves recorded by the smart stimulators in Parkinson’s patients opens new doors for understanding other diseases. Many patients suffer from problems such as depression and cognitive decline. Researchers could search for features in their brain signals that track the severity of these symptoms using AI tools to find relations too subtle or too complex for a human observer.</p>
<p>A parallel branch of deep brain stimulation <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/book/9780128218617/connectomic-deep-brain-stimulation">research is focused</a> on precisely mapping out the brain circuits responsible for different neurological and psychiatric symptoms. Several recent studies reported successes in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41380-023-02394-4">treating depression</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychres.2022.114869">OCD</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1159/000530508">severe headaches</a>.</p>
<p>Stimulating in the right place at the right time considering what the patient is doing is where the field is <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s13311-018-00705-0">heading</a>. With the basic technology now in place, progress could be rapid.<!-- Below is The Conversation's page counter tag. Please DO NOT REMOVE. --><img decoding="async" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/253699/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1"><!-- End of code. If you don't see any code above, please get new code from the Advanced tab after you click the republish button. The page counter does not collect any personal data. More info: https://theconversation.com/republishing-guidelines --></p>
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<p><em>This article is republished from <a href="https://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/smart-brain-implants-are-helping-people-with-parkinsons-and-other-disorders-253699">original article</a>.</em></p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/new-research-challenges-idea-that-female-breasts-are-sexualized-due-to-modesty-norms/" style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing:-1px;margin:0;padding:0 0 2px;font-weight: bold;font-size: 19px;line-height: 20px;color:#222;">New research challenges idea that female breasts are sexualized due to modesty norms</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">May 18th 2025, 16:00</div>
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<p><p>A new study published in the <em><a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10508-025-03122-5" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Archives of Sexual Behavior</a></em> suggests that heterosexual men’s sexual attraction to female breasts may be rooted in evolved biological mechanisms rather than shaped by cultural rules. The findings come from an indigenous population in Papua, Indonesia, where researchers found no significant difference in men’s reported sexual interest in breasts—despite whether they grew up in a time when toplessness among women was common or in a more recent period when women typically wore tops in public.</p>
<p>The study was designed to explore a long-standing debate: are men sexually attracted to female breasts because of cultural taboos that make them alluring by being hidden, or is there a more universal, perhaps evolutionary reason behind the fascination? In many modern societies, the sexualization of female breasts is often explained as a product of modesty norms and media portrayals. But some researchers have proposed that male interest in breasts could stem from biological cues, such as signals of fertility or health. To test these competing ideas, the researchers focused on a population relatively untouched by Western media influence but experiencing a recent shift in clothing customs.</p>
<p>The study was conducted among the Dani people, an indigenous group living in the Central Highlands of Papua. The Dani had historically practiced public toplessness among women, but over the past four decades, a cultural shift has taken place. Today, most Dani women wear clothing that covers their breasts, influenced by broader social changes. This shift provided a rare opportunity to compare two generational groups—one raised when toplessness was still the norm, and another raised when breast covering had become more widespread.</p>
<p>The researchers recruited 80 Dani men, divided evenly between two age groups. The younger group ranged from 17 to 32 years old, and grew up after toplessness had largely disappeared. The older group ranged from 40 to 70 years old, and spent their youth in a cultural context where it was common for women to appear topless in public. The aim was to see whether exposure to public toplessness during formative years influenced how sexually arousing men found female breasts, how often they touched their partners’ breasts during sex, and how important breasts were in shaping their perception of a woman’s attractiveness.</p>
<p>To collect data, the researchers used oral interviews conducted with the help of a local interpreter. Each participant was asked about their memories of women’s clothing norms during their youth, followed by questions about sexual behaviors and preferences related to breasts. These included whether they touched their partner’s breasts during sex, how sexually aroused they felt when seeing a woman’s bare breasts, and how important breasts were in shaping their initial attraction to their partner.</p>
<p>The results showed no significant differences between the two age groups. Both younger and older men reported similar levels of sexual arousal when seeing female breasts, similar frequency of breast-touching during sex, and similar views on how important breasts were for their partner’s attractiveness. Statistical analyses also found no meaningful relationship between age and these measures, suggesting that exposure to toplessness during youth did not shape men’s sexual interest in breasts.</p>
<p>These findings challenge the idea that breasts become sexually attractive only when they are hidden by clothing or subject to social taboo. If that were true, men who grew up seeing female breasts exposed daily in non-sexual contexts would be expected to find them less arousing. But the study found otherwise, supporting the view that male sexual interest in breasts may be more deeply ingrained, possibly tied to biological cues like youth, fertility, or health.</p>
<p>The authors suggest that breasts may trigger sexual interest because of their shape, symmetry, and development, which could signal reproductive maturity. Previous research has linked larger breasts with higher levels of estradiol, a hormone related to fertility, and with greater body fat, which can also signal nutritional status. The shape and firmness of breasts may also communicate youth, since sagging tends to increase with age. Such cues might explain why men across diverse cultures find certain breast features attractive, regardless of whether those features are typically visible in public.</p>
<p>At the same time, the study does not rule out the influence of culture entirely. While this research provides evidence for an innate component of male interest in breasts, it is still possible that cultural norms can intensify or shape how that interest is expressed. In societies where nudity is rare or taboo, breasts might become more erotically charged. But this would be an amplification of an existing tendency, not the creation of it, the authors argue.</p>
<p>But as with all research, the study has limitations. One important concern is recall bias. The older men were asked to reflect on their experiences and feelings from earlier in life, which may have been influenced by their current environment, where toplessness is no longer the norm. This could blur any differences that once existed between the two groups. Additionally, while the Dani are a non-Western population, they are still only one group. Broader conclusions about human nature would require similar studies in other societies, especially ones where toplessness is still common today.</p>
<p>Another issue is the reliance on self-reported data, which can be influenced by social desirability or misunderstanding. Although the researchers used an interpreter and asked simple questions, cultural differences in discussing sex could have shaped how participants responded. The study also focused solely on male participants, leaving open questions about how women perceive breasts in themselves and others, and whether similar biological or cultural factors play a role in shaping female attitudes.</p>
<p>Despite these limitations, the study provides an important perspective on human sexual behavior by moving beyond assumptions based solely on Western norms. It adds to the growing body of evidence suggesting that some aspects of sexual attraction may be deeply rooted in biology, even as they are influenced by cultural context.</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-025-03122-5" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Nudity Norms and Breast Arousal: A Cross‑Generational Study in Papua</a>,” was authored by Michal Mikolaj Stefanczyk, Piotr Sorokowski, S. Craig Roberts, and Agnieszka Żelaźniewicz.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/mothers-childhood-trauma-linked-to-emotional-and-behavioral-issues-in-her-children-study-finds/" style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing:-1px;margin:0;padding:0 0 2px;font-weight: bold;font-size: 19px;line-height: 20px;color:#222;">Mother’s childhood trauma linked to emotional and behavioral issues in her children, study finds</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">May 18th 2025, 14:00</div>
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<p><p>A new longitudinal study published in the <em><a href="https://acamh.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jcpp.14118" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry</a></em> provides compelling evidence that a mother’s exposure to adversity in childhood can influence the emotional, behavioral, and cognitive development of her own children. The research found that these early experiences are not only linked to a child’s outcomes, but also shape the environment in which a child is raised—by affecting socioeconomic status, maternal mental health, relationship conflict, and caregiving behavior.</p>
<p>Researchers undertook this study to better understand how adversity experienced during a mother’s early years can ripple forward into the next generation. While previous studies have found that childhood adversity is associated with a range of negative outcomes in adulthood, much less is known about how these effects play out in parenting and early child development. The study aimed to test an intergenerational model of risk by examining both direct and indirect pathways from maternal childhood adversity to child outcomes during the preschool years.</p>
<p>The researchers followed 501 families from the time children were 2 months old until they reached 5 years of age. Participants were recruited in the Toronto area between 2006 and 2008. Mothers reported on their own adverse childhood experiences (including physical and sexual abuse, household substance use, mental illness, parental separation, and exposure to violence), as well as their current socioeconomic conditions, relationship conflict, and symptoms of depression. Fathers contributed information on their own childhood conduct problems, and trained observers assessed parenting behaviors. Children’s emotional and behavioral issues were rated by both parents, and cognitive abilities were measured through standardized testing.</p>
<p>The results showed that a mother’s history of childhood adversity was linked to her child’s emotional and behavioral problems, as well as cognitive performance. However, these associations were not straightforward. Instead, the effects were often indirect, operating through a network of interconnected family and contextual factors.</p>
<p>For example, mothers who had experienced more adversity in childhood were more likely to live in lower socioeconomic conditions as adults. This, in turn, was related to lower maternal sensitivity—how attuned and responsive mothers were to their children during interactions—and also linked to greater marital conflict and maternal depression. These factors shaped children’s outcomes in specific ways.</p>
<p>Children’s emotional problems, such as anxiety and sadness, were primarily linked to maternal depression. Mothers with more childhood adversity were more likely to experience depression, and this was a key predictor of emotional difficulties in their children. Fathers’ histories of conduct problems also contributed indirectly to maternal depression, strengthening this link.</p>
<p>For conduct problems in children—such as aggression and rule-breaking—multiple pathways emerged. One involved fathers’ own histories of behavior problems, which were directly associated with children’s behavior. Another pathway went through the couple’s relationship: maternal childhood adversity predicted more marital conflict, which was in turn linked to conduct issues in children. Lower maternal sensitivity also played a role in this association.</p>
<p>Cognitive outcomes followed a different pathway. Here, maternal sensitivity emerged as a key influence. Mothers with more childhood adversity tended to have lower socioeconomic status, which was associated with less sensitive caregiving. In turn, children in these environments showed poorer performance on measures of vocabulary and early math ability. Interestingly, maternal adversity showed a small direct link to higher child cognitive scores, but this was likely a statistical artifact. Once indirect pathways were considered, the overall effect of adversity on cognition was negative.</p>
<p>These findings support an “interactionist model” of development. In this model, a mother’s early adversity can influence her adult socioeconomic status and the characteristics of her romantic partner, which then affect her mental health and caregiving behavior. These, in turn, shape her child’s development. The model highlights how early life experiences can create cascades of risk that accumulate over time and generations.</p>
<p>While the study cannot prove causation, its design strengthens confidence in the findings. By including multiple informants (mothers, fathers, and trained observers) and multiple measurement methods (questionnaires, behavioral observations, and standardized tests), the researchers were able to paint a more complete picture than many earlier studies that relied solely on maternal self-reports. The longitudinal design, spanning several years of a child’s early development, also allowed the researchers to track how these effects unfolded over time.</p>
<p>One limitation of the study is its focus on mothers. While the researchers did incorporate paternal conduct history, they did not collect data on fathers’ own childhood adversity. Future studies could explore whether fathers’ early experiences also shape intergenerational risk in similar or distinct ways. Another limitation is that the adversity measures did not include some potentially important forms of early trauma, such as community violence or discrimination. Also, maternal ACEs, mental health, and relationship conflict were all self-reported, which may introduce bias.</p>
<p>Despite these limitations, the study has significant implications for public policy and early intervention. The findings suggest that childhood adversity is not just an individual problem but one that can affect future generations. Policies that aim to reduce childhood trauma or mitigate its effects could have broad, long-lasting benefits. For example, programs that support young families with financial resources, mental health services, and parenting support may help break the cycle of adversity.</p>
<p>Screening tools for adverse childhood experiences are relatively easy to administer and could be incorporated into pediatric and maternal healthcare settings. Identifying families at risk could allow for early, targeted support. Moreover, addressing multiple factors at once—such as economic hardship, caregiver mental health, and parenting quality—may be more effective than focusing on any single issue in isolation.</p>
<p>The study also supports the potential value of broader social policies, such as cash transfer programs, to alleviate economic stress. Preliminary research has found that unconditional financial support to families can lead to improved cognitive and behavioral outcomes in children. High-quality, affordable childcare may also help buffer the effects of family stress on young children’s development.</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/jcpp.14118" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The long reach of adversity: Intermediary pathways from maternal adverse childhood experiences to child socio-emotional and cognitive outcomes</a>,” was authored by Sheri Madigan, Andre Plamondon, and Jennifer M. Jenkins.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/new-study-sheds-light-on-which-post-psychedelic-difficulties-last-longest-and-what-helps-people-cope/" style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing:-1px;margin:0;padding:0 0 2px;font-weight: bold;font-size: 19px;line-height: 20px;color:#222;">New study sheds light on which post-psychedelic difficulties last longest and what helps people cope</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">May 18th 2025, 12:00</div>
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<p><p>While psychedelics are gaining attention for their therapeutic potential, some users report lingering psychological difficulties that extend well beyond the immediate effects of the drug. A new study published in the <em><a href="https://akjournals.com/view/journals/2054/9/2/article-p117.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Journal of Psychedelic Studies</a></em> provides one of the most detailed assessments to date of these long-term challenges, examining their prevalence, severity, duration, and the coping strategies people find most effective. The findings suggest that while anxiety and panic are among the most disruptive, issues like existential struggle and diminished self-esteem tend to last the longest—often persisting for over a year.</p>
<p>Psychedelics like psilocybin, LSD, and ayahuasca have shown promise in treating mental health conditions, but not all outcomes are positive. A significant minority of users report psychological disturbances that linger beyond the acute effects of the drug. Previous studies have found that around 5% to 25% of users experience such issues, and some continue to struggle for months or even years.</p>
<p>These difficulties can include anxiety, perceptual changes, depression, confusion, and existential distress. While many users continue to view their psychedelic experiences positively, researchers have called for a more nuanced understanding of the risks involved and how people recover from negative effects.</p>
<p>“I am part of <a href="https://challengingpsychedelicexperiences.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">the Challenging Psychedelic Experiences research team</a>, and we have been exploring adverse reactions to psychedelics across a series of research studies since 2023,” said study author <a href="http://www.oliverrobinson.info" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Oliver C. Robinson</a>, an associate professor of psychology at the University of Greenwich.</p>
<p>“While research shows that the majority benefit from the clinical or guided use of psychedelics, a minority have adverse reactions. These emotional or behavioral difficulties have been largely overlooked in research studies that have primarily focused on the average positive effects among users.”</p>
<p>To address this gap, the present study set out to identify which post-psychedelic difficulties are most common, how severe and long-lasting they are, and what strategies help people manage them. The researchers hypothesized that different types of difficulties would vary in severity and duration, and that people would use different coping strategies depending on the nature of the problem.</p>
<p>The study involved an online survey of 159 adults who had experienced psychological difficulties lasting more than one day after using a psychedelic drug between 2 and 10 years ago. Participants were recruited through newsletters, social media, and previous studies. The sample included individuals from North America and Europe, most of whom had high levels of education. Participants were asked to focus on one specific psychedelic experience that had led to lasting challenges and completed detailed assessments of the difficulties they encountered.</p>
<p>Participants reported whether they had experienced any of 11 different types of psychological difficulties, such as anxiety, depression, social disconnection, existential struggle, derealization, and paranoia. They rated the severity of each difficulty on a three-point scale and indicated how long each issue persisted. The researchers also asked participants to select up to two coping strategies that had helped them manage each difficulty. Options ranged from professional therapy and support from friends and family to self-education, meditation, physical activity, and breathing techniques.</p>
<p>The most frequently reported difficulties were social disconnection (72%), anxiety and panic attacks (68%), and existential struggle (65%). More than half of participants also reported depression (61%) and derealization (55%). Less common were paranoia and visual disturbances, each affecting about 21% of the sample.</p>
<p>In terms of severity, anxiety and panic attacks were rated as the most disruptive to daily life, followed by paranoia and difficulty thinking clearly. In contrast, depersonalization, derealization, and visual disturbances were rated as less severe on average. Although many participants experienced these perceptual or dissociative symptoms, they tended to interfere less with daily functioning compared to emotional or cognitive issues.</p>
<p>When looking at duration, existential struggle and diminished self-esteem stood out as the longest-lasting challenges. Both persisted on average for more than 15 months—significantly longer than other issues like anxiety or depression. These findings align with earlier research showing that some individuals find it difficult to integrate profound or disorienting psychedelic experiences, particularly those involving shifts in their worldview or sense of identity.</p>
<p>The findings highlight “that some people who take psychedelics experience disorienting and disruptive difficulties pertaining to emotions, their sense of self or even sense of reality that can last for weeks or months,” Robinson told PsyPost.</p>
<p>The study also revealed which coping strategies were perceived as most helpful for each type of difficulty. Self-education—such as reading or watching videos to better understand one’s experience—was the most frequently cited strategy overall. It was especially helpful for managing existential struggle, social disconnection, derealization, and visual disturbances.</p>
<p>Professional therapy was most commonly used for depression and diminished self-esteem, suggesting that these issues often require more structured support. Support from peers and family was rated as most effective for anxiety and panic attacks, underscoring the importance of interpersonal connection in the recovery process.</p>
<p>“It surprised me that more people find chatting with peers to be effective than chatting with therapists,” Robinson said. “It may be that therapists are not yet well trained to handle the conundrum of working with psychedelics and associated difficulties.”</p>
<p>Some challenges, including depersonalization, sleep problems, and cognitive confusion, did not show strong preferences for specific coping strategies, suggesting that these may be more variable in how people manage them. In general, though, the study found that different problems call for different types of support.</p>
<p>These results have several implications. First, they show that extended difficulties following psychedelic use are not only common but also diverse in form and duration. Second, they suggest that coping with these difficulties is not a one-size-fits-all process. People benefit from a range of strategies, from reading and journaling to therapy and social support. Third, the findings highlight gaps in current systems of care. Many people rely on self-guided learning or informal peer networks rather than professional help, possibly because psychedelic integration is still a niche area within mainstream mental health services.</p>
<p>The researchers acknowledge some limitations. The data were collected retrospectively, which introduces the possibility of memory bias. People may not accurately recall the timeline of their symptoms or what helped them recover. The sample also skewed toward educated individuals from Western countries, which may not reflect the full range of experiences across different cultural or socioeconomic backgrounds.</p>
<p>“This is a sample mainly from the United Kingdom and the United States,” Robinson noted. “In countries where there is a legal psychedelic culture, such as Brazil or Peru, we would expect very different results.”</p>
<p>Future research could address these limitations by tracking individuals in real time, starting before they use psychedelics and following up afterward to assess both short- and long-term outcomes. Cross-cultural studies could also shed light on how different settings, belief systems, and social supports shape the experience and aftermath of psychedelic use. It may also be helpful to explore the biological underpinnings of persistent symptoms, particularly those involving perception or cognition.</p>
<p>“We are currently exploring how individuals who have childhood trauma and then take psychedelics experience the resolution, or exacerbation, of the early trauma,” Robinson said. “We are also involved in a Global Psychedelic Survey that will bring data on how common adverse reactions to psychedelics are.”</p>
<p>“We find that even among people who have difficulties after psychedelic usage, the vast majority retain a favorable view of psychedelics as agents of positive change,” he added. “This shows that perhaps the difficulties relate to issues that, once made conscious, can be resolved to some degree. This process may be distressing, but we see a similar pattern with extended psychotherapy—people tend to get worse before they get better.”</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1556/2054.2024.00420" target="_blank" rel="noopener">An investigation into the varieties of extended difficulties following psychedelic drug use: Duration, severity and helpful coping strategies</a>,” was authored by Oliver C. Robinson, Jules Evans, Rosalind G. McAlpine, Eirini K. Argyri, and David Luke.</p></p>
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<p><strong>Forwarded by:<br />
Michael Reeder LCPC<br />
Baltimore, MD</strong></p>
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