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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/neuroimaging-study-suggests-mindfulness-meditation-lowers-sensory-gating/" 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;">Neuroimaging study suggests mindfulness meditation lowers sensory gating</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Jun 7th 2025, 10:00</div>
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<p><p>People who regularly practice mindfulness meditation appear to experience bodily sensations more readily than others, but this heightened awareness may not actually make them more accurate. A new study published in <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/psyp.14712" target="_blank">Psychophysiology</a></em> found that experienced meditators were more likely to report feeling a faint touch, even when no touch was delivered — a behavioral shift linked to changes in brain activity before the sensation. These results suggest that mindfulness may lower the brain’s threshold for perceiving stimuli.</p>
<p>Mindfulness meditation often involves focusing attention on internal bodily sensations. Past research has found that such practices can promote emotional regulation and reduce stress, depression, and anxiety. However, the mechanisms behind these benefits remain under debate. </p>
<p>One proposal is that mindfulness enhances interoception — the ability to detect internal bodily signals — and that this skill may help people manage their emotional and physical experiences. But it’s unclear whether long-term mindfulness practice actually improves objective sensory performance, or simply changes the way people interpret their bodily experiences.</p>
<p>“For years, my co-authors and I have been fascinated by how contemplative practice changes the way the brain perceives and regulates emotions. My own meditation practice has made me curious about the link between bodily attention and emotional tone,” said study author <a href="https://www.uni-goettingen.de/en/maik+mylius/694363.html" target="_blank">Maik Mylius</a>, a doctoral researcher at the Institute of Computer Science & Campus Institute Data Science at Georg-August-Universität Göttingen.</p>
<p>“Much of the earlier work looked at vision or broad attention; we wanted to zoom in on the tactile domain because touch provides a direct window into body awareness and interoception, both central to many mindfulness traditions and also to emotion regulation. By combining a classic somatosensory signal-detection task with EEG we asked whether expert meditators detect faint tactile stimuli more accurately (i.e., show higher sensory sensitivity) or whether they simply adopt a different decision strategy when judging such stimuli. At the same time, we looked at whether the gating of attention is regulated when expecting the onset of the stimulus.”</p>
<p>For their study, the researchers compared 31 experienced mindfulness meditators to 33 non-meditators who regularly read for at least five hours a week. This reading control group helped rule out general effects of sustained attention or inactivity. Both groups were matched in age, gender, handedness, and other characteristics, and all participants were free of neurological or psychiatric conditions.</p>
<p>Participants completed a somatosensory signal detection task in which faint electrical stimuli were delivered to the finger on some trials, while on other trials no stimulation occurred. Sometimes, a brief flash of light accompanied the touch or non-touch, although the light was uninformative. After each trial, participants indicated whether they believed they felt a touch.</p>
<p>Using this method, researchers measured two aspects of perception: sensitivity (how accurately participants could detect actual touch) and decision criterion (how readily they said “yes” to feeling a touch). Alongside this task, researchers recorded participants’ brain activity using electroencephalography, or EEG, focusing on alpha-band oscillations in the somatosensory cortex just before each trial — brain rhythms known to influence perception and attention. Participants also completed a battery of self-report questionnaires assessing mindfulness, emotional regulation, and interoceptive sensibility.</p>
<p>The findings contradicted some earlier assumptions. Meditators did not show better sensitivity in detecting the faint touches compared to non-meditators. In other words, they were not more accurate in distinguishing real from illusory stimuli. Instead, they had a lower decision threshold — they were more likely to report feeling something, regardless of whether it was present. This more liberal response style was evident even though both groups received the same intensity of electrical stimulation.</p>
<p>“We expected meditators to be more accurate, but accuracy was unchanged; only the bias moved,” Mylius told PsyPost. “That dissociation suggests the practice alters sensory gating or decision-making rather than raw perceptual acuity.”</p>
<p>EEG data revealed that this behavioral difference was tied to distinct patterns in brain activity. Meditators showed significantly lower levels of alpha-band power in the somatosensory cortex just before the stimulus was delivered, both in absolute terms and relative to a pre-trial baseline. Trial-by-trial analysis confirmed that lower prestimulus alpha activity predicted a higher likelihood of reporting a touch, regardless of whether one occurred. This pattern supports the idea that reduced alpha activity reflects a more “open” or excitable state in the sensory cortex, making it more likely that ambiguous internal sensations will be interpreted as external stimuli.</p>
<p>Interestingly, while this shift in brain state increased report rates, it did not enhance sensory precision. There was no evidence that lower alpha power improved sensitivity — the ability to correctly identify real touches. Instead, it appears to have increased both hits and false alarms, leading to more overall reports without better discrimination.</p>
<p>Beyond these perceptual changes, meditators also reported significantly higher interoceptive sensibility across most domains on the MAIA-2 questionnaire, including greater awareness of internal sensations, better attention regulation, and less tendency to ignore or worry about uncomfortable bodily feelings. They also reported lower levels of expressive suppression (an emotion regulation strategy that involves hiding one’s feelings) and less difficulty describing emotions. These findings are consistent with previous studies showing that mindfulness practice is associated with greater emotional and bodily awareness.</p>
<p>“Long-term meditation practice doesn’t necessarily make your senses sharper in this kind of lab test,” Mylius explained. “It seems to shift the decision threshold – or criterio n- you use when deciding ‘Did I just feel something?’ Expert meditators were more willing to say ‘yes’ to near-threshold tactile events, and this more liberal bias was preceded by lower prestimulus alpha power—an EEG signature of reduced sensory gating. In plain language: mindfulness may teach the brain to keep the gate a bit more open, letting weak bodily signals reach awareness that non-meditators might ignore.”</p>
<p>Like any study, there are caveats to consider. Because it used a cross-sectional design, the study cannot determine whether mindfulness practice caused the observed differences or whether people with certain perceptual traits are more drawn to meditation. The reading control group may also differ from the meditators in lifestyle factors not captured by the study.</p>
<p>The researchers also caution that although EEG alpha suppression is often interpreted as increased attentional readiness, it may also reflect reduced top-down filtering — a shift toward more bottom-up processing of sensory input. From a predictive processing perspective, this might mean that meditators rely less on prior expectations and more on incoming sensory data, potentially leading to a more present-centered experience of the body.</p>
<p>“Our design was cross-sectional, so we can’t prove meditation caused the bias shift—highly body-aware people might simply be drawn to intensive practice,” Mylius said. “The sample (31 experts, 33 controls) was relatively small, EEG scalp recordings limit spatial precision, and our ‘experts’ came from several traditions. Future longitudinal work with larger groups, within-tradition sampling, and source-localized neural measures is needed.”</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/psyp.14712" target="_blank">Meditation expertise influences response bias and prestimulus alpha activity in the somatosensory signal detection task</a>,” was authored by Maik Mylius, Simon Guendelman, Fivos Iliopoulos, Vittorio Gallese, and Laura Kaltwasser.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/psychedelics-may-buffer-against-ptsd-finds-new-study-of-survivors-of-nova-music-festival-massacre/" 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;">Psychedelics may buffer against PTSD, finds new study of survivors of Nova music festival massacre</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Jun 7th 2025, 08:00</div>
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<p><p>A new study published in the <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/02698811251334025" target="_blank">Journal of Psychopharmacology</a></em> suggests that people who had consumed classic psychedelics before experiencing an extreme traumatic event reported lower levels of anxiety and post-traumatic stress symptoms in the following weeks. The research, conducted among survivors of the October 7, 2023 terrorist attack at the Nova music festival in Israel, provides rare real-world data on how psychedelics might affect the way trauma is encoded in memory. The findings add to a growing body of research on the therapeutic potential of psychedelic substances for trauma-related conditions. </p>
<p>Post-traumatic stress disorder is a mental health condition that can occur after someone experiences or witnesses a terrifying event. People with PTSD may struggle with intrusive memories, emotional numbness, anxiety, and avoidance of reminders of the trauma. While some people recover naturally, others experience symptoms that persist for months or years.</p>
<p>On October 7, 2023, during the early morning hours, militants from Hamas launched a large-scale, coordinated attack on Israel. One of their first targets was the Supernova Sukkot Gathering, a psychedelic trance music festival attended by approximately 3,500 people near the Gaza border. The attack began with a barrage of rockets, followed by an onslaught of armed militants who infiltrated the festival grounds. The massacre resulted in the deaths of 378 individuals, including civilians, security personnel, and the festival’s organizers. Many were shot at close range or killed while hiding. Dozens of attendees were abducted and taken into Gaza, and there were widespread reports of sexual and physical violence.</p>
<p>Some survivors were under the influence of mind-altering substances at the time of the attack, including psychedelic drugs commonly used in recreational settings such as psilocybin (“magic” mushrooms) or LSD. The chaos and horror of the attack, combined with altered mental states, created an unprecedented context in which to study how such substances might shape the formation of traumatic memories.</p>
<p>“My longstanding research in trauma, resilience, and mental health led us to explore the intersection between extreme events and altered states of consciousness,” said study author <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/Zohar-Rubinstein/" target="_blank">Zohar Rubinstein</a> of the Baruch Ivcher School of Psychology at Reichman University.</p>
<p>“The tragic attack at the Nova music festival presented a unique and heartbreaking opportunity to examine, in real-world conditions, how the peri-traumatic use of psychedelics might affect the development of anxiety and post-traumatic symptoms. There was very limited empirical data on human psychedelic use during acute trauma, and we felt an urgent need to document and understand these effects to inform both science and clinical practice.”</p>
<p>The researchers began collecting data from October 22 to October 28, 2023—roughly three weeks after the attack, during the acute phase of trauma response. They approached survivors who were staying at a temporary “healing space” designed to provide psychological support. A total of 343 adults (189 women and 154 men) agreed to participate, with ages ranging from 18 to 64. Participants completed anonymous surveys asking about their drug use before and during the festival, as well as their current psychological symptoms.</p>
<p>The researchers asked participants whether they had consumed any of 18 mind-altering substances, including classic psychedelics such as mushrooms, LSD, and mescaline, as well as MDMA (commonly known as ecstasy). Participants also completed two standardized questionnaires: one measuring symptoms of anxiety and another measuring symptoms of acute stress disorder, a condition that can develop shortly after trauma and is often a precursor to PTSD.</p>
<p>Participants were divided into three groups: those who consumed classic psychedelics, those who consumed MDMA, and those who had not consumed any psychedelic substances. The researchers also accounted for whether people had consumed additional recreational substances like alcohol or cannabis.</p>
<p>The researchers found that survivors who were under the influence of classic psychedelics at the time of the attack reported significantly lower levels of anxiety three weeks later, compared to those who had taken MDMA or no psychedelics at all. The average anxiety rating in the classic psychedelic group corresponded to symptoms being present “several days” over the past two weeks, while the other groups reported symptoms occurring “more than half the days.”</p>
<p>This effect remained even after accounting for participants’ gender, age, past psychiatric diagnoses, and whether they had used psychedelics in the previous year. In contrast, there was no significant difference in anxiety levels between the MDMA group and the group that had not consumed psychedelics.</p>
<p>When it came to post-traumatic symptoms, the picture was more nuanced. Overall, the groups did not differ significantly. But when the researchers looked only at people who had not consumed additional substances like alcohol or cannabis, they found that those in the classic psychedelics group again reported lower levels of trauma symptoms. This protective effect was not observed in the MDMA or no-psychedelic groups.</p>
<p>These findings suggest that classic psychedelics may have a unique influence on how traumatic memories are encoded in the brain. Specifically, they appear to blunt the emotional intensity or durability of the trauma memory when consumed just before or during the event. However, this effect seems to be weakened or lost when the psychedelics are taken alongside other substances.</p>
<p>“Survivors who consumed classic psychedelics—such as psilocybin, LSD, mescaline, or 2C-B—reported significantly lower levels of anxiety and post-traumatic symptoms three weeks after the attack, compared to those who did not use psychedelics or who used other substances like MDMA, cannabis, or alcohol,” Rubinstein told PsyPost. “This effect remained strong even after controlling for age, gender, psychiatric history, and previous psychedelic use.”</p>
<p>“We were surprised by the magnitude and consistency of the effect: classic psychedelics, but not MDMA, were associated with reduced anxiety and post-traumatic symptoms, especially among those who did not consume additional substances like alcohol or cannabis. We expected some protective effect based on prior animal studies, but seeing it so clearly in a real-life mass trauma was unexpected.”</p>
<p>“However, these results do not mean psychedelics are a recommended or safe treatment for trauma outside controlled settings,” Rubinstein noted. “Psychedelic use still carries psychological and legal risks and should not be undertaken without proper supervision and research guidance.”</p>
<p>But why might classic psychedelics be protective? One possible explanation relates to how different substances affect the brain. Classic psychedelics act strongly on serotonin receptors, particularly the 5-HT2A receptor, which plays a role in memory consolidation and emotional processing. By altering the way sensory and emotional information is processed during trauma, these substances may reduce the severity of later psychological responses.</p>
<p>In contrast, MDMA has a different pharmacological profile, affecting not only serotonin but also dopamine and norepinephrine. While MDMA is known for its prosocial and euphoric effects, it may not engage the same neural systems involved in memory encoding in the same way that classic psychedelics do.</p>
<p>The researchers also considered that the use of other substances like cannabis or alcohol may interfere with the potential benefits of psychedelics. These substances can impair memory and emotional regulation, possibly counteracting the protective effects of psychedelics.</p>
<p>Despite the compelling findings, the authors acknowledge several limitations. First, the study relied entirely on self-report data, and there were no objective measures of psychological symptoms or drug concentrations. The specific doses and purity of the substances consumed were also unknown, which makes it difficult to draw strong conclusions about the pharmacological effects.</p>
<p>“These results do not establish causality; they only indicate a strong association in these particular circumstances,” Rubinstein said.</p>
<p>Second, since psychedelics are illegal in Israel, participants may have underreported their use, potentially skewing the results. There may also have been selection bias, as individuals who had more traumatic or negative experiences might have chosen not to participate in the study.</p>
<p>Third, the study only looked at symptoms three weeks after the trauma. It remains unknown whether the effects observed here will persist or whether new symptoms might emerge over time. Longer follow-up periods are needed to understand how psychedelic use affects the development or prevention of PTSD in the long run.</p>
<p>Finally, while the findings suggest a possible protective effect of psychedelics on trauma-related symptoms, the researchers caution against interpreting this as an endorsement for unsupervised use. Psychedelics can produce intense and sometimes destabilizing experiences, especially in uncontrolled settings.</p>
<p>“One of the most overlooked aspects in discussions of psychedelics for trauma is the importance of ‘set and setting,'” Rubinstein explained. “Safe and effective therapeutic use of psychedelics generally requires a carefully controlled environment, guided by trained professionals or, in some traditions, shamans. Our findings are based on substances consumed in the unpredictable and often unsafe environment of a music festival during a traumatic event, not in a therapeutic context. This means that no clinical recommendations or therapeutic conclusions should be drawn from experiences that occurred in such uncontrolled, non-clinical settings.”</p>
<p>The authors hope that future research will build on these findings to better understand the brain mechanisms that underlie trauma and resilience. </p>
<p>“We aim to understand better how psychedelics may affect trauma memory formation and resilience,” Rubinstein said. “We hope to inform future controlled studies that could clarify mechanisms and potentially lead to safe, evidence-based interventions for trauma and anxiety. Ultimately, we want to bridge the gap between neuroscience, clinical psychology, and real-world emergency contexts.”</p>
<p>“This study offers a rare glimpse into the real-world intersection of trauma and psychedelics, outside the lab, in the midst of a national tragedy. I am deeply grateful to the survivors who were willing to share their experiences, and I stress that this research should not be interpreted as an endorsement for unsupervised psychedelic use. More research, careful dialogue, and clinical caution are necessary as this field continues to evolve.”</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/02698811251334025" target="_blank">Peri-traumatic consumption of classic psychedelics is associated with lower anxiety and post-traumatic responses 3 weeks after exposure</a>,” was authored by Einat Karp Barnir, Zohar Rubinstein , Rany Abend, Shaul Lev-Ran, Lia Naor, and Mario Mikulincer.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/neuroscientist-just-discovered-a-fascinating-fact-about-the-grooves-in-your-brain/" 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;">Neuroscientist just discovered a fascinating fact about the grooves in your brain</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Jun 7th 2025, 06:00</div>
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<p><p>A new study published in <em><a href="https://www.jneurosci.org/content/early/2025/05/11/JNEUROSCI.0726-24.2025" target="_blank">The Journal of Neuroscience</a></em> offers insight into how small grooves in the brain’s surface — known as tertiary sulci — might help explain individual differences in reasoning ability. Researchers from the University of California, Berkeley, found that the depth of these tiny brain folds in children and adolescents was linked to stronger communication between two areas known to support higher-order thinking: the lateral prefrontal cortex and the lateral parietal cortex. The findings suggest that subtle anatomical variations in these brain folds could influence how efficiently different parts of the brain work together during complex thinking.</p>
<p>The brain’s outer layer, called the cerebral cortex, is characterized by a folded structure with ridges (gyri) and grooves (sulci). These folds allow the large surface area of the cortex to fit within the confines of the skull. While most neuroscience research has focused on the major sulci that are present in nearly everyone, the current study focused on smaller and shallower grooves called tertiary sulci. These sulci tend to vary more across individuals and are found in association areas of the brain — regions that have expanded significantly over the course of human evolution and are involved in advanced cognitive processes.</p>
<p>The rationale for the study stemmed from earlier findings showing that certain sulci in the lateral prefrontal cortex were associated with better reasoning skills in children and adolescents. Building on this, the researchers hypothesized that these small grooves might support reasoning by affecting the structure and function of brain networks. More specifically, they proposed that deeper tertiary sulci might bring distant brain regions closer together, enabling more efficient communication — a concept known as network centrality.</p>
<p>“I’m interested in how prefrontal cortex, roughly the front third of the human brain, supports higher-level cognitive functions like reasoning, in coordination with its faithful sidekick parietal cortex and other regions,” said study author Silvia Bunge, a professor of psychology and a member of UC Berkeley’s Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute.</p>
<p>“I’ve previously studied how variation among individuals can be partially explained by differences among them in terms of particular features of brain anatomy and function. Most recently, I’ve collaborated closely on a number of papers with my colleague Kevin Weiner, a neuroanatomist who specializes in sulcal anatomy and function, showing relationships between specific prefrontal sulci and reasoning performance.”</p>
<p>“Here, we wanted to build on those findings by testing whether the relationships we’ve found between sulcal depth and reasoning performance could be due to the fact that sulcal depth is consequential for brain network activity.”</p>
<p>To examine this, the researchers recruited 43 neurotypical children and adolescents between the ages of 7 and 18 from a larger developmental study of reasoning ability. All participants were right-handed native English speakers and underwent detailed brain imaging while performing a task designed to measure abstract reasoning. The task required them to examine patterns among simple shapes and determine relationships, both at a basic level (e.g., comparing shapes) and at a more complex level (e.g., identifying consistent rules across pairs of shapes). The researchers also collected structural MRI scans to precisely map the sulci in each participant’s brain.</p>
<p>A total of 42 sulci were manually identified in each hemisphere of the brain, focusing on the lateral prefrontal and parietal cortices. The researchers then used functional MRI data collected during the reasoning task to assess how strongly each sulcus was connected to others, essentially building a map of functional connectivity across these grooves. Advanced data analysis techniques were employed to measure three aspects of each sulcus’s role within the brain network: how many other sulci it was connected to (degree), how often it served as a bridge between other connections (betweenness), and how broadly its connections spanned across different functional clusters (participation coefficient).</p>
<p>One key question was whether the sulci had unique patterns of connectivity that distinguished them from one another. The answer was yes. Using machine learning techniques, the team showed that each sulcus had a highly distinctive “connectivity fingerprint,” allowing for 96% accuracy in distinguishing one sulcus from another based on its pattern of functional connections. This high discriminability supported the idea that sulci are not just random anatomical wrinkles but may correspond to functionally meaningful brain units.</p>
<p>Next, the researchers grouped sulci based on the similarity of their connectivity patterns. They found five major clusters, with some groups containing both prefrontal and parietal sulci and others consisting solely of prefrontal sulci previously linked to reasoning. </p>
<p>Interestingly, some of these clusters were distinct from the large-scale brain networks typically identified in studies of resting-state brain activity. This suggests that using sulci as the basic unit of analysis could offer a more personalized and anatomically grounded approach to studying brain function.</p>
<p>A key finding was that in several specific tertiary sulci — including the right pmfs-a, left pmfs-i, and left pimfs — greater depth was linked to higher network centrality. In other words, these deeper sulci tended to have stronger and more distributed connections across the brain network, particularly with other important sulci involved in vision and attention. </p>
<p>These relationships held even after accounting for age and head motion, and were not driven solely by proximity to other sulci. The findings support the idea that deeper tertiary sulci may promote greater neural efficiency by facilitating shorter and more direct communication between key brain areas.</p>
<p>“For some specific sulci, the deeper the sulcus the better integrated it was within the network of prefrontal and parietal sulci we examined — i.e., the more tightly coupled its activation was with a number of other sulci.”</p>
<p>These associations were not uniform across all sulci. Some sulci with large surface areas, such as those in the intraparietal sulcus, had higher centrality measures overall, but did not show the same depth-dependent variation as the tertiary sulci. The researchers also found that the link between sulcal depth and network connectivity was not confined to sulci previously linked to reasoning ability. For instance, similar relationships were observed in a sulcus called aipsJ, which is sometimes used as a neurosurgical corridor, and a newly identified sulcus in the parietal lobe known as slocs-v.</p>
<p>These results lend support to a long-standing hypothesis that individual variability in sulcal anatomy could play a functional role in cognition. The idea dates back to the 1960s, when neuroanatomist Sanides proposed that subtle differences in sulcal structure might reflect and even shape cognitive abilities. The current findings suggest that sulcal depth, especially in regions that develop late in gestation and continue to change during childhood, could serve as a biomarker for individual differences in reasoning and possibly other mental functions.</p>
<p>“Sulcal patterns are not random, and are linked with cognition and functional organization. Fine-grained individual anatomy may help in developing tools and grounded hypotheses to better account the high individual variability between people,” said co-author Suvi Häkkinen, an assistant project scientist.</p>
<p>“We went into the study with the hypothesis that functional connectivity (that is, patterns of coordinated brain activation across a set of regions) could be the missing link explaining relationships between sulcal depth and cognition that we had previously found,” Bunge added, “but it was a wide open question as to whether we’d find any relation between depth and functional connectivity. It was a nice surprise that it turned out as it did!”</p>
<p>“I was surprised to learn from Suvi’s analyses just how well a pattern classifier could distinguish sulci — even small, neighboring sulci — from one another based on their connectivity fingerprints (i.e., their patterns of coupling to other regions). I was also surprised that some of the prefrontal sulci had more similar functional fingerprints to certain parietal sulci than to other prefrontal sulci.”</p>
<p>Despite its strengths, the study has several limitations. The amount of functional MRI data collected per participant was relatively modest, which may limit the precision of individual-level network measures. The sample was also restricted to children and adolescents, leaving open the question of whether similar patterns exist in adults or in individuals with neurodevelopmental disorders. In addition, while the study used rigorous control analyses to address confounds like head motion and spatial proximity, some residual effects cannot be ruled out.</p>
<p>Future research could expand this approach to different brain regions, age groups, and cognitive domains. The method of defining brain networks based on sulcal anatomy — rather than predefined regions or general brain atlases — may offer a more individualized way to study brain function. It could also help identify early anatomical markers for cognitive strengths and vulnerabilities, potentially informing education, clinical interventions, and neuroscience-based diagnostics.</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0726-24.2025" target="_blank">Anchoring functional connectivity to individual sulcal morphology yields insights in a pediatric study of reasoning</a>,” was authored by Suvi Häkkinen, Willa I. Voorhies, Ethan H. Willbrand, Yi-Heng Tsai, Thomas Gagnant, Jewelia K. Yao, Kevin S. Weiner, and Silvia A. Bunge.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/kids-start-associating-accents-with-intelligence-surprisingly-early/" 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;">Kids start associating accents with intelligence surprisingly early</a>
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<p><p>From the moment we are born (and even before that, <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2011.00222/full">in utero</a>), we tune into the languages around us. This includes <a href="https://www.thecut.com/2016/08/babies-learn-accents-before-theyre-even-born.html">the accents</a> they are spoken in.</p>
<p>Studies have found that infants show a preference for a familiar accent from as young as <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1532-7078.2010.00050.x">five months old</a>. Fast forward to adulthood and it is difficult to find anyone who doesn’t have something to say about accents.</p>
<p>Opinions, criticisms and stereotypes about speakers based on their accent <a href="https://theconversation.com/british-people-still-think-some-accents-are-smarter-than-others-what-that-means-in-the-workplace-126964">are rife in the UK</a>, and can lead to serious cases of <a href="https://accentism.org/">accent discrimination</a> (“accentism”).</p>
<p>But what happens between infancy and adulthood to get to this point? How are we socialised into such biases – and does this happen at an earlier age than we might have thought?</p>
<p><a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17470218.2012.731695?casa_token=h--L5zAa4CIAAAAA%3AQY6oBANK94Qt6-iT2_hBOKs0Yho8OmTeO1i78zAW2kKvfpW6FvbkEJhxu2deEdqkoDsWArG-0A">Previous research</a> into accent stereotypes in the US – that northern accents tend to mean “smart” and southern mean “nice” – found that children do not show these adult language stereotypes until the age of nine or ten.</p>
<p>These attitudes were directly expressed in the research study by children responding to the questions “who do you think is nicer?” and “who do you think is smarter?” after hearing audio clips of the different accents. But as these attitudes had been explicitly stated in the questions, there’s a risk the children may have been saying what they thought adults wanted to hear – based on what they thought to be <a href="https://dictionary.apa.org/social-desirability">socially acceptable</a>, rather than their honest views.</p>
<p>Less is known about unconscious bias – the attitudes listeners might not be aware they have, but which affect their actions towards speakers with different accents. My recent <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-child-language/article/accent-the-positive-an-investigation-into-fiveyearolds-implicit-attitudes-towards-different-regional-accents/1991E53E41539D8FB54CB6E9DB4EE0AB">research with colleagues</a> aimed to explore how children’s more unconscious, embedded and implicit attitudes might manifest.</p>
<p>We focused on the language attitudes of five-year-olds in Essex. We carried out a computer-based experiment in which 27 children were first familiarised with two characters through a short narrated video describing their characteristics.</p>
<p>One was labelled “clever” and could read, write and speak very well. The other was labelled “not clever” and couldn’t read, write or speak well. The narrator of the video had an American-English accent, which did not feature in the experimental part of the study.</p>
<p>The children then took part in a series of matching tasks. For each task, they heard an audio clip featuring a UK accent. Straight after, a picture of either the “clever” or “not clever” character appeared in the centre of the screen. The children were asked to match this picture with one of two smaller pictures (one of the “clever” and one of the “not clever” character) on the left- and right-hand sides of the screen.</p>
<p>The experiment measured their <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Implicit-association_test">reaction time</a> in matching the characters. A quicker response time indicated the association between accent and character was more compatible, and that they hadn’t been surprised by a mismatch between the accent they heard and the central character on the screen.</p>
<p>The experiment also measured their brain using an <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electroencephalography">electroencephalogram (EEG)</a>. This computed the brain’s reaction to the compatibility between the accent and the “clever” or “not clever” character presented centrally on screen.</p>
<h2>Standard English</h2>
<p>Our results found that across the measures, the five-year-olds showed a strong association between a standard southern English accent – also known as received pronunciation or the Queen’s English – and intelligence. This accords with what we know about how children will grow up to associate standard English as the <a href="https://theconversation.com/ofsted-has-been-dictating-what-proper-english-is-heres-why-thats-a-problem-176742">“correct”</a> form in the UK. Our research suggests that by age five, this association is already fairly well entrenched.</p>
<p>A perhaps more surprising finding from our study was that for one of the brain measures, the children were also found to associate the Essex accent – their home accent – with intelligence. This contrasts with previous research which found negative attitudes towards the Essex accent among <a href="https://theconversation.com/working-class-and-ethnic-minority-accents-in-south-east-england-judged-as-less-intelligent-new-research-162886">young adults in south-east England</a>.</p>
<p>This finding is interesting because it tells us there is perhaps an ongoing familiarity effect from <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1532-7078.2010.00050.x">five months old</a> – children may be more positive towards the accent they find more familiar.</p>
<p>The final accent that featured in our study was the Yorkshire accent. Our results found that, for one of the brain measures, the children associated the Yorkshire accent with unintelligence.</p>
<p>This corresponds with the prevalent <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/education/2020/oct/24/uk-top-universities-urged-act-classism-accent-prejudice">accent prejudice against northern accents in the UK</a>. Worryingly, this finding again suggests that bias has may have already become embedded in children who are only just starting school.</p>
<p>The culminating finding of our work relates to the children’s exposure to accent diversity. Children who had been exposed to a broader range of accents at home, with one or more parents from outside Essex, were more positive towards different accents overall. They were less likely to associate any of them with unintelligence.</p>
<p>Children are not born judging speakers to be uneducated based on the way they speak. It is something they are socialised into believing. Our research suggests that exposure to accent variation may be key in tackling accent discrimination from a young age.<!-- Below is The Conversation's page counter tag. Please DO NOT REMOVE. --><img decoding="async" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/255175/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/children-link-accents-with-intelligence-from-the-age-of-five-says-study-255175">original article</a>.</em></p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/sex-after-faith-study-reveals-how-ultra-orthodox-disaffiliates-struggle-with-sexuality/" 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;">Sex after faith: Study reveals how ultra-Orthodox disaffiliates struggle with sexuality</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Jun 6th 2025, 16:00</div>
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<p><p>A new study published in the <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-024-02961-y" target="_blank">Archives of Sexual Behavior</a></em> highlights how sexuality plays a pivotal, and often painful, role in the lives of individuals who leave ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities. Drawing from 37 in-depth interviews with disaffiliates in Israel, the research uncovers how disaffiliation can lead to experiences of sexual confusion, exploitation, and identity conflict, as individuals navigate between two vastly different worlds.</p>
<p>The researchers aimed to better understand the sexual experiences and challenges faced by ultra-Orthodox disaffiliates—a population that has grown in recent years. According to the Israel Democracy Institute, over 13% of ultra-Orthodox Israelis between the ages of 20 and 64 eventually leave their religious communities, with young men between 16 and 25 being the most likely to disaffiliate. Despite this trend, the psychological and social implications of such a major life transition—particularly regarding sexuality and intimate relationships—have received little scholarly attention.</p>
<p>Sex and sexuality are highly regulated and taboo in ultra-Orthodox communities. From early childhood, boys and girls are raised in separate spheres, and any conversation about sexuality is strictly limited, if not completely absent. Boys are often warned about masturbation through extreme religious teachings that associate it with moral and spiritual downfall. Girls, meanwhile, may receive some instruction about menstruation but typically no broader sex education. Before marriage, prospective brides and grooms receive guidance from religious instructors—but this instruction is often framed within religious purity laws and avoids direct conversation about consent, pleasure, or body autonomy.</p>
<p>Against this backdrop, disaffiliating from the ultra-Orthodox world can trigger a period of deep uncertainty. Using a qualitative method called interpretative phenomenological analysis, the researchers interviewed 25 men and 12 women who had disaffiliated within the past one to ten years. All participants had been educated in ultra-Orthodox institutions at least through age 18 and had adopted a secular lifestyle. Interviews lasted between one and two hours, conducted either in person or online, and were later transcribed, translated, and thematically analyzed.</p>
<p>One major theme that emerged from the interviews was the role of sexual trauma. Many participants reported experiencing sexual abuse during childhood—experiences that were not acknowledged or addressed within their communities. For some, this trauma was a key factor in their decision to leave. Participants described feeling isolated and silenced, with no safe space to process or report what had happened. Several stated outright that if they had been able to talk about the abuse, they might not have chosen to disaffiliate.</p>
<p>In addition to trauma, participants consistently spoke about a severe lack of knowledge regarding sex, relationships, and the human body. This knowledge gap left many unprepared for interactions in secular society, where dating norms, expectations around consent, and sexual expression differ dramatically from those in ultra-Orthodox life. Several interviewees described early sexual experiences as confusing or even exploitative. Others said they inadvertently crossed social boundaries themselves—making inappropriate comments or gestures due to ignorance of secular customs. In some cases, this ignorance resulted in serious social consequences or led to behaviors that the participants later recognized as harmful.</p>
<p>Both men and women reported difficulties navigating intimacy. Some men, for instance, struggled with extreme anxiety around sexual thoughts and behaviors, having internalized the idea that these desires were sinful or perverse. Women often felt uncertain about how to dress or behave, sometimes imitating secular norms without fully understanding how those behaviors might be interpreted. Participants described feeling “scriptless,” lacking the social and cultural tools to navigate their new environment with confidence.</p>
<p>In this in-between space, participants experienced what the researchers called a “liminal” state—neither fully part of the ultra-Orthodox world nor fully integrated into secular society. For some, this was a temporary phase marked by rapid learning and adaptation. For others, it became a more enduring identity struggle, where aspects of both cultures coexisted uncomfortably. The researchers drew on the sociological concept of “cleft habitus” to describe this internal tension: a feeling of being caught between two sets of values, languages, and behaviors that cannot be easily reconciled.</p>
<p>Participants filled their knowledge gaps in various ways. The internet was the most commonly cited source of sexual information, sometimes humorously referred to as “Rabbi Google.” Others learned through trial and error, guidance from partners, or conversations with fellow disaffiliates. New friends—both secular and formerly religious—played a major role in helping individuals navigate their new sexual realities.</p>
<p>Sexual behavior varied widely among participants. Some embraced their newfound freedom with enthusiasm, engaging in multiple casual relationships or exploring aspects of their sexuality they had previously repressed. Others responded with fear or avoidance, still haunted by shame and anxiety from their upbringing. Some male participants even preferred to use traditional ultra-Orthodox dating methods—such as matchmaking—to avoid the stress and uncertainty of secular dating.</p>
<p>Body image also changed significantly after disaffiliation. Participants reported becoming more self-conscious about their appearance, often joining gyms, modifying their diet, or updating their wardrobe to fit secular standards. In ultra-Orthodox communities, modesty norms and cultural expectations typically discourage focus on physical appearance, especially for men. Once outside that environment, individuals became aware of how appearance influences social and romantic interactions.</p>
<p>Despite the wide range of personal experiences, one common thread was a sense of vulnerability. Disaffiliates lacked the social protections and cultural fluency needed to navigate secular sexual norms, making them more susceptible to exploitation and misunderstanding. Some female participants described being manipulated into sexual situations under false pretenses. Some male participants admitted to acting inappropriately without realizing it, sometimes interpreting friendly gestures or clothing styles as sexual signals.</p>
<p>The researchers acknowledge that their study has limitations. The sample was limited to disaffiliates from Ashkenazi ultra-Orthodox backgrounds in Israel and may not represent other Jewish or religious communities. The snowball sampling method could also have introduced bias. Future research should explore the experiences of disaffiliates from different religious traditions and cultural backgrounds, using both qualitative and quantitative methods to build a more comprehensive understanding of this emerging population.</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-024-02961-y" target="_blank">Religious Disaffiliates’ Experiences and Challenges with Sex, Sexuality, and Body Image</a>,” was authored by Zvika Orr, Beth G. Zalcman, Anat Romem, and Ronit Pinchas‑Mizrachi.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/study-links-premature-ejaculation-to-altered-brain-activity-and-neurotransmitter-imbalances/" 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;">Study links premature ejaculation to altered brain activity and neurotransmitter imbalances</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Jun 6th 2025, 14:00</div>
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<p><p>A new study published in <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s11682-024-00920-8" target="_blank">Brain Imaging and Behavior</a></em> has uncovered differences in brain function and neurotransmitter systems in men with lifelong premature ejaculation. Using advanced brain imaging, the researchers found that individuals with this condition showed altered activity in several brain regions related to emotion, sensation, and visual processing. These brain changes were also linked to key neurotransmitter systems that regulate reward, arousal, and muscle control.</p>
<p>Lifelong premature ejaculation is a common male sexual disorder marked by consistent early ejaculation, often within one minute of sexual activity. It can cause significant distress, affect self-esteem, and create tension in relationships. Despite its prevalence—affecting around 3% of men in China and up to 5% globally—the underlying brain mechanisms are still not fully understood. Diagnoses typically rely on self-reported measures, and objective biological markers are lacking.</p>
<p>To address this gap, researchers in China set out to investigate how the brains of men with lifelong premature ejaculation differ from those of men without the condition. They aimed to find measurable patterns of brain activity that could help explain why some men are affected. Their approach focused on resting-state brain function using a method called percent amplitude of fluctuation, or PerAF. This technique measures how much blood flow-related activity varies in different regions of the brain when a person is not engaged in any specific task.</p>
<p>The study involved 81 men—46 with lifelong premature ejaculation and 35 healthy controls. All participants were screened for mental and physical health and were not taking medication. Brain scans were conducted using a 3.0 Tesla MRI scanner while participants rested with their eyes closed. The researchers then analyzed the brain imaging data to identify regions where brain activity differed between the two groups. They also compared the imaging findings with clinical measures of sexual function, anxiety, and depression.</p>
<p>The researchers found that men with premature ejaculation had increased brain activity in several key regions. These included the middle cingulate cortex, supramarginal gyrus, Rolandic operculum, hippocampus and parahippocampal area, and the insula. These areas are known to be involved in emotional regulation, sensory integration, and bodily awareness. At the same time, reduced activity was observed in the precuneus, inferior temporal cortex, and parts of the occipital lobe—regions linked to self-referential thinking, visual imagery, and attention.</p>
<p>To test whether these brain differences could help distinguish between individuals with and without premature ejaculation, the researchers conducted a receiver operating characteristic analysis. This statistical method estimates how accurately a variable—such as brain activity in a specific region—can classify a condition. The analysis showed that some of the altered brain regions, especially the middle cingulate cortex and hippocampus, were moderately effective in distinguishing the affected group from controls.</p>
<p>The study also found meaningful connections between brain activity and clinical symptoms. Higher activity in the insula was associated with greater depression scores, while lower activity in the precuneus was linked to poorer sexual function. These findings suggest that emotional and cognitive processes may play a role in how premature ejaculation develops and persists.</p>
<p>To explore the biological underpinnings of these brain changes, the researchers investigated whether the altered activity was related to known patterns of neurotransmitter distribution. They used a brain mapping tool called JuSpace, which compares imaging data with maps of neurotransmitter systems, including dopamine, serotonin, norepinephrine, and acetylcholine. The analysis showed that brain activity patterns in men with premature ejaculation were significantly correlated with areas rich in dopamine D2 receptors, serotonin transporters, norepinephrine transporters, and vesicular acetylcholine transporters.</p>
<p>These neurotransmitters are involved in a wide range of processes relevant to sexual function. Dopamine plays a key role in motivation, reward, and motor control. Serotonin is involved in mood regulation and is known to delay ejaculation when increased. Norepinephrine affects arousal and muscle contractions, while acetylcholine is important for communication between nerves and muscles. Imbalances in these systems may help explain why some individuals experience rapid ejaculation and emotional distress.</p>
<p>The researchers suggest that premature ejaculation may be partly driven by a failure to balance sexual arousal and inhibitory control. This could result from dysregulation in the brain’s reward and emotional circuits, leading to faster ejaculation that is difficult to consciously control. Some scientists have proposed that premature ejaculation may resemble impulse control disorders, which share similar disruptions in neurotransmitter systems. Other studies have linked premature ejaculation to traits like anxiety, impaired self-regulation, and heightened sensitivity to sexual stimuli.</p>
<p>Despite these insights, the study has some limitations. It was based on a relatively small sample and used a cross-sectional design, which means it cannot determine whether the brain differences cause the condition or are a result of it. The researchers also relied solely on functional imaging data, without combining it with structural scans or other biological measures. Future studies with larger and more diverse samples, as well as multimodal imaging approaches, may offer a more complete picture.</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s11682-024-00920-8" target="_blank">Abnormal percent amplitude of fluctuation in patients with lifelong premature ejaculation is associated with neurotransmitter profiles</a>,” was authored by Jiarui Yuan, Pinxiao Wang, Dingxin Nie, Wanxiang Zheng, Kepu Liu, Jianyong Feng, Yuntao Zhang, Yanzhu Wang, Junjun Gao, and Ming Gao.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/a-common-herb-shows-promise-for-boosting-brain-health-and-fighting-alzheimers/" 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;">A common herb shows promise for boosting brain health and fighting Alzheimer’s</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Jun 6th 2025, 13:00</div>
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<p><p>Rosemary (<em>Rosmarinus officinalis</em>), the aromatic herb native to the Mediterranean, has long been treasured in kitchens around the world. But beyond its culinary charm, rosemary is also <a href="https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/266370">gaining recognition</a> for its impressive health benefits, especially when it comes to brain health, inflammation and immune function.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.psypost.org/rosemary-compound-enhances-brain-connections-and-memory-in-alzheimers-model/">Research suggests</a> rosemary may even <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-45168-1">hold promise</a> in the fight against Alzheimer’s disease, the leading cause of <a href="https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/dementia">dementia worldwide</a>.</p>
<p>Historically, rosemary has been <a href="https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8851910/">linked to memory and mental clarity</a>. <a href="https://daily.jstor.org/rosemary-the-herb-of-ritual-and-remembrance/">In ancient Greece and Rome</a>, students and scholars used rosemary in the hope of sharpening concentration and recall.</p>
<p>Modern science is finding there may have been something in this: <a href="https://www.northumbria.ac.uk/about-us/news-events/news/2016/04/herbs-that-can-boost-your-mood-and-memory/">in one study</a>, people who inhaled rosemary’s scent performed better on memory tasks compared to those in an unscented environment.</p>
<p>So how does rosemary work on the brain? There are several mechanisms at play. For starters, <a href="https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7491497/">rosemary stimulates</a> blood circulation, including to the brain, helping deliver more oxygen and nutrients, which may improve mental clarity. It also has calming properties; <a href="https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9297920/">some studies suggest</a> its aroma can reduce anxiety and improve sleep. <a href="https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7879075/">Lower stress can mean</a> better focus and memory retention.</p>
<p>Rosemary contains compounds that <a href="https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/15/6/1547">interact with the brain’s neurotransmitters</a>. One such compound, 1,8-cineole, <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2045125312436573">helps prevent the breakdown</a> of acetylcholine, a brain chemical essential for learning and memory. By preserving acetylcholine, rosemary <a href="https://www.ijpsjournal.com/article/Therapeutic+Effect+of+Rosemary+and+Its+Active+Constituent+on+Nervous+System+Disorders++">may help support cognitive performance</a>, especially as we age.</p>
<p>Another bonus? Rosemary is <a href="https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3921/10/5/714">packed with antioxidants</a>, which help protect brain cells from damage caused by oxidative stress – a major factor in cognitive decline.</p>
<p>Rosemary is rich in phytochemicals, plant compounds with health-enhancing effects. One of the most powerful is <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1043661824002330">carnosic acid</a>, an antioxidant and anti-inflammatory agent that <a href="https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7491497/">helps shield brain cells from harm</a>, particularly from the kinds of damage linked to Alzheimer’s disease.</p>
<p>In 2025, <a href="https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3921/14/3/293">researchers developed</a> a stable version of carnosic acid called diAcCA. In promising pre-clinical studies, this compound improved memory, boosted the number of synapses (the connections between brain cells), and reduced harmful Alzheimer’s related proteins like amyloid-beta and tau.</p>
<p>What’s especially exciting is that diAcCA only activates in inflamed brain regions, which could minimise side effects. So far, studies in mice show no signs of toxicity and significant cognitive improvements – raising hopes that human trials could be next.</p>
<p>Researchers also believe diAcCA could help treat other inflammatory conditions, such as type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease and Parkinson’s disease.</p>
<h2>Beyond brain health</h2>
<p>Rosemary’s benefits could extend <a href="https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7491497/#B5">well beyond the brain</a>. It’s been used traditionally to ease digestion, relieve bloating and reduce inflammation.</p>
<p>Compounds like rosmarinic acid and ursolic acid are known for their anti-inflammatory effects throughout the body. Rosemary may even benefit the skin – <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10045493/">a review suggests</a> it can help soothe acne and eczema, while carnosic acid may offer anti-ageing benefits by protecting skin from sun damage.</p>
<p><a href="https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6165352/">Rosemary oil</a> also has antimicrobial properties, showing promise in food preservation and potential pharmaceutical applications by inhibiting the growth of bacteria and fungi.</p>
<p>For most people, rosemary is <a href="https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/266370#safety">safe when used</a> in food, teas or aromatherapy. But concentrated doses or extracts can pose risks. <a href="https://reference.medscape.com/drug/old-man-rosmarinus-officinalis-linn-rosemary-344476#4">Consuming large amounts</a> may cause vomiting or, in rare cases, seizures – particularly in people with epilepsy.</p>
<p>There’s also a <a href="https://reference.medscape.com/drug/old-man-rosmarinus-officinalis-linn-rosemary-344476#5">theoretical risk</a> of rosemary stimulating uterine contractions, so pregnant people should avoid high doses. Because rosemary <a href="https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/rosemary-tea#Potential-drug-interactions">can interact with some medications</a> – such as blood thinners – it’s best to check with a healthcare provider before taking large amounts in supplement form.</p>
<p>Rosemary is more than just a kitchen staple. It’s a natural remedy with ancient roots and modern scientific backing. As research continues, particularly into breakthrough compounds like diAcCA, rosemary could play an exciting role in future treatments for Alzheimer’s and other chronic conditions.</p>
<p>In the meantime, adding a little rosemary to your life – whether in a meal, a cup of tea, or a breath of its fragrant oil – could be a small step with big health benefits.<!-- Below is The Conversation's page counter tag. Please DO NOT REMOVE. --><img decoding="async" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/256920/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/rosemary-has-been-linked-to-better-memory-lower-anxiety-and-even-protection-from-alzheimers-256920">original article</a>.</em></p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/researchers-are-starting-to-untangle-the-links-between-cognitive-processes-emotion-regulation-and-depression/" 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;">Researchers are starting to untangle the links between cognitive processes, emotion regulation, and depression</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Jun 6th 2025, 12:00</div>
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<p><p>A new study published in the <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2025.02.106" target="_blank">Journal of Affective Disorders</a></em> used a network modeling approach to explore how cognitive processes like flexibility and processing speed are connected to depressive symptoms. The researchers found that these cognitive traits do not influence depression symptoms directly but through their effects on how individuals regulate emotions—particularly through patterns such as rumination.</p>
<p>Major depressive disorder is one of the most widespread mental health conditions, yet its treatment continues to face challenges related to recurrence and treatment resistance. While cognitive models of depression have long proposed that emotion regulation strategies and cognitive impairments play key roles in maintaining the disorder, these models often treat these components in isolation. In reality, individuals tend to use multiple emotion regulation strategies simultaneously, and cognitive abilities like processing speed and flexibility may influence how people manage emotions in complex ways.</p>
<p>The researchers aimed to move beyond simplified models and instead capture the interactions between emotion regulation strategies, cognitive processes, and depression. They used a network analysis approach, which treats each element as a “node” in a system and models how these nodes influence one another. This method offers a more realistic representation of how depression develops and persists by focusing on the interconnectivity of psychological components.</p>
<p><a href="https://danielcastro.notion.site/daniel-castro-d8bef0038cf14edeb6503f73f50f4926" target="_blank">Daniel Castro</a>, an assistant professor at the University of Maia, explained that his interest in this topic stems from two main motivations. “First, my interest in the capabilities of explanation of psychological phenomena from a network perspective, which differs from traditional approaches that impose a medical perspective on psychological phenomena—one that is distant from the clinical perspective used to explain them. Second, the interest in understanding, from this perspective, what insights into depression development might be obtained when studying the interaction between cognitive processes, cognitive emotion regulation strategies, and depression.”</p>
<p>The researchers analyzed data from 227 healthy participants from the Leipzig Study for Mind-Body-Emotion Interactions, which included both young adults (ages 20–35) and older adults (ages 59–77). For this study, the researchers focused on two cognitive processes: processing speed and cognitive flexibility. Processing speed refers to how quickly a person can take in, understand, and respond to information, while cognitive flexibility is the ability to shift between different thoughts, tasks, or perspectives as needed. These were assessed using the Trail Making Test, a neuropsychological tool where participants connect a series of numbers and letters under time constraints. Shorter completion times indicated better performance.</p>
<p>Depression symptoms were measured using the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale, although participants in this sample were not clinically depressed. Emotion regulation strategies were evaluated with the Cognitive Emotional Regulation Questionnaire, which includes subscales such as rumination, positive reappraisal, self-blame, and catastrophizing.</p>
<p><strong>Rumination</strong> involves repeatedly thinking about distressing experiences or negative emotions, often without reaching a resolution, which can intensify feelings of sadness or hopelessness. <strong>Positive reappraisal</strong> is a strategy where individuals try to reinterpret a negative situation in a more positive or meaningful way, helping to reduce emotional distress. <strong>Self-blame</strong> occurs when people attribute negative events to their own character or actions, often leading to guilt or shame. <strong>Catastrophizing</strong> is the tendency to assume the worst possible outcome in a situation, which can increase anxiety and feelings of helplessness.</p>
<p>The team used a network modeling method known as Mixed Graphical Models to estimate the structure of interactions between cognitive processes, emotion regulation strategies, and depression. They then evaluated each node’s influence in the network and simulated how changes in processing speed and cognitive flexibility might impact the network as a whole.</p>
<p>Surprisingly, neither processing speed nor cognitive flexibility had a direct link to depression symptoms. Instead, their influence was mediated through cognitive emotion regulation strategies—especially rumination. This suggests that while these cognitive abilities are important, they may shape mental health outcomes indirectly by altering how people regulate their emotions.</p>
<p>The findings indicate that “emotion regulation strategies directly influence depression and that difficulties in cognitive processes influence emotion regulation strategies,” Castro told PsyPost. “This suggests that cognitive processes might promote difficulties in emotion regulation, which might then impact depression.”</p>
<p>Within the network, rumination emerged as a central node with the highest influence. It also served as the shortest path between the cognitive processes and depression, highlighting its pivotal role. Catastrophizing and positive reappraisal were also highly central in the network, reinforcing the idea that emotion regulation strategies are at the heart of depressive experiences.</p>
<p>When it came to the cognitive processes, the two played different roles. Processing speed showed high “bridge centrality,” meaning it served as a connector between different parts of the network. This suggests that improving processing speed might be effective for preventing depression by weakening harmful connections or preventing them from forming. However, its effect on reducing overall symptom activity was modest.</p>
<p>Cognitive flexibility, on the other hand, had a more substantial effect on the overall network. Simulations showed that higher cognitive flexibility reduced overall network connectivity—a finding consistent with the idea that lower connectivity is associated with fewer depressive symptoms. This implies that training aimed at improving cognitive flexibility might be more effective in symptom reduction than efforts focused on processing speed alone.</p>
<p>“From the two cognitive processes studied, only processing speed was related to emotion regulation strategies, even though cognitive flexibility had a bigger impact on the network connectivity,” Castro said. “Since network connectivity has been suggested to identify psychopathological states, difficulties in cognitive flexibility might promote the development of psychopathological disorders, but the impact on depression only happens through processing speed and emotion regulation strategies.”</p>
<p>The researchers also ran simulations where they set the cognitive processes to their highest or lowest observed values and measured changes in the network’s overall activity. When both processing speed and flexibility were high, network activity decreased, suggesting a healthier mental state. When both were low, network activity increased, indicating more vulnerability to depressive symptoms. The simulations reinforced the idea that these cognitive processes interact with emotion regulation strategies in complex ways that cannot be captured by simpler models.</p>
<p>As with all research, the study comes with limitations. The sample consisted of healthy individuals, which may limit how well the findings apply to people with clinical depression. Since the depression score was based on a single overall rating rather than individual symptoms like fatigue or anhedonia, the model may have missed important connections. Future studies should include more detailed assessments to better capture the full picture.</p>
<p>Another limitation lies in the tools used to measure cognitive flexibility and processing speed. The Trail Making Test is a common assessment tool, but its two parts (A and B) are highly correlated and may not fully isolate the constructs of interest. More refined tools or additional measures could help separate their individual contributions in future research.</p>
<p>The cross-sectional nature of the study also prevents any firm conclusions about causality. While network analysis and simulations can suggest which components are likely to be influential, longitudinal or experimental studies are needed to confirm whether changing these factors would actually alter depression risk or symptom severity.</p>
<p>The authors suggest that future work should aim to validate the tools used to measure cognitive constructs more clearly. In parallel, there is a need for new theoretical models and methods within network psychology that can accommodate diverse types of data, including behavioral, emotional, and biological measures. In the long run, the goal is to develop more personalized interventions by understanding which components in the mental health network are most amenable to change.</p>
<p>“I think that there are two important steps,” Castro explained. “For the continued study of cognitive processes, we need clarification of task validity to assess specific constructs. From a network perspective, there is a need for new theoretical and methodological developments. The need for large sample sizes and the lack of instruments that are constructed and validated from a network perspective limits our ability to extract clear results from these studies. The emergence of the utilization of passive data in the study of psychological phenomena might be important to overcome these limitations.”</p>
<p>The study, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2025.02.106" target="_blank">The differential impact of processing speed and cognitive flexibility on cognitive emotion regulation strategies and depression</a>, was authored by Daniel Castro, Pedro Lopes, Ana Sofia Araújo, Filipa Ferreira, Ana Rita Rodrigues, Joana Cardoso, Fernando Ferreira-Santos, and Tiago Bento Ferreira.</p></p>
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<p><strong>Forwarded by:<br />
Michael Reeder LCPC<br />
Baltimore, MD</strong></p>
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