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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/childhood-maltreatment-linked-to-emotion-regulation-difficulties-and-teen-mental-health-problems/" 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;">Childhood maltreatment linked to emotion regulation difficulties and teen mental health problems</a>
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<p><p>A longitudinal study in China found that adolescents who were maltreated as children are more likely to use maladaptive cognitive emotion regulation strategies. These individuals also tend to experience more severe symptoms of depression and anxiety. The research was published in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S0954579425000033"><em>Development and Psychopathology</em></a>.</p>
<p>Childhood maltreatment refers to abuse or neglect experienced by a child. This can include physical, emotional, or sexual abuse, as well as physical or emotional neglect. Maltreatment may occur within the family or be inflicted by other caregivers, and it often has long-lasting effects on a child’s development. When it happens during critical developmental periods, maltreatment can alter brain structure and function, particularly in areas related to emotion regulation and stress response.</p>
<p>Children who experience maltreatment are at increased risk for mental health disorders such as depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress, and substance use problems. It can also impair cognitive development, academic achievement, and social relationships. Early maltreatment often disrupts the formation of secure attachment and trust in others. These effects can persist into adulthood, negatively affecting self-esteem, interpersonal functioning, and physical health. Risk factors for maltreatment include poverty, parental mental illness, and domestic violence.</p>
<p>Study author Jianjun Huang and his colleagues set out to examine the relationship between childhood maltreatment and maladaptive cognitive emotion regulation strategies. They also explored how childhood maltreatment is linked to internalizing mental health problems—difficulties that are directed inward, such as anxiety and depression. Maladaptive cognitive emotion regulation strategies refer to unhelpful thought patterns, such as rumination, catastrophizing, or self-blame, that people use in an attempt to manage emotions, but which often worsen psychological distress instead of alleviating it.</p>
<p>The study participants were adolescents recruited from a high school in Chongqing, China. A total of 1,155 students agreed to participate in a longitudinal mental health survey. The initial survey was conducted in 2021, and a follow-up survey was completed by 892 students in 2023. Of those who completed the second survey, 487 were girls. The average age of the participants was 15 years.</p>
<p>The surveys included several standardized questionnaires to assess different aspects of mental health. Childhood maltreatment was measured using the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire. Maladaptive cognitive emotion regulation strategies were assessed with the Maladaptive Cognitive Emotion Regulation Strategies Questionnaire. Depression and anxiety symptoms were evaluated using the Self-Rating Depression Scale and the Self-Rating Anxiety Scale, respectively.</p>
<p>The results showed that adolescents who reported higher levels of childhood maltreatment were more likely to use maladaptive cognitive emotion regulation strategies and reported more severe symptoms of depression and anxiety.</p>
<p>The researchers tested a statistical model proposing that maladaptive cognitive emotion regulation strategies measured in 2021 would mediate the relationship between childhood maltreatment and internalizing problems measured in 2023. They also tested a second model suggesting that internalizing problems in 2021 could mediate the relationship between childhood maltreatment and future maladaptive emotion regulation strategies. Analyses supported both pathways.</p>
<p>“Taken together, childhood maltreatment was longitudinally associated with internalizing problems through MCERS [maladaptive cognitive emotion regulation strategies], and also related to subsequent MCERS through internalizing problems,” the study authors concluded.</p>
<p>The study contributes to the scientific understanding of the relationships between childhood maltreatment and mental health issues later in life. However, it should be noted that all the data in this study came from self-reports and that childhood maltreatment data was based on participants’ recall of experiences from their childhood. This leaves room for reporting and recall bias to have affected the results.</p>
<p>The paper, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S0954579425000033">The long-term effects of childhood maltreatment: Examining the indirect and cross-lagged pathways of maladaptive cognitive emotion regulation strategies and internalizing problems,</a>” was authored by Jianjun Huang, Xi Shen, and Jin-Liang Wang.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/caffeine-may-help-prevent-depression-like-symptoms-by-protecting-the-gut-brain-connection/" 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;">Caffeine may help prevent depression-like symptoms by protecting the gut-brain connection</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Jul 15th 2025, 08:00</div>
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<p><p>New research suggests that caffeine could help prevent stress-induced depression-like behaviors by influencing the gut-brain connection. In a study using mice, researchers found that administering caffeine before stress exposure reduced behavioral signs of depression and helped preserve gut health and brain inflammation levels.</p>
<p>Depression is one of the most common mental health conditions in the world and is projected to become the leading cause of disease burden globally in the coming years. While medications are commonly used to treat depression, they do not always work well for everyone and often come with side effects. This has led scientists to explore alternative ways to prevent or reduce the risk of developing depression, including dietary and lifestyle factors.</p>
<p>Caffeine, the stimulant found in coffee and tea, has attracted attention for its possible antidepressant effects. Several population studies have reported that people who regularly drink coffee tend to report fewer depressive symptoms. Some studies have suggested that this may be due to caffeine’s effects on brain chemistry. But more recently, scientists have begun to investigate whether caffeine might also act through a different pathway: the gut-brain axis.</p>
<p>The gut-brain axis refers to the complex, two-way communication system between the digestive tract and the brain. This system includes the gut microbiota—trillions of bacteria and other microbes that live in the intestines—as well as the immune system, hormones, and the vagus nerve. Research has shown that disturbances in the gut microbiota can influence mood and behavior, possibly by triggering inflammation that affects the brain. Since caffeine is known to influence gut microbes, the authors of the new study set out to investigate whether caffeine could help prevent depression by modulating the gut-brain axis.</p>
<p>The new study, published in the <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejphar.2025.177721" target="_blank" rel="noopener">European Journal of Pharmacology</a></em>, was conducted by researchers at Chongqing Medical University in China. The team used a well-established animal model of depression called chronic unpredictable stress, which exposes mice to a variety of stressors over a two-week period. These stressors include things like food deprivation, cold exposure, social stress, and cage tilting, and are known to produce behaviors in mice that resemble depression in humans.</p>
<p>Before exposing the mice to stress, the researchers divided them into three groups. One group served as a control and was not exposed to stress. A second group went through the chronic stress procedure without any treatment. The third group received daily injections of caffeine before being subjected to the same stressors. The caffeine was given at the start of the animals’ active period to minimize its direct excitatory effects on the brain and allow the researchers to focus on its preventive effects.</p>
<p>To measure signs of depression and anxiety, the researchers used three behavioral tests: a sucrose preference test to measure anhedonia (a reduced ability to experience pleasure), a tail suspension test to assess behavioral despair, and an open field test to gauge anxiety levels. The researchers also monitored body weight as an indicator of stress-related changes.</p>
<p>In addition to behavioral assessments, the team analyzed biological markers related to the gut-brain axis. They examined the composition of gut bacteria using fecal samples, measured proteins associated with gut barrier integrity in the colon, and assessed levels of inflammation-related molecules in both the blood and the brain’s hippocampus, a region involved in mood regulation.</p>
<p>The results showed that mice exposed to chronic stress without caffeine developed signs of depression-like behavior. These mice lost weight, drank less sweetened water, spent less time exploring the center of an open field, and showed increased immobility in the tail suspension test. However, the mice that received caffeine before the stress procedure behaved similarly to the non-stressed control group. They maintained body weight, preferred sweetened water, explored more freely, and showed less immobility—suggesting that caffeine helped protect them from the effects of chronic stress.</p>
<p>The researchers also found that stress weakened the intestinal barrier in the stressed mice. Proteins that help maintain the gut lining—such as ZO-1, claudin-1, and MUC2—were reduced, which may have allowed inflammatory substances like lipopolysaccharide (LPS) to enter the bloodstream. LPS is a bacterial toxin that can trigger immune responses and has been implicated in depression. Levels of LPS and another inflammation marker, NLRP3, were elevated in stressed mice but remained low in mice treated with caffeine.</p>
<p>In the hippocampus, the stressed mice showed increased levels of inflammatory molecules such as tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α) and interleukin-1β (IL-1β), along with reduced levels of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), a protein that supports brain cell health. These changes were not seen in the caffeine-treated group, suggesting that caffeine may help prevent inflammation-related brain changes associated with depression.</p>
<p>The gut microbiota also differed between groups. Stressed mice had changes in the relative abundance of several bacterial genera, including increases in Escherichia-Shigella and decreases in Enterorhabdus. These bacterial shifts were associated with behavioral symptoms and inflammatory markers.</p>
<p>Mice that received caffeine did not show the same microbiota disruptions, and their gut bacteria more closely resembled those of the control group. The researchers found that certain gut bacteria were linked to both inflammation levels and behavior, suggesting that caffeine’s effects on mental health might be partly mediated by its influence on gut microbes.</p>
<p>To tie the findings together, the authors proposed a chain of events in which chronic stress weakens the intestinal barrier, allowing bacterial toxins to enter the bloodstream. These toxins then trigger inflammation that reaches the brain and contributes to depression-like behaviors. Caffeine, by preserving gut barrier integrity and promoting a more balanced gut microbiota, may interrupt this cycle and help maintain a healthier gut-brain communication pathway.</p>
<p>The study adds to growing evidence that caffeine might play a role in protecting mental health, not just by acting on the brain directly, but also by influencing the broader physiological systems that connect the gut and the brain. However, the researchers caution that these findings are based on animal models and may not directly apply to humans.</p>
<p>The study has some limitations. It only involved male mice, so the effects of caffeine on females remain unknown. The researchers also used a single caffeine dose and administration method, which may not fully reflect how people typically consume caffeine. While behavioral tests in mice are informative, they do not capture the full complexity of human depression. Finally, this was a preventive study, so it does not address whether caffeine can treat existing depression.</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejphar.2025.177721" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Caffeine plays a prevention role in stress-induced depression by modulating gut-brain axis function</a>,” was authored by Wentao Wu, Jiaolin Wang, Jianjun Chen, Jing Xie, Ke Xu, Yi Ren, Qi Zhong, Fei He, Ying Wang, and Peng Xie.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/secret-changes-to-major-u-s-health-datasets-raise-alarms/" 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;">Secret changes to major U.S. health datasets raise alarms</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Jul 15th 2025, 07:00</div>
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<p><p>A new study in the medical journal <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(25)01249-8" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Lancet</a></em> reports that more than 100 United States government health datasets were altered this spring without any public notice. The investigation shows that nearly half of the files examined underwent wording changes while leaving the official change logs blank. The authors warn that hidden edits of this kind can ripple through public health research and erode confidence in federal data.</p>
<p>To reach these findings, the researchers started by downloading the online catalogues—known as harvest sources—that federal agencies maintain under the 2019 Open Government Data Act. They gathered every entry from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the Department of Veterans Affairs that showed a modification date between January 20 and March 25, 2025.</p>
<p>After removing duplicates and files that are refreshed at least monthly, the team was left with 232 datasets. For each one, they located an archived copy that pre‑dated the study window, most often through the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine.</p>
<p>They then used the comparison feature in a word‑processing program to highlight every textual difference between the older and newer versions. Only wording was assessed; numeric tables were not rechecked. Finally, the investigators opened the public change log that sits at the bottom of each dataset’s web page to see whether the alteration had been declared.</p>
<p>One example captures how the edits appeared in practice. A file from the Department of Veterans Affairs that tracks the number of veterans using healthcare services in the 2021 fiscal year had sat untouched for more than two years. On March 5, 2025, the column heading “Gender” was replaced with “Sex.” The same swap was made in the dataset’s title and in the short description at the top of the page. The modification date on the site updated to reflect the change, yet the built‑in change log still reads, “No changes have been archived yet.”</p>
<p>Across the full sample, the pattern was strikingly consistent. One hundred fourteen of the 232 datasets—49 percent—contained what the authors judged to be potentially substantive wording changes. Of these, 106 switched the term “gender” to “sex.” Four files replaced the phrase “social determinants of health” with “non‑medical factors,” one exchanged “socio‑economic status” for “socio‑economic characteristics,” and a single clinical trial listing rewrote its title so that “gender diverse” became “include men and women.”</p>
<p>In 89 cases, the revision affected text that defines the data itself, such as column names or category labels. The remaining 25 changes occurred in narrative descriptions or tags that sit above the data table. Only 25 of the 114 altered files—less than one in seven—acknowledged the revision in their official logs.</p>
<p>The timing followed a marked acceleration: four edits occurred in the final days of January, 30 during February, and 82 during the first three and a half weeks of March—suggesting an intensified push as spring approached.</p>
<p>These government datasets form the backbone of countless psychology, sociology, and public health projects. The Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, for instance, supplies yearly survey information on smoking, exercise, diet, and chronic illness across every state. It is routinely mined to study links between health behavior and mental well‑being.</p>
<p>Heart disease and stroke mortality files from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention help social scientists examine how stress, neighborhood environment, or discrimination align with geographic patterns in illness and death.</p>
<p>Nutrition and physical activity surveys inform work on childhood obesity and its ties to screen time or family structure. Researchers who focus on veteran mental health rely on Department of Veterans Affairs summaries to track service‑connected disability, access to therapy, and suicide risk among former service members.</p>
<p>When variable labels shift from “gender” to “sex” in these resources, studies that compare answers given under the old wording with figures retrieved after the change are no longer aligning like‑with‑like. Even a single undocumented edit can scramble replication attempts, invalidate earlier statistical models, or make it impossible to detect real trends in the underlying population.</p>
<p>The implications stretch beyond statistical concerns. Survey designers distinguish between gender, a social identity, and sex, a biological classification, because the two terms capture related but not identical information. Many transgender and non‑binary respondents, for example, select a gender option that differs from the sex recorded on their birth certificate.</p>
<p>If the government retroactively re‑labels a column without clarifying whether the underlying question also changed, analysts cannot tell whether a fluctuation in the male‑to‑female ratio reflects genuine demographic shifts, a wording tweak, or recoding behind the scenes. Public health officials may then allocate resources on a faulty premise, and medical guidelines that depend on demographic baselines can drift off target.</p>
<p>The authors of the study point to a possible political origin for the edits. They note that the White House issued a directive in early February instructing agencies to purge material seen as advancing “gender ideology”—language echoed by several state administrations.</p>
<p>No federal office has publicly confirmed that the dataset edits were carried out in response, yet the timing and the tight focus on the term “gender” hint at coordinated action. If the goal was to bring terminology across agencies into alignment, the transparency required by the Open Government Data Act appears to have been set aside.</p>
<p>The investigation is not without limits. Because many archives extend back only a few years, the researchers could not examine earlier periods for similar actions. They judged whether a change was routine or substantive by hand, an approach that introduces subjectivity. They also left numerical content untouched; it remains unknown whether any figures were edited alongside the wording.</p>
<p>In response to the findings, the authors suggest a series of steps that scholars and institutions can take to protect the reliability of public data. Independent groups already mirror many federal datasets on private servers, and individual investigators can save local copies of files they intend to analyze. Routine spot checks against archived versions can help reveal unexpected alterations.</p>
<p>International repositories such as Europe PubMed Central offer alternative hosting for biomedical resources, lowering dependence on any single government. Most important, the researchers argue, is a cultural commitment to full version tracking inside federal agencies—so that every member of the public can see exactly what changed, when it changed, and why.</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(25)01249-8" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Data manipulation within the US Federal Government</a>,” was authored by Janet Freilich and Aaron S. Kesselheim.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/moral-outrage-spreads-petitions-online-but-doesnt-always-inspire-people-to-sign-them/" 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;">Moral outrage spreads petitions online—but doesn’t always inspire people to sign them</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Jul 15th 2025, 06:00</div>
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<p><p>People often use social media to express outrage about injustice and support calls for social change. But a new study published in <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/19485506251335373" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Social Psychological and Personality Science</a></em> suggests that outrage may drive online attention without always translating into meaningful action. Analyzing over a million posts linking to petitions on Change.org, researchers found that posts expressing moral outrage were more likely to go viral—but those same posts were not associated with more signatures.</p>
<p>The researchers were motivated by longstanding concerns about “clicktivism,” the idea that social media enables people to feel as though they’ve contributed to a cause without taking more impactful steps. Petitions offer a useful case study for testing this, as they are widely shared online and require some level of active engagement to sign. The team wanted to know: Does the language used in social media posts influence not just how many people see the message, but whether they’re moved to act?</p>
<p>“I share the concern expressed by many about the potential negative impacts of social media,” said study author <a href="https://www.stefanleach.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Stefan Leach</a>, an incoming lecturer in psychology at the University of Southampton. “Calls for increased regulation and accountability are becoming louder, but social media companies are limiting their responsibilities and curtailing access to data. Independent research has a key role to play by providing an empirically-grounded understanding of how these platforms are shaping society.”</p>
<p>For their study, the researchers collected data on 24,785 unique petitions hosted on Change.org, one of the world’s largest online petition platforms. They used the X (formerly Twitter) academic application programming interface to identify all English-language posts that shared a link to one of these petitions. Their final dataset included over 1.2 million such posts, dating from 2006 to 2023. For each post, they recorded the number of likes and reposts it received, along with the total number of signatures the linked petition had accumulated.</p>
<p>To assess the emotional and linguistic tone of the posts, the researchers used a combination of machine learning models and validated word lists. They used the Digital Outrage Classifier, a tool trained to detect moral outrage in text, as well as BERTAgent, which identifies agentic (goal-oriented) language. They also measured how often posts included words that signal group identity—like “we” and “us”—and prosocial intent, such as “generous” or “selfless.” Each post was scored along these four dimensions.</p>
<p>The research team then used statistical models to examine how these types of language related to three outcomes: how often posts were liked, how often they were reposted, and how many signatures the linked petitions received. To avoid inflating statistical errors, they aggregated data at the petition level, calculating the average level of each language type across all posts linking to a given petition.</p>
<p>The researchers found that posts with higher levels of moral outrage were more likely to be liked and reposted. In other words, outrage helped petitions spread. But outrage did not lead to more signatures. When controlling for virality—how widely a post was shared—outrage was actually associated with slightly fewer signatures. This suggests that while outrage can help get attention, it may not inspire people to take the extra step of signing.</p>
<p>By contrast, agentic language, group identity words, and prosocial expressions showed the opposite trend. Posts using these types of language were not more likely to go viral, but they were associated with more signatures. For example, petitions shared using agentic phrases like “we act now” tended to get more signers, even if the posts didn’t spread as widely. The same was true for posts that signaled shared group identity or emphasized compassion and care.</p>
<p>The researchers also conducted mediation analyses to test whether moral outrage might still have an indirect effect on petition signatures by helping content go viral. They found that while outrage did boost sharing, which in turn predicted more signatures, the direct effect of outrage—independent of sharing—was negative. This indirect pathway means that outrage can still help petitions succeed by spreading them widely, but that benefit may be offset if outrage reduces people’s motivation to engage further.</p>
<p>“I was surprised that petitions posted with moral outrage did not gather more signatures,” Leach told PsyPost. “Moral outrage tends to draw attention, and getting more attention is a surefire way of gathering signatures. That we did not observe this link suggests a more complicated process.”</p>
<p>These findings highlight the potential misalignment between what social media platforms reward and what helps movements succeed. Engagement-based algorithms tend to elevate content that triggers strong emotions like anger or disgust. But this type of content may not encourage the deeper, effortful behaviors required to bring about change.</p>
<p>“Platforms are calibrated to capture attention by amplifying moralized and emotional content,” Leach said. “This can have benefits, such as raising awareness of injustices by propagating expressions of outrage. We saw this in response to the murder of George Floyd. At the same time though, the findings suggest that online moral outrage may sometimes fail to translate into other types of collective responses, which could have greater influence on stakeholders and policymakers, such as petition signing. I hope this encourages a healthy skepticism about the role of social media in activism and collective action.”</p>
<p>As with all research, there are some caveats to consider. The data came exclusively from X, which may not represent how people behave on other platforms with different user bases or engagement features. The researchers also focused on just one type of collective action—signing petitions—and their findings may not apply to other forms of engagement, such as donating, protesting, or contacting elected officials. Since the data are observational, the study cannot determine whether moral outrage causes people to avoid signing petitions, or whether some other factor explains the relationship.</p>
<p>“We cannot say with certainty why online petitions that express moral outrage often go viral yet fail to attract more signatures,” Leach said. “One possibility is that expressing moral outrage is psychologically satisfying—so much so that it may reduce the perceived need for further action. In other words, strongly condemning injustice might feel like enough, in situations where signing a petition would have otherwise seemed necessary.”</p>
<p>Future research could explore these questions using controlled experiments that track how people respond to different types of messaging. For example, researchers could test whether expressing outrage on social media makes people feel as though they’ve already “done their part,” reducing the likelihood that they will take further steps. It would also be useful to examine how moral outrage functions in the context of more sustained or offline forms of activism.</p>
<p>“The possibility that expressing moral outrage online might reduce the impetus for further action is an interesting one,” Leach said. “Confirming it will require careful experimental work to isolate the causal effects of expressing online moral outrage on further actions.”</p>
<p>“I would not want readers to conclude that expressions of moral outrage lack value or should be discouraged,” he added. “In many cases, it is both appropriate and necessary to condemn behavior in the strongest terms and to call attention to injustice. The research is intended to help understand how moral outrage operates online, and to invite further work on its impacts.”</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/19485506251335373" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Moral Outrage Predicts the Virality of Petitions for Change on Social Media, But Not the Number of Signatures They Receive</a>,” was authored by Stefan Leach, Magdalena Formanowicz, Jan Nikadon, and Aleksandra Cichocka.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/the-triglyceride-glucose-index-can-it-predict-depression-risk-in-the-elderly/" 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;">The triglyceride-glucose index: Can it predict depression risk in the elderly?</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Jul 14th 2025, 14:00</div>
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<p><p>A large new study has found that older adults with high triglyceride-glucose levels—a marker tied to insulin resistance and metabolic health—do not appear to be at increased risk for developing depression. While previous research has suggested that metabolic dysfunction may play a role in mental health problems, the new findings suggest that the triglyceride-glucose index is not a reliable predictor of future depression in people in their 70s and 80s. The findings were published in the <em><a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165032725007700" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Journal of Affective Disorders</a></em>.</p>
<p>Triglycerides are a type of fat found in the blood, while glucose is a form of sugar that serves as the body’s main source of energy. Both are routinely measured in blood tests and are important indicators of metabolic health. When levels of both are high—especially after fasting—it can signal insulin resistance, which has been linked to conditions like type 2 diabetes and heart disease.</p>
<p>The triglyceride-glucose index, or TyG, combines these two values using a mathematical formula. Because insulin resistance and depression sometimes occur together, researchers have been exploring whether TyG might also help identify people at risk for mood disorders.</p>
<p>Several earlier studies, mostly based on data collected at a single point in time, found that higher TyG levels were associated with more depressive symptoms. These results led to speculation that TyG might be a useful early marker of depression risk. However, cross-sectional studies cannot show whether high TyG comes before depression or is a consequence of it. To better understand the direction of this relationship, researchers from Australia and the United States conducted a large, long-term study tracking changes in metabolic and mental health over time.</p>
<p>“I’m fascinated by what makes older adults vulnerable to developing depression,” said study author <a href="https://www.malcolmforbes.com.au/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Malcolm Forbes</a>, a research fellow at the Institute for Mental & Physical Health and Clinical Translation at <a href="https://impact.deakin.edu.au/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Deakin University</a>. “Metabolic dysfunction and depression often go hand-in-hand, yet most evidence is cross-sectional. The triglyceride–glucose (TyG) index is a simple, inexpensive surrogate for insulin resistance. We wanted to see whether TyG could prospectively flag people at higher risk of developing depressive symptoms.”</p>
<p>The study included more than 19,000 adults from the ASPREE and ASPREE-XT studies. All participants were aged 70 or older (or 65 and older for some racial and ethnic minorities in the U.S.) and living independently when they enrolled. They were relatively healthy at the outset, with no history of dementia, cardiovascular disease, or serious physical disability. Participants were followed for up to 11 years, with annual check-ins that included fasting blood tests and mental health assessments.</p>
<p>To calculate the TyG index, the researchers used fasting blood samples to measure triglyceride and glucose levels. They then followed participants for at least one year to see whether those with higher TyG values were more likely to score above a threshold for depression on a widely used 10-item screening questionnaire. A score of 8 or more was used to indicate the presence of depressive symptoms.</p>
<p>The researchers used statistical models that accounted for a wide range of factors that could influence both metabolic health and depression, including age, sex, education, smoking, alcohol use, body mass index, chronic diseases, and use of medications such as antidepressants and statins.</p>
<p>In the unadjusted model, participants in the highest TyG quartile were about 23% more likely to show signs of depression one year later than those in the lowest quartile. But this link weakened once the researchers adjusted for other health and lifestyle variables. In the fully adjusted model, the difference was no longer statistically significant. Additional analyses using different cutoffs for depression, or excluding people with conditions like diabetes or metabolic syndrome, yielded similar results.</p>
<p>“Given prior cross-sectional links between insulin resistance and depression, we expected at least a modest longitudinal signal,” Forbes told PsyPost. “The complete loss of association after full adjustment suggests confounding factors (e.g., obesity, chronic illness) are doing the heavy lifting.”</p>
<p>The researchers also looked at long-term outcomes using a different model that followed participants over an average of nearly seven years. Again, they found no meaningful difference in the likelihood of developing depression between those with high versus low TyG levels after accounting for other variables. These findings held up even when the researchers examined subgroups based on sex or age. For example, people in their mid-60s to early 70s showed a small increase in depression risk with higher TyG, but this trend did not appear in older age groups and did not reach statistical significance when considering all participants together.</p>
<p>The study’s authors note that TyG may still be relevant in other ways. For example, higher TyG has been associated with cognitive problems in other research, which could eventually contribute to depression. But that was not the case here. It is also possible that metabolic problems in midlife—not old age—are more predictive of later depression, and this study focused on people who were already in their 70s or 80s.</p>
<p>“For people in their 70s and 80s, having a high TyG index didn’t translate into a greater likelihood of future depression after we accounted for other health and lifestyle factors,” Forbes said. “In other words, keeping your blood sugars and lipids in check remains vital for heart and metabolic health, but it doesn’t appear to be a stand-alone predictor of mood problems.”</p>
<p>One important consideration is the way depression was measured. The study relied on a self-report questionnaire rather than clinical diagnoses. While the tool used is validated and widely accepted, it may miss some cases or overestimate symptoms that are mild or temporary.</p>
<p>The researchers also acknowledge that their participants were relatively healthy and may not reflect the broader population of older adults, especially those with more serious medical or psychiatric conditions. Most participants were white, and those who joined the follow-up study tended to be in better health than those who did not.</p>
<p>Even with these limitations, the study offers a valuable contribution to the conversation about metabolic health and mental well-being in older age. It suggests that while managing blood sugar and lipid levels is important for physical health, these measures do not appear to offer additional insight into a person’s future risk of depression.</p>
<p>The authors are now planning further research to explore whether other biological markers are more closely tied to depression risk in older adults. By investigating a wider range of biological and environmental factors, the researchers hope to better understand the complex pathways that influence emotional health in late life. We’re examining links between inflammation (C-reactive protein, tumour necrosis factor alpha levels) and depression rates,” Forbes said.</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165032725007700" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Triglyceride-glucose index and its association with depressive symptoms in older adults: a longitudinal analysis</a>,” was authored by Malcolm Forbes, Mohammadreza Mohebbi, Robyn L. Woods, Mojtaba Lotfaliany, Charles F. Reynolds III, Adrienne O’Neil,John J. McNeil, and Michael Berk.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/people-with-adhd-exhibit-altered-brain-activity-before-making-high-stakes-choices/" 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;">People with ADHD exhibit altered brain activity before making high-stakes choices</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Jul 14th 2025, 12:00</div>
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<p><p>New research sheds light on how the brains of adults with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder function differently when anticipating risky decisions. Individuals with ADHD showed reduced activation in key brain areas involved in self-awareness and decision-making. Among those with ADHD, women showed more activity in several of these regions than men, pointing to possible sex-related differences in how the brain processes decisions that involve uncertainty. The research was published in <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/brb3.70215" target="_blank">Brain and Behavior</a></em>.</p>
<p>ADHD is typically thought of as a childhood condition, but it often continues into adulthood. Many adults with ADHD struggle with impulsivity, emotional regulation, and decision-making. These difficulties can translate into behaviors that put them at greater risk, such as reckless driving, unsafe sex, substance use, or gambling. While previous studies have explored how people with ADHD respond to the outcomes of decisions, less is known about what happens in the brain before a decision is made—especially in emotionally charged or intuitive situations.</p>
<p>To better understand this anticipatory phase, the researchers focused on the role of unconscious and emotional processes that guide decision-making. They were particularly interested in how bodily sensations—like a quickened heartbeat or a gut feeling—might influence behavior in people with ADHD. This idea is grounded in the “somatic marker hypothesis,” which proposes that the body’s physical response to emotionally relevant information plays a role in guiding choices. The study also aimed to explore whether men and women with ADHD might show different patterns of brain activity in this context, given known sex differences in how the disorder presents.</p>
<p>The research team recruited 38 adults, including 18 with ADHD (10 women and 8 men) and 20 without the disorder (10 women and 10 men). Participants were screened to ensure they met diagnostic criteria and did not have other major psychiatric or neurological conditions. Most of the participants with ADHD had been taking stimulant medication but were asked to pause use 24 hours before the study.</p>
<p>Each participant completed a task known as the Balloon Analogue Risk Task, or BART, while undergoing brain imaging in a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanner. The task involved watching a virtual balloon inflate on a screen and deciding when to stop it before it popped. The longer they waited, the more points they could earn—but if the balloon burst before they stopped it, they would lose all the points for that round. This version of the task was designed to encourage fast, intuitive decisions rather than deliberate calculation. Reaction time—the delay between the start of the balloon inflation and when the participant pressed the stop button—was used as a behavioral measure of risk-taking.</p>
<p>While participants completed the task, researchers measured activity in their brains during the anticipation phase of each decision, before they acted. This allowed the team to examine what parts of the brain were engaged in preparing for the risky choice. They also compared results by group (ADHD vs. non-ADHD) and by sex.</p>
<p>In terms of behavior, participants with and without ADHD showed similar reaction times on average, suggesting that the groups did not differ in observable risk-taking behavior. However, the brain imaging data told a different story. Individuals with ADHD showed significantly lower activation in two specific brain areas: the right precuneus and the right superior frontal gyrus. These areas are thought to play important roles in self-awareness, internal monitoring, and integrating emotional information—functions that are often disrupted in people with ADHD.</p>
<p>The precuneus is involved in tasks that require self-reflection and awareness of internal states. It has also been linked to emotion processing and the ability to monitor bodily sensations. Meanwhile, the superior frontal gyrus is thought to help integrate cognitive and emotional information and is involved in controlling impulses. The researchers found that lower activity in these areas was associated with more severe ADHD symptoms, suggesting a link between brain function and the difficulties experienced by people with the disorder.</p>
<p>The study also revealed interesting differences between men and women with ADHD. While no sex differences in brain activity were found in the group without the disorder, women with ADHD showed greater activation in several brain regions compared to men with ADHD. These included the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, the insula, the caudate, the cuneus, and the precuneus. These areas are associated with emotion regulation, attention, and self-monitoring. The findings may suggest that women with ADHD engage more of their brain’s regulatory systems during the anticipation of a decision, possibly as a compensatory strategy.</p>
<p>This result was unexpected, given that earlier studies have found that women with ADHD may experience more difficulties with emotional regulation and internalizing symptoms like anxiety. One possible explanation is that women with stronger emotional processing skills may show less neural activation during emotional tasks, suggesting a more efficient processing style. Alternatively, women with ADHD may develop strategies that mask their symptoms, including more active engagement of brain areas that help regulate behavior.</p>
<p>It is also worth noting that, despite these brain differences, men and women did not show significant differences in reaction time on the task. This suggests that people may arrive at similar outward behavior through different internal processes, a finding that highlights the importance of looking beyond surface-level performance in psychological research.</p>
<p>While the study offers important insights, it also has limitations. The sample size was relatively small, particularly when broken down by both sex and diagnosis, which limits how broadly the findings can be applied. Additionally, although participants were asked to stop taking ADHD medications 24 hours before the study, some effects of the medication may have lingered and influenced brain activity. The study also focused on young adults, so it may not capture how these processes change with age or in more diverse populations.</p>
<p>Future studies with larger samples and longer medication washout periods will be important for confirming and expanding on these findings. In particular, researchers may benefit from combining brain imaging with physiological measures, like heart rate or skin conductance, to get a fuller picture of how the body and brain interact during decision-making. This approach could help build a more complete model of how emotions and bodily signals influence the choices made by people with ADHD.</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/brb3.70215" target="_blank">Neural Correlates and Sex-Specific Effects of Affectively Driven Processes Underlying Decision-Making in Adult ADHD</a>,” was authored by Eva Halbe, Alec Jamieson, Moritz Bergmann, Aylin Mehren, Ben J. Harrison, Christopher G. Davey, Tony Stöcker, Alexandra Philipsen, and Silke Lux.</p></p>
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<p><strong>Forwarded by:<br />
Michael Reeder LCPC<br />
Baltimore, MD</strong></p>
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