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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/people-who-believe-in-conspiracy-theories-process-information-differently-at-the-neural-level/" 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 who believe in conspiracy theories process information differently at the neural level</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Aug 31st 2025, 10:00</div>
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<p><p>A new brain imaging study published in <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-03723-z" target="_blank">Scientific Reports</a></em> provides evidence that conspiracy beliefs are linked to distinct patterns of brain activity when people evaluate information. The research indicates that people who score high on conspiracy belief scales tend to engage different cognitive systems when reading conspiracy-related statements compared to factual ones. These individuals relied more heavily on regions associated with subjective value and belief uncertainty.</p>
<p>“Our motivation for this study came from a striking gap in the literature. While conspiracy theories have a profound impact on society—from shaping political engagement to influencing health decisions—we still know very little about how the brain processes such beliefs,” said study author Shuguang Zhao of the Research Center of Journalism and Social Development at Renmin University of China.</p>
<p>“Previous research has focused on general belief processing, but the specific neural mechanisms that sustain conspiracy thinking remained unclear. The COVID-19 pandemic made this gap even more urgent. During this global crisis, conspiracy theories about the virus—whether it was deliberately created, or that vaccines were part of hidden agendas—spread rapidly across digital platforms.” </p>
<p>“Such crises tend to heighten uncertainty and fear, creating fertile ground for conspiracy narratives,” Zhao continued. “Observing how these beliefs flourished in real time underscored the importance of understanding not just what people believe, but how their brains evaluate and sustain these beliefs when confronted with threatening or ambiguous information.”</p>
<p>“Personally, I was also motivated by this broader social context: as misinformation accelerates in times of crisis, uncovering the cognitive and neural basis of why some individuals are more vulnerable to conspiracy narratives is crucial for promoting critical reasoning and resilience against misinformation.”</p>
<p>The research team recruited 388 Chinese-speaking participants who completed a set of online surveys designed to measure general conspiracy beliefs. These included items from three well-established scales: the Generic Conspiracist Beliefs Scale, the Conspiracy Mentality Scale, and the Conspiracy Theory Ideation Scale. Each item was rated on a seven-point scale, and the total scores were used to identify individuals with either high or low levels of conspiracy belief. The top and bottom ten percent of scorers were invited to participate in a brain imaging experiment.</p>
<p>From this pool, the researchers selected 31 participants: 19 high-belief individuals and 12 low-belief individuals. All were between 18 and 32 years old, right-handed, and free from psychiatric or neurological disorders. Before undergoing brain scanning, participants completed practice trials to ensure they understood the task.</p>
<p>Inside the MRI scanner, participants were shown 72 statements formatted to resemble posts from Weibo, a popular Chinese social media platform. Half of the statements reflected conspiracy theories, and the other half presented factual information from state media sources. Each post was presented both visually and through audio recordings to control reading speed. After each statement, participants rated how much they believed the information using a seven-point scale ranging from “not at all” to “completely.”</p>
<p>The researchers used high-resolution brain imaging to record blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) signals throughout the task. This method allows scientists to infer which brain regions are more active based on changes in blood flow. They then analyzed the data to compare brain activity during the evaluation of conspiracy versus factual information across the two belief groups.</p>
<p>At the behavioral level, both high- and low-belief participants were more likely to believe factual statements than conspiratorial ones. However, high-belief individuals were significantly more likely to endorse conspiracy-related content compared to their low-belief counterparts. Notably, the groups did not differ significantly in their belief ratings for factual information, suggesting that the belief gap was specific to conspiracy-related content.</p>
<p>“One surprising finding was that individuals with high conspiracy beliefs did not differ from low-belief individuals when evaluating factual information,” Zhao told psyPost. “Their bias only appeared with conspiracy-related content. This suggests that conspiracy beliefs are not about being generally gullible, but rather reflect a selective way of processing information that aligns with conspiratorial worldviews.”</p>
<p>Brain imaging results revealed a double dissociation. When evaluating conspiracy-related information, high-belief individuals showed greater activity in two key regions of the prefrontal cortex: the ventromedial prefrontal cortex and the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex. These areas are thought to be involved in emotional value assignment and monitoring uncertainty during belief evaluation. The ventromedial prefrontal cortex helps assign meaning or value to information, especially when evaluating how well it aligns with prior beliefs. The dorsomedial region is often linked to handling ambiguity and maintaining stable beliefs over time, even when evidence is ambiguous or conflicting.</p>
<p>In contrast, low-belief participants exhibited more activity in the hippocampus and the precuneus when evaluating conspiracy content. These regions are associated with memory retrieval and self-referential thinking. The hippocampus plays a central role in integrating new information with existing knowledge and storing episodic memories, while the precuneus is involved in recalling past experiences and imagining future events. The pattern suggests that people who reject conspiracy narratives may be more likely to evaluate claims by drawing on past knowledge and contextual memory.</p>
<p>Importantly, the group differences in brain activity emerged only when participants evaluated conspiracy-related statements. There were no significant neural differences between high- and low-belief individuals when reading factual information, again pointing to a content-specific effect rather than a generalized cognitive style.</p>
<p>“The most important takeaway is that conspiracy beliefs are not simply a matter of being more gullible or less intelligent,” Zhao said. “Instead, our results show that people with high levels of conspiracy belief process information through different neural pathways compared to those with low levels.”</p>
<p>“At the behavioral level, we found that high-belief individuals were more likely to endorse conspiracy-related statements, but they evaluated factual information just as accurately as low belief individuals. This suggests that conspiracy thinking is a selective bias—it shapes how people respond to conspiratorial content, rather than causing a general inability to recognize facts.”</p>
<p>“At the neural level, we observed a clear divergence. High conspiracy believers showed stronger activation in the ventromedial and dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, regions involved in value-based judgment and managing uncertainty. In contrast, low conspiracy believers engaged the hippocampus and precuneus, areas important for retrieving and integrating memories when evaluating new information.”</p>
<p>“Taken together, these findings suggest that conspiracy beliefs persist not just because of what people believe, but because of how their brains evaluate and sustain certain types of information. This helps explain why conspiracy theories can be so resistant to counterevidence and why they often thrive during times of social crisis.”</p>
<p>But the study, like all research, includes some limitations. The sample size was relatively small, and all participants were native Chinese speakers recruited from a university setting. This raises questions about how well the findings would apply to other cultural contexts, particularly in societies with different media landscapes or conspiracy traditions. Additionally, the use of Weibo-style posts added ecological validity within China, but results may differ in other social media formats or in more interactive communication settings.</p>
<p>“Our next step is to move beyond conspiracy beliefs and examine how people process misinformation more broadly, especially in the context of rapidly advancing AI,” Zhao explained. “As AI systems are increasingly capable of generating large volumes of content, including plausible but misleading explanations, it is crucial to understand how such information affects trust, reasoning, and decision-making.”</p>
<p>“In the long run, our goal is to uncover the cognitive and neural mechanisms that make people vulnerable to AI-driven misinformation, and to explore how labeling, explanation style, or source cues might mitigate these risks. By doing so, we hope to contribute to strategies that help individuals navigate an information environment where truth and falsehood are becoming harder to distinguish.”</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-03723-z" target="_blank">Neural correlates of conspiracy beliefs during information evaluation</a>,” was authored by Shuguang Zhao, Ting Wang, and Bingsen Xiong.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/religiosity-may-function-as-a-mating-strategy-shaped-by-disease-avoidance-psychology/" 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;">Religiosity may function as a mating strategy shaped by disease avoidance psychology</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Aug 31st 2025, 08:00</div>
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<p><p>A recent study suggests that religiosity may serve an adaptive role in human evolution by supporting monogamous mating strategies. The researchers found that people who are more sensitive to pathogen-related disgust also tend to be more religious, and this connection is partly explained by a preference for more restricted sociosexual attitudes. In contrast, the study found no support for other theories that tie religiosity to adherence to tradition or avoidance of outgroups.</p>
<p>The findings, published in <em><a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2026-41811-001" target="_blank">Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences</a></em>, contribute to a growing body of research suggesting that religious behaviors and beliefs may serve deeper evolutionary functions, particularly in helping individuals avoid the costs associated with mating in a pathogen-rich environment.</p>
<p>Religiosity is one of the most widespread and persistent features of human culture, but from a strictly evolutionary standpoint, it presents something of a puzzle. Participating in religious rituals, adhering to religious norms, and avoiding counter-normative behaviors often entail significant opportunity costs. And yet, religiosity is a near-universal phenomenon across human societies. This raises a key question: Why would such a costly behavior persist throughout human evolution?</p>
<p>One line of research suggests that religiosity might be an adaptive response to the threat of infectious disease. The behavioral immune system—a set of psychological mechanisms evolved to detect and avoid pathogens—might influence how religious someone becomes. Since religious norms often promote cleanliness, discourage promiscuity, and sometimes limit contact with outsiders, they might serve to reduce exposure to disease.</p>
<p>Although past studies have linked disgust sensitivity to both religiosity and social conservatism, the specific psychological pathways that connect them remain unclear. The current study set out to test three possible explanations: first, that religiosity arises from a desire to adhere to traditional cultural practices; second, that it stems from a tendency to avoid contact with outgroup members who may carry unfamiliar pathogens; and third, that it is driven by a more monogamous sexual strategy designed to reduce disease risk from mating.</p>
<p>“Religiosity is an evolutionary puzzle, because it has evolutionary fitness costs but is ubiquitous throughout societies,” said study author <a href="https://benjaminjzubaly.github.io" target="_blank">Benjamin Zubaly</a>, a PhD student at the University of Michigan and member of <a href="https://sites.lsa.umich.edu/esplab/" target="_blank">the Evolutionary Social Psychology Lab</a>.</p>
<p>“Moreover, not everyone is religious to the same degree, and previous work has shown that the level of one’s religiosity is related to psychological disease avoidance processes. We were interested in understanding the nexus of these problems. That is, how can the psychology of disease avoidance help us to understand why people differ in how religious they are?”</p>
<p>The researchers recruited 289 adult participants from a broad range of national and ethnic backgrounds using the online platform Prolific. Participants completed a series of questionnaires assessing their religiosity, disgust sensitivity, sociosexual orientation, support for traditionalism, and ethnocentrism.</p>
<p>To assess how religious each participant was, the researchers used a brief but comprehensive tool known as the Centrality of Religiosity Scale, or CRS-5. This scale includes five items that reflect different dimensions of religious involvement. One item asks about how often participants think about religious issues, capturing their intellectual engagement with religion. Another item addresses their belief in core religious teachings, such as the existence of God or a higher power. Two more items ask about their behavior—how often they attend public religious services and how frequently they engage in private practices like prayer. The final item assesses religious experience, such as whether participants feel personally connected to the divine. </p>
<p>To measure disgust sensitivity, the researchers focused specifically on pathogen-related disgust—a type of emotional reaction believed to be part of the behavioral immune system. For this, the researchers used the pathogen disgust subscale of the Three Domains of Disgust Scale. This subscale includes items that ask participants to rate how disgusted they would feel in response to scenarios that involve potential contamination, such as stepping in dog feces, seeing moldy food, or coming into contact with someone who is sneezing without covering their mouth.</p>
<p>To capture participants’ sexual attitudes and strategies, the researchers administered the attitudes subscale of the Revised Sociosexual Orientation Inventory. This subscale asks participants how strongly they agree or disagree with statements about casual sex. For example, they are asked whether they believe that sex without love is acceptable or whether they think they need to be emotionally involved with someone before becoming sexually active.</p>
<p>To measure traditionalism, the researchers used a modified version of the Conventionalism subscale from a broader authoritarianism questionnaire. This subscale typically assesses how strongly someone supports traditional norms and values, such as respect for authority, loyalty to established customs, and opposition to change. The modified version used in this study removed items with overt religious or sexual content in order to avoid overlap with the religiosity and sexual strategy measures. Instead, it focused on more general statements about preserving traditional ways of life and maintaining societal stability, allowing for a cleaner test of whether traditionalism—apart from religion or sexuality—helps explain the link between disgust sensitivity and religiosity.</p>
<p>Lastly, the researchers assessed outgroup avoidance tendencies through a measure of ethnocentrism, specifically using the in-group preference subscale of the Generalized Ethnocentrism Scale. This scale asks participants to rate how much they prefer members of their own cultural or national group over those from other groups. Items may include statements such as “I prefer to be with people of my own culture” or “I feel more comfortable around people who are like me.” In this study, ethnocentrism was used as a stand-in for a broader desire to avoid outgroup members, which, according to some disease-avoidance theories, may function as a way to reduce exposure to unfamiliar pathogens.</p>
<p>The strongest and most consistent finding was that individuals who were more sensitive to pathogen-related disgust tended to report higher levels of religiosity, and that this relationship was partially explained by more restricted attitudes toward casual sex. People who preferred a monogamous mating strategy were more likely to score higher on measures of religiosity.</p>
<p>This effect was statistically significant and accounted for approximately 34 percent of the total link between disgust and religiosity. The findings were robust across multiple statistical models, remained consistent when sex was controlled for, and held up even when looking only at participants who identified as religious.</p>
<p>“We tested a variety of explanations for why disease avoidance psychology may influence how religious one is. Our results showed that people who were more sensitive to experiencing disgust tended to be more religious to the extent that they also had more monogamous sexual attitudes. This suggests that one function of religiosity may be to support a monogamous mating strategy, thereby reducing disease risk on the mating scene.”</p>
<p>By contrast, the researchers found no support for the idea that the link between disgust and religiosity is driven by a desire to follow traditional norms. When using a version of the traditionalism scale stripped of explicitly religious or sexual content, the researchers found no significant relationship between disgust sensitivity and support for traditional values.</p>
<p>Similarly, there was no evidence that disgust leads to religiosity through a desire to avoid outgroup members. The researchers used a general measure of ethnocentrism to avoid cultural or sexual bias, but still found no significant associations. This suggests that previous findings tying disgust sensitivity to outgroup prejudice may reflect confounding with sexual norms, especially attitudes toward sexual minorities.</p>
<p>An exploratory analysis also tested whether other components of sociosexuality—such as sexual desire or behavior—might play a role in explaining the disgust-religiosity link. However, only sociosexual attitudes, which reflect personal views on the acceptability of casual sex, were found to be a significant mediator. Desire and behavior did not account for any part of the relationship.</p>
<p>“There were some surprising results. We found no evidence for the ideas that traditional practices or out-group avoidance may be playing a role in the relationship between disease avoidance and religiosity, despite previous research suggesting this may be the case. Additionally, we found that our results were primarily driven by sexual attitudes, rather than sexual desire. Future work can help to unpack the implications of this distinction.”</p>
<p>This finding suggests that what people believe or approve of when it comes to sex plays a stronger role than what they feel or actually do. While that might seem surprising, it aligns with the idea that religiosity functions more as a guide for managing mating norms than as a direct response to sexual impulses.</p>
<p>As with all research, the study has some limitations. The sample, while international, was composed mostly of individuals who identified as Christian. Since different religious traditions vary in how strongly they emphasize monogamy or regulate sexual behavior, the results may not apply equally across faiths. Future studies involving non-Western or non-Christian participants could help clarify whether the findings generalize.</p>
<p>Additionally, while the data support a model in which disgust sensitivity leads to religiosity through a preference for monogamous sexual behavior, the research is correlational and cannot establish causality. The researchers acknowledge that it is possible for religiosity to shape sexual attitudes or even disgust sensitivity, although prior work suggests that this direction of influence is less likely.</p>
<p>“This work is a part of a large body of research that aims to understand how the psychology of disease avoidance interacts with the social world. Future work in this area can help us to better understand those basic social processes.”</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1037/ebs0000388" target="_blank">Sociosexual Attitudes Mediate the Relationship Between Behavioral Immune System Reactivity and Religiosity</a>,” was authored by Benjamin Zubaly, Kelly Arbeau, and Jaime Palmer-Hague.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/trump-shows-signs-of-cognitive-shift-after-2024-shooting-study-suggests/" 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;">Trump shows signs of cognitive shift after 2024 shooting, study suggests</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Aug 31st 2025, 06:00</div>
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<p><p>A <a href="https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10970771" target="_blank">new study</a> presented at the 2025 IEEE Symposium on Computational Intelligence suggests that Donald Trump’s metaphorical language changed in the wake of the 2024 assassination attempt. By analyzing his campaign speeches using a computational metaphor analysis tool, the researchers found evidence that Trump’s cognitive patterns, as reflected in his speech, appeared to return to styles he used in 2016. This shift may indicate a psychological retreat to familiar mental frameworks following the trauma.</p>
<p>The attempted assassination of Donald Trump on July 13, 2024, during a campaign rally in Pennsylvania, raised new questions about the psychological impact of traumatic events on public figures. Research on trauma has often centered on long-term outcomes such as post-traumatic stress disorder, partly because measuring immediate cognitive responses can be difficult. Standard tools like interviews, brain imaging, or physiological monitoring are rarely practical or appropriate in high-profile cases involving political leaders.</p>
<p>To address this challenge, the research team adopted a different strategy. Drawing on ideas from cognitive linguistics and trauma theory, they explored how trauma might shape the way people use metaphors in language. Rather than treating metaphors purely as stylistic elements, the researchers approached them as reflections of underlying thought processes. By tracking changes in metaphorical language across Trump’s campaign speeches, they sought to detect cognitive shifts that might occur in the aftermath of trauma—without requiring direct clinical access to the subject.</p>
<p>For their study, the researchers collected official campaign speeches from three periods: his 2016 presidential run, his 2024 campaign before the assassination attempt, and his 2024 campaign after the shooting. These speeches were sourced from “The American Presidency Project” and “C-SPAN,” which archive political content with a focus on formal public communication.</p>
<p>They used MetaPro, a computational tool designed to identify and analyze metaphorical language in large bodies of text. MetaPro works by detecting metaphors at the word and sentence level, then translating those figurative expressions into a structured format known as “concept mappings.” These mappings represent the underlying cognitive framework of a metaphor by pairing an abstract idea—called the “target” concept—with a more concrete, sensory-based “source” concept. </p>
<p>For instance, in the phrase “a big success,” the abstract idea of success (the target) is described using the physical characteristic of size (the source), resulting in the mapping “IMPORTANCE is SIZE.” This process allows researchers to systematically capture how individuals use familiar physical experiences to describe intangible ideas, offering a way to infer patterns of thought and mental framing from language alone.</p>
<p>Across the dataset, MetaPro identified thousands of metaphors: 7,346 in the 2016 speeches, 3,650 in the 2024 pre-shooting speeches, and 8,303 in the 2024 post-shooting speeches. Each period revealed hundreds of unique source and target concepts, as well as over a thousand unique concept mappings. By comparing the most frequently used mappings across these timeframes, the team sought to determine whether Trump’s metaphorical language—and by extension, his cognitive framing—shifted after the traumatic event.</p>
<p>The researchers did not find evidence of a wholesale change in Trump’s speech patterns following the shooting. His most commonly used metaphors remained relatively stable across all three periods. Concepts like “ACT,” “ACTION,” “EVENT,” “SIZE,” and “IMPORTANCE” featured prominently in each set of speeches. Common metaphors such as “SIZE is IMPORTANCE” and “DIRECTION is POSITION” consistently appeared, emphasizing themes of magnitude, direction, and agency.</p>
<p>However, a closer look at the data pointed to subtler shifts. Notably, Trump’s post-shooting metaphorical language bore a stronger resemblance to his 2016 speeches than to his own speeches earlier in 2024. The researchers used a statistical technique known as Jaccard Similarity to compare the overlap between sets of concept mappings. The analysis showed that the metaphors used after the shooting were more aligned with those from 2016, suggesting a return to earlier cognitive frameworks.</p>
<p>This pattern may indicate a psychological coping strategy. The researchers propose that trauma might lead individuals to revert to previously established ways of thinking. In Trump’s case, the metaphors from 2016 may have represented a mental template that he returned to in an effort to regain stability after the shooting.</p>
<p>There were also notable differences in metaphor themes before and after the shooting. Before the gunshot incident, Trump’s metaphors leaned toward action, production, and success. He used expressions that framed action as equivalent to achievement, such as “ACT is SUCCESS” and “POSSESSION is PRODUCTION.” These reflected a goal-oriented perspective that emphasized movement, results, and personal agency.</p>
<p>After the shooting, his metaphorical patterns shifted toward inner states and cognitive processes. New dominant metaphors included “BASIC COGNITIVE PROCESS is STATE,” “STATEMENT is CONCEPT,” and “HIGHER COGNITIVE PROCESS is PERCEPTION.” These suggest a deeper engagement with mental states and self-reflection. There was also an increase in metaphors connecting production to construction and effort, such as “PRODUCTION is ACT” and “ACTIVITY is WORK,” which may indicate a reframing of success as something that requires sustained labor rather than mere accomplishment.</p>
<p>Additionally, certain metaphors that emerged after the gunshot emphasized disappearance and elimination. “ACTION is DISAPPEARANCE” was among the top mappings post-shooting, which might reflect a stronger emphasis on removing threats or solving problems through decisive action. This could relate both to Trump’s messaging around safety and control and to his heightened sensitivity to vulnerability following the attack.</p>
<p>Another finding concerned the narrowing of certain metaphors after the incident. Before the shooting, concepts like “ACT” were associated with multiple source domains such as “PRODUCTION,” “COMMUNICATION,” and “SUCCESS.” After the shooting, this diversity shrank, with “ACT” primarily tied to the concept of “POSITION.” The researchers interpret this as a simplification of thought patterns, possibly reflecting a defense mechanism to cope with stress.</p>
<p>The team also observed shifts in how Trump used metaphors related to the body. For instance, the concept of an “OBJECT” moved from being associated with “ARTIFACT” to “BODY PART” after the shooting. This change may reflect an increased focus on physical vulnerability and personal safety. Similarly, metaphors related to “POSSESSION” shifted from themes of production to themes of communication, suggesting a greater emphasis on social connection and public messaging after the traumatic event.</p>
<p>As with all case studies of public figures, the findings should be interpreted with caution. The study does not make clinical claims about Trump’s mental health, nor can it establish definitive causality between the shooting and the changes in his metaphor use. The researchers also relied exclusively on formal campaign speeches, which are typically scripted or semi-scripted, meaning they may reflect the input of speechwriters and advisers rather than Trump’s spontaneous thought processes.</p>
<p>And while metaphor analysis provides a compelling lens into cognitive framing, it remains an indirect method. Factors like speech context, audience, and political strategy may also influence metaphor use. It is difficult to separate changes in personal cognition from calculated messaging shifts designed for rhetorical effect.</p>
<p>Still, the study offers an innovative way to assess cognitive responses to trauma without requiring invasive measures. By analyzing language over time, the method provides a window into how traumatic experiences may shape thought patterns, even in the absence of direct access to the subject. Future research might apply similar techniques to other political leaders or public figures who have undergone high-stress events, helping to build a broader understanding of how trauma shapes cognition in public life.</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1109/CI-NLPSoMe64976.2025.10970771" target="_blank">Analyzing the Cognitive Impact of Trauma from a Metaphorical Perspective: A Case Study on the Attempted Assassination of Donald Trump</a>,” was authored by Meihui Jia, Rui Mao, Yunhe Xie, Shen Ren, and Erik Cambria.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/scientists-fed-people-a-fat-filled-milkshake-it-disrupted-blood-flow-to-their-brains-within-hours/" style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing:-1px;margin:0;padding:0 0 2px;font-weight: bold;font-size: 19px;line-height: 20px;color:#222;">Scientists fed people a fat-filled milkshake – it disrupted blood flow to their brains within hours</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Aug 30th 2025, 16:00</div>
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<p><p>A greasy takeaway may seem like an innocent Friday night indulgence. But our <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S3050624725000051">recent research</a> suggests even a single high-fat meal could impair blood flow to the brain, potentially increasing the risk of stroke and dementia.</p>
<p>Dietary fat is an important part of our diet. It provides us with a concentrated source of energy, transports vitamins and when stored in the body, protects our organs and helps keep us warm. The two main types of fat that we consume are saturated and unsaturated (monounsaturated and polyunsaturated), which are differentiated by their chemical composition.</p>
<p>But these fats have different effects on our body. For example, it is well established that eating a meal that is high in saturated fat, such as that self-indulgent Friday night takeaway pizza, can be bad for our blood vessels and heart health. And these effects are not simply confined to the heart.</p>
<p>The brain has limited energy stores, which means it is heavily reliant on a continuous supply of blood delivering oxygen and glucose to maintain normal function.</p>
<p>One of the ways the body maintains this supply is through a process known as <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0271678X241235878">“dynamic cerebral autoregulation”</a>. This process ensures that blood flow to the brain remains stable despite everyday changes in blood pressure, such as standing up and exercising. It’s like having shock absorbers that help keep our brains cool under pressure.</p>
<p>But when this process is impaired, those swings in blood pressure become harder to manage. That can mean brief episodes of too little or too much blood reaching the brain. Over time, this increases the risk of developing conditions like stroke and dementia.</p>
<h2>What role might diet play?</h2>
<p>After eating a meal high in saturated fat, levels of fat in the blood rise and peak after around four hours. At the same time, blood vessels become stiffer and lose their ability to relax and expand. This restricts blood flow around the body. But little is known about what happens to the brain during this time and how well its blood supply is protected.</p>
<p>To address this for the first time, we recruited 20 young men between the ages of 18 and 35, and 21 men between 60 and 80. We measured how well blood vessels linked to heart and brain health worked before, and four hours following, consumption of a meal high in saturated fat.</p>
<p>We assessed how well a blood vessel in the arm could open up in response to increased blood flow to obtain an indication of heart health. This is a method known as <a href="https://journals.physiology.org/doi/full/10.1152/ajpheart.00471.2010">“flow-mediated dilatation”</a>.</p>
<p>To evaluate how well blood vessels in the brain could cope with swings in blood pressure, our participants performed body-weight squats. We used ultrasound to determine how well blood flowed through vessels during both methods.</p>
<p>The test meal was a milkshake, which we called “the brain bomb” because it consisted mostly of heavy whipping cream. The drink contained 1,362 calories and 130g of fat, mimicking the fat load of a fast-food takeaway.</p>
<p>Our findings confirmed previous research that has shown that a high-fat meal impairs the ability of the blood vessels linked to heart health to open in both young and old participants. These impairments reduced the brain’s ability to buffer changes in blood pressure. This was more pronounced (by about 10%) in the older adults, suggesting that older brains may be more vulnerable to the effects of the meal.</p>
<p>Although we didn’t directly test for the long-term effects of a high-fat meal on mental functioning in this study, <a href="https://portlandpress.com/clinsci/article-abstract/131/23/2807/71652/Post-prandial-hyperlipidaemia-results-in-systemic?redirectedFrom=fulltext">we have previously shown</a> that such a meal increases free radicals (unstable, cell-damaging molecules) and decreases nitric oxide (molecules that help blood vessels relax and open up to transport oxygen and glucose around the body).</p>
<p>This may explain the reduced blood flow regulation we observed in our recent study.</p>
<p>This has important clinical implications. While an occasional takeaway is unlikely to cause harm on its own, our results suggest that even one fatty meal has an immediate effect on the body.</p>
<p>Our study highlights the importance of consuming a diet that is low in saturated fat to protect not only our heart health, but also our brain health. This is particularly important for older adults whose brains appear to be more vulnerable to the effects of such a meal and are already at increased risk of stroke and neurodegenerative diseases.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/eat-well/food-types/different-fats-nutrition/">NHS recommendeds</a> that men consume no more than 30g of saturated fat a day, while women should consume no more than 20g. Yet many of us routinely exceed that, particularly during weekend takeaways, pub lunches or fast-food splurges.</p>
<p>What’s more, we may spend much of our waking lives in a post-meal state. This period, known as <a href="https://lipidworld.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12944-017-0568-5">“post-prandial lipaemia”</a>, is when fat levels are elevated, and when the body, it seems, may be most at risk.</p>
<h2>Food for thought</h2>
<p>There’s still so much more we need to learn about this topic.</p>
<p>Public health <a href="https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/eat-well/food-types/different-fats-nutrition/">guidance</a> recommends swapping saturated fats for polyunsaturated ones. These are found in foods like oily fish, walnuts and seeds, which are associated with better heart and brain health over the long term. But we don’t yet know how the brain responds to a single meal that is high in polyunsaturated fat.</p>
<p>Nor do we know how the female brain responds to a high-fat meal. This is a crucial gap in our knowledge since women face a greater risk of <a href="https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/full/10.1161/CIR.0000000000000950">stroke</a> and <a href="https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpub/article/PIIS2468-2667(21)00249-8/fulltext">dementia</a> in later life compared to men.</p>
<p>Our study offers a timely reminder that diet doesn’t just shape our long-term health. It also affects our body and brain in real time. And as we’re learning, when it comes to protecting brain health, every meal may count.<!-- Below is The Conversation's page counter tag. Please DO NOT REMOVE. --><img decoding="async" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/259961/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/we-fed-people-a-milkshake-with-130g-of-fat-to-see-what-it-did-to-their-brains-heres-what-we-learned-259961">original article</a>.</em></p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/despite-the-hype-generative-ai-hasnt-outshined-humans-in-creative-idea-generation/" style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing:-1px;margin:0;padding:0 0 2px;font-weight: bold;font-size: 19px;line-height: 20px;color:#222;">Despite the hype, generative AI hasn’t outshined humans in creative idea generation</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Aug 30th 2025, 14:00</div>
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<p><p>Despite the rapid rise of generative AI in artistic and professional domains, new research suggests that artificial intelligence has not surpassed humans in creative thinking. After analyzing 17 experimental studies comparing human and AI-generated ideas, the researchers found no compelling evidence that AI consistently outperforms humans in generating original or useful ideas. While some individual studies suggested advantages for generative models, a broader statistical analysis indicated that these results may not hold up under closer scrutiny.</p>
<p>Generative AI refers to computer systems designed to produce content—such as text, images, music, or ideas—based on prompts provided by human users. Tools like ChatGPT rely on large language models trained on vast amounts of text data to simulate human-like responses. In recent years, these systems have been widely used to support creative tasks, from brainstorming product ideas to generating marketing slogans. Their speed and fluency have led many to believe that AI might soon rival—or even exceed—human creativity.</p>
<p>“What initially piqued our curiosity was the general debate within our fields about whether generative AI has now reached a level that outperforms human creativity on various parameters, including in idea generation,” explained study authors <a href="https://www.tilburguniversity.edu/staff/alwinderooij" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Alwin de Rooij</a> (assistant professor at Tilburg University and associate professor at Avans University of Applied Sciences) and <a href="https://www.au.dk/en/mmb@cc.au.dk/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Michael Mose Biskjaer</a> (associate Professor at Aarhus University).</p>
<p>“Concretely, we noticed some striking claims from a few early studies suggesting that AI had indeed surpassed human creativity. The contention, in those studies, is that when ideas generated by humans are compared to those generated by prompting GenAI for creative ideas, ideas by GenAI are more likely to be judged as creative. Although these findings attracted wide media attention, the evidence from this first wave of studies after ChatGPT’s release also seemed inconsistent if you consider the available studies. We felt a systematic evaluation was needed to explore whether AI had really surpassed humans in creative idea generation, given the impact of this debate. Hence, we conducted a meta-analysis.”</p>
<p>The researchers conducted a meta-analysis, a statistical method used to combine findings from multiple independent studies. Their focus was on a specific aspect of creativity: idea generation. This refers to the ability to produce multiple original and relevant solutions to a given problem. It is often assessed using tasks like the Alternative Uses Task, where participants are asked to think of unconventional uses for everyday objects like bricks or paperclips. Such tasks have long served as a proxy for measuring creative potential in psychological studies.</p>
<p>The analysis included 115 effect sizes drawn from 17 experiments published between January 2022 and January 2025. In each study, researchers compared the quality of ideas generated by humans with those produced by prompting various generative AI tools. Some studies used professional participants, such as designers or domain experts, while others relied on students or crowd-sourced workers. Similarly, the AI tools tested ranged from early models like GPT-3 to more recent systems like GPT-4 and Claude.</p>
<p>Ideas were evaluated using three main criteria: originality, usefulness, and overall creativity. Importantly, judges were not told whether a given idea came from a human or a machine. This blind review process was designed to reduce potential bias and isolate the perceived creativity of the ideas themselves.</p>
<p>When the researchers combined the data from all 17 studies, they found a small average effect suggesting AI-generated ideas might be rated slightly more creative than those produced by humans. However, the difference was not statistically significant.</p>
<p>In other words, the apparent advantage for AI could be due to random variation rather than a meaningful pattern. Even when the researchers looked specifically at originality or usefulness, they found no consistent trend favoring one over the other. Any observed differences were largely driven by a few studies reporting especially large effects.</p>
<p>“Previous studies were split,” de Rooij and Biskjaer told PsyPost. “Some studies concluded that AI outperformed humans, while others said the opposite. There were also many studies with null findings. By pooling the evidence, we found a more balanced picture: AI can, of course, generate ideas that people evaluate as creative, but it has not surpassed humans in any structural way. Our results caution against overinterpreting any single study.”</p>
<p>“In short, current evidence (based on our sample) does not support any claims suggesting that generative AI has now structurally surpassed humans in creative idea generation.”</p>
<p>“This is not to say that AI cannot enable creativity,” the researchers xplained. “Far from it. The creative potential of AI is undeniable. As is the case with all other tools, not least digital creativity support tools (CSTs) developed and studied in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), this creative potential depends on the practice of the people using these tools. But prompting AI for creative ideas may not be the most efficient or fruitful strategy.”</p>
<p>“See, for instance, this paper that shows a range of ways in which AI can be used to enhance human creativity: <a href="https://research.tilburguniversity.edu/en/publications/how-artists-use-ai-as-a-responsive-material-for-art-creation" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://research.tilburguniversity.edu/en/publications/how-artists-use-ai-as-a-responsive-material-for-art-creation</a>.”</p>
<p>The researchers also examined whether certain AI models were more successful than others. Among the most frequently studied systems were GPT-3, GPT-3.5, and GPT-4—different versions of the language model powering ChatGPT. When analyzed separately, none of these models showed a statistically significant advantage over human participants. Even GPT-4, the most advanced model in the dataset, did not reliably outperform humans across tasks.</p>
<p>While these results may seem surprising given the growing capabilities of generative AI, the researchers caution against drawing overly broad conclusions. AI systems are trained on enormous datasets, often containing examples of the very tasks they are later asked to perform. As a result, they may be especially well-suited to standardized tasks that resemble their training data. But this can give the illusion of creativity without the depth or intentionality associated with human thought.</p>
<p>In contrast, human creativity is shaped by lived experience, personal values, emotional insight, and cultural context. When people generate ideas, they often draw on memories, social cues, and ethical considerations—elements that current AI systems do not truly possess. While AI may be able to simulate these processes through pattern recognition, it does not yet demonstrate the kind of situated, meaningful creativity that many scholars argue is fundamental to human innovation.</p>
<p>The researchers also highlight a broader theoretical concern. If AI models are simply producing the most statistically likely “creative” responses based on patterns in their training data, does that count as genuine creativity? Or is it more akin to a sophisticated form of imitation? This question remains unresolved, but it points to the importance of defining what we mean by creativity in the first place.</p>
<p>“One surprise was the amount of variation across studies,” de Rooij and Biskjaer said. “In some cases, generative AI initially seemed to generate significantly more original output. But those effects disappeared when we adjusted for influential values (sensitivity analysis). One explanation for our ‘no significant differences’ findings may be that, given the vast dataset that generative AI is trained on, when you then prompt it for a creative idea, it will generate a ‘most likely creative idea,’ i.e., ideas derived from what people have frequently marked as creative in the training dataset.</p>
<p>“Whenever something is frequently called creative by others, it may not be so creative after all. This may fundamentally limit the actual creative potential of generative AI models. Generally, the study confirmed our early intuitions that the ‘AI is more creative than humans’ narrative tends to be driven by a few striking findings rather than a consistent pattern.”</p>
<p>The study does have some limitations. Most of the included research focused on text-based language models, which may not capture the full range of generative AI tools, such as image or music generators. Also, many studies used narrow tasks that may not reflect the complexity of real-world creative challenges. For instance, few asked participants to co-create with AI or explore ideas over time—processes that may better capture the potential of AI-human collaboration.</p>
<p>“The meta-analysis is early and with 17 studies relatively small,” the researchers noted. “As such, it’s intended as providing a quick snapshot of the current state of generative AI, capturing works between 2022 and 2025. Who knows what future AI models will be capable of!”</p>
<p>Looking forward, the researchers suggest that future studies should explore how generative AI can be integrated into creative workflows rather than pitted against humans in one-off comparisons. Instead of asking whether AI is better or worse at creativity, it may be more productive to examine how it changes the way people think, work, and collaborate. In professional and artistic contexts, for example, generative tools might serve as partners or provocateurs, helping to spark new ideas or reframe existing problems.</p>
<p>“While AI can produce output that people judge as creative, human creativity is bound to context in different ways than AI is,” de Rooij and Biskjaer explained. “Human creativity is embedded in culture and lived experience, and it is enacted through human bodies of flesh and blood. Rather than asking whether AI has surpassed human creativity and perhaps worrying about the consequences, our studies suggest that such concerns might be unfounded. Rather, what we really need is more insight into how we can best use generative AI to enrich human creativity. And to this end, much more interdisciplinary research is needed.”</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/9u2ke_v1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Has AI Surpassed Humans in Creative Idea Generation? A Meta-Analysis</a>,” was authored by Alwin de Rooij and Michael Mose Biskjaer.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/this-diet-appears-to-protect-aging-brains-from-dementia-related-degeneration/" 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;">This diet appears to protect aging brains from dementia-related degeneration</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Aug 30th 2025, 12:00</div>
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<p><p>Older adults who consistently followed a Mediterranean-style eating pattern known as the MIND diet were less likely to show signs of a degenerative brain condition tied to memory loss and dementia, according to new research published in <a href="https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2837334" target="_blank">JAMA Network Open</a>. The study analyzed both dietary habits and brain autopsy results, offering evidence that nutrition may help protect memory-related brain regions during aging.</p>
<p>The MIND diet stands for Mediterranean–DASH Intervention for Neurodegenerative Delay. It combines elements of the Mediterranean diet, which emphasizes fruits, vegetables, fish, and olive oil, with the DASH diet, which is designed to reduce high blood pressure through reduced sodium intake and balanced nutrients. The MIND diet specifically highlights foods thought to benefit brain function, such as leafy greens, berries, nuts, whole grains, beans, poultry, and fish. It also limits foods high in saturated fat and sugar, including red meat, full-fat cheese, pastries, and fried or fast foods.</p>
<p>Previous studies have linked the MIND diet to slower cognitive decline, reduced risk of Alzheimer’s disease, and greater brain volume. However, its potential relationship with specific brain pathologies had not been fully explored. The new study aimed to address that gap by focusing on hippocampal sclerosis—a degenerative condition that affects the hippocampus, a brain structure involved in memory.</p>
<p>“We have limited treatments for dementia, and the growing aging population faces an increased risk of this condition, which affects quality of life in many ways. Previously, we have shown that the MIND diet is associated with slower cognitive decline, reduced dementia risk, less brain pathology, and greater cognitive resilience. Thus, this study was to further understand the other potential underlying mechanisms beyond Alzheimer’s pathology that can explain link between diet and cognition,” said study author Puja Agarwal, an assistant professor at Rush University Medical Center.</p>
<p>“Hippocampal health is important for older adults, particularly for memory. Hippocampal sclerosis is an important pathologic marker for hippocampal health, characterized by gliosis and neuronal loss and related to cognitive impairment and dementia beyond Alzheimer’s pathology. However, there are limited human studies on diet and hippocampal health. This study specifically looked at the MIND diet to examine its association with hippocampal sclerosis and whether that association helps explain the link between diet and cognition.”</p>
<p>The research team analyzed data from the Memory and Aging Project, a long-running study conducted by Rush University in Chicago. Participants were older adults who did not have dementia at enrollment and who agreed to donate their brains for research after death. Over the course of several years, participants completed annual evaluations, including cognitive tests, physical exams, and dietary assessments.</p>
<p>For the dietary component, participants filled out detailed food frequency questionnaires that asked about their usual intake of a wide range of foods. The researchers used these data to calculate MIND diet scores for each person, with higher scores indicating closer adherence to the diet. These scores were based on 15 components: ten considered healthy for the brain and five considered less healthy.</p>
<p>At the time of death, researchers conducted brain autopsies following standardized procedures. They examined the hippocampus for signs of sclerosis, measured the extent of neuronal loss, and assessed whether there was evidence of LATE pathology. The team also recorded other relevant factors, including whether the person had Alzheimer’s pathology, vascular disease, or a genetic risk factor (the APOE-ε4 allele).</p>
<p>Out of 809 participants, about 10 percent showed signs of hippocampal sclerosis. Those with higher MIND diet scores were less likely to have this condition, even after adjusting for age, sex, education, calorie intake, Alzheimer’s disease markers, and vascular conditions. Each additional point on the MIND diet scale was associated with a 22 percent reduction in the odds of having hippocampal sclerosis.</p>
<p>“These results were encouraging on how a modifiable risk factor such as diet may impact one’s hippocampal health via reducing the likelihood of hippocampal sclerosis,” Agarwal said.</p>
<p>The researchers also looked at cases where hippocampal sclerosis appeared alongside LATE pathology. Again, people who adhered more closely to the MIND diet had lower odds of having both conditions. However, the diet did not appear to have a significant association with LATE pathology by itself.</p>
<p>In a subset of 300 participants, the team analyzed the degree of neuronal loss in the hippocampus. Those in the highest MIND diet group had fewer signs of severe neuronal loss. Even after accounting for potential confounding factors, such as Alzheimer’s disease and vascular issues, this association remained significant.</p>
<p>Another key finding came from a mediation analysis. The researchers wanted to understand whether the link between the MIND diet and reduced dementia risk might be explained by its effect on hippocampal sclerosis. Their analysis indicated that about 21 percent of the diet’s protective effect against dementia could be attributed to its association with lower rates of hippocampal sclerosis.</p>
<p>“Our findings support the existing literature on MIND diet and brain health outcomes including cognitive decline and dementia and extends our understanding on how diet may play a role via supporting hippocampal health by its association with less hippocampal sclerosis and more neurons in the hippocampus,” Agarwal told PsyPost. “To our knowledge these are the first findings in human studies to report that the association of diet and dementia is partially mediated by hippocampal sclerosis.”</p>
<p>Importantly, the researchers ran additional tests to check the strength of their results. They excluded participants who had moderate to severe cognitive impairment early on, as well as those whose dietary data were collected close to death. Even after these adjustments, the association between the MIND diet and hippocampal health remained consistent.</p>
<p>“Given dementia is a known concern for aging population, these findings are encouraging and can have major public health implications such as to promote a good healthy diet for brain health,” Agarwal said. “It also implies that talking about a healthy diet such as MIND diet should be prioritized in the clinical settings by trained individuals.” </p>
<p>While the study presents strong evidence of a link between the MIND diet and markers of brain health, it also has some limitations. Because it is an observational study, it cannot confirm a cause-and-effect relationship. It is possible that other unmeasured factors—such as access to healthcare, broader lifestyle habits, or genetic differences—could have influenced both diet and brain health.</p>
<p>The participants in the study were primarily older White adults who agreed to donate their brains for research, which may limit how broadly the findings can be applied. The researchers noted that more work is needed to see whether these associations hold in more diverse populations or in younger age groups.</p>
<p>Another area for future research involves identifying the specific nutrients or foods that may be most beneficial. While the MIND diet includes a variety of recommended foods, it is not yet clear which components contribute most strongly to the observed effects. Ongoing research is also examining how diet interacts with biological markers of inflammation and oxidative stress in the brain.</p>
<p>“The role of modifiable lifestyle factors, including diet, is gaining momentum as a preventive strategy for dementia worldwide,” Agarwal said. “Thus, studies like ours are important and open doors for more research in this space. To further extend our findings, we are now looking into specific foods, nutrients, and biomarkers indicating neuroinflammation and oxidative stress—the two known hallmarks of Alzheimer’s disease and Alzheimer’s disease–related dementias (AD/ADRD)—using upcoming platforms so that we can develop precise dietary recommendations and generate more clinical implications for at-risk populations.”</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2837334" target="_blank">MIND Diet and Hippocampal Sclerosis Among Community-Based Older Adults</a>,” was authored by Puja Agarwal, Sonal Agrawal, Maude Wagner, Laurel J. Cherian, Neelum T. Aggarwal, Bryan D. James, Thomas M. Holland, David A. Bennett, Lisa L. Barnes, Sue E. Leurgans, and Julie A. Schneider.</p></p>
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<p><strong>Forwarded by:<br />
Michael Reeder LCPC<br />
Baltimore, MD</strong></p>
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