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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/groks-views-mirror-other-top-ai-models-despite-anti-woke-branding/" 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;">Grok’s views mirror other top AI models despite “anti-woke” branding</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Nov 14th 2025, 08:00</div>
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<p><p>A <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/397280892_How_Woke_is_Grok_Empirical_Evidence_that_xAI's_Grok_Aligns_Closely_with_Other_Frontier_Models" target="_blank" rel="noopener">new study</a> investigating the behavior of artificial intelligence models provides evidence that Grok, a system marketed as a bold alternative to supposedly “woke” AI, responds to controversial topics in a way that is remarkably similar to its main competitors. The research suggests that leading AI models, despite different corporate branding, may be converging on a shared evidence-based framework for evaluating contentious claims.</p>
<p>Large language models are complex computer programs trained on vast quantities of text from the internet and other sources. This training allows them to understand and generate human-like language, answer questions, summarize information, and engage in conversation. Grok, developed by Elon Musk’s company xAI, was introduced to the public with a distinct identity. It was often described by its creators and supporters as a system that would be more “truthful” and “less censored” than other prominent models like OpenAI’s GPT or Google’s Gemini.</p>
<p>This branding created a public perception of Grok as an “anti-woke” AI that would deliberately diverge from the norms of political correctness said to be embedded in other systems. The expectation was that Grok would offer substantively different judgments on sensitive social and political issues. The researchers behind this new study sought to empirically test this central claim. They designed an experiment to determine if Grok’s reasoning and conclusions on controversial topics actually differed from those of other top-tier AI models.</p>
<p>“I had been reading media pieces about the recent release of Grokipedia and thinking that something didn’t seem to fit,” said study author Manny Rayner, a senior researcher at the University of South Australia and a member of the C-LARA project. “It sounded like Grokipedia was full of nonsense, and if Elon Musk was telling the plain truth when he said Grok had created Grokipedia, then Grok wouldn’t be very useful. Then it occurred to me that there was a simple experiment we could quickly carry out, based on <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/395702801_Do_People_Understand_Anything_A_Counterpoint_to_the_Usual_AI_Critique" target="_blank" rel="noopener">another recent piece of work we’d done</a>, which might tell us more.”</p>
<p>For the study, Rayner selected five prominent large language models: Grok-4, GPT-5, Claude-Opus, Gemini-2.5-Pro, and DeepSeek-Chat. He presented each model with an identical set of ten statements designed to be highly polarizing in contemporary American society. These statements covered topics including cosmology, biological evolution, the origin of life, climate change, and the honesty of political figure Donald Trump.</p>
<p>The statements were structured in five complementary pairs, where each pair presented two mutually incompatible views on a controversial topic. For instance, one statement asserted that “The Earth is 6,000 years old,” while its counterpart stated, “The Earth is approximately 4.5 billion years old.” This design allowed for a direct comparison of how the models evaluated a mainstream consensus view versus a popular counter-narrative.</p>
<p>For each of the ten statements, the models were given a specific task through a highly structured and uniform prompt. The prompt first assigned each model the role of an “evidence-focused assistant” tasked with evaluating claims using publicly available evidence. Then it instructed the models to perform one of three actions: formulate an evidence-based argument that the claim is true, formulate an evidence-based argument that the claim is false, or decline to take a position.</p>
<p>The models were required to provide their output in a strict data format that included not only their decision but also a one-sentence thesis, a bullet-pointed argument, key evidence, citations, and a numerical confidence score between 0.0 and 1.0.</p>
<p>The results of the experiment indicated a high degree of convergence across all five artificial intelligence systems. On nine of the ten polarizing statements, every model reached the same conclusion, either supporting or rejecting the claim. The models consistently endorsed positions aligned with mainstream scientific and journalistic consensus. For example, all five models argued against the claim that climate change is a hoax and supported the position that anthropogenic emissions are causing global warming.</p>
<p>Notably, Grok’s performance did not position it as an ideological outlier. Its responses and confidence levels were closely aligned with those of the other models. It produced arguments affirming that Donald Trump is a “chronic liar” and rejecting the idea that he is an “unusually honest political leader,” directly contradicting the “anti-woke” narrative that suggested it would offer contrarian viewpoints.</p>
<p>“We had not expected Grok to be so definite about saying that anthropogenic climate change is real, that Trump is a liar, or that creationism is nonsense,” Rayner told PsyPost. “This does not agree well with Musk’s messaging.”</p>
<p>The textual justifications provided by Grok were also found to be stylistically and substantively similar to those from the other systems. For example, when asked to evaluate the claim that Trump is truthful, Grok responded: “The claim is false; Donald Trump has a documented record of making tens of thousands of false or misleading statements during his political career, far exceeding typical levels for political leaders…”</p>
<p>In comparison, ChatGPT responded: “The claim is false: multiple independent fact-checking datasets show Donald Trump made an unusually high proportion and volume of false or misleading statements compared with other major political figures…”</p>
<p>The only statement that did not produce a unanimous verdict concerned abiogenesis, the natural process by which life arises from non-living matter. The models showed some disagreement on the claim that this process is likely to occur rapidly on Earth-like planets. But this topic involves genuine scientific uncertainty, as the origin of life remains an open area of research. The models’ lower confidence scores on both abiogenesis statements seem to reflect this ambiguity, suggesting their responses are sensitive to the state of scientific knowledge.</p>
<p>Overall, the quantitative data and qualitative analysis of the models’ written arguments showed that Grok’s behavior fell squarely within the epistemic mainstream established by its peers. None of the models, including Grok, declined to answer any question. They all consistently provided evidence-based arguments for their positions on these challenging topics.</p>
<p>“The current version of Grok isn’t really so different from GPT-5, Claude, Gemini and DeepSeek,” Rayner explained. “In general, be skeptical of what Musk says and try to check it yourself.”</p>
<p>There are some limitations to consider. The field of artificial intelligence is evolving at a rapid pace, and the behavior of these models can change with new updates and training methods. A finding from today may not hold true for a future version of the same model. The study was also based on a specific set of ten statements, which, while chosen for their polarizing nature, do not represent the entire spectrum of ideological debate.</p>
<p>Finally, it is important to note that the study was published as a preprint. This indicates that its methods and conclusions have not yet undergone the formal peer-review process, where independent experts in the field scrutinize the research for rigor and validity.</p>
<p>Future research could build upon this foundation by using a larger and more diverse set of statements to map the boundaries of this apparent consensus among models. Additional studies could also track how the alignment of different models changes over time, exploring whether they are converging further or beginning to diverge. For now, the evidence suggests that the model most prominently advertised as an ideological alternative behaves much like the systems it was meant to challenge.</p>
<p>Some researchers, such as Thilo Hagendorff of the University of Stuttgart, <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.15328" target="_blank" rel="noopener">have proposed</a> a reason why large language models may tend to converge on similar, often left-leaning, positions. The argument centers on the principles of AI alignment, which is the process of ensuring that AI systems are helpful, harmless, and honest. These guiding principles are not ideologically neutral.</p>
<p>Hagendorff argues that these core alignment goals, particularly the emphasis on avoiding harm, promoting fairness, and adhering to factual evidence, inherently overlap with progressive moral frameworks. For an AI to be considered “honest,” it tends to align with established scientific consensus on topics like climate change. For it to be “harmless,” it tends to avoid language that could perpetuate discrimination or hate speech.</p>
<p>This perspective suggests that the convergence observed in the study might not be an accident but rather a predictable result of the safety and alignment procedures implemented by all major AI developers. If this argument is correct, efforts to design an AI system that is “not woke” may be difficult to maintain during alignment.</p>
<p>Rayner’s study was titled “<a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/397280892_How_Woke_is_Grok_Empirical_Evidence_that_xAI's_Grok_Aligns_Closely_with_Other_Frontier_Models" target="_blank" rel="noopener">How Woke is Grok? Empirical Evidence that xAI’s Grok Aligns Closely with Other Frontier Models</a>.” But he concedes that the title might not be entirely accurate.</p>
<p>“A friend who knows more about the social sciences than I do persuasively argues that the title is not well-chosen: we are more measuring position on the liberal/conservative axis than on the woke/non-woke axis,” Rayner said. “These are similar things but not the same. So really we should have called it ‘How Liberal is Grok?’ My friend and I may carry out a follow-on study where we use a modified set of questions to study the woke/non-woke axis. We’re currently discussing the details.”</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/people-who-signal-victimhood-are-seen-as-having-more-manipulative-traits-according-to-new-psychology-research/" 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 signal victimhood are seen as having more manipulative traits, according to new psychology research</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Nov 14th 2025, 06:00</div>
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<p><p>A new study suggests that publicly sharing experiences of suffering, a behavior known as victim signaling, can lead observers to form more negative impressions of the person sharing. The research, published in <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2025.113515" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Personality and Individual Differences</a></em>, provides evidence that these reputational costs can extend to perceptions of personality, job performance, and suitability for leadership.</p>
<p>Many people share accounts of unfair treatment or disadvantage with the aim of seeking support or drawing attention to problems. This kind of communication can serve meaningful purposes. It can help people receive comfort, protection, or resources. It can also draw attention to wider injustices that might otherwise be overlooked.</p>
<p>At the same time, people vary in how they react to these signals. Some audiences may sympathize, while others may be skeptical. This skepticism is partly informed by a growing body of research suggesting that not all such signals are motivated by a simple need for help.</p>
<p>Previous work has identified a specific strategy known as “<a href="https://www.psypost.org/dark-personality-traits-linked-to-virtuous-victim-signaling-and-exploitation-of-accusations/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">virtuous victim signaling</a>,” where an individual publicly communicates their suffering while also projecting an image of high moral character. This dual approach can be an effective tool for social influence, encouraging others to offer support while shielding the signaler from scrutiny.</p>
<p>This line of inquiry provides evidence that people with certain personality traits, such as Machiavellianism and narcissism, tend to use this strategy more frequently. The findings suggest that for some, signaling victimhood can be <a href="https://www.psypost.org/new-study-suggests-people-with-dark-personalities-weaponize-victimhood-to-gain-advantage-over-others/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">a calculated way to pursue self-interest</a>, sometimes deceptively, to acquire resources or social status. This research does not suggest that all claims of harm are disingenuous, but it does propose a reason why audiences may sometimes react with caution.</p>
<p>Building on this foundation, the research team set out to further examine the potential social costs of victim signaling. They were particularly interested in whether observers, perhaps aware of these potential motivations, would infer that a signaler possesses “dark” personality traits. These traits, sometimes called the “dark factor” of personality, relate to a general tendency to pursue self-interest at the expense of others, often through manipulative or deceitful behavior.</p>
<p>“We observed, as others have, that claiming victimhood has become increasingly common in society and that being recognized as a victim is powerful moral and political currency that people can use to gain status and obtain different outcomes from others,” explained study author Karl Aquino, a professor at the Sauder School of Business at the University of British Columbia. “We wanted to know what inferences about personality and expectations about behavior observers might make about someone who invites recognition from an audience that they are a victim by signaling that they have been harmed in some way.”</p>
<p>To examine this, the researchers conducted a series of four different studies.</p>
<p>The first study explored this idea in a real-world workplace setting. The researchers collected data from 170 pairs of employees and their coworkers at a real estate organization in the Philippines. The primary employees completed surveys to measure their own “dark factor” personality traits and to report how frequently they engaged in victim signaling, such as pointing out how external factors have prevented them from achieving their goals.</p>
<p>Their designated coworkers then completed a separate survey, rating how often the primary employee engaged in counterproductive work behaviors. These are actions that harm the organization or its members, such as starting arguments or deliberately breaking company rules.</p>
<p>The findings from this study indicated a clear connection between the different elements. Employees who reported a higher frequency of victim signaling were perceived by their colleagues as engaging in more counterproductive behaviors. The results also suggested that employees with higher scores on dark personality traits tended to engage in victim signaling more often. The data suggest that the connection between these dark traits and counterproductive behavior appeared to be explained by the frequency of victim signaling.</p>
<p>In a second study, the researchers moved from a workplace survey to a controlled experimental design. They recruited 301 online participants from the platform Prolific and asked them to take on the role of a manager. The participants read a short scenario about an employee named Michael who was upset about his office being relocated.</p>
<p>In one version of the story, Michael expressed his frustration but did not attribute it to any specific cause. This was considered a weak victim signal. In the second version, Michael not only expressed frustration but also claimed he was being treated unfairly because of his gender and threatened to sue the company for discrimination. This was the strong victim signal.</p>
<p>After reading one of the two scenarios, participants rated their impressions of Michael. They assessed him on three personality traits known as the Dark Triad: narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy. They also gave their opinion on his likely past job performance.</p>
<p>The results showed that the version of Michael who made the discrimination claim was rated significantly higher on all three dark personality traits. Participants also judged his past job performance to be lower compared to the Michael who only expressed general frustration. This suggests that a strong, contentious victim signal can negatively shape perceptions of both character and competence.</p>
<p>The third study aimed to see if these perceptions would influence expectations of future unethical behavior. For this experiment, 355 employed U.S. participants read a fabricated news article profiling a Black male entrepreneur, Chef Terrell Jackson, who had just opened a new restaurant. In the article, the chef was asked to give advice to other young people of color.</p>
<p>His response was manipulated to create two conditions. In the victim-signaling condition, he highlighted the systemic racial barriers he had to overcome. In the non-signaling condition, he acknowledged facing barriers but stated they had not held him back from success.</p>
<p>Participants then rated the entrepreneur’s personality, the likelihood that he would engage in unethical business practices, and how likely it was that he had made claims of victimization in a previous job. The initial analysis showed that the entrepreneur who signaled victimhood was perceived as more narcissistic and was thought to be more likely to have signaled victimhood in the past. However, the study’s primary predictions were not fully supported until the researchers conducted a follow-up analysis that accounted for the participants’ political beliefs.</p>
<p>This exploratory analysis revealed that political ideology played a significant role in how the signal was interpreted. For participants who identified as more conservative, the victim signal tended to produce more negative judgments about the entrepreneur’s personality. For participants who identified as more liberal, the opposite pattern sometimes emerged. These participants tended to rate the entrepreneur who signaled victimhood more favorably on some traits compared to the one who denied that racial barriers had obstructed his success.</p>
<p>The fourth and final study examined whether a more subtle victim signal could affect a hiring decision. A sample of 604 participants from the United States and Canada were asked to evaluate three candidates for a senior management position. The candidates included one White male and two Black males. One of the Black candidates was the focal target of the experiment. In his job motivation statement, this candidate either included a subtle victim signal, beginning with the phrase “As someone who has experienced injustice…,” or he did not. The other two candidates always provided neutral statements.</p>
<p>Participants were asked to choose which candidate they would promote, to rank all three candidates from best to worst, and to rate each candidate on personality traits related to psychological entitlement and Machiavellianism. The presence of the subtle signal had a noticeable effect on the outcomes. The focal candidate was less likely to be chosen for the promotion when his statement included the reference to injustice.</p>
<p>He was also more likely to be ranked last among the three candidates. Observers also rated him higher on entitlement and Machiavellianism traits when he used the victim signal. A subsequent analysis of political ideology showed that while more conservative participants tended to rate the signaling candidate more negatively on personality, this did not appear to influence the final hiring decision itself.</p>
<p>“In the final study of our paper, we found that in a hiring situation when one minority job candidate victim signals by saying that they have experienced injustice, and there is another minority candidate who doesn’t say this, people judged the latter candidate as a more desirable person for the job,” Aquino told PsyPost. “This finding suggests that when people victim signal, it could make them less attractive as a job candidate than someone is a member of the same demographic group and who doesn’t victim signal.”</p>
<p>Together, the findings provide evidence that signaling one’s suffering may sometimes bring support, but it can also negatively affect how others view a person’s character and suitability as a colleague or leader.</p>
<p>“Signaling, or publicly communicating, one’s experiences of harm can influence the inferences and judgments an audience makes about the signaler and whether these responses are advantageous or disadvantageous depends on who the audience is and if the potential benefits of signaling (i.e., obtaining help, support, or relief from harm) outweigh the reputational cost of being perceived as having certain traits that have been associated with self-serving, deceitful, or manipulative behavior,” Aquino said.</p>
<p>The researchers emphasize that the research does not suggest people should discount reports of harm. Instead, the findings address how audiences interpret these signals.</p>
<p>“We are not suggesting that people should be skeptical of people who claim to have been harmed or that these claims are inaccurate,” Aquino explained. “Our research is agnostic about the accuracy of the claims presented to our study participants and we left it up to them to decide for themselves how to incorporate this assessment into their judgments.”</p>
<p>“All we were trying study was what the perceptions might be of people who signal that they have been harmed and thereby potentially invite others to see them as victims. Whether the reputational costs of victim signaling that our studies revealed are worth the possible benefits of emitting the signal is something we cannot answer.”</p>
<p>As with all research, there are some limitations. The studies primarily measured perceptions and behavioral intentions rather than actual behaviors toward people who signal victimhood. Additionally, the scenarios were specific and may not represent all contexts in which victim signals occur. The way people respond could also depend on whether a claim of harm is easily verifiable or more subjective and ambiguous.</p>
<p>“We hope to do more research into the contexts under which claims of victimhood are advantageous or costly for those who signal victimhood, the recipients of those signals, and society at large, as well as how they influence the recognition of victims and the willingness of others to alleviate their suffering,” Aquino said.</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2025.113515" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The reputational consequences of victim signaling</a>,” was authored by Karl Aquino, Stefan Thau, Maja Graso, Cory Clark, Constantin Lagios, Simon Lloyd D. Restubog, and Tianyujun Lu.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/new-research-reveals-how-estrogen-amplifies-the-brains-dopamine-signals/" style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing:-1px;margin:0;padding:0 0 2px;font-weight: bold;font-size: 19px;line-height: 20px;color:#222;">New research reveals how estrogen amplifies the brain’s dopamine signals</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Nov 13th 2025, 20:00</div>
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<p><p>A new study on laboratory rats has found that the brain’s ability to learn from rewards is enhanced by the hormone estrogen. The work shows that naturally cycling estrogen levels alter the brain’s dopamine system, making the chemical signals that guide learning more potent. The research was published in the journal <em><a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41593-025-02104-z" target="_blank">Nature Neuroscience</a></em>.</p>
<p>Hormones are known to produce wide-ranging effects on the brain, influencing everything from mood to decision-making. The precise mechanisms behind these changes, especially for complex cognitive processes, are still being mapped out. A team of scientists led by researchers at New York University sought to understand how natural hormonal fluctuations could affect the fundamental process of learning.</p>
<p>“Despite the broad influence of hormones throughout the brain, little is known about how these hormones influence cognitive behaviors and related neurological activity,” says Christine Constantinople, a professor in New York University’s Center for Neural Science and the paper’s senior author. She notes a growing recognition that “changes in estrogen levels are related to cognitive function and, specifically, psychiatric disorders.” The research team included scientists from NYU’s Center for Neural Science, NYU Grossman School of Medicine’s Neuroscience Institute, and Virginia Commonwealth University.</p>
<p>The researchers focused on a concept called reinforcement learning. This is a form of learning from trial and error, where an animal or person adjusts their behavior based on whether outcomes are better or worse than expected. This process is thought to be driven by the brain chemical dopamine, which acts as a “reward prediction error” signal, broadcasting the difference between an anticipated reward and the actual one. This signal helps the brain update its expectations for the future.</p>
<p>To investigate this, the scientists trained hundreds of female rats on a task designed to measure their expectations and learning. In each trial, a rat initiated the process by poking its nose into a port. It then heard one of five distinct audio tones, each signaling a different volume of a water reward. The reward was delivered after an unpredictable delay, and the rat could choose to wait or opt out to start a new trial.</p>
<p>The experiment was structured in blocks of trials. In “low” blocks, only small rewards were offered, while in “high” blocks, only large rewards were available. This design allowed the researchers to manipulate the rats’ expectations. The key measurement was the time it took for a rat to initiate the next trial. A shorter initiation time suggested the rat was more motivated and expected a better outcome.</p>
<p>The team tracked the rats’ four-stage reproductive cycle, which involves predictable fluctuations in estrogen levels. They found that the rats’ learning was significantly affected by their hormonal state. When in the “proestrus” stage, where estrogen levels peak, the rats were more sensitive to changes in reward availability. Their trial initiation times changed more dramatically between the low-reward and high-reward blocks, suggesting they were updating their expectations more strongly based on recent outcomes.</p>
<p>To understand the neural basis for this behavioral change, the researchers used a technique called fiber photometry. They injected a genetically engineered sensor into a brain region called the nucleus accumbens, a key reward center. This sensor becomes fluorescent in the presence of dopamine, allowing the team to measure dopamine activity in real time. The recordings confirmed that dopamine signals in this region functioned as reward prediction errors. Dopamine levels surged when rewards were larger than expected and dipped when they were smaller.</p>
<p>In alignment with the behavioral findings, these dopamine signals were amplified during the high-estrogen proestrus stage. The difference in the dopamine response between large and small rewards was greater, meaning the signal had a wider dynamic range. Specifically, the dopamine spikes associated with large, positive prediction errors were enhanced.</p>
<p>The scientists then tested if this dopamine signal directly caused the changes in behavior. Using optogenetics, a technique that uses light to activate specific neurons, they stimulated dopamine-releasing terminals in the nucleus accumbens at the moment a reward was signaled. This artificial boost of dopamine caused the rats to initiate subsequent trials more quickly, confirming that the dopamine signal directly influences this learning-related behavior.</p>
<p>The next step was to identify the molecular mechanism connecting estrogen to the amplified dopamine signals. The team analyzed protein levels in the nucleus accumbens of rats at different stages of their cycle. They found that in the high-estrogen stages, there were significantly lower levels of two key proteins: the dopamine transporter (DAT) and the serotonin transporter (SERT). These transporter proteins act like vacuums, removing dopamine from the spaces between neurons after it has been released.</p>
<p>With fewer of these transporters present, dopamine would linger longer after being released. The researchers used a computational model to simulate this effect. The model showed that slower dopamine removal would allow the effects of consecutive neural signals to accumulate, resulting in larger and more sustained dopamine peaks. This process would especially amplify the signals for the largest rewards, matching what the researchers observed in their dopamine recordings.</p>
<p>To establish a causal link between estrogen signaling and learning, the team performed one final experiment. They used a virus to deliver a short-hairpin RNA, a tool for genetic suppression, into the ventral tegmental area, the midbrain region where the dopamine-producing neurons that project to the nucleus accumbens originate. This tool specifically knocked down the expression of a primary estrogen receptor, effectively blocking estrogen’s ability to act on these cells.</p>
<p>After this intervention, the rats’ learning was impaired. Their behavior became less sensitive to the changes between high and low reward blocks, an effect similar in magnitude to the difference between the high-estrogen and low-estrogen states. This result demonstrated that estrogen signaling within this specific midbrain circuit is a direct cause of the enhanced reinforcement learning.</p>
<p>The study has some limitations. The experiments were conducted in rats, so direct translation to human cognition requires more research. The work also focused on dopamine dynamics in the nucleus accumbens, leaving open questions about how estrogen might also affect the activity of dopamine neurons at their source.</p>
<p>Future research could explore the precise molecular pathways through which estrogen receptors regulate the expression of transporter proteins. A better understanding of this hormone-neuromodulator interaction may provide insight into why the severity of symptoms for some neuropsychiatric disorders can fluctuate with hormonal cycles. </p>
<p>“Our results provide a potential biological explanation that bridges dopamine’s function with learning in ways that better inform our understanding of both health and disease,” said Carla Golden, an NYU postdoctoral fellow and the paper’s lead author.</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41593-025-02104-z" target="_blank">Estrogen modulates reward prediction errors and reinforcement learning</a>,” was authored by Carla E. M. Golden, Audrey C. Martin, Daljit Kaur, Andrew Mah, Diana H. Levy, Takashi Yamaguchi, Amy W. Lasek, Dayu Lin, Chiye Aoki & Christine M. Constantinople.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/boosting-nad-reverses-alzheimers-like-deficits-in-animal-models/" 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;">Boosting NAD+ reverses Alzheimer’s-like deficits in animal models</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Nov 13th 2025, 18:00</div>
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<p><p>A new study has revealed how a natural compound in our cells can reverse brain deficits in animal models of Alzheimer’s disease. The research shows that boosting levels of a molecule called NAD+ corrects errors in the way brain cells process genetic information, leading to improved memory and function. The paper detailing this mechanism was published in the journal <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.ady9811" target="_blank">Science Advances</a></em>.</p>
<p>Alzheimer’s disease is a neurodegenerative condition characterized by the gradual loss of brain cells, resulting in cognitive decline. One of the main culprits in this process is a protein called tau. In healthy neurons, tau helps maintain their internal structure, acting much like railroad ties that keep tracks stable for transporting cellular materials. In Alzheimer’s disease, tau proteins can become defective and clump together, causing this internal transport system to collapse and leading to cell damage.</p>
<p>Previous research indicated that a metabolite known as nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide, or NAD+, could offer some protection in animal models of the disease. NAD+ is essential for energy production and maintaining the health of cells, particularly neurons. Its levels are known to decline with age and in several neurodegenerative diseases. While supplementing with precursors to NAD+ showed promise, the specific way it protected the brain remained largely unclear.</p>
<p>This new work was conducted by an international team led by Evandro Fei Fang at the University of Oslo in Norway, in collaboration with Oscar Junhong Luo from Jinan University in China and Joana M. Silva from the University of Minho in Portugal. The scientists wanted to understand the molecular steps behind NAD+’s protective effects. They focused on a fundamental cellular process called alternative RNA splicing, which has recently been recognized as a contributor to Alzheimer’s risk.</p>
<p>Alternative RNA splicing is a mechanism that allows a single gene to produce multiple distinct versions of a protein, known as isoforms. By selectively including or excluding different segments of the genetic blueprint, a cell can create proteins with varied functions from the same gene. When this finely tuned process is disrupted, as it appears to be in Alzheimer’s, it can lead to the production of faulty proteins and cellular dysfunction.</p>
<p>To investigate the link between NAD+, tau, and RNA splicing, the researchers used several models. They began with a species of roundworm, Caenorhabditis elegans, that was genetically modified to produce the toxic form of human tau protein. Using a fluorescent reporter system, they could visually track splicing errors inside the worms’ neurons. They observed that worms with toxic tau had significant disruptions in their RNA splicing.</p>
<p>The team then moved to a mouse model genetically engineered to develop tau-related brain pathology. These mice exhibit memory problems similar to those seen in human Alzheimer’s patients. The researchers provided some of these mice with nicotinamide riboside, a precursor that the body uses to make NAD+. After several months of treatment, they analyzed the animals’ brain tissue and behavior.</p>
<p>The analysis revealed that the mice with tau pathology had widespread errors in RNA splicing within their hippocampal cells, a brain region vital for memory. In the mice that received the NAD+ precursor, many of these splicing mistakes were corrected. This molecular repair was accompanied by functional improvements. The treated mice performed better on memory tests, suggesting that restoring proper RNA splicing helped recover cognitive function.</p>
<p>A specific protein, named EVA1C, emerged as a central player in this recovery. The researchers found that in the tau-affected mice, the benefits of the NAD+ precursor disappeared when the gene for EVA1C was turned off. This result indicated that EVA1C is necessary for NAD+ to exert its neuroprotective effects on RNA splicing. Consistent with these findings, an examination of brain tissue from people in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease showed significantly reduced levels of EVA1C in their neurons.</p>
<p>To understand how EVA1C works at a molecular level, the team used an advanced artificial intelligence platform. The platform analyzed vast amounts of protein data to predict the three-dimensional structures of different EVA1C isoforms and how they would interact with other proteins. This computational analysis predicted that boosting NAD+ promotes a specific version of the EVA1C protein.</p>
<p>This particular isoform of EVA1C was predicted to bind with high affinity to other essential proteins, including one called HSP70. HSP70 functions as a “molecular chaperone,” helping other proteins fold correctly and clearing away damaged or aggregated proteins. By influencing which isoform of EVA1C is produced, NAD+ appears to enhance the cell’s protein management system, which is critically impaired in Alzheimer’s disease. The research connects cellular metabolism, through NAD+, with the genetic processing of RNA splicing and the physical management of proteins.</p>
<p>The study is not without its limitations. The findings are based on animal models, and the complex pathology of Alzheimer’s in humans may involve additional factors. Future research will need to confirm these mechanisms in human cells, perhaps using brain organoids grown in the lab, and to further map the precise chain of events connecting NAD+ to the cell’s splicing machinery.</p>
<p>Still, the work opens new avenues for therapeutic development. By identifying the connection between NAD+ and EVA1C-regulated RNA splicing, the study provides a clearer target for potential treatments. “We propose that maintaining NAD⁺ levels could help preserve neuronal identity and delay cognitive decline, paving the way for combination treatments to enhance RNA splicing,” says Ruixue Ai, a first author of the study. This research deepens the understanding of how NAD+ supports brain health and may inform the design of more effective strategies to combat neurodegenerative diseases.</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.ady9811" target="_blank">NAD+ reverses Alzheimer’s neurological deficits via regulating differential alternative RNA splicing of EVA1C</a>,” was authored by Ruixue Ai, Lipeng Mao, Xurui Jin, Carlos Campos-Marques, Shi-qi Zhang, Junping Pan, Maria Jose Lagartos-Donate, Shu-Qin Cao, Beatriz Barros-Santos, Rita Nóbrega-Martins, Filippos Katsaitis, Guang Yang, Chenglong Xie, Xiongbin Kang, Pingjie Wang, Manuele Novello, Yang Hu, Linda Hildegard Bergersen, Jon Storm-Mathisen, Hidehito Kuroyanagi, Beatriz Escobar-Doncel, Noemí Villaseca González, Farrukh Abbas Chaudhry, Zeyuan Wang, Qiang Zhang, Guang Lu, Ioannis Sotiropoulos, Zhangming Niu, Guobing Chen, Rajeevkumar Raveendran Nair, Joana Margarida Silva, Oscar Junhong Luo, and Evandro Fei Fang.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/new-study-explores-how-adhd-symptoms-relate-to-menopause-in-midlife-women/" style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing:-1px;margin:0;padding:0 0 2px;font-weight: bold;font-size: 19px;line-height: 20px;color:#222;">New study explores how ADHD symptoms relate to menopause in midlife women</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Nov 13th 2025, 16:00</div>
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<p><p>Women with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) often navigate a range of challenges that extend far beyond childhood. One area of increasing interest is how this condition interacts with the menopausal transition, a period marked by significant hormonal and cognitive shifts.</p>
<p>A new study published in the <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/10870547251355006" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Journal of Attention Disorders</a></em> offers an in-depth look into this issue. The findings suggest that while women with ADHD do not report more severe menopausal symptoms than women without ADHD, the relationship between ADHD symptoms and menopausal complaints appears to differ across groups, especially when medication use is considered.</p>
<p>This research highlights the need to better understand how overlapping symptoms between ADHD and menopause are experienced and interpreted. The findings contribute to a broader effort to improve clinical awareness and care for women whose reproductive and cognitive health may intersect in complex ways during midlife.</p>
<p>The study was designed in response to growing calls for a deeper understanding of how reproductive hormone changes affect women with ADHD. Although ADHD affects both males and females, women are often diagnosed later in life, partly due to subtler symptom patterns and the masking effect of co-occurring conditions like depression and anxiety. Researchers have suggested that hormonal fluctuations throughout a woman’s life—including during menstruation, pregnancy, and menopause—may significantly influence the course and expression of ADHD symptoms.</p>
<p>While previous research has examined the effects of short-term hormonal shifts such as those during the menstrual cycle, little is known about how longer-term changes like menopause affect women with ADHD. The menopause transition typically spans several years and brings with it physical, psychological, and cognitive symptoms, some of which overlap with those seen in ADHD. These include mood swings, memory issues, reduced concentration, and disrupted sleep. Yet until now, few studies have addressed how these experiences may differ for women already managing a diagnosis of ADHD.</p>
<p>“It occurred to me that there are two underdeveloped areas of research here. Much of the ADHD research focus has been on children and on males with females typically underrepresented in research. Additionally, menopause is somewhat of a taboo subject in society, healthcare and research, so is under-researched. When the two collide, there is so much missing understanding,” said study author Ellie Dommett, a professor at King’s College London and head of <a href="https://www.adhdresearchlab.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">the ADHD Research Lab</a>.</p>
<p>To explore this, the researchers conducted a large-scale online survey between October 2023 and June 2024. They recruited 656 women between the ages of 45 and 60, all based in the UK. Of these, 245 reported having a formal ADHD diagnosis, including both women who were on medication and those who were not. The remaining 411 participants reported no ADHD diagnosis. Women were excluded if they were undergoing hormone therapy, taking hormonal contraceptives, or had experienced surgical menopause. This ensured the sample reflected the natural course of menopause.</p>
<p>The survey included validated tools to measure ADHD symptoms, such as the Adult ADHD Self-Report Scale, as well as several scales to assess menopausal symptoms and quality of life. These included the Women’s Health Questionnaire and the Menopause-Specific Quality of Life Questionnaire, both of which examine areas such as mood, memory, concentration, vasomotor symptoms like hot flashes, and sleep quality. Participants were also asked about their medical history, medication use, and healthcare utilization.</p>
<p>The researchers had several expectations going into the study. They hypothesized that women with ADHD would experience worse menopausal symptoms than those without the condition, and that this effect might vary depending on whether the woman was in premenopause, perimenopause, or postmenopause. They also examined whether being on ADHD medication changed this relationship. Finally, they tested whether ADHD symptom severity was linked to the severity of menopausal complaints.</p>
<p>When the data were analyzed, the researchers found no significant differences in reported menopausal symptoms between women with and without ADHD. This held true across different menopausal stages and regardless of medication use. In other words, having ADHD did not appear to worsen the overall experience of menopause in terms of symptom severity.</p>
<p>The picture became more nuanced when the researchers looked at correlations between ADHD symptom scores and menopausal complaints. Across the full sample, higher ADHD symptom scores were linked to greater difficulties in several areas of menopausal experience, including anxiety, depressed mood, physical symptoms, and quality of life. These associations were particularly strong among women without an ADHD diagnosis.</p>
<p>In contrast, among women who had an ADHD diagnosis, especially those taking medication, the link between ADHD symptoms and menopause complaints was weaker. For example, among medicated women with ADHD, only a few correlations remained significant, such as those involving memory, concentration, and psychosocial distress. Women with ADHD who were not taking medication showed a somewhat stronger pattern, but still not as pronounced as in the non-ADHD group.</p>
<p>These differences may reflect how women interpret their symptoms. The researchers suggest that women who know they have ADHD might attribute certain challenges—like forgetfulness or lack of focus—to their underlying condition rather than to menopause. This attribution could influence how they report symptoms on self-assessment scales, leading to weaker statistical associations in this group.</p>
<p>“I think we expected women with ADHD to have worse menopausal experiences than those without because there is such a big overlap between ADHD and menopausal symptoms, but this was not what the data showed,” Dommett told PsyPost. “When we thought about this we realized we now need to look more carefully at how women interpret their experiences and that needs more than survey data. For example, if you have knowingly lived with ADHD all your life, you might think concentration difficulties associated with the menopause are actually your ADHD symptoms worsening. We need to better understand how fluctuations in female hormones across the lifespan interact with other conditions, including ADHD.”</p>
<p>“We had always planned to conduct in-depth interviews, but this work really reinforced the need to do that. We also need to look more at the effects of medication for ADHD as this was hard to do in a study the size of ours. More participants would be needed to pick this apart.”</p>
<p>Although these findings provide useful insight, the authors caution that more work is needed to confirm and expand upon them. The study relied on self-reported data, including ADHD diagnosis, which introduces some uncertainty. Additionally, while the sample was large, certain subgroups—such as women not taking ADHD medication—may have been too small to detect smaller effects. The study also did not capture the full diversity of menopausal experiences, as most participants were White and based in the United Kingdom.</p>
<p>“This is the first study where anyone has looked at how menopausal experiences relate to ADHD traits and so I think the key thing for readers to take away is that this area warrants more investigation,” Dommett said.</p>
<p>Despite these limitations, this research represents an important step toward addressing a gap in women’s health. Both ADHD and menopause are often misunderstood or minimized in clinical settings. By exploring how the two conditions may interact, the study contributes to a more nuanced understanding of women’s health across the lifespan.</p>
<p>“Menopause is so much more than hot flushes and night sweats and ADHD is much more than getting distracted and being disorganised in planning,” Dommett explained. “Both the menopausal transition and ADHD have become so simplified in reels and other forms of media that we forget these are complex experiences that can impact individuals is a huge variety of ways.”</p>
<p>The authors are planning follow-up research involving interviews with women and healthcare providers. These qualitative studies could help capture aspects of lived experience that are difficult to measure through surveys alone.</p>
<p>“Our long term goals are to find out more about how women with ADHD experience natural hormonal fluctuations across the lifespan and the support they need for these,” Dommett said. “This includes during menopause but also in menstruation and pregnancy. For the menopause work, we are about to start interviewing women and then clinicians.”</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/10870547251355006" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Examining the Link Between ADHD Symptoms and Menopausal Experiences</a>,” was authored by Lauren Chapman, Kanak Gupta, Myra S. Hunter, and Eleanor J. Dommett.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/chatgpts-social-trait-judgments-align-with-human-impressions-study-finds/" style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing:-1px;margin:0;padding:0 0 2px;font-weight: bold;font-size: 19px;line-height: 20px;color:#222;">ChatGPT’s social trait judgments align with human impressions, study finds</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Nov 13th 2025, 14:00</div>
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<p><p>A new study published in <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2949882125000404"><em>Computers in Human Behavior: Artificial Humans</em></a> provides evidence that ChatGPT’s judgments of facial traits such as attractiveness, dominance, and trustworthiness tend to align with those made by humans. Across multiple experiments, researcher <a href="https://staff.lincoln.ac.uk/rkramer" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Robin S.S. Kramer</a> of the University of Lincoln found that the AI’s evaluations of faces generally reflected average human opinions. ChatGPT was prone to the same “attractiveness halo effect” seen in human judgments.</p>
<p>First impressions formed from faces are known to influence how people treat others. Traits such as trustworthiness, dominance, and attractiveness are rapidly inferred from facial features and can affect real-life decisions, including hiring and criminal sentencing. While these judgments are shaped by personal experience and culture, past research has shown that there is often a surprising degree of agreement across individuals.</p>
<p>ChatGPT, although not originally designed for visual analysis, now includes functionality that allows it to interpret images by converting them into text-like representations. Because it was trained on large amounts of human-created image-text pairs, it is plausible that it may have developed internal associations between facial features and social traits.</p>
<p>“Since the release of ChatGPT, I’ve been really interested in the capabilities of this new wave of AI tools. Once users were able to upload images to it and interrogate what ChatGPT could ‘see,’ I was fascinated to understand its perceptions of face photos,” explained <a href="https://sites.google.com/site/robinsskramer/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Kramer</a>, a senior lecturer at the University of Lincoln.</p>
<p>“Since the chatbot has been trained on a vast amount of images and text from the internet (presumably including lots of faces), it was logical to predict that its judgements would, at least to some extent, align with our own. Even so, this needed to be tested rather than assumed.”</p>
<p>To evaluate ChatGPT’s ability to interpret social traits from faces, Kramer conducted a series of studies using a well-established set of face photographs from the Chicago Face Database. This database contains images of people with neutral expressions and is accompanied by human ratings on traits like attractiveness, dominance, and trustworthiness. Importantly, the image files themselves are not publicly accessible online, making it unlikely that these specific faces were part of ChatGPT’s training data.</p>
<p>In the first study, the researcher paired faces that had been rated by humans as either very high or very low in one of the three social traits. ChatGPT was shown these pairs and asked to choose which person looked more attractive, dominant, or trustworthy. Across all 360 image pairs, the chatbot’s choices agreed with human ratings more than 85% of the time. Agreement was especially high for attractiveness judgments, where the AI selected the human-rated “high” model nearly every time.</p>
<p>However, some variation existed across traits and demographic groups. Agreement was slightly lower for trustworthiness and dominance, especially when the human-rated difference between paired faces was small. This suggests that ChatGPT’s judgments may be more reliable when the contrast is clearer, which mirrors human perception.</p>
<p>In a follow-up experiment, the researcher examined how ChatGPT’s ratings of individual faces compared with those of human participants. In this case, both ChatGPT and 63 human participants rated the same 40 White faces for attractiveness on a 1–7 scale. ChatGPT repeated the task twice to assess its consistency.</p>
<p>ChatGPT’s ratings showed a moderate correlation with average human judgments (around 0.52) and were somewhat less aligned with individual raters (around 0.36 on average). Its internal consistency, measured by how similar its first and second ratings were, was fairly strong at 0.64—close to the human average of 0.74 for test-retest reliability.</p>
<p>These findings suggest that ChatGPT behaves similarly to an average human rater: not identical to any one person, but generally in line with group-level judgments. Moreover, the variation in its responses across sessions mirrors the variability seen in human behavior, although this is partially due to the way ChatGPT generates outputs with some randomness.</p>
<p>“ChatGPT’s perceptions of human faces aligns with our own judgements,” Kramer told PsyPost. “In other words, faces that we see as attractive or trustworthy, for instance, are also ‘seen’ that way by the chatbot.”</p>
<p>Given longstanding concerns about racial bias in AI systems, another goal of the research was to assess whether ChatGPT showed any preference for one racial group over another when evaluating faces. To do this, the researcher created pairs of images where the most highly rated faces from one racial group were matched against the least highly rated faces from another group. If ChatGPT had consistently favored a particular race, even when human ratings suggested otherwise, it would have indicated a potential bias.</p>
<p>However, ChatGPT chose the higher-rated model in 58 out of 60 such comparisons. This pattern was consistent across traits and genders, suggesting that the chatbot’s judgments were not strongly influenced by race, at least in these clearly defined cases.</p>
<p>That said, this method could only detect overt bias. It could not capture more subtle forms, such as associations with skin tone or facial features that may influence perception in less obvious ways. As a result, the absence of explicit racial bias in this study does not rule out the possibility of more nuanced biases, which the author notes as a direction for future research.</p>
<p>The study also examined whether ChatGPT is prone to the same type of “halo effect” often seen in human judgments, where individuals seen as attractive are also assumed to possess other positive traits. Using image pairs where ChatGPT had already judged one face as more attractive, the researcher asked the AI to evaluate which person looked more intelligent, sociable, or confident. In 92.5% of these comparisons, ChatGPT selected the more attractive face for at least one of these additional traits.</p>
<p>“While I suspected that humans and ChatGPT would agree in terms of which faces were more attractive, I was somewhat surprised by ChatGPT’s demonstrating a halo effect,” Kramer said. “The tool considered more attractive faces to also be more confident, intelligent, and sociable (as humans do), which was presumably due to information present but more implicit in the training data. I suppose that the text accompanying images online consistently labelled or described more attractive faces in these ways, resulting in the bias present here.”</p>
<p>The findings provide support for the idea that ChatGPT’s facial trait judgments resemble those of humans. But as with all research, there are some caveats.</p>
<p>“One caveat is that I utilized a constrained set of face images in my work,” Kramer noted. “All identities showed a neutral expression, were forward-facing, and wore a grey t-shirt in front of a white background. As such, I avoided the possible influence of variation that comes with unconstrained, real-world images. This was an initial investigation and I think it would be really interesting to explore how ChatGPT might be affected by things like facial expressions, clothing color, and so on, and whether these influences mirror how humans are affected by such changes.”</p>
<p>Another limitation is the challenge of measuring alignment between AI and human judgments. Because people often disagree with each other, it can be difficult to establish a clear benchmark for comparison. The researcher addressed this by using both average human ratings and analyses of consistency, but further work is needed to refine these methods.</p>
<p>“While agreement between humans and ChatGPT seemed to be fairly large, I focussed here on relatively clear cut comparisons (e.g., pairing two faces that were rated highest and lowest for a particular trait like attractiveness),” Kramer explained. “As such, further work might explore more nuanced judgements to better quantify this agreement. Problematically, of course, humans don’t even perfectly agree with each other when making such judgements, so any approach also needs to take this issue into account.”</p>
<p>Additionally, because ChatGPT’s responses are non-deterministic, identical prompts can lead to slightly different outputs. This randomness is intended to make interactions feel more natural, but it complicates efforts to measure reliability. Even so, the study found that ChatGPT’s repeated judgments were fairly stable and similar to patterns seen in human test-retest data.</p>
<p>In future research, Kramer plans to explore how ChatGPT’s internal models of facial traits might influence the images it generates. Since ChatGPT is now capable of producing synthetic faces, it will be important to see whether its concept of an “attractive” or “trustworthy” face shapes how those faces appear. This could have implications for how AI-generated content is interpreted and used in real-world applications.</p>
<p>“One thing I hadn’t realized until after completing this research was that uploading images to ChatGPT (and other such tools) can be considered sharing with a third party, which may go against the terms of use for some image sets,” Kramer added. “As such, I urge researchers, and indeed any users of AI tools, to make sure that they are aware of what can and cannot be uploaded when interacting with these chatbots.”</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chbah.2025.100156" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Comparing ChatGPT with human judgements of social traits from face photographs</a>,” was authored by Robin S.S. Kramer.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/anxiety-disorders-linked-to-lower-levels-of-key-nutrient/" 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;">Anxiety disorders linked to lower levels of key nutrient</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Nov 13th 2025, 12:00</div>
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<p><p>A sweeping analysis of brain chemistry has identified a potential biological signature for anxiety disorders, revealing that people with these conditions have consistently lower levels of the essential nutrient choline in their brains. The study, published in the Nature journal <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41380-025-03206-7" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Molecular Psychiatry</a></em>, synthesizes decades of research and suggests that this chemical difference could open new avenues for understanding and potentially treating these common and debilitating illnesses.</p>
<p>Anxiety disorders, which include conditions like generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder, and social phobias, represent the most common category of mental illness in the United States. “Anxiety disorders are the most common mental illness in the United States, affecting about 30% of adults,” said Richard Maddock, the study’s senior author and a research professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of California, Davis. “They can be debilitating for people, and many people do not receive adequate treatment.”</p>
<p>These conditions are understood to involve complex interactions between different brain regions. Areas like the amygdala, which acts as a threat detector, and the prefrontal cortex, which helps manage planning and emotional responses, can become dysregulated. This can cause the brain to perceive manageable, everyday stressors as overwhelming threats, leading to persistent worry and nervousness.</p>
<p>The new research comes from Maddock and his colleague Jason Smucny, an assistant professor at UC Davis. Maddock, a psychiatrist who has spent decades treating patients and researching anxiety, had previously observed low levels of choline in his own studies of people with panic disorder. This prompted him and Smucny to investigate whether this was a consistent pattern seen across the scientific literature.</p>
<p>To find an answer, the researchers conducted a meta-analysis, a type of study that systematically combines and analyzes the results of many previous independent studies. This method allows scientists to detect broad patterns that might not be apparent in smaller, individual experiments. They gathered data from 25 separate studies, creating a large dataset that included 370 people diagnosed with an anxiety disorder and 342 people without.</p>
<p>The studies they analyzed all used a specialized, non-invasive imaging technique called proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy. This method uses the same type of machine as a standard magnetic resonance imaging scan, which creates pictures of the body’s internal structures. Instead of producing an image, however, this technique provides a chemical profile of a specific brain region, allowing researchers to measure the concentration of different molecules, known as neurometabolites.</p>
<p>The analysis revealed a distinct and consistent chemical difference. Across the various anxiety disorders, individuals with these conditions had lower levels of choline-containing compounds in their brains. The reduction was most pronounced in the brain’s cortex, the outer layer responsible for higher-order functions like thinking, decision-making, and emotional regulation. The finding was especially consistent in the prefrontal cortex.</p>
<p>On average, the level of choline was about 8% lower in those with anxiety disorders. While this number might seem small, even minor changes in the brain’s chemical environment can have significant effects on its function. “An 8% lower amount doesn’t sound like that much, but in the brain it’s significant,” Maddock said.</p>
<p>The researchers found that this chemical pattern was “transdiagnostic,” meaning it appeared to be a common feature across different types of anxiety disorders rather than being unique to one specific condition. The team also examined whether other factors, such as patient medication, age, or the technical specifications of the brain scans, could explain the results. The link between anxiety and lower choline held firm, suggesting it is a robust biological marker.</p>
<p>The finding became even more defined when the researchers assessed the quality of the measurements in the original studies. In the subset of studies that used the most precise measurement techniques, the reduction in choline was even more apparent. This strengthens the confidence that the observed difference is a real phenomenon and not an artifact of inconsistent data.</p>
<p>The study also looked at other neurometabolites, including N-acetylaspartate, a molecule often used as an indicator of the health and integrity of neurons. After removing a few outlier studies from the analysis, the researchers found a small but significant reduction in this molecule as well, suggesting a possible widespread effect on neuronal function in anxiety.</p>
<p>Choline is an essential nutrient that plays a fundamental part in building cell membranes and producing neurotransmitters involved in memory, mood, and muscle control. While the body can produce a small amount on its own, the majority must be obtained through food.</p>
<p>The researchers propose that the chronic state of high alert, or “fight-or-flight” response, common in anxiety disorders may increase the brain’s metabolic activity. This heightened state could place a greater demand on choline resources to maintain neural circuits, gradually leading to lower overall levels.</p>
<p>It is important to recognize that this study identifies a strong correlation, not a direct cause-and-effect relationship. It is not yet clear whether lower choline levels contribute to the development of anxiety, or if the biological processes of anxiety itself cause choline levels to drop. Further work is needed to untangle this relationship.</p>
<p>Despite these open questions, the finding points toward potential new strategies for patient care. “This is the first meta-analysis to show a chemical pattern in the brain in anxiety disorders,” said Smucny. “It suggests nutritional approaches — like appropriate choline supplementation — may help restore brain chemistry and improve outcomes for patients.”</p>
<p>Future studies will need to test this idea directly. “We don’t know yet if increasing choline in the diet will help reduce anxiety. More research will be needed,” Maddock said. He cautions that people experiencing anxiety should not begin taking high-dose choline supplements on their own, as the effects are not yet understood.</p>
<p>At the same time, the research highlights the connection between diet and mental well-being. A healthy diet is a cornerstone of overall health, and ensuring adequate nutrient intake may be particularly relevant for brain function. Choline is found in a variety of foods, including eggs, beef, chicken, soybeans, and fish.</p>
<p>“Someone with an anxiety disorder might want to look at their diet and see whether they are getting the recommended daily amount of choline,” Maddock noted, adding that many people in the U.S. do not consume enough. “Some forms of omega-3 fatty acids, like those found in salmon, may be especially good sources for supplying choline to the brain.” This discovery of a consistent chemical signature offers a new window into the biology of anxiety and reinforces the idea that what we eat has a profound connection to how we feel and think.</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41380-025-03206-7" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Transdiagnostic reduction in cortical choline-containing compounds in anxiety disorders: a 1H-magnetic resonance spectroscopy meta-analysis</a>,” was authored by Richard J. Maddock and Jason Smucny.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/a-psychologist-spent-50-years-studying-egos-he-has-a-lot-to-say-about-trumps-signature/" style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing:-1px;margin:0;padding:0 0 2px;font-weight: bold;font-size: 19px;line-height: 20px;color:#222;">A psychologist spent 50 years studying egos. He has a lot to say about Trump’s signature.</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Nov 13th 2025, 10:00</div>
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<p><p>For years, Donald Trump’s distinctive, large and bold signature has captured the public’s attention. Not <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/08/us/politics/trump-signature-epstein-letter.html">only did it recently come to light</a> that his signature appeared in a book that Jeffrey Epstein received for his 50th birthday, but it fits neatly alongside Trump’s long history of brash self-adulation. “I love my signature, I really do,” he <a href="https://rollcall.com/factbase/trump/transcript/donald-trump-speech-department-of-defense-leaders-quantico-september-30-2025/">said in a Sept. 30, 2025, speech to military leaders</a>. “Everyone loves my signature.”</p>
<p>His signature also happens to be of particular interest to me, given my decades-long fascination with, and occasional academic research on, the connection between signature size and personal attributes.</p>
<p>A long-time <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=cGy2sCYAAAAJ&hl=en">social psychologist</a> who has studied America’s elite, I made an unintentional empirical discovery as an undergraduate more than 50 years ago. The link that I found then – and that numerous studies have since echoed – is that signature size is related to status and one’s sense of self.</p>
<h2>Signature size and self-esteem</h2>
<p>Back in 1967, during my senior year of college, I was a work-study student in Wesleyan University’s psychology library. My task, four nights a week, was to check out books and to reshelve books that had been returned.</p>
<p>When students or faculty took books out, they were asked to sign their names on an orange, unlined card found in each book.</p>
<p>At some point, I noticed a pattern: When faculty signed the books out, they used a lot of space to sign their names. When students checked them out, they used very little space, leaving a lot of space for future readers.</p>
<p>So I decided to study my observation systematically.</p>
<p>I gathered at least 10 signatures for each faculty member and comparison samples of student signatures with the same number of letters in their names. After measuring by multiplying the height versus the width of the amount of space used, I found that eight of the nine faculty members <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/00224545.1970.9919908">used significantly more space</a> to sign their names.</p>
<p>In order to test for age as well as status, I did another study in which I compared the signatures of blue-collar workers such as custodians and groundskeepers who worked at the school with a sample of professors and a sample of students – again matched for the number of letters, this time on blank 3-by-5-inch cards. The blue-collar workers used more space than the students but less than the faculty. I concluded that age was at play, but so was status.</p>
<p>When I told psychologist Karl Scheibe, my favorite teacher, about my findings, he said I could measure the signatures in his books, which he had been signing for more than a decade since his freshman year in college.</p>
<p>As can be seen in the graph, his book signatures mostly got bigger. They took a major leap in size from his junior year to his senior year, dipped a bit when he entered graduate school and then increased in size as he completed his Ph.D. and joined the Wesleyan faculty.</p>
<p>I <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/h0034503">did a few</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.2224/SBP.1977.5.1.177">more studies</a>, and published a few articles, concluding that signature size was related to self-esteem and a measure of what I <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/h0034503">termed “status awareness</a>.” I found that the pattern held in a number of different environments, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/00224545.1978.9924179">including in Iran</a> – where people write from right to left.</p>
<h2>The narcissism connection</h2>
<p>Although my subsequent research <a href="https://doi.org/10.5771/9781442207677">included a book about the CEOs of Fortune 500 companies</a>, it never crossed my mind to look at the signatures of these CEOs.</p>
<p>However, it did cross the minds of some researchers, 40 years later. In May 2013, I received a call from the editor of the Harvard Business Review because of the work I had done on signature size. They planned to <a href="https://hbr.org/2013/05/size-does-matter-in-signatures">run an interview with Nick Seybert</a>, an associate professor of accounting at the University of Maryland, about the potential link between <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s11142-017-9427-x">signature size and narcissism</a> in CEOs.</p>
<p>While Seybert told me his research had not found direct evidence for a positive relationship between the two, the possibility of the connection he inferred nonetheless intrigued me.</p>
<p>So I decided to test this using a sample of my students. I asked them to sign a blank 3-by-5 card as if they were writing a check, and then I gave them <a href="https://psytests.org/darktriad/npi16en.html">a widely used 16-item narcissism scale</a>.</p>
<p>Lo and behold, Seybert was right to deduce a link: There was a significant positive correlation between signature size and narcissism. Although my sample size was small, the link subsequently led Seybert to test two different samples of his students. And he <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s11142-017-9427-x">found the same significant, positive correlation</a>.</p>
<p>Others soon began to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s11301-025-00538-0">use signature size to assess narcissism in CEOs</a>. By 2020, growing interest in the topic saw the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0149206319892678">Journal of Management publish an article</a> that included signature size as one of five ways to measure narcissism in CEOs.</p>
<h2>A growing field</h2>
<p>Now, almost six years later, researchers have used signature size to <a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.888618">explore narcissism in CEOs</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s11142-025-09902-7">other senior corporate positions such as chief financial officers</a>. The link has been found not only in the U.S. but in countries including <a href="https://doi.org/10.1108/RBF-05-2020-0091">the United Kingdom</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/bse.3375">Germany</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2016.09.004">Uruguay</a>, <a href="https://qjfep.ir/browse.php?a_id=1638&sid=1&slc_lang=en">Iran</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/csr.3065">South Africa</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/1540496X.2025.2468359">China</a>.</p>
<p>In addition, some researchers have studied the effect of larger versus smaller signatures on the viewers. For example, in a recent article in the Journal of Philanthropy, Canadian researchers reported on three studies that systematically varied the signature size of someone soliciting funds in order to see whether it affected the size of donations. It did. In one of their studies, they found that increasing the size of the sender’s signature <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/nvsm.70011">generated more than twice as much revenue</a>.</p>
<p>The surprising resurgence of research using signature size to assess narcissism leads me to a few conclusions.</p>
<p>For one, signature size as a measure of certain aspects of personality has turned out to be much more robust than I imagined as an observant undergraduate working in a college library back in 1967.</p>
<p>Indeed, signature size is not only an indicator of status and self-esteem, as I once concluded. It is also, as recent studies suggest, an indicator of narcissistic tendencies – the kind <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/oct/24/trump-nyt-ad-george-conway-pac">that many argue</a> are exhibited by Trump’s big, bold signature.</p>
<p>Where this research is taken next is anyone’s guess, least of all for the person who noticed something intriguing about signature size so many years ago.<!-- Below is The Conversation's page counter tag. Please DO NOT REMOVE. --><img decoding="async" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/267572/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/signature-size-and-narcissism-a-psychologist-explains-a-long-ago-discovery-that-helped-establish-the-link-267572">original article</a>.</em></p></p>
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<p><strong>Forwarded by:<br />
Michael Reeder LCPC<br />
Baltimore, MD</strong></p>
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