<table style="border:1px solid #adadad; background-color: #F3F1EC; color: #666666; padding:8px; -webkit-border-radius:4px; border-radius:4px; -moz-border-radius:4px; line-height:16px; margin-bottom:6px;" width="100%">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td><span style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size:20px;font-weight:bold;">PsyPost – Psychology News</span></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> </td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<table style="font:13px Helvetica, sans-serif; border-radius:4px; -moz-border-radius:4px; -webkit-border-radius:4px; background-color:#fff; padding:8px; margin-bottom:6px; border:1px solid #adadad;" width="100%">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/new-psychology-research-shows-expectations-about-romance-predict-your-singlehood-satisfaction/" 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 psychology research shows expectations about romance predict your singlehood satisfaction</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">May 7th 2026, 10:00</div>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; color:#494949;text-align:justify;font-size:13px;">
<p><p>A recent study published in the journal <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/01461672261438616" target="_blank">Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin</a></em> provides evidence that the way single people think about romantic relationships is related to how happy they are being single. Scientists found that single individuals who expect high levels of intimacy from a relationship tend to desire a partner more and are more likely to eventually enter a satisfying romance. On the other hand, expecting negative relationship experiences tends to keep people single, suggesting that an individual’s personal image of partnership heavily influences their romantic future. </p>
<p>Singlehood has become an increasingly common lifestyle choice worldwide. As a result, scientists have begun paying closer attention to the factors that make single life fulfilling. Most previous work has focused on the direct experiences of singlehood, such as a person’s friendships, family connections, and sexual relationships. But little attention has been given to how single people view the alternative path of entering a romantic partnership. </p>
<p>“Singlehood is becoming increasingly common across the world, and a growing body of research has begun to examine what makes singlehood satisfying, mostly focusing on what single life itself is like (e.g., how are your friendships?)” said Tayler Wells, a PhD student at the University of Toronto. “However, little work has considered how thinking about the alternative (being in a romantic relationship) might affect experiences in singlehood. Because singles are surrounded by people in relationships, are exposed to messages about the value of partnership, and have often been partnered themselves, they likely have formed expectations about what relationships are like, and these expectations may impact well-being in singlehood.”</p>
<p>To explore these ideas, the researchers analyzed data from the German Family Panel, a large longitudinal study that tracks relationship and family dynamics over time. Longitudinal studies collect data from the same participants at multiple points in time, allowing scientists to observe how variables change. The authors focused on 5,113 participants who were single during their first interview. Data collection spanned six alternating waves over several years.</p>
<p>Participants reported their sex, age, and sexual orientation. The survey also measured their relationship expectations. This included asking how much they expected to participate in activities with a partner, receive affection, gain social status, or achieve financial advantages. Participants also rated negative expectations, such as the fear of becoming bored, facing stress, or feeling limited by a romantic partner.</p>
<p>The researchers asked participants how satisfied they were with their singlehood and whether they desired a partner. As time went on, the team tracked whether participants remained single or entered a relationship. For those who did find a partner, the survey measured their overall relationship satisfaction.</p>
<p>The findings suggest that single women and men view the prospect of romantic partnership differently. Women reported expecting higher levels of intimacy from a relationship, but they also expected more negative outcomes, such as feeling burdened or restricted. Men, on the other hand, were more likely to expect a boost in their social or financial status upon entering a relationship.</p>
<p>“Prior research suggests that women tend to be happier in singlehood than men, so it made sense that women reported higher negative expectations than men,” Wells said. “However, I didn’t expect that women would also report higher intimacy expectations. Together, these findings suggest that women may hold mixed expectations, viewing relationships as potentially stressful or limiting, but also as sources of affection and companionship. Given all the discourse about women being the happier singles, this might help us understand why so many women are still drawn to partnership.”</p>
<p>When looking at overall well-being, the data showed that individuals who held higher expectations for intimacy were less satisfied with being single. These individuals also reported a stronger desire to find a partner. As time passed, those with high intimacy expectations were less likely to remain single. When they did enter a romantic relationship, they tended to feel more satisfied with their new partner.</p>
<p>“Expectations matter! When you’re single, your expectations about romantic relationships may have important implications for how satisfied you are with singlehood and how much you want a romantic partner,” Wells explained. “For example, if you expect relationships to offer affection, security, and companionship, you may be less satisfied with being single and want to enter a relationship. In our data, we also found that singles holding these expectations were also more likely to actually enter relationships in the future and feel satisfied in these relationships.”</p>
<p>On the negative side, having pessimistic views about partnership provided little long-term benefit for singlehood satisfaction. When participants had a temporary spike in negative expectations, they reported a slight increase in their satisfaction with being single. But holding consistently negative expectations did not translate to higher overall happiness with singlehood.</p>
<p>“I was also surprised that having more negative expectations about partnership wasn’t more strongly linked with being happier in singlehood,” Wells noted. “It’s very common in singlehood spaces to talk about the downsides of relationships and how singlehood may be better in comparison, so I thought that might be reflected in these expectations.” </p>
<p>Continuing her thought, Wells said, “Specifically, I thought singles with more negative expectations would feel more satisfied with being single – if the alternative is viewed negatively, wouldn’t your current situation seem more ideal? However, we don’t find a lot of evidence that supports this. In waves when participants reported higher negative expectations than usual for them, they did report slightly higher satisfaction with singlehood and lower desire for a relationship, so these more negative evaluations may provide a bit of a temporary boost but may not be effective as a long-term strategy.”</p>
<p>Even so, negative expectations do shape romantic trajectories. “Interestingly, singles that expected relationships to be more negative (e.g., boring, stressful, and limiting) didn’t report more or less satisfaction with being single or desire for a partner compared to singles with less negative expectations,” Wells said. </p>
<p>“However, singles who expected a more negative relational experience were less likely to enter a relationship in the future and, if they did enter a relationship, they reported lower satisfaction. So, even if negative expectations don’t have a large impact on experiences in singlehood, they may help singles accurately foresee that relationships may not be for them.”</p>
<p>As with all research, there are some limitations. The data comes from a specific sample of mostly young German singles, meaning the findings might not apply to older adults or people from different cultural backgrounds. In addition, the survey only recorded whether participants had previously been married, without asking about their broader dating history. A person’s past experiences with casual dating or long-term partnerships likely shape their current expectations.</p>
<p>“In this study, the data we used only collected information about whether participants had previously been married, not their broader dating history,” Wells said. “Singles who have had previous experience in dating relationships may have different expectations than those without any prior romantic experiences. In addition, our participants are relatively young German singles, so it’s important to keep in mind that these findings may not replicate in other contexts.” </p>
<p>Highlighting another limitation, Wells added, “Although more and more young adults are identifying as single, so too are older adults. Older adults may have very different expectations about relationships, considering they may have different personal experiences. Future research investigating these individual differences would help us understand more about the role expectations play in shaping experiences in singlehood.”</p>
<p>The researchers also pointed out that they cannot establish cause and effect. A self-fulfilling prophecy occurs when a person’s belief about a situation influences their behavior in a way that causes the belief to come true. Because this study observed trends over time, scientists cannot say for certain if expectations directly cause these relational outcomes. </p>
<p>“Finally, we don’t know why expectations have these effects,” Wells stated. “Do people have a highly accurate understanding of what partnership will be like for them, or are these self-fulfilling prophecies such that their partnership experiences would be different if they started them with a different mindset? We can’t judge that from our data.”</p>
<p>Moving forward, the research team hopes to explore the origins of these romantic beliefs. “Now that we understand more about single people’s expectations about relationships, I’m curious to explore where these expectations come from,” Wells said. “Past romantic experiences may be particularly informative. For instance, if you were previously in a relationship that offered a high level of affection and security, you may expect that from future relationships. But especially among singles who have never partnered, other sources are likely influential, such as the media or others’ experiences, such as parents or friends.”</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/01461672261438616" target="_blank">Happily Ever After? Singles’ Expectations of Romantic Relationships Are Associated With Singlehood Satisfaction and Future Romantic Outcomes</a>,” was authored by Tayler Wells, Elaine Hoan, and Geoff MacDonald.</p></p>
</div>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size:13px; text-align: center; color: #666666; padding:4px; margin-bottom:2px;"></div>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<table style="font:13px Helvetica, sans-serif; border-radius:4px; -moz-border-radius:4px; -webkit-border-radius:4px; background-color:#fff; padding:8px; margin-bottom:6px; border:1px solid #adadad;" width="100%">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/unlocking-lithiums-hidden-effects-on-alzheimers-disease-at-the-cellular-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;">Unlocking lithium’s hidden effects on Alzheimer’s disease at the cellular level</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">May 7th 2026, 08:00</div>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; color:#494949;text-align:justify;font-size:13px;">
<p><p>Lithium salts have shown promise in treating Alzheimer’s disease by preventing certain proteins in the brain from clumping together, but how they affect cells on a broader scale remains largely unexplored. A recent study published in the journal <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopha.2026.119347" target="_blank">Biomedicine & Pharmacotherapy</a></em> reveals that lithium chloride alters multiple cellular pathways beyond its primary target, changing the activity of various enzymes and structural proteins linked to dementia. These results suggest that modifying the type of lithium used in medical treatments could improve outcomes for patients experiencing memory loss and cognitive decline.</p>
<p>Alzheimer’s disease is the most common form of dementia, characterized by two main physical features in the brain. The first is the buildup of amyloid-beta, a protein that forms sticky plaques between nerve cells. The second involves a protein called Tau, which normally helps stabilize the internal structure of brain cells. In people with dementia, Tau undergoes a chemical alteration called hyperphosphorylation.</p>
<p>Phosphorylation is a normal chemical reaction where enzymes called kinases attach small chemical tags, known as phosphate groups, to a protein. These tags act like switches, turning the protein’s functions on or off. When hyperphosphorylation occurs, kinases attach too many phosphate groups to the Tau protein. This causes the protein to detach from the cell’s structural supports and tangle together, which ultimately damages the nerve cell.</p>
<p>One specific kinase, called GSK-3β, is highly overactive in the brains of people with Alzheimer’s disease. This overactivity is considered a major driver of the abnormal protein tangling that destroys cognitive function. Medical researchers have spent years testing drugs that block this enzyme to stop the Tau protein from tangling. Lithium chloride is a chemical compound that strongly inhibits this specific kinase. </p>
<p>Laboratory experiments using this compound have successfully reduced Tau phosphorylation, but clinical trials testing lithium on human patients have yielded inconsistent results. A separate research paper recently offered a possible explanation for these mixed medical outcomes. Researchers found that amyloid-beta plaques can trap inorganic lithium salts, meaning the drug gets absorbed by the plaques before it can reach the targeted kinases inside the cells. Using different types of organic lithium salts that avoid these plaques might solve the problem. </p>
<p>Before advancing to new clinical trials, scientists needed a better map of exactly what lithium chloride does inside a cell. Dorit Hoffmann, a project researcher at the University of Eastern Finland, led a team of investigators to uncover these cellular mechanisms. Virpi Ahola, a research manager at the same institution, co-authored the study alongside a team of biologists and bioinformatics specialists. The research group aimed to map how lithium chloride interacts with Tau, kinases, and other biological pathways.</p>
<p>“Our study identified several novel AD-relevant phosphosites affected by lithium chloride treatment and predicts alterations in the activity of multiple kinases and Rho GTPases,” Hoffmann and Ahola noted in a university press release. “The role of these molecules in AD requires further investigation to better understand the impact of lithium compounds on AD pathology and disease mechanisms.”</p>
<p>The researchers used two different laboratory models to observe how lithium chloride affects cells. First, they used a co-culture, which is a method of growing two types of cells together in a dish. They combined mouse nerve cells with mouse microglia, which are the primary immune cells of the brain. The team then applied lipopolysaccharide and interferon gamma, which are compounds that trigger a severe inflammatory response in the immune cells.</p>
<p>This simulated brain inflammation successfully caused the Tau proteins in the nerve cells to become hyperphosphorylated. Once the disease model was established, the researchers treated the cells with varying concentrations of lithium chloride. They tracked the results using a technique that detects specific proteins and their phosphate tags. They wanted to see if the drug could reverse the damage caused by the inflammation.</p>
<p>The team observed that the lithium treatment reduced Tau phosphorylation at certain attachment sites. The highest concentration of lithium returned the chemical tags to normal levels at one specific site on the Tau protein. At another attachment site, low concentrations of lithium actually increased the number of phosphate tags. This indicates that the drug’s effects depend heavily on the dosage and the specific part of the protein being examined.</p>
<p>In their second experiment, the scientists used a line of human bone cancer cells. These cells were genetically modified to produce large amounts of a mutated human Tau protein. The specific genetic mutation mimics the extreme hyperphosphorylation seen in neurodegenerative diseases. The research team treated these cells with a very high dose of lithium chloride and examined them using phosphoproteomics.</p>
<p>Phosphoproteomics is an advanced analytical technique that allows scientists to look at thousands of phosphorylated proteins across the entire cell at once. Instead of just checking one or two proteins, researchers can map out a comprehensive snapshot of cellular activity. In this human cell model, the researchers observed a broad reduction in Tau phosphorylation. The lithium treatment successfully removed phosphate groups from multiple sites on the Tau protein, including several attachment sites closely associated with Alzheimer’s disease pathology.</p>
<p>The broad data from the phosphoproteomics analysis also revealed that lithium chloride does not just block the targeted GSK-3β enzyme. The compound reduced the activity of several other kinases, including one called PKCα, which has previously been linked to cognitive decline. At the same time, the treatment seemed to increase the activity of a few other kinases. This shows that lithium exerts a broad influence over a cell’s regulatory enzymes.</p>
<p>Additionally, the researchers observed changes in a biological network known as the Rho GTPase signaling pathway. Rho GTPases are proteins that act as molecular switches to control the shape and movement of the cell’s internal skeleton, known as the actin cytoskeleton. Mammals have twenty different variations of these signaling proteins, which must constantly be turned on and off to maintain a healthy cell structure. The data showed altered phosphorylation in several proteins that regulate these switches, indicating dysregulation in this structural pathway.</p>
<p>While the data provide a detailed look at cellular chemistry, the study comes with a few caveats. The high concentrations of lithium chloride used in the human cell model are much higher than what a human body can safely tolerate. Lithium has a very narrow therapeutic window, meaning the amount needed to treat a disease is very close to the amount that causes severe toxicity. A dose this high in a clinical setting would pose severe risks to a patient’s kidneys and thyroid gland.</p>
<p>Future research will need to explore how lower, safer doses of lithium affect these newly identified kinases and structural proteins. Scientists must also clarify whether decreasing the activity of certain Rho GTPases helps or harms brain cells during the progression of dementia. Mapping these pathways at varying dosages will help pharmaceutical developers design safer treatments. By identifying which specific enzymes to target, researchers hope to find lithium compounds that can treat memory loss without causing dangerous side effects.</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopha.2026.119347" target="_blank">Lithium chloride alters Tau phosphorylation, kinase activity, and Rho GTPase signaling in cell models</a>,” was authored by Dorit Hoffmann, Virpi Ahola, Nadine Huber, Teemu Natunen, Stina Leskelä, Mari Takalo, Henna Martiskainen, Stephanie Ballweg, Egor Vorontsov, Stefan Selzer, Pekka Kallio, Ian Pike, Jouni Sirviö, Annakaisa Haapasalo, and Mikko Hiltunen.</p></p>
</div>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size:13px; text-align: center; color: #666666; padding:4px; margin-bottom:2px;"></div>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<table style="font:13px Helvetica, sans-serif; border-radius:4px; -moz-border-radius:4px; -webkit-border-radius:4px; background-color:#fff; padding:8px; margin-bottom:6px; border:1px solid #adadad;" width="100%">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/scientists-show-how-common-chord-progressions-unlock-social-bonding-in-the-brain/" style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing:-1px;margin:0;padding:0 0 2px;font-weight: bold;font-size: 19px;line-height: 20px;color:#222;">Scientists show how common chord progressions unlock social bonding in the brain</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">May 7th 2026, 06:00</div>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; color:#494949;text-align:justify;font-size:13px;">
<p><p>New research provides evidence that listening to familiar and predictable musical chord progressions while making eye contact with another person increases activity in parts of the brain associated with social interaction. This combination of music and eye contact also tends to make people feel more socially connected to each other. These findings were recently published in <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1523/jneurosci.1116-25.2026" target="_blank">The Journal of Neuroscience</a></em>. </p>
<p>The authors conducted this study to investigate the exact brain mechanisms that explain why music brings people together. While many people experience a sense of bonding through music, the biological processes behind this feeling remain mostly unmapped. A major motivation was to explore how specific musical elements could eventually be used as medical therapies for conditions related to social isolation. </p>
<p>“The question of how and why listening to music enhances social behavior has a long history in neuroscience,” said study author Joy Hirsch, the Elizabeth Mears and House Jameson professor of psychiatry, comparative medicine and neuroscience at the Yale School of Medicine. Hirsch, who also directs the Brain Function Laboratory and is affiliated with the Wu Tsai Institute at Yale University, added that a primary reason to explore this topic is the potential for developing music therapies to treat clinical conditions with social symptoms. </p>
<p>Study author AZA Stephen Allsop, an assistant professor of psychiatry at Yale University and an affiliate assistant professor at Howard University, shared a personal motivation for the work. “I am a life-long musician and a professional independent artist as well as a physician-scientist,” Allsop explained. “I’ve always been obsessed with understanding how sounds can activate neural circuits in a way that can facilitate social connection and healing.” </p>
<p>Allsop also serves as the director of the Center for Collective Healing and the medical director of the Rapid Evaluation, Stabilization, and Treatment Center. </p>
<p>“This research allowed me to directly test an observation I made as a musician about how chord progressions shape the way people respond to music, especially in social settings like a music concert or church,” Allsop continued. “It’s very satisfying to begin approaching these questions that I’ve had as a musician through scientifically validated tools and then ask how I can use this information to help my patients.” </p>
<p>Another reason this study is happening now is because of new brain scanning tools. In the past, brain scans required a person to lie perfectly still inside a large, loud machine, which made natural social interactions impossible. </p>
<p>“Prior to this paradigm shift functional imaging was primarily performed in an MRI scanner without the possibility of live social interaction,” Hirsch noted. “The new dual brain technology plus advances in multimodal approaches including neural and synchronized behavioral variables provides a quantum leap in opportunity to study questions such as how music interacts with neural systems that enhance social behavior.” </p>
<p>To conduct the experiment, the scientists recruited 40 healthy adults, consisting of 20 men, 18 women, and two nonbinary individuals. The participants had an average age of about 27 years. These individuals were paired up into 20 two-person groups. The pairs sat across a table from each other, separated by a specially designed piece of glass that could instantly switch between transparent and opaque. </p>
<p>The researchers recorded the participants’ brain activity using a technique called functional near-infrared spectroscopy. This method uses special caps fitted with small sensors that shine safe, low-level light through the scalp to measure changes in blood oxygen levels. Because active brain regions consume more oxygen, this technology allows scientists to map brain activity while participants sit up and interact normally. </p>
<p>During the experiment, the participants listened to two different types of musical tracks. One track featured a highly predictable and harmonious chord progression that is very common in Western popular music. The other track used the exact same notes and instruments, but the timing and structure of the piano and bass were completely scrambled, making the melody unpredictable. Both tracks featured the same steady drumbeat. </p>
<p>As the participants listened to the music, the glass between them toggled back and forth. Sometimes the glass was transparent, allowing the pair to make natural eye contact. Other times, the glass was frosted, blocking their view of one another. After each round of listening, the participants used a digital dial to rate how socially connected they felt to their partner on a scale from zero to five. </p>
<p>The scientists found that feelings of social connection peaked when participants looked at each other while listening to the structured, predictable chord progressions. “There are several take-home messages,” Hirsch explained. “Music with predictable chord progressions (unlike typical jazz, for example) was found to be most effective in increasing feelings of social connectedness.” </p>
<p>The brain scans revealed that specific regions lit up during this exact combination of eye contact and predictable music. The right angular gyrus, a brain area involved in processing social information and understanding events, showed increased activity. The researchers also saw heightened activity in the somatosensory association cortex, a region usually linked to physical touch and sensation, as well as in the prefrontal cortex, which handles complex planning and social behavior. </p>
<p>“We believe that these findings are the first to break through conventional obstacles that have traditionally prevented rigorous investigation of how live social effects are modulated by music and the underlying neural systems that mediate the social perceptions,” Hirsch said. “There are specific areas of the brain that are responsive to the combination of live faces and structured chord progressions. There are also specific areas of the brain that are associated with subjective feelings of social connectedness that are elicited by both mutual live face gaze and predictable chord progressions.” </p>
<p>In addition to measuring individual brain activity, the researchers examined how the two participants’ brains synced up with each other. They observed that the brain waves of the two partners began to mirror each other during the face-to-face, structured music condition. This brain synchronization suggests that the pairs were experiencing a shared state of social cooperation and emotional alignment. </p>
<p>The authors noted a few unexpected elements in their data. “The main finding: predictable chord progressions enhance social neural systems and perceptions of social connections between people, is surprising because without this finding we had no basis for such a prediction,” Hirsch said. “These findings have led us to propose a novel hypothesis that the predictability of the music enhances natural social interactive behaviors that also predict responses of another person.” </p>
<p>Hirsch added that this shared predictive behavior might be a core function of human bonding. “The idea is that predictable music may upregulate this unique social mechanism,” she explained. “This idea, of course, requires further testing.” </p>
<p>Allsop also highlighted an unexpected detail regarding the brain regions involved. “I was surprised by the clear involvement of the somatosensory cortex in music-based social connection,” Allsop said. “This suggests that our feelings of social connection are mediated by this part of the brain that is known to be important for physical sensation. It is still a mystery how features of music can activate this region as a mediator of felt social connection.” </p>
<p>These observations suggests that songwriters and composers might be tapping into basic human biology. “Familiar, common musical chord progressions can make us feel more connected through the activation of a neural network that is important for how we process social information and feel subjective connection,” Allsop explained. “Musicians likely intuitively arrived at these formulas for song composition because of their felt effects on neurophysiology.” </p>
<p>The authors noted that there are a few limitations to consider regarding future directions. Measurements of social connection are based on personal feelings, which means different people might interpret the concept of connectedness differently. Future studies will need to use multiple methods to measure these feelings, perhaps including questions about how pleasant the participants found the music. </p>
<p>“This study is an initial ‘proof of principle’ that music is a salient and potentially therapeutic stimulus,” Hirsch noted. “In order for the full potential of music to be applied in medical applications there needs to be a clear understanding of the neural mechanisms of action. This investigation provides a foundational starting point for more advanced quantification of the music/social brain interface.” </p>
<p>Hirsch also pointed out the logistical challenges of conducting this type of work. “This investigation took several years to complete due to the absence of dedicated funding,” she said. “The significance of funding for this kind of research cannot be overestimated and protection of our funding mechanisms is a high priority for future advances.” </p>
<p>Looking ahead, the researchers hope to apply these concepts in real-world settings to assist people with specific mental health needs. “Our next step is to understand not only how these specific features can activate the unique neural networks that we are observing, but how these features might be used in the delivery of music-based therapeutics across a number of conditions such as anxiety, depression, schizophrenia, and autism,” Allsop concluded. </p>
<p>“One very attractive next step for this line of research is a clinical trial to test for clinical benefits and how they might be realized,” Hirsch added. </p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1523/jneurosci.1116-25.2026" target="_blank">Listening to a Consonant Chord Progression during Live Face-to-Face Gaze Enhances Neural Activity in Social Systems</a>,” was authored by Dash A Watts, AZA Stephen Allsop, Simone Compton, Xian Zhang, J Adam Noah, and Joy Hirsch.</p></p>
</div>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size:13px; text-align: center; color: #666666; padding:4px; margin-bottom:2px;"></div>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<table style="font:13px Helvetica, sans-serif; border-radius:4px; -moz-border-radius:4px; -webkit-border-radius:4px; background-color:#fff; padding:8px; margin-bottom:6px; border:1px solid #adadad;" width="100%">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/the-human-brain-relies-on-the-thighs-to-accurately-judge-body-size/" style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing:-1px;margin:0;padding:0 0 2px;font-weight: bold;font-size: 19px;line-height: 20px;color:#222;">The human brain appears to rely heavily on the thighs to accurately judge female body size</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">May 6th 2026, 20:00</div>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; color:#494949;text-align:justify;font-size:13px;">
<p><p>When humans estimate the physical size of another person, they do not need to observe the entire body to make an accurate guess. A new study reveals that people rely heavily on specific combinations of features located in the lower body, particularly around the thighs. The research was recently published in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1186/s12915-025-02444-z"><em>BMC Biology</em></a>.</p>
<p>Understanding how people perceive bodily dimensions has practical implications for health and psychology. Inaccurate judgments of one’s own shape or the shape of others play a central role in body image disturbances. Conditions like anorexia nervosa are often accompanied by a distorted visual perception of bodily proportions.</p>
<p>Researchers want to understand the exact visual mechanics that lead to these daily misperceptions. To do this, they borrow techniques from vision science to evaluate how visual systems prioritize certain physical traits. Lia Marinko and her colleagues at the University of Western Australia investigated which exact anatomical regions the human brain needs to see to judge weight.</p>
<p>Scientists have debated whether the brain processes a human body as a single object or as a collection of separate parts. The single-object approach is known as holistic processing. The parts-based processing approach suggests we use specific local visual cues to form an overall judgment of the entire person.</p>
<p>Previous studies into this topic have yielded conflicting answers. Some experiments indicate that the overall silhouette is strictly necessary for the human brain to function accurately. Others point out that people tend to fixate entirely on the lower torso when guessing how much someone weighs.</p>
<p>Marinko and her colleagues designed visual tasks to measure two common types of inherent perceptual errors. The first error is known as regression to the mean. This happens when a person judges an extreme object and mentally pulls it toward the average of all similar objects they have seen before in their lifetimes.</p>
<p>For example, people routinely underestimate the weight of very large bodies and overestimate the weight of very small bodies. The second error is called serial dependence. This is a visual illusion where the appearance of an object is distorted toward the object viewed just moments prior.</p>
<p>If a person looks at a sequence of bodies, their judgment of the current body is shifted depending on whether the previous body was larger or smaller. Measuring these two types of innate visual biases allows researchers to track how specific body parts affect the overall accuracy of size estimates.</p>
<p>In the first phase of the study, the research team recruited 99 female participants to look at standard images of female bodies on a computer screen. The participants were mostly healthy young adults. They viewed 35 different bodily forms ranging from extremely thin to extremely large. </p>
<p>To avoid distractions, the faces were removed from the images. During a visual test called the bodyline task, participants saw a body image flash on the screen for a quarter of a second. They then clicked on a flat visual scale from one to seven to rate the perceived size of the model.</p>
<p>The task included extreme body anchors on either side of the visual scale to present a reference point. The researchers divided the computer trials into three different viewing conditions to manipulate the visual information the participants received. The order of the tasks was counterbalanced across participants.</p>
<p>First, participants judged the whole body over a series of trials. Next, they judged images where only the top half of the body was visible, spanning exactly from the navel up to the neck. Finally, they judged images showing only the bottom half of the body, from the navel down to the feet.</p>
<p>The results revealed that estimating size based only on the top half of the body produced substantial perceptual errors. Participants made massive regression toward the mean misjudgments when the lower body was hidden. They were far less capable of telling small and large bodies apart using torso and arm cues alone. </p>
<p>However, viewing the bottom half of the body led to estimates that were just as accurate as viewing the entire body. The estimation errors for the bottom-half images completely mirrored the baseline errors from the full-body images. This result suggests that the human visual system uses a parts-based processing method for body size.</p>
<p>People extract the necessary information completely from the lower extremities. Seeing the upper torso, arms, and shoulders adds virtually nothing to the accuracy of a size estimate based on regression calculations. The brain simply relies on the hips and legs to deduce the rest of the physical shape.</p>
<p>Knowing that the lower body holds the key to visual estimation, the researchers conducted a second experiment to isolate specific leg features. They recruited a new group of 116 female undergraduate students to perform a nearly identical task. This time, the viewing conditions restricted the image down to highly specific sections of the thighs.</p>
<p>Participants viewed the whole body in one condition as a control baseline. In another condition, the researchers applied digital rectangular masks to the images, exposing the outer thigh and hips while obscuring the inner legs. In the third condition, a different digital mask exposed the inner thigh area without showing the outer hips.</p>
<p>The goal was to test if a single isolated cue drove the high accuracy found in the first experiment. The researchers wanted to know if the brain relied solely on the curved outline of the outer hips or the visible gap between the inner thighs. Vision tracking research has previously suggested both of these distinct anatomical areas attract the eye during sizing tasks.</p>
<p>The results of this second test showed that looking at either the isolated inner thigh or the isolated outer thigh resulted in heavy estimation errors. The isolated sections produced staggeringly high error rates compared to the whole body imagery. The single aspects failed to provide enough structural information on their own.</p>
<p>Both the regression to the mean bias and the serial dependence bias inflated immensely under these restricted views. Errors occurred regardless of whether the body depicted on the monitor was very small or very large in physical reality. The researchers noted slightly higher error rates when participants viewed only the inner thigh compared to the outer thigh.</p>
<p>This outcome tells scientists that the brain requires multiple features from the lower body simultaneously to make competent judgments. A person needs to see the outer hip width in relation to the inner thigh contours to make an accurate estimation. A single isolated trait is essentially useless without its neighboring anatomical context.</p>
<p>One complication the researchers noted involves how actual body anatomy changes across sizes in real environments. Smaller bodies tend to feature a visible gap between the upper legs, while larger bodies often have thighs that consistently touch. Despite this physical difference, obscuring either of the thighs ruined the size estimation accuracy for all body sizes equally.</p>
<p>The researchers mentioned a few caveats regarding their specific digital methodology. Applying rectangular masks to obscure body parts is a difficult scientific tactic because erasing sections of an image removes natural cues ranging from skin texture to shadows. The loss of these subtle contextual visual hints might contribute to the elevated error rates.</p>
<p>The study also focused exclusively on female participants looking at female bodies to create a homogenous dataset. Society harbors vastly differing ideals surrounding physical shape based on gender expectations. Men often idealize a muscular shape characterized by a broad upper body and defined chest muscles rather than thigh configurations.</p>
<p>Because of these differing societal standards, people likely view and judge male bodies using an entirely different set of visual rules. Replicating the study setup with male body images and male participants might reveal that upper body features dictate accuracy in that specific demographic. The findings cannot be mapped directly onto differing body types with absolute certainty.</p>
<p>Future investigations could apply these specific visual tests to clinical psychology populations. Exploring how people formally diagnosed with anorexia or binge eating disorders perform on thigh-based visual tests could yield helpful psychiatric insights. A failure to mentally integrate multiple lower body features could explain the severe body distortions experienced by those specific patients.</p>
<p>The study, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1186/s12915-025-02444-z">“The thighs have it: evidence for the importance of lower body regions in female body size judgments,”</a> was authored by Lia Marinko, Briana L. Kennedy, Kei-Kei Koh, Laura Dondzilo, and Jason Bell.</p></p>
</div>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size:13px; text-align: center; color: #666666; padding:4px; margin-bottom:2px;"></div>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<table style="font:13px Helvetica, sans-serif; border-radius:4px; -moz-border-radius:4px; -webkit-border-radius:4px; background-color:#fff; padding:8px; margin-bottom:6px; border:1px solid #adadad;" width="100%">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/taking-a-break-from-social-media-does-not-improve-mental-health-mass-data-review/" 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;">Taking a break from social media does not improve mental health, mass data review finds</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">May 6th 2026, 18:00</div>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; color:#494949;text-align:justify;font-size:13px;">
<p><p>Many people attempt to improve their mental health by taking a temporary break from social media apps like Facebook or Instagram. A new comprehensive review of existing data reveals that entirely giving up these platforms does not actually make people feel better or worse. The research was published in the journal <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-90984-3"><i>Scientific Reports</i></a>.</p>
<p>In an increasingly connected world, digital platforms shape how individuals communicate and form relationships. Many users experience a mix of benefits and drawbacks from this constant connectivity. People often report feeling distracted, stressed, or envious of others online.</p>
<p>Psychologists sometimes refer to this situation as the mobile connectivity paradox. Digital devices offer constant access to information and social support. At the very same moment, they can trap users in a cycle of endless obligations to reply to messages and stay updated. This tension leaves many people searching for ways to regain control over their attention.</p>
<p>To manage these negative feelings, a popular strategy called a digital detox has emerged. This involves a person voluntarily stopping all use of social media for a specific period of time. Advocates often promise that disconnecting will boost productivity, ease stress, and improve general happiness.</p>
<p>The logic behind these digital breaks is often compared to abstaining from drugs or gambling. Researchers refer to this as removing a harmful stimulus to allow the mind to recover. Theories suggest that staying offline shields users from seeing highly edited, unrealistic images of other people’s lives.</p>
<p>Another common theory is the time displacement hypothesis. This idea proposes that taking a break from screens frees up hours that would otherwise be lost to scrolling. People might then spend this reclaimed time on activities that are better for their mental health, such as exercising or seeing friends in person.</p>
<p>While these theories sound logical, previous experiments testing social media abstinence have produced wildly inconsistent results. Some trials suggested that logging off improved mood, while others found that it left people feeling disconnected and lonely. Other experiments found no measurable changes at all.</p>
<p>Laura Lemahieu, a communication researcher at the University of Antwerp, led a team of scientists to investigate this discrepancy. Along with colleagues from Ghent University, Lemahieu set out to reconcile these conflicting outcomes. The scientists suspected that combining the data from multiple experiments might reveal the true underlying trend.</p>
<p>The research team conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis. This method allows researchers to gather the mathematical results of many past studies and analyze them as one massive dataset. By doing this, scientists can average out the quirks of individual isolated experiments to find a more reliable generalized answer.</p>
<p>The researchers searched scientific databases for studies that forced adults to completely abstain from social media for a set time. They excluded experiments that merely asked people to reduce their screen time. They wanted to see exactly what happens when the digital plug is pulled completely.</p>
<p>In total, the team identified 10 suitable studies. These experiments collectively included 4,674 participants. The researchers focused their analysis on three specific emotional measurements documented in the past experiments.</p>
<p>In psychological research, the term affect generally refers to the underlying experience of feeling, emotion, or mood. The researchers separated this concept into two distinct categories. The first measurement was positive affect, which encompasses feelings of enthusiasm, alertness, and energy. </p>
<p>The second psychological measurement was negative affect, which covers unpleasant emotions like anger, fear, and guilt. The final measurement was life satisfaction. Life satisfaction is a global assessment metric, representing a person’s broad evaluation of how well their life is going.</p>
<p>When the researchers ran the combined numbers, the results were not statistically significant for any of the three categories. Giving up social media did not increase feelings of joy or enthusiasm. It also failed to consistently reduce negative emotions like sadness or anxiety.</p>
<p>Similarly, taking a break from apps had no statistically significant effect on a person’s overall life satisfaction. The researchers also checked to see if the length of the detox mattered. The experiments tested breaks ranging from a single day up to nearly a month.</p>
<p>The statistical analysis showed that the duration of the abstinence was not related to the mental health outcomes. Quitting for four weeks was no more effective than quitting for a single week. The researchers suggested that the assumed benefits and drawbacks of logging off might simply cancel each other out.</p>
<p>For example, a person might feel more relaxed without the constant stream of notifications. At the same time, they might feel bored or isolated because they are missing out on online social interactions. The net result appears to be a neutral emotional state.</p>
<p>The lead author and her colleagues noted several limitations in the available data. Most of the original 10 experiments had relatively small sample sizes. This limitation means the individual studies suffered from low statistical power, making it harder for those researchers to detect subtle emotional shifts.</p>
<p>Another limitation is that the available data heavily relied on specific demographics. The participants were predominantly university students in Western, industrialized nations. Scientists refer to these groups as WEIRD populations, standing for Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic. </p>
<p>The emotional reactions of college students in these specific environments might not represent the broader public. Older adults or individuals in different cultural contexts may respond to digital disconnection in entirely different ways.</p>
<p>There were also persistent practical problems in how the original experiments were executed. In many of the studies, participants struggled to successfully complete the digital detox. Some experiments recorded high failure rates, with large numbers of volunteers admitting they sneaked a look at their accounts during the testing window.</p>
<p>The original studies also could not blind their participants to the nature of the experiment. In medical trials, patients often do not know if they are receiving real medicine or a sugar pill. In a digital detox study, the participants are entirely aware that they are changing their digital habits.</p>
<p>This awareness can influence how people report their feelings on questionnaires. Those who expect a detox to feel refreshing might subconsciously answer the surveys more positively. The fact that the combined results still showed no statistically significant changes suggests that the detox intervention is remarkably weak.</p>
<p>Additionally, the context of the detox might play a role in how it feels. In an experiment, volunteers are asked to log off by a researcher. This forced abstention might feel very different from a self-imposed break initiated by someone who genuinely wants to disconnect. When people actively choose to delete their apps for personal reasons, their unique motivations might lead to better emotional outcomes.</p>
<p>The scientists propose that an aggregated measure like overall life satisfaction might be too broad to capture the effects of a short app break. They recommend that future experiments track minute-by-minute mood changes over long periods. This intensive tracking could reveal temporary emotional boosts that standard end-of-day surveys overlook.</p>
<p>The study suggests that forcing an abrupt stop to social media use is not the best way to handle modern digital stress. The researchers propose that future studies should investigate alternative disconnection methods. Setting daily time limits or turning off specific notifications might be a more sustainable approach than quitting cold turkey.</p>
<p>Learning to balance connection and disconnection will remain an important skill as smartphones become even more entrenched in daily routines. People might find more success in adjusting how they use these tools rather than abandoning them entirely.</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-90984-3">The effects of social media abstinence on affective well-being and life satisfaction: a systematic review and meta-analysis</a>,” was authored by Laura Lemahieu, Yannick Vander Zwalmen, Marthe Mennes, Ernst H. W. Koster, Mariek M. P. Vanden Abeele, and Karolien Poels.</p></p>
</div>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size:13px; text-align: center; color: #666666; padding:4px; margin-bottom:2px;"></div>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<table style="font:13px Helvetica, sans-serif; border-radius:4px; -moz-border-radius:4px; -webkit-border-radius:4px; background-color:#fff; padding:8px; margin-bottom:6px; border:1px solid #adadad;" width="100%">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/brain-waves-reveal-why-negative-emotions-hijack-attention-in-borderline-personal/" style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing:-1px;margin:0;padding:0 0 2px;font-weight: bold;font-size: 19px;line-height: 20px;color:#222;">Brain waves reveal why negative emotions hijack attention in borderline personality traits</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">May 6th 2026, 16:00</div>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; color:#494949;text-align:justify;font-size:13px;">
<p><p>People who exhibit elevated levels of borderline personality traits often struggle to think flexibly and maintain their focus when confronted with negative emotions. A recent study published in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pscychresns.2026.112150"><em>Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging</em></a> reveals that these individuals experience distinct disruptions in brain activity that make it hard for them to ignore angry faces during difficult mental tasks. The research provides a biological window into why negative feelings can unexpectedly derail unrelated mental efforts for those at risk of borderline personality disorder.</p>
<p>Borderline personality disorder involves intense emotional instability, impulsive behaviors, and trouble managing interpersonal relationships. A core element of this psychiatric condition is a deficit in cognitive control. This mental ability acts like a traffic director in the brain, allowing people to allocate their resources and adapt to new challenges seamlessly.</p>
<p>These emotional regulation issues are not restricted to diagnosed clinical patients. Many people in the general public possess some borderline personality traits. This means they share similar emotional and mental tendencies but fall below the threshold for a formal medical diagnosis. </p>
<p>Researchers want to understand how these nonclinical populations respond to emotional interference. Exploring these overlapping traits helps mental health professionals chart how the full disorder develops over time. Studying undiagnosed groups also avoids the complications of severe psychiatric medications that clinical patients might be taking, which can alter brain scans.</p>
<p>Si Yang, a researcher at Anhui Normal University in China, led a team to investigate the brain dynamics underlying these personality traits. Yang and colleagues designed an experiment to test how negative emotions interfere with active problem solving. They rooted their approach in information theory, treating the brain as an engine that constantly works to reduce uncertainty in a chaotic environment.</p>
<p>Most previous psychological research only tested individuals on simple, binary mental conflicts. The researchers instead wanted to quantify exactly how increasing the difficulty of a task changes a person’s ability to process distracting emotional information. Finding the exact point where the brain gets overwhelmed by uncertainty could help isolate the root of this sensitivity.</p>
<p>To explore this, the research team recruited a large group of college students and used a standard questionnaire to measure their personality traits. They selected about fifty participants with high scores for borderline traits to serve as their main study group. They also selected another fifty participants with very low scores to serve as a baseline comparison group.</p>
<p>The participants then completed a specialized computer test designed to challenge their concentration and visual processing. The test displayed a cluster of five faces on a screen. Every face in a particular cluster featured either a happy expression or an angry expression to simulate emotional interference.</p>
<p>Among the five faces, some pointed to the left while others pointed to the right. Participants simply had to press a button indicating which direction the majority of the faces were looking. They had to make this choice as quickly and accurately as possible within a brief time limit.</p>
<p>The researchers varied the difficulty of the puzzle by changing the ratio of the faces. A trial where all five faces looked the same way was incredibly easy. A trial where three faces looked one way and two looked the other way was highly difficult, forcing the brain to work harder to verify the majority amid high uncertainty.</p>
<p>While the participants clicked through these visual puzzles, the scientists recorded their brain activity using a specialized cap covered in sensors. This recording method measures small electrical changes in the brain that occur in response to a visual stimulus. Scientists can isolate specific electrical peaks that occur mere milliseconds after a person sees an image.</p>
<p>The behavioral results revealed that the differences between the two groups on the easy and medium puzzles were not statistically significant. Both sets of students answered at roughly the same speed with the same level of accuracy. The mental demands of these simpler puzzles were evidently not high enough to cause any disruption.</p>
<p>Differences only emerged during the most challenging puzzles that featured angry facial expressions. Under those difficult negative conditions, people with high borderline traits took much longer to answer. They also made more mistakes than the individuals with low borderline traits.</p>
<p>The electrical brain recordings provided a deeper biological explanation for why this drop in performance occurred. The researchers analyzed three distinct electrical patterns associated with attention and emotional processing. Each wave corresponds to a different phase of human thought, from early detection to late stage appraisal.</p>
<p>Early in the brain’s response to the faces, a specific electrical signal emerges around 200 milliseconds after seeing an image. This peak helps the brain detect conflicting information and direct attention appropriately. The participants with high borderline traits displayed a much weaker electrical signal during this initial monitoring phase.</p>
<p>Because their brains were less responsive to the initial conflict, these individuals struggled with early attention. The researchers suspect that the heavy emotional weight of an angry face quickly dampened their basic ability to identify confusing visual details. The negative emotion essentially hijacked their earliest cognitive defenses.</p>
<p>A second brain wave generally peaks nearly 300 milliseconds after the image appears. This signal represents the investment of mental effort and the updating of a person’s working memory. This specific wave was much larger in the group with borderline traits.</p>
<p>The exaggerated size of this second wave suggests these individuals had to work much harder to process the emotional faces and complete the puzzle at the same time. They poured excessive mental energy into the task but still came up short on speed and accuracy. Their brains allocated resources highly inefficiently under pressure.</p>
<p>Finally, the researchers evaluated a third electrical signal that tracks sustained attention and the late stages of emotional appraisal. This wave occurs roughly half a second after the image appears. In the group with low borderline traits, the size of this wave adjusted smoothly based on how hard the puzzle was.</p>
<p>For the individuals with high borderline traits, this late electrical wave completely failed to adjust during puzzles featuring angry faces. The negative emotional information seemingly overloaded their final cognitive reserves. This prevented their brains from flexibly handling the varied task difficulties, causing a breakdown in their sustained attention.</p>
<p>These findings illuminate some of the mechanical reasons behind emotional instability. Still, the researchers noted a few limitations in their approach. The study relied exclusively on young college students. The psychological responses found in this group might not hold true for older adults or individuals from different educational backgrounds.</p>
<p>The participants also self-reported their personality traits using a standard questionnaire. While this is a common practice in psychology, self-assessment has inherent biases. Future studies might integrate professional clinical interviews to verify trait levels with stronger objectivity.</p>
<p>The research team also acknowledged that other mental health states like chronic anxiety or depression could influence these electrical patterns. Additional testing will need to isolate these variables. Removing these overlapping factors will confirm that borderline traits are the primary cause of the observed brain wave changes.</p>
<p>Acknowledging these nuances will help researchers build better treatments for emotional dysregulation. Psychologists could eventually track these specific electrical signals over extended periods to see if they predict the onset of a full personality disorder. Identifying these biological markers early could help clinicians develop therapeutic strategies, like mindfulness training, that strengthen cognitive control before symptoms worsen.</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pscychresns.2026.112150">Neural evidence for the influence of cognitive control by facial emotion under varying task difficulty in individuals with borderline personality disorder traits</a>,” was authored by Si Yang, Lijun Wang, Man Zheng, and Suhao Peng.</p></p>
</div>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size:13px; text-align: center; color: #666666; padding:4px; margin-bottom:2px;"></div>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<table style="font:13px Helvetica, sans-serif; border-radius:4px; -moz-border-radius:4px; -webkit-border-radius:4px; background-color:#fff; padding:8px; margin-bottom:6px; border:1px solid #adadad;" width="100%">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/are-adult-adhd-clinical-trials-testing-the-right-patients-a-new-study-raises-doubts/" 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;">Are adult ADHD clinical trials testing the right patients? A new study raises doubts</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">May 6th 2026, 14:00</div>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; color:#494949;text-align:justify;font-size:13px;">
<p><p>More than half of major clinical trials testing treatments for adult ADHD did not adequately verify that participants actually had the condition, raising serious concerns about the reliability of the evidence underpinning current care. This new study was published in <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1192/j.eurpsy.2025.2447" target="_blank">European Psychiatry</a></em>.</p>
<p>Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) was originally described as a childhood condition, defined by observable behaviors that parents and teachers could report, such as excessive running, an inability to sit still, or constant interruption. However, in recent decades, ADHD diagnoses in adults have risen sharply. This surge has prompted growing concern among researchers and clinicians about whether the diagnostic criteria—originally tailored for children—are fit for purpose when applied to adults.</p>
<p>The challenge is significant. To be diagnosed, adults must reflect on and self-report their own internal experiences (such as feeling distracted or restless) and recall childhood behaviors that occurred decades earlier. Many symptoms of adult ADHD can also be caused by depression, trauma, anxiety, and other mental health conditions. Without carefully ruling out these alternatives through a thorough, differential psychiatric assessment, misdiagnosis can easily occur.</p>
<p>A research team led by Igor Studart systematically reviewed 292 randomized controlled trials (RCTs) involving adult patients diagnosed with ADHD. RCTs are widely considered the “gold standard” of clinical research used to determine if a treatment works. The researchers examined how ADHD had been diagnosed in each trial, who conducted the assessment, whether psychiatric comorbidities were included, and whether general mental health was evaluated to rule out mimicking conditions.</p>
<p>The findings were striking. Overall, there was massive variation in the diagnostic methods used across the trials. Approximately half (49.7%) of the studies diagnosed ADHD without any formal assessment of broader general psychopathology. This means the researchers had no systematic way to rule out that participants’ attention or hyperactivity difficulties might actually be symptoms of depression, schizophrenia spectrum disorders, substance use, or another condition altogether.</p>
<p>In 65% of the studies, it was either unclear who had conducted the diagnostic assessment, or the assessment had not been done by a psychiatrist or psychologist. Instead, many trials relied on “trained raters,” self-rating scales, or computer assessments—methods that elevate the risk of diagnostic errors. </p>
<p>Furthermore, over half (53.8%) of the studies included participants with other psychiatric comorbidities. This is highly problematic because clinical guidelines stipulate that ADHD should not be diagnosed if the symptoms are better explained by another condition. While over 87% of the studies claimed to adhere to this diagnostic hierarchy (which prioritizes ruling out organic or severe psychiatric disorders first), the reviewers noted that this was practically impossible for most to verify, as they had skipped the general mental health assessment required to do so.</p>
<p>The authors concluded that these findings represent “a worrying shift in the common understanding of how a psychiatric diagnosis should be allocated in research studies.” </p>
<p>They added: “If neither clinicians nor researchers can rely on the basic fact that patients in scientific studies diagnostically resemble the patients they are facing, scientific studies risk losing their clinical relevance.”</p>
<p>An important limitation of this review is that it searched only one database (PubMed) and focused solely on the diagnostic methodology of the trials, rather than analyzing their actual outcomes. Additionally, because many RCTs poorly described their diagnostic procedures, the categorization of those approaches required some degree of subjective judgment by the reviewers.</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1192/j.eurpsy.2025.2447">Diagnosing ADHD in adults in randomized controlled studies: a scoping review,</a>” was authored by Igor Studart, Mads Gram Henriksen, and Julie Nordgaard.</p></p>
</div>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size:13px; text-align: center; color: #666666; padding:4px; margin-bottom:2px;"></div>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<table style="font:13px Helvetica, sans-serif; border-radius:4px; -moz-border-radius:4px; -webkit-border-radius:4px; background-color:#fff; padding:8px; margin-bottom:6px; border:1px solid #adadad;" width="100%">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/conversational-ai-shows-promise-in-easing-symptoms-of-anxiety-and-depression/" style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing:-1px;margin:0;padding:0 0 2px;font-weight: bold;font-size: 19px;line-height: 20px;color:#222;">Conversational AI shows promise in easing symptoms of anxiety and depression</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">May 6th 2026, 12:00</div>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; color:#494949;text-align:justify;font-size:13px;">
<p><p>A recent study published in <em><a href="https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2847751" target="_blank">JAMA Network Open</a></em> provides evidence that interacting with a conversational artificial intelligence program can help reduce symptoms of anxiety and depression while boosting overall well-being. The findings suggest that these digital platforms can form a meaningful therapeutic bond with users, offering an accessible way to support mental health on a large scale. </p>
<p>Mental health challenges affect millions of people worldwide, but only a fraction of those individuals receive the professional care they need. This gap in treatment tends to happen because of structural issues, such as a shortage of trained therapists, high costs, and the social stigma that still surrounds asking for psychological help. To address this problem, scientists have started looking toward digital technologies to reach larger populations without straining existing clinics.</p>
<p>Anat Shoshani, a professor at the Baruch Ivcher School of Psychology at Reichman University and chief psychologist at Kai.ai, noticed this disconnect firsthand. “As a clinician, I repeatedly encountered a structural paradox in mental health care: therapy can be deeply effective, but emotional distress rarely unfolds according to the architecture of treatment systems,” Shoshani explained. “People experience panic attacks at midnight, loneliness after breakups, anxiety before exams, emotional spirals during commutes, and relapse after treatment ends. Many others spend months on waiting lists or never seek care at all.”</p>
<p>Early mental health applications often struggled to keep users engaged over time. People tended to abandon these programs quickly, frequently because the applications felt too passive or robotic to provide a sense of real connection. Newer artificial intelligence systems are designed to hold natural, fluid conversations with users. These modern programs use advanced language models to simulate the empathy and personalized support typically found in human therapy. </p>
<p>The researchers conducted this study to see if a conversational artificial intelligence agent could actually rival traditional group therapy in easing emotional distress. They wanted to evaluate how well a digital tool could treat specific psychiatric symptoms compared to human-led interactions. They also wanted to know if people could feel a genuine bond with a digital platform, and whether that bond would lead to better mental health outcomes.</p>
<p>The research team recruited 995 university students in Israel between the ages of 18 and 35. These participants were experiencing mild to moderate psychological distress, which the researchers measured using a standardized screening tool. The scientists randomly divided the students into three roughly equal groups to compare different types of support.</p>
<p>One group of 336 students used a conversational artificial intelligence platform called Kai for 12 weeks. This platform operates through familiar messaging applications and provides personalized mental health exercises. “Kai was intentionally designed as more than a chatbot. Conversation is only one layer,” Shoshani stated. “It integrates evidence-based interventions from CBT, ACT, DBT, mindfulness, and positive psychology, alongside daily emotional check-ins, personalized routines, journaling tools, short guided exercises, psychoeducation, and human safety escalation when needed.”</p>
<p>These acronyms within the quote refer to established psychological practices, such as cognitive behavioral therapy, which helps people identify and change negative thought patterns, and other therapies focused on acceptance and emotional regulation. Participants could message the program at any time and were encouraged to engage at least three times a week.</p>
<p>Another group of 331 students attended traditional face-to-face group therapy led by licensed psychologists. These weekly sessions lasted 90 minutes over the same 12-week period and covered similar coping strategies. The final group of 328 students served as a waiting list control. This means they received no active treatment during the study but were offered access to the digital platform later.</p>
<p>To track progress, the authors used several well-known psychological questionnaires. They measured anxiety with a specific seven-question survey and depression with a nine-question survey. Anxiety generally involves persistent worry, while depression often includes feelings of sadness and a loss of interest in daily activities. </p>
<p>The researchers also assessed symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, which is a mental health condition triggered by a terrifying event. Beyond negative symptoms, they looked at positive functioning by measuring overall well-being and life satisfaction. Students filled out these surveys at the beginning of the study, right after the 12-week intervention, and again three months later.</p>
<p>After the 12 weeks, the researchers found that participants interacting with the artificial intelligence program experienced a greater reduction in anxiety than those in both the face-to-face group therapy and the control group. Group therapy did not differ significantly from the waiting list when it came to lowering anxiety. The digital platform also helped reduce symptoms of depression more effectively than the control condition. </p>
<p>The authors suspect the digital platform performed so well with anxiety because of its constant availability. “Anxiety tends to escalate in real time,” Shoshani explained. “It happens before social situations, during late-night rumination, before difficult conversations, and in moments when no therapist is available. Immediate support may matter enormously in those situations.”</p>
<p>When looking at positive mental health, the digital group reported higher gains in general well-being and life satisfaction compared to the other two groups. These improvements were still present during the three-month follow-up assessment. The study provides evidence that the digital program did not help with symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, as these specific trauma-related scores remained similar across all three groups. </p>
<p>Shoshani pointed out that this lack of effect helps define the boundaries of digital care. “Trauma is often more complex and may require deeper clinical judgment, specialized interventions, and human relational work,” she noted.</p>
<p>The study also revealed surprisingly high engagement levels for a digital tool. “In our study, participants engaged around three times per week, and 61% remained active after 12 weeks,” Shoshani said. “That level of retention suggests people weren’t simply experimenting with the technology. They were integrating it into their emotional routines.”</p>
<p>The authors also examined the concept of a therapeutic alliance. This term refers to the trust and connection a person typically feels with their human care provider. Participants rated the artificial intelligence program as being just as warm and professional as the human therapists in the group sessions. </p>
<p>The data suggests that when participants felt a strong bond with the digital program, they sent more messages and engaged more deeply. The researchers found that feeling supported by the program was directly linked to larger improvements in their mental health symptoms. This success might be tied to a phenomenon known as the online disinhibition effect, where people feel more comfortable sharing sensitive information with a computer. </p>
<p>“Human disclosure is often slowed by shame, fear of judgment, social desirability, or concerns about burdening others,” Shoshani said. “AI appears to remove some of those interpersonal barriers.”</p>
<p>While the artificial intelligence program helped ease general distress, the findings come with a few limitations. All psychological outcomes were reported by the participants themselves rather than being evaluated by professional clinicians. Relying on self-reported surveys means personal biases could potentially influence the data. Additionally, Shoshani provided important context regarding the environment of the participants. </p>
<p>“This study took place during a prolonged period of national stress and regional instability, which likely influenced emotional outcomes,” she stated. A significant number of participants stopped responding by the three-month follow-up mark. This loss of participants could affect how well we understand the long-term benefits of the intervention. </p>
<p>The study also noted that people using the digital platform became less likely to say they intended to seek traditional therapy in the future. The authors stress that these digital tools are not meant to stand entirely alone. “Effective digital support requires a robust ‘human-in-the-loop’ system, where the AI is constantly monitored by clinical professionals to ensure safety and to provide a bridge to human crisis teams when a user’s needs exceed the platform’s capabilities,” Shoshani explained. </p>
<p>She warned against the assumption that human practitioners are becoming obsolete. “Our goal is to create a ‘stepped-care’ model where AI handles the immediate, day-to-day resilience work, allowing human professionals to focus their expertise where it is most needed,” she added.</p>
<p>Future research should explore how to safely integrate digital conversational agents into existing healthcare systems, as well as investigate their long-term cost-effectiveness. In the end, the goal is to make psychological assistance more attainable for those who might otherwise struggle in silence. </p>
<p>“If technology can responsibly lower that threshold, provide support earlier, and help people feel less alone during difficult moments, that could be profoundly meaningful,” Shoshani concluded. “The future of mental health may not be defined by replacing human connection. It may be defined by expanding the number of moments in which support becomes possible.”</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2847751" target="_blank">Efficacy of a Conversational AI Agent for Psychiatric Symptoms and Digital Therapeutic Alliance: A Randomized Clinical Trial</a>,” was authored by Anat Shoshani, Bar Gurfinkel, Ariel Kor, Yael Ben-Haim, Or Kanarek, Romi Segev, Or Shafir, and Romi Arbel.</p></p>
</div>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size:13px; text-align: center; color: #666666; padding:4px; margin-bottom:2px;"></div>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p><strong>Forwarded by:<br />
Michael Reeder LCPC<br />
Baltimore, MD</strong></p>
<p><strong>This information is taken from free public RSS feeds published by each organization for the purpose of public distribution. Readers are linked back to the article content on each organization's website. This email is an unaffiliated unofficial redistribution of this freely provided content from the publishers. </strong></p>
<p> </p>
<p><s><small><a href="#" style="color:#ffffff;"><a href='https://blogtrottr.com/unsubscribe/DY9DKf?signature=018b8cbbc88d9e8cfaad18cbd390691eacade4e6f93e24e02ae01614222f75b8'>unsubscribe from this feed</a></a></small></s></p>