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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/why-treating-relationship-empathy-as-a-limited-resource-harms-your-mental-health/" 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;">Keeping strict emotional score with a romantic partner is connected to depressive moods</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">May 10th 2026, 10:00</div>
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<p><p>People who view love and emotional support as limited resources are more likely to experience depressive moods in their romantic relationships. A new empirical study shows that treating intimate empathy like a prize with finite winners leads partners to withhold emotional affection and keep strict emotional score. The findings, published in the <i><a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2026.121338">Journal of Affective Disorders</a></i>, suggest that a competitive mindset regarding interpersonal exchanges reliably predicts daily emotional distress.</p>
<p>A zero-sum framework dictates that a gain for one side perfectly corresponds with a loss for the opposing side. In economics or board games, these limits are written into the absolute rules of the engagement. Applying this rigidly economic perspective to the chemistry of human relationships creates unique and persistent friction.</p>
<p>Everyday life offers many overt examples of a competitive outlook. In finance or sports, a victory for one group frequently dictates a direct loss for another. Individuals who hold these beliefs view the world through a lens of extreme scarcity. They assume that resources are completely finite and that any benefit given to someone else comes at a personal cost.</p>
<p>Psychology researchers have extensively documented how this mindset modifies behavior in the workplace or within local politics. Employees might view a coworker receiving public praise as a direct threat to their own corporate status. Citizens might interpret social progress for a minority group as an active subtraction from the majority class. Modern social science reveals these beliefs are not restricted to tangible rewards like money or official job titles.</p>
<p>Researchers are just beginning to investigate how zero-sum logic applies to highly abstract concepts. Emotional resources, such as personal happiness or political voice, can also be perceived as limited commodities. A few recent academic investigations suggest that even the raw feeling of being understood can be treated as a scarce good.</p>
<p>Mei-Ru Wang and Peng-Xing Ying, both psychology researchers at Beijing Normal University, wanted to know if this competitive baseline extended into romantic partnerships. Specifically, they designed a daily study to track interpersonal empathy. Empathy is generally defined as the internal capacity to understand, share, and dynamically respond to the emotions of another person.</p>
<p>Providing genuine emotional support to a romantic partner requires substantial mental energy. In a demanding or stressful situation, individuals might suspect that their internal resources are running low. Wang and Ying suspected that people who view empathy as a purely finite supply might hold back from caring for their domestic partners.</p>
<p>They reasoned that these specific individuals might see sharing their feelings as a risk to their own psychological reserves. Because empathy functionally acts as a protective buffer against daily depression, treating it like a limited commodity could carry severe emotional penalties. To test this broad idea, Wang and Ying recruited 198 heterosexual couples for a daily tracking experiment.</p>
<p>The participants were young adults who were fully employed and had been in a committed relationship for an average of nearly four years. Over the course of two consecutive weeks, these individuals filled out daily evening surveys. The researchers asked all participants a specific series of questions about their emotional exchanges that day.</p>
<p>The survey measured how much energy the participants felt their romantic partner spent supporting their personal emotions. It also asked how much effort they believed their partner spent supporting colleagues or friends at the office. By comparing these daily answers, the researchers could gauge each person’s exact zero-sum mindset regarding emotional support.</p>
<p>Additionally, the daily check-ins measured how much empathy each person offered to their partner. Empathy operates on multiple specific levels, and the survey captured these different dimensions. Cognitive empathy is the intellectual ability to recognize and understand what another person is experiencing. Affective empathy represents the tendency to actually share in those same biological feelings.</p>
<p>The participants also rated how much total empathy they felt they received in return from their spouse or partner. Finally, the evening survey asked individuals to rate their daily feelings of sadness, discouragement, and hopelessness. This gave the academic team a running measure of early depressive moods across the two weeks.</p>
<p>The empirical results point to two distinct ways that extreme scarcity mindsets disrupt emotional connections at home. First, people who scored high in zero-sum beliefs tended to consistently give less empathy to their partners. The researchers frame this withdrawal behavior as a straightforward resource conservation strategy. Expecting an emotional deficit, these individuals preemptively exit the interaction to save inner mental energy.</p>
<p>The second disruptive path involves a vastly heightened sensitivity to unequal romantic exchanges. Zero-sum thinkers are historically highly focused on social comparisons. The researchers found that these individuals constantly monitored their relationships for an overarching empathic trade-off. This academic term refers to the exact perceived imbalance between the support a person gives and the support they receive.</p>
<p>People with highly competitive mindsets were intensely sensitive to who was getting more emotional attention. They treated normal daily interactions like a banking ledger that needed to be balanced completely and constantly. This vigilant scorekeeping habit transformed casual romantic exchanges into stressful comparative evaluations.</p>
<p>Both of these internal pathways successfully predicted specific negative outcomes for the individual. Giving less daily empathy to a partner predicted higher levels of immediate depressive moods. Similarly, constantly tracking the supposed imbalance of support also predicted highly elevated depressive states.</p>
<p>The researchers explain this negative outcome using the idea of self-discrepancy theory. Within close modern relationships, society sets a strong normative expectation for mutual care. When people fail to meet this basic standard because they are selfishly guarding their emotional resources, a psychological gap forms. The difference between what a relationship ought to be and the actual emotional reality breeds deep feelings of anxiety.</p>
<p>To fully parse the data, the scientists used statistical calculations that measured both individual effects and partner effects. An individual effect tracks how a person’s behavior alters their own mental state over time. A partner effect maps how that exact same behavior influences the mental state of the person they live with. This dual empirical approach allowed the team to see the relationship as an interconnected emotional system.</p>
<p>Usually, a lack of affection harms both people in a romantic pairing quite equally. But the researchers found an unexpected gender pattern hidden in their daily data sets. When male participants held strong zero-sum beliefs and reduced their empathic engagement, their female partners actually reported surprisingly lower levels of depressive moods.</p>
<p>The researchers admit that this outcome seems highly paradoxical. A competitive home environment typically harms overall relationship satisfaction for everyone involved. To conceptually explain this anomaly, Wang and Ying offer a sociological theory based on relational regulation.</p>
<p>Often, women shoulder an unequal amount of the sheer emotional labor in a heterosexual partnership. When a male partner withdraws to conserve his own emotional resources, the female partner might rapidly adjust her expectations. More appropriately, she might experience a sense of psychological release from her duties.</p>
<p>If the male partner views empathy as draining and pulls away, the female partner might feel less obligated to do the difficult work of emotional coordination. This temporary relief from constant relationship pressure could easily explain the sudden drop in her depressive symptoms. This dynamic deeply highlights how emotional processes do not happen in absolute isolation.</p>
<p>The scientific team acknowledges a few central caveats in their initial study design. The overall data relies on a very specific demographic of young, heterosexual, employed couples living in China. Fundamental relationship dynamics operate quite differently across distinct age groups and varying cultural backgrounds.</p>
<p>The daily tracking method also omitted several powerful environmental factors. Elements like sleep quality, daily job stress, and physical health dictate just how much mental capacity a person has on a given day. These external variables likely influence how strictly someone guards their emotional reserves when they arrive home.</p>
<p>Some modern jobs require intense social interaction, forcing professional employees to manage the raw feelings of clients all day. Coming home from a demanding service job might make the basic prospect of supporting a romantic partner feel overwhelmingly costly. Future clinical investigations will need to look at whether similar patterns show up across different specific professions.</p>
<p>Studying populations with diagnosed depressive disorders might offer even more insight into therapeutic treatments for couples. Therapists could ideally use these exact insights to build targeted couples counseling programs. Asking couples to explicitly discuss their emotional capacities might reveal hidden competitive assumptions about affection.</p>
<p>Previous psychological studies show that when people are directly taught to view empathy as a renewable muscle rather than a finite bank account, their motivation to help others fundamentally increases. Correcting false zero-sum assumptions could provide a relatively simple way to lower home-based stress. Finding new public ways to apply this basic psychological lesson to intimate partnerships might offer a path to vastly better mental health.</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2026.121338">When empathy feels scarce: How zero-sum beliefs fuel depression in close relationships</a>,” was authored by Mei-Ru Wang and Peng-Xing Ying.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/scientists-challenge-the-body-keeps-the-score-with-a-new-predictive-model-of-trauma/" 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 challenge The Body Keeps the Score with a new predictive model of trauma</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">May 10th 2026, 08:00</div>
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<p><p>A recent theoretical paper published in <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/fnsys.2026.1812957" target="_blank">Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience</a></em> suggests that psychological trauma is not literally stored in the tissues of the body. Instead, the authors propose that trauma creates a rigid pattern of threat prediction within the brain, reducing cognitive flexibility. This updated perspective provides evidence that therapies focusing on mental state shifting, such as flow states, may help retrain the nervous system and support recovery. </p>
<p>In 2014, psychiatrist Bessel van der Kolk published <em>The Body Keeps the Score</em>, a book suggesting that trauma alters the nervous system and becomes physically lodged in the body. The bestseller popularized the idea that individuals cannot simply talk through trauma, as the body continues to react to past threats. While the book gained immense public and clinical popularity, some scientists have criticized its underlying biological mechanisms.</p>
<p>Scientists Steven Kotler, Michael Mannino, Glenn Fox, and Karl Friston recently authored a paper to address these mechanistic discrepancies. They argue that the popular metaphor of somatic storage is biologically inaccurate. They propose an alternative model based on computational neuroscience.</p>
<p>Michael Mannino, the chief science officer of <a href="http://flowresearchcollective.com" target="_blank">the Flow Research Collective</a> and a distinguished research fellow at Florida Atlantic University, explained the motivation behind the paper. “Two things motivated the pushback,” Mannino said. He noted a conversation with researcher George Bonanno regarding resilience data. </p>
<p>“Bonanno had looked at some of the same kinds of trauma data and drawn very different conclusions than the dominant ‘trauma is stored in the body’ framing,” Mannino explained. </p>
<p>This conversation resonated with his own observations. “That conversation crystallized something I had already been sensing: the model did not line up with what we were seeing in flow research or in real-world performance contexts,” Mannino said.</p>
<p>Additionally, the authors noticed conflicts between the body storage theory and their own work on optimal mental states. “Second, the ‘body keeps the score’ framing became harder to reconcile with the evidence around flow,” Mannino noted. “Flow is common, trainable, and repeatedly associated with improvements in psychological functioning.”</p>
<p>He elaborated on this contradiction. “If trauma were literally stored in somatic tissue in the way the popular metaphor suggests, then it would be strange that flow training could have such broad effects on trauma recovery,” Mannino said. “Flow is not a specialized somatic therapy. It is not manually targeting hidden trauma deposits in muscle or fascia.”</p>
<p>“So if flow is helping people shift traumatic patterns, then the problem likely is not ‘stored trauma’ in the body,” Mannino continued. “It is more likely a problem in how the brain predicts threat, safety, agency, and action.”</p>
<p>The authors also felt the cultural timing was right for a shift in perspective. “The timing also matters because the popular culture around trauma has shifted,” Mannino pointed out. “Many people now lead with trauma as identity. The concern is that the storage metaphor may unintentionally reinforce victim identity, external locus of control, and chronic reactivation of painful memories.”</p>
<p>“If trauma is framed as something buried inside the body that must be located and released, people can feel less empowered,” Mannino added. “But if trauma is understood as a disorder of prediction, then we have more actionable targets.”</p>
<p>In their paper, the authors reframe trauma as a disorder of prediction rather than a disorder of storage. They use a concept called predictive coding, which suggests the brain constantly guesses what will happen next based on past experiences. In a healthy brain, these predictions are flexible and update when new information arrives.</p>
<p>Following a traumatic event, the brain tends to assign too much weight to signs of danger. This creates a highly rigid system where the brain anticipates threats everywhere, leading to hypervigilance and avoidance. The brain misinterprets regular physical sensations, like a racing heart, as proof of immediate danger.</p>
<p>Because of this rigid prediction system, the brain loses what scientists call metastability. Metastability refers to the brain’s ability to fluidly switch between different networks and mental states. High metastability allows for cognitive flexibility, meaning a person can easily adapt to new situations.</p>
<p>Trauma traps the brain in a narrow, inflexible state of fear. The body acts as a messenger in this process, sending signals that the brain misinterprets, but the body does not serve as an archive for the trauma itself.</p>
<p>“The main takeaway is empowering: trauma is not necessarily something hidden in the tissues that must be excavated,” Mannino said. “It may be better understood as a maladaptive prediction system.”</p>
<p>He explained that the brain is always forecasting safety, danger, and the meaning of physical sensations. “The brain is constantly predicting what is safe, what is dangerous, what matters, what action is possible, and what the body’s sensations mean,” he said. </p>
<p>“In trauma, those predictions can become rigid, overgeneralized, and threat-biased,” Mannino noted. “The person may not simply be ‘remembering’ the past. Their nervous system may be predicting the present and future through the lens of unresolved danger.”</p>
<p>This distinction is important for treatment. “That distinction matters because storage is a very hard target,” Mannino said. “We do not fully understand how memories are stored in the brain, let alone how traumatic memory would be stored in the body in a literal biological sense. But prediction is a much more tractable target.”</p>
<p>Mannino emphasized that psychology already utilizes tools that address prediction, including cognitive reframing, exposure therapies, attention training, and mindset changes. “So the average person should not hear this as ‘the body does not matter,'” he said. “The body absolutely matters. Pain, posture, breath, autonomic tone, movement, touch, and interoception all shape prediction.”</p>
<p>“But the mechanism may not be that trauma is physically stored in the muscles,” Mannino continued. “The mechanism may be that bodily signals are feeding into the brain’s predictive machinery, shaping what the person expects, fears, avoids, or interprets as dangerous.”</p>
<p>To help restore mental flexibility, the authors suggest flow states could act as a powerful intervention. Flow happens when a person becomes completely absorbed in a meaningful, highly challenging activity. Action sports, playing music, or engaging in complex tasks can trigger these states.</p>
<p>During flow, the brain’s threat detection centers quiet down, and networks related to focus and adaptation engage. “The strongest evidence begins with a large body of converging observations,” Mannino said regarding the connection between flow and trauma recovery.</p>
<p>He pointed to action sports athletes who face high risk but often report feeling regulated and empowered. “If trauma were simply stored in the body through overwhelming experience, then repeated exposure to danger should reliably worsen trauma,” Mannino noted. “But that is not always what we see.”</p>
<p>“Another line of evidence comes from flow-based and adventure-based interventions,” Mannino explained. Programs focusing on outdoor leadership or addiction recovery tend to help individuals break out of fixed behavioral loops. “Flow may help because it trains flexible state-shifting, agency, attention, and adaptive prediction under challenge,” he said.</p>
<p>“The strongest theoretical argument is that flow targets the prediction system,” Mannino added. “Flow changes attention, motivation, agency, threat perception, self-processing, and action-readiness. Those are all central to trauma.”</p>
<p>“If trauma involves rigid threat prediction, then flow may help by creating conditions where the nervous system learns, experientially, that challenge can be navigated safely and effectively,” Mannino said.</p>
<p>While the authors challenge the idea of somatic storage, they do not suggest that body-based therapies are ineffective. Bodywork, massage, and breathing exercises often provide significant relief for trauma survivors. The authors simply propose a different biological explanation for why these treatments work.</p>
<p>“We should not dismiss the therapeutic benefit people report,” Mannino stated. “Bodywork, somatic therapies, massage, acupuncture, breathwork, and related interventions clearly help many people. The question is not whether they can help. The question is why they help.”</p>
<p>Mannino suggests that finding a tight or painful spot during bodywork might create a prediction error in the brain. “A bodyworker finds a spot of pain, tightness, or unusual sensation,” he explained. “The brain then has to interpret that signal: ‘What is causing this?'”</p>
<p>Because sensation and emotion are linked, the brain might generate a memory or narrative to explain the physical feeling. “That does not mean the memory was literally stored in that muscle,” Mannino said. “It may mean the sensation created a prediction error, and the brain searched for a prior, an explanatory model, or an associated emotional memory.”</p>
<p>He believes this perspective opens the door to better scientific questions. “Is the therapeutic effect coming from touch? From relaxation? From parasympathetic activation? From interpersonal synchrony? From human connection? From increased interoceptive awareness? From changing threat predictions? From the therapist-client relational field?” Mannino asked. “The goal should not be to banish bodywork from trauma recovery. The goal should be to get the mechanism right so we can improve the interventions.”</p>
<p>The authors acknowledge limitations in their current model. Their framework represents a proposed mechanistic reframing, not a finalized clinical doctrine. Additionally, the specific connection between flow states and trauma recovery requires further direct testing. </p>
<p>“What remains speculative is the exact mechanism,” Mannino noted. “We do not yet have definitive evidence that flow heals trauma by increasing metastability, altering prediction error, or reorganizing attractor dynamics. Those are plausible, testable hypotheses, not settled facts.”</p>
<p>Trauma also comes in many forms, meaning this model might not apply universally. “PTSD, developmental trauma, acute trauma, grief, moral injury, chronic stress, and traumatic brain injury may involve overlapping but distinct mechanisms,” Mannino cautioned. “A prediction-based model may be powerful, but it should not be treated as a one-size-fits-all explanation.”</p>
<p>“A second caveat is that body-based therapies may still work,” Mannino added. “Rejecting the storage metaphor does not mean rejecting massage, somatic therapy, breathwork, movement, or bodywork. It means we should ask better mechanistic questions. These practices may work by changing autonomic state, increasing interoceptive precision, reducing threat prediction, enhancing safety cues, promoting interpersonal synchrony, or creating prediction error that allows updating.”</p>
<p>The evidence connecting flow to healing also needs formal neuroscientific backing. “Finally, the flow-trauma connection is still developing,” Mannino noted. “There is strong theoretical and anecdotal support, plus related evidence from performance, adventure therapy, and clinical psychology. But the direct neuroscientific evidence still needs to be built.”</p>
<p>Moving forward, the researchers hope to test their claims by measuring brain dynamics in populations with trauma histories. “To test the claim directly, we would need to measure brain dynamics in trauma populations, especially looking at whether PTSD is associated with reduced metastability, reduced flexibility, or difficulty transitioning between neural states,” Mannino said.</p>
<p>A strong study might use brain imaging to look at flexibility in people with trauma compared to a control group. “The prediction would be that PTSD involves overly rigid attractor dynamics: the nervous system gets stuck in certain threat-biased patterns and has trouble transitioning flexibly into alternative states,” Mannino explained.</p>
<p>Researchers could also test different interventions, comparing body-based treatments to flow-based activities. Mannino mentioned a speculative idea from Kotler involving bodywork. “If a bodyworker stimulates a painful area and the person reports a memory or emotional response, researchers could examine whether the content of that response varies according to contralateral brain-body organization,” Mannino said.</p>
<p>“So yes, the line of research is moving toward empirical testing,” Mannino emphasized. “The key is to move beyond metaphor and into measurable predictions: metastability, complexity, state transitions, prediction error, symptom change, and intervention response.”</p>
<p>The broader goal is to build a performance-based approach to neuroscience. “The next step is to test the model directly,” Mannino stated. “One direction is to examine metastability and neural complexity in trauma populations, especially before and after interventions.”</p>
<p>“A second direction is to compare somatic-based interventions with flow-based interventions, and potentially with combined interventions,” Mannino continued. “If bodywork helps, we want to know why.”</p>
<p>“A third direction is to study prediction-related mechanisms in adjacent conditions: PTSD, depression, anxiety, addiction, traumatic brain injury, Parkinson’s, ALS, and other neurodegenerative or neuropsychiatric conditions where rigidity, loss of agency, and impaired state transitions may play a role,” Mannino added.</p>
<p>The team envisions a future where treatments focus on expanding mental capabilities. “The broader aim is to develop a performance-neuroscience approach to brain health: not just reducing symptoms, but restoring flexibility, agency, adaptive prediction, and the capacity to enter high-functioning states like flow,” Mannino concluded. “That is where this line of research is headed.”</p>
<p>Scheduled for release in July, Kotler and Mannino’s <a href="https://link.springer.com/book/9783032215277" target="_blank">forthcoming textbook</a> defines the emerging scientific field of performance neuroscience. The book explores how the brain and body coordinate under high-pressure conditions, explaining the biological mechanisms behind flow states, stress regulation, and peak human achievement. The book will “will help formalize the field and provide a broader scientific foundation for this line of work.”</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/fnsys.2026.1812957" target="_blank">The body does not keep the score: trauma, predictive coding, and the restoration of metastability</a>,” was authored by Steven Kotler, Michael Mannino, Glenn Fox, and Karl Friston.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/eating-at-least-five-eggs-a-week-is-associated-with-a-27-percent-lower-risk-of-alzheimers/" style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing:-1px;margin:0;padding:0 0 2px;font-weight: bold;font-size: 19px;line-height: 20px;color:#222;">Eating at least five eggs a week is associated with a 27 percent lower risk of Alzheimer’s</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">May 10th 2026, 06:00</div>
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<p><p>A new study published in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tjnut.2026.101541" target="_blank">The Journal of Nutrition</a> provides evidence that eating eggs in moderation tends to reduce the risk of being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in older adults. Consumption of eggs is associated with a lower risk of cognitive decline for those 65 years and older. These findings suggest that incorporating eggs into a balanced diet might offer protective benefits for brain health over time.</p>
<p>Alzheimer’s disease is a progressive brain disorder that slowly destroys memory and thinking skills. Without a known cure, medical professionals have increasingly focused on preventing the disease before it starts. The researchers wanted to explore how everyday lifestyle choices might influence brain health as people get older.</p>
<p>“We were motivated by the growing need to identify modifiable dietary factors that may influence Alzheimer’s disease risk, especially given the lack of curative treatments,” said Jisoo Oh, an associate professor of epidemiology at Loma Linda University School of Public Health. “While eggs are widely consumed and contain nutrients relevant to brain health, there has been relatively limited evidence linking egg intake to clinically diagnosed Alzheimer’s disease over long follow-up periods. The Adventist Health Study-2 provided a unique opportunity to examine this question in a large cohort with detailed dietary data and linkage to Medicare records.”</p>
<p>Previous research has hinted that certain nutrients found in eggs could support brain function. Eggs are known to be a source of key nutrients that support brain health, according to Joan Sabaté, a professor at Loma Linda University School of Public Health and the study’s principal investigator. They provide choline, a nutrient that helps nerve cells communicate and form memories. </p>
<p>Eggs also contain specific carotenoids like lutein and zeaxanthin that accumulate in brain tissue and are associated with improved cognitive performance and reduced oxidative stress. Additionally, eggs provide key omega-3 fatty acids that help maintain the physical structure of brain cells. The yolks are particularly rich in phospholipids, which make up nearly 30 percent of total egg lipids and are essential for proper brain signaling.</p>
<p>To track these dietary factors, the researchers analyzed data from an ongoing project called the Adventist Health Study-2. The scientists focused on nearly 40,000 subjects based in the United States who were at least 65 years old. Eligibility was determined using the Medicare Master Beneficiary Summary Files. The participants were monitored for an average of 15.3 years.</p>
<p>At the beginning of the project, each person completed an extensive dietary questionnaire. The researchers studied the consumption of eggs in visible ways, such as eating eggs scrambled, fried, or boiled. They also measured hidden ways, such as eggs included in baked goods and packaged foods.</p>
<p>To track who developed Alzheimer’s disease over time, the researchers linked the dietary surveys to official Medicare health insurance claims. By using billing codes from hospital visits and doctor appointments, the scientists could accurately pinpoint when a participant received a formal medical diagnosis. The cases of Alzheimer’s disease in the Adventist Health Study-2 cohort were diagnosed by physicians, according to these Medicare records.</p>
<p>The researchers adjusted their statistical models to account for a wide range of factors that might influence brain health. These variables included age, sex, race, education, physical activity levels, and sleep habits. They also factored in whether the participants had other medical conditions like high blood pressure, diabetes, or heart disease.</p>
<p>Because overall diet plays a massive role in health, the researchers controlled for the consumption of other major food groups. To be as precise as possible, the scientists even ran separate analyses to see what happened when eggs were hypothetically swapped for other protein sources, like nuts, seeds, or legumes. </p>
<p>The scientists found that people who ate eggs experienced a noticeably lower risk of developing the condition compared to those who never or rarely ate them. This inverse relationship remained consistent even after adjusting for all the demographic, lifestyle, and medical variables. </p>
<p>“The main takeaway is that moderate egg consumption was associated with a lower risk of Alzheimer’s disease in this cohort,” Oh told PsyPost. “Individuals who consumed eggs regularly had lower risk compared to those who rarely or never ate eggs. However, this does not mean eggs prevent Alzheimer’s disease, but rather that they may be one component of a brain-healthy dietary pattern.”</p>
<p>The specific risk reductions varied based on how often participants consumed eggs. “Compared to never eating eggs, eating at least five eggs per week can decrease risk of Alzheimer’s,” Sabaté said. Eating one egg per day for at least five days a week reduces risk of Alzheimer’s by up to 27 percent.</p>
<p>Even less frequent consumption of eggs significantly reduced the risk of Alzheimer’s. Researchers found that eating eggs one to three times per month had a 17 percent decrease in risk, while eating eggs two to four times per week had a 20 percent decrease in risk, Sabaté said. </p>
<p>The authors also used a statistical tool to map the precise relationship between the daily weight of eggs consumed and disease risk. This continuous analysis showed that eating exactly zero eggs per day was associated with a higher risk of Alzheimer’s disease compared to eating 10 grams of eggs daily, which is roughly equivalent to one large egg per week.</p>
<p>“One notable finding was the consistent inverse association across multiple levels of adjustment, even after accounting for overall diet, lifestyle, and comorbidities,” Oh said. “We were also interested to observe that even relatively modest intake (such as 1-3 times per month) was associated with lower risk. The nonlinear pattern, where zero intake was associated with higher risk, was also an unexpected and intriguing observation.”</p>
<p>The researchers acknowledge a few limitations to their work. One potential issue is that dietary habits were only recorded at the very beginning of the long tracking period. A person might have changed their eating habits over the 15 years they were monitored.</p>
<p>“This is an observational study, so we cannot establish causation,” Oh said. “Although we adjusted for many confounders, residual confounding is always possible, and dietary intake was measured only at baseline. It is also important not to interpret the findings as eggs being a standalone preventive strategy, or that higher intake necessarily leads to greater benefit.”</p>
<p>The population studied also presents a specific context for the findings. The participants belong to a group known for being highly health-conscious.</p>
<p>“One important context is that this was a health-conscious cohort with relatively low rates of smoking and alcohol use, which strengthens internal validity but may limit generalizability,” Oh said. “Additionally, Alzheimer’s disease develops over decades, so identifying long-term dietary associations is particularly important. Overall, the findings add to a growing body of evidence suggesting that whole foods rich in brain-relevant nutrients, such as eggs, may play a role in healthy cognitive aging.”</p>
<p>Looking ahead, the authors plan to expand upon these findings to better understand the mechanisms at play. </p>
<p>“Future research should examine whether these associations hold in more diverse populations and whether dietary patterns earlier in life influence later Alzheimer’s risk,” Oh said. “We are also interested in exploring the role of specific egg-derived nutrients, such as choline and DHA, and their biological pathways. Ultimately, integrating biomarker and mechanistic studies would help strengthen causal inference.”</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tjnut.2026.101541" target="_blank">Egg Intake and the Incidence of Alzheimer’s Disease in the Adventist Health Study-2 Cohort Linked with Medicare Data</a>,” was authored by Jisoo Oh, Keiji Oda, Gabriela Chiriac, Gary E Fraser, Rawiwan Sirirat, and Joan Sabaté.</p>
<p>The authors provided the following statement regarding conflicts of interest and funding: “Initial support for the cohort was provided by the National Cancer Institute (grant 1U01CA152939). The analyses in this study were supported by an investigator-initiated grant from the American Egg Board. The funding sources had no role in the study design, execution, data analysis, interpretation, manuscript preparation, or publication.”</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/new-study-explores-what-drives-sexual-well-being-in-bdsm-and-kink-subcultures/" 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 what drives sexual well-being in BDSM and kink subcultures</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">May 9th 2026, 22:00</div>
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<p><p>A recent study published in <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/19419899.2026.2635462" target="_blank">Psychology and Sexuality</a></em> suggests that relational context and the frequency of sexual practices play a central role in the sexual satisfaction of people who engage in BDSM and kink. The research provides evidence that sexual well-being in these communities is shaped by a mix of relationship status, education, and specific behavioral roles. These findings highlight the complexity of non-traditional sexual expressions across different cultures.</p>
<p>Understanding what contributes to sexual satisfaction helps professionals improve sexual health frameworks and overall human well-being. Much of the existing scientific literature focuses almost entirely on mainstream sexual behaviors. Practices such as BDSM, which involves bondage, discipline, dominance, submission, sadism, and masochism, often fall outside these conventional frameworks.</p>
<p>Scientists note that these non-traditional sexual practices are sometimes misunderstood or pathologized by broader society. Because of this societal stigma, the sexual well-being of individuals who participate in BDSM or kink communities remains under-explored. Past data tends to show that these practitioners experience equal or even higher levels of sexual satisfaction compared to the general public.</p>
<p>“We wanted to contribute to the visibility and destigmatization of BDSM, kink practices, and sexual diversity in general through a respectful and academically grounded perspective,” said study author Alejandro Sánchez Ocaña, an affirmative psychologist and sexologist at the Sexological Studies Unit at the CIBIS Research Center at the University of Almería in Spain. </p>
<p>He noted that the lack of literature on these topics in Spanish-speaking contexts created a need for further interdisciplinary research. The team was driven by an “interest in sexual diversity, especially in the ways it is shaped by practices, identities, and social dynamics,” Sánchez Ocaña said. “We were particularly drawn to BDSM and kink because it remains a relatively underexplored area of research, despite its social and cultural relevance within sexuality studies.”</p>
<p>BDSM and kink are not just collections of physical acts but can be understood as distinct sexual subcultures. These communities have shared meanings, norms, and social spaces that validate their members. The authors propose that participating in these validating subcultures might help individuals align their desires with their behaviors, enhancing their overall psychological wellness.</p>
<p>Researchers wanted to understand the specific factors that predict sexual satisfaction and pleasure within these specific subcultures. They aimed to see if patterns identified in a previous study of a Chilean population would appear in a different cultural context. By extending their work to a Spanish sample, the authors hoped to create a detailed comparison between two distinct Spanish-speaking countries.</p>
<p>The team also sought to explore the gap between sexual arousal and actual behavior. This concept, known as arousal and behavior discordance, looks at the difference between what people find sexually arousing in their imagination and what they actually perform in real life. Understanding this gap is highly relevant in kink contexts, where fantasy, consent, and negotiation are central to the experience.</p>
<p>To explore these dynamics, the researchers used a cross-sectional design, meaning they collected data from participants at a single point in time. They gathered information using an online survey. The survey assessed three main areas, which included demographic characteristics, general sexuality variables, and specific BDSM and kink behaviors. </p>
<p>The researchers collected data from two separate samples. The Chilean group consisted of 543 participants surveyed between June and July of 2020. The Spanish group included 233 participants surveyed between November 2024 and January 2025. </p>
<p>The surveys asked participants about their age, gender identity, sexual orientation, relationship status, and educational level. To measure sexual satisfaction, all participants completed a standardized questionnaire designed to rate their fulfillment with their sex lives. The Spanish group also completed a separate standardized scale specifically measuring sexual pleasure. </p>
<p>Participants answered detailed questions about their specific BDSM roles. They were asked if they primarily identified as dominant, meaning they take a controlling or active role, or submissive, meaning they take a receptive or yielding role. They could also identify as a switch, which is someone who alternates between dominant and submissive roles depending on the situation or partner. </p>
<p>The survey also measured the frequency of BDSM behaviors over the past four months, the variety of practices engaged in, and the number of lifetime BDSM partners. The authors specifically asked participants to list practices they found sexually arousing and then note whether they would actually be willing to perform those acts. This allowed the researchers to measure the exact difference between a person’s fantasies and their real-world actions.</p>
<p>When looking at the demographic results, the authors found distinct differences between the two countries. The Chilean participants were younger, with an average age of about 24, and more likely to identify as feminine or bisexual. The Spanish participants were older, with an average age of about 38, and had higher levels of formal education. </p>
<p>The educational background of the participants stood out significantly. In the Spanish sample, over 60 percent of the participants held a university degree, compared to just under 27 percent in the general Spanish population. The Chilean sample also showed higher educational attainment than national averages, supporting existing theories that individuals who engage in kink tend to pursue higher education.</p>
<p>Despite demographic differences, both samples shared similar lifestyle patterns compared to the general population of their respective countries. Both the Chilean and Spanish kink groups included higher proportions of non-cisgender individuals, meaning people whose gender identity does not match the sex they were assigned at birth. Both groups also had higher numbers of non-heterosexual individuals and lower levels of religious affiliation than the general public. </p>
<p>In terms of their actual BDSM practices, both groups most commonly engaged in activities with formal, established partners rather than casual acquaintances. They also primarily practiced in domestic settings, such as their own homes. The most common specific behaviors reported in both countries included spanking and the use of sex toys. </p>
<p>The Spanish sample reported a wider variety of enacted practices and a higher number of lifetime BDSM partners than the Chilean sample. The authors suggest this might be due to the older average age of the Spanish participants, who simply have had more time to explore their sexuality. It might also reflect greater access to specialized venues and community events in Spain. </p>
<p>Even with the differences in actual behaviors, participants in both countries reported a similar number of fantasies or practices that they found sexually arousing. Both groups showed a similar gap between what they found arousing and what they actually did. For example, intense or technically demanding activities like rope bondage were frequently found arousing but were less often acted out in real life. </p>
<p>Certain behaviors were consistently rated as low in arousal and infrequently performed by participants in both countries. Practices such as medical play or coprophilia held very limited appeal within these specific surveyed populations. This suggests that some highly stigmatized or niche practices remain uncommon even within alternative sexual subcultures.</p>
<p>When looking at what predicts sexual satisfaction, the researchers found that relationship status was the most significant factor for both countries. Participants in monogamous and non-nonmonogamous relationships reported higher levels of sexual satisfaction than those who were not in a relationship. A higher frequency of BDSM practices also predicted greater sexual satisfaction in both samples.</p>
<p>“This does not mean that quantity matters more than quality, but rather that, when the quality of sexual experiences is similar, greater frequency appears to make a difference,” Sánchez Ocaña said. </p>
<p>He emphasized that these interactions are fundamentally rooted in mutual agreement. “One of the main takeaways is that BDSM and kink should not be understood as forms of violence or deviant, but rather as consensual and pleasurable practices shaped by a range of factors, including social, relational, emotional, and sexual, among others,” Sánchez Ocaña explained.</p>
<p>The Chilean participants reported slightly higher overall sexual satisfaction scores than the Spanish participants. The authors note that age often negatively impacts sexual satisfaction in the general population, which might explain why the younger Chilean group scored higher. Still, the Spanish participants maintained moderate to high levels of satisfaction. </p>
<p>In the Spanish sample, the authors also analyzed the predictors of sexual pleasure. They found that a higher educational level and a bisexual orientation were positively associated with sexual pleasure. Identifying as a submissive or a switch was also significantly linked to higher levels of sexual pleasure compared to identifying as strictly dominant. </p>
<p>“The relationship between higher education and a greater variety of practices was probably due to a broader access to information, communities, and opportunities for exploration, which in turn may be linked to greater pleasure,” Sánchez Ocaña said. “This may seem pretty obvious but it is something we had not thought of!”</p>
<p>The strong link between higher sexual pleasure and identifying as a submissive or a switch offers insight into how power dynamics function. Being a submissive does not imply passivity or victimization, but rather involves an active, consensual choice within a framework of mutual trust. The receptive nature of submission and the fluid dynamics of switching might allow individuals to immerse themselves more deeply in physical sensations and emotional intensity.</p>
<p>The researchers noted a specific negative association in the Spanish sample regarding gender identity. Identifying as non-binary was negatively associated with sexual satisfaction. This suggests that gender-diverse individuals might face unique interpersonal challenges or minority stress that impacts their sexual well-being.</p>
<p>The authors highlight that readers should not assume one cultural context is inherently better for sexual expression based on these scores. The differences in satisfaction and pleasure might reflect age disparities and specific sample compositions rather than purely cultural variation. Because the surveys were distributed online through convenience sampling, the results might overrepresent individuals who are digitally connected and active in online kink communities.</p>
<p>The findings should be understood within the specific cultural and social contexts of the two countries studied, and they should not be generalized to other populations. “As with any study of this kind, cultural context plays an important role in shaping sexual practices, meanings, and experiences,” Sánchez Ocaña noted.</p>
<p>Another limitation is that the data for the two countries were collected four years apart. This time gap might introduce contextual differences based on changing social attitudes between 2020 and 2024. The survey designs also had slight variations, such as allowing multiple responses for certain questions in Spain but only single responses in Chile, which limits direct statistical comparisons. </p>
<p>“Although our findings highlight several positive aspects of BDSM and kink practices, it is also important to recognize that this is a complex field that requires further attention,” Sánchez Ocaña said. “BDSM/kink practitioners, as well as LGBTQIA+ communities, continue to face discrimination and stigma in a range of social settings, which can negatively affect wellbeing, access to care, and social recognition.”</p>
<p>He pointed out that people who engage in these practices often experience discrimination within healthcare systems. To address this, the research team aims to produce work that has practical value in reducing stigma and improving professional understanding in health, education, and social policy.</p>
<p>“Our aim is to continue incorporating broader perspectives and lived experiences in order to better represent marginalized and stigmatized sexually diverse populations, including BDSM/kink communities, sex workers, and people who engage in sexualized drug use or chemsex,” Sánchez Ocaña said. </p>
<p>“We are especially interested in producing research that not only expands academic knowledge but also has practical value in reducing stigma and improving professional understanding in areas such as health, education, and social policy.</p>
<p>“Although our findings highlight several positive aspects of BDSM and kink practices, it is alsoimportant to recognize that this is a complex field that requires further attention. BDSM/kinkpractitioners, as well as LGBTQIA+ communities, continue to face discrimination and stigma in a range of social settings, which can negatively affect wellbeing, access to care, and social recognition. In this sense, people who engage in BDSM and kink practices experience discrimination within healthcare systems, a topic that remains under discussion and that we<br>
explored <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/jsxmed/qdaf235" target="_blank">in other studies</a>.”</p>
<p>“Our research team has also explored related issues, including the role of sexual assertiveness in shaping consent in BDSM contexts, with the goal of improving consent (sex) education for <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/19419899.2026.2655668" target="_blank">the general population</a>. Together, this broader line of research seeks to support a better understanding of sexually diverse communities highlighting their positive aspects and needs.”</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/19419899.2026.2635462" target="_blank">Beyond sexuality and boundaries: cross-national perspectives on sexual satisfaction and BDSM/kink in Chile and Spain</a>,” was authored by Manuel Catalán Águila, Alejandro Sánchez-Ocaña, Charlotta Carlström, Inmaculada Fernández Agis, and Jenna Marie Strizzi.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/real-world-outcomes-support-the-benefits-of-psychedelic-therapy-for-severe-depre/" 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;">Real world outcomes support the benefits of psychedelic therapy for severe depression</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">May 9th 2026, 20:00</div>
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<p><p>A recent study has found that specialized psychotherapy paired with doses of either LSD or psilocybin is associated with strong reductions in severe depression and anxiety. These mental health improvements emerged relatively quickly and took place within a standard hospital care program. The findings were published in the journal <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychres.2026.116992"><i>Psychiatry Research</i></a>.</p>
<p>In recent years, researchers have renewed their investigation into the medical potential of classic hallucinogens. Conditions like severe depression and generalized anxiety do not always respond to standard psychiatric medications. For many individuals, initial treatments such as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors fail to provide lasting relief from persistent sad moods or chronic worry.</p>
<p>Individuals who do not respond to multiple standard treatments are often diagnosed with treatment-resistant conditions. This status leaves them with limited options in conventional medical practice. Psychedelic-assisted therapy has emerged as a promising alternative for these populations in strictly monitored experimental trials.</p>
<p>These therapies combine traditional talk therapy with the ingestion of a mind-altering substance under professional supervision. The goal is to induce a temporary change in consciousness that allows patients to process difficult emotions. A trained therapist helps the patient integrate these conceptual insights into their daily life after the drug effects wear off.</p>
<p>Most of the current evidence for these treatments comes from randomized controlled trials. While these trials offer rigorous baseline data, they often exclude patients with varied medical histories to isolate a specific chemical variable. This strict filtering means the results do not always translate perfectly to general hospital populations.</p>
<p>To understand how these treatments perform outside of rigid experiments, researchers look to compassionate use programs. These legal frameworks allow doctors to administer unapproved, experimental medications to patients who have exhausted all other available therapies. Switzerland operates one such framework, giving doctors restricted authorization to use specialized substances for severe mental health cases.</p>
<p>Tatiana Aboulafia-Brakha, a researcher at the Geneva University Hospitals, led an effort to analyze data from one of these Swiss clinical programs. Aboulafia-Brakha and her team wanted to evaluate the outcomes of patients receiving these therapies in a routine hospital setting. They sought to document changes in mental health symptoms and to record how well patients tolerated the experience.</p>
<p>The team collected retrospective data from a cohort of adults diagnosed with treatment-resistant depressive or anxiety disorders. This cohort underwent their first standardized treatment cycle between May 2024 and October 2025. Each individual received either 100 micrograms of LSD or 25 milligrams of psilocybin during their session.</p>
<p>Psilocybin is the primary psychoactive compound found in certain species of hallucinogenic mushrooms. LSD is a synthetic chemical known for producing potent shifts in perception and thought patterns. Patients were allowed to choose their preferred substance based on personal comfort, anticipated session length, and cost.</p>
<p>The program required extensive preparation before the actual administration of the drug. Patients attended screening sessions to review their medical histories and ensure no underlying heart or neurological conditions existed. They also engaged in preparatory meetings to set therapeutic intentions and learn coping strategies like breathing exercises for managing acute moments of fear.</p>
<p>On the day of the treatment, patients arrived at an outpatient clinic and settled into a quiet room under the constant supervision of psychiatric nurses. The nurses monitored vital signs and intervened only if the patient requested support or required help navigating a challenging psychological reaction. The patients then remained in the clinic until the acute subjective effects had completely resolved.</p>
<p>Patients returned the following day for an integration session with a psychotherapist. During this conversation, patients discussed the imagery, body sensations, and emotional revelations they experienced while receiving the drug. The therapist then helped them translate those abstract insights into actionable behavioral routines.</p>
<p>To quantify the results, the researchers administered standard psychological questionnaires at three distinct points in time. Patients filled out surveys during their initial screening, one month before the treatment, and one to three months after the session. These tools measured the severity of general sadness, pessimism, and habitual stress responses.</p>
<p>The team observed a pronounced decrease in both depression and anxiety scores over the treatment timeline. More than a third of the sample reported that their depressive symptoms had been reduced by at least half. A smaller portion recorded modest but noticeable symptom relief. These benefits appeared robust across the broader cohort, supporting previous findings from highly controlled laboratory environments.</p>
<p>The choice of substance did not seem to alter the long-term therapeutic outcome. Patients who took LSD and those who took psilocybin experienced largely identical improvements in their daily mental health.</p>
<p>Aboulafia-Brakha and her team also investigated how patients managed their emotions before and after the treatments. A subset of the patients completed an emotion regulation survey measuring strategies like rumination and catastrophizing. Rumination involves repetitively dwelling on negative feelings, while catastrophizing is a tendency to expect the worst possible outcome in any situation.</p>
<p>Following the therapy, patients reported large reductions in their tendencies to ruminate, catastrophize, and blame themselves for negative life events. They also demonstrated an increased capacity for positive reappraisal, which means they could more easily find a constructive perspective in difficult situations. These conceptual shifts align with psychological theories that consider rigid thinking to be a primary maintenance factor for severe depression.</p>
<p>While the long-term clinical benefits were similar across both substances, the acute physical experiences differed notably. The data indicated that LSD produced a longer, sustained plateau of intense subjective effects. Psilocybin caused a similar peak of intensity, but the overall duration of the psychoactive experience was noticeably shorter.</p>
<p>Despite these differing timelines, the overall intensity of the mystical experiences reported by the patients was roughly equivalent. Questionnaires measuring profound feelings of unity, distinct alterations in time perception, and deep spiritual insight yielded similar scores. These outcomes support the concept that the subjective journey might matter more than the specific pharmacological timeline.</p>
<p>Safety evaluations showed that both substances were well tolerated within the hospital environment. Many patients reported no adverse reactions at all, while the majority of recorded side effects were mild and temporary. The most common physical complaints included transient blurred vision, dizziness, and mild nausea during the active phase of the medication.</p>
<p>The team recorded no serious medical complications or severe psychiatric emergencies during the study period. No patient discontinued the treatment due to an adverse reaction. These details provide reassuring baseline evidence for medical professionals worried about introducing potent hallucinogens into general outpatient clinics.</p>
<p>This study has a few limitations due to its retrospective design and observational nature. The researchers did not include a placebo group, which means they cannot entirely rule out the influence of patient expectations. Patients who pursue rigorous medical treatments often expect to feel better, and this hope can artificially inflate self-reported symptom relief.</p>
<p>The cohort was highly motivated, considering the long waiting times and financial costs associated with the compassionate use program. This unique determination among the participants might mean the results would be different in a less motivated patient population. The reliance on self-reported questionnaires also leaves room for memory biases to influence the data.</p>
<p>Future studies will need to implement randomized designs involving active placebos to better isolate the specific physiological effects of the therapy. Combining patient self-reports with objective evaluations from independent clinicians could ensure a more reliable assessment of long-term improvement. Until then, these findings offer an encouraging glimpse into the practical realities of psychedelic therapies in standard psychiatric settings.</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychres.2026.116992">Real-world effectiveness and safety of psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy: Outcomes from a large-scale compassionate use cohort in Switzerland</a>,” was authored by T. Aboulafia-Brakha, A. Buchard, C. Mabilais, S. Alaux, C. Amberger, L. Furtado, F. Seragnoli, J-F Briefer, G. Thorens, M. Sabé, L. Szczesniak, R. Iuga, D. Zullino, and L. Penzenstadler.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/intense-crying-in-east-asian-infants-may-reflect-cultural-norms-not-insecure-attachment-study-suggests/" style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing:-1px;margin:0;padding:0 0 2px;font-weight: bold;font-size: 19px;line-height: 20px;color:#222;">Intense crying in East-Asian infants may reflect cultural norms, not insecure attachment, study suggests</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">May 9th 2026, 18:00</div>
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<p><p>A study examining cultural characteristics of infants’ behavior found that Korean and Japanese infants cry more when separated from their mothers and left alone in an unfamiliar room, compared to U.S. and Czech children. The paper was published in the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/01650254251325777"><em>International Journal of Behavioral Development</em></a>.</p>
<p>The main theoretical framework in psychology used to explain emotional bonds between humans and their importance throughout life is attachment theory, proposed by John Bowlby in the mid-20th century. According to this theory, emotional attachment patterns begin developing in infancy through interactions between the infant and its caregiver(s).</p>
<p>One of the main research procedures for assessing the quality of infants’ attachment to their caregivers is the Strange Situation Procedure. This procedure was developed by Mary Ainsworth, a famous 20th-century attachment researcher, and her colleagues to observe how children use a caregiver as a secure base and how they react to separation and reunion.</p>
<p>In this procedure, a child is placed in an unfamiliar room with toys, first with the caregiver present. Then a stranger enters, the caregiver leaves, the child is briefly left with the stranger or alone, and the caregiver later returns. The key observations are whether the child cries during separation and how they behave after the caregiver returns.</p>
<p>For example, securely attached children are usually upset by separation but are comforted by the caregiver and return to play after the reunion. In contrast, avoidantly attached children tend to show little distress and may ignore or avoid the caregiver at reunion. </p>
<p>Another classification is “insecure-resistant” (also called ambivalent) attachment; these children tend to cry intensely during separation and resist being comforted by the caregiver upon reunion. Finally, children with a disorganized attachment pattern might be confused, contradictory, or display apprehensive behavior toward the caregiver after reunion.</p>
<p>Study author Tomotaka Umemura and his colleagues note that, although the Strange Situation Procedure emphasizes the importance of context, previous studies have not explored the cultural characteristics of infants’ behavior in detail. Notably, past research has disproportionately classified East-Asian infants as having “insecure-resistant” attachment styles based on their highly distressed reactions during the procedure. </p>
<p>The researchers hypothesized that this intense crying might reflect cultural differences rather than actual insecure attachment. In East-Asian cultures, babies are rarely separated from their mothers in daily life, meaning the Strange Situation Procedure is deeply unfamiliar and frightening, rather than just mildly stressful. To test this, the researchers set out to examine whether East-Asian infants differ in their levels of crying during the procedure compared to Western infants.</p>
<p>The researchers compared the recorded behavior of infants from several previously published studies. Western infants were represented by a group of 106 U.S. infants from a 1978 study carried out by Ainsworth and her colleagues, and by a group of 66 Czech infants from a 2023 study. East-Asian infants were represented by a group of 87 Korean infants from Taegu, a group of 45 Japanese infants from Sapporo, and a group of 81 Japanese infants from the Hiroshima area. The Korean group was from a 2005 study, while the Japanese data were from studies published in 2018 and 2022.</p>
<p>The study authors report that research assistants coded the crying behaviors of the East-Asian and Czech infants and recorded the length of each Strange Situation Procedure episode. The information about the crying behavior of the U.S. infants came from Ainsworth’s original 1978 book.</p>
<p>Results showed that U.S. and Czech infants generally cried less than Korean and Japanese infants. More specifically, when the infants were separated from their mothers and left completely alone, the Japanese and Korean infants cried significantly more than the U.S. infants. Furthermore, when a stranger entered the room to comfort the alone infant, the East-Asian infants cried significantly more than both the U.S. and Czech infants. </p>
<p>However, despite these intense reactions during separation, the infants did not show significantly different levels of crying once they were reunited with their mothers (with the exception of one of the Japanese groups, which cried more compared to the Czech and U.S. infants during the final reunion episode).</p>
<p>“When infants were separated from their mothers during the second separation (remaining alone and, subsequently, with a stranger), East-Asian infants were more likely to show higher levels of crying compared to Western infants. These results were consistent across three East-Asian samples from Korea and Japan. Despite these higher levels of crying during the separation episodes, East-Asian infants did not show different levels of crying in the reunion episodes compared to Western infants, except for the first sample of Japanese infants that showed higher levels of crying compared to Western infants,” the study authors concluded.</p>
<p>The study contributes to scientific knowledge about cross-cultural differences in infants’ behavior and suggests that researchers should be cautious about classifying highly distressed non-Western infants as “insecurely attached.” </p>
<p>However, it should be noted that the data on U.S. infants were collected almost half a century before the newest data used in the study. Cultural drift might have occurred during this period, limiting the generalizability of those results to the modern U.S. population.</p>
<p>Additionally, the two Japanese infant groups differed markedly in crying in some situations, even though they represent the same culture. Similarly, in some episodes of the study procedure, the Czech children’s crying did not significantly differ from the East-Asian infants. Because of this, any inferences about cultural differences drawn from this study should be made with caution, as the observed differences may reflect variations in study procedures or differences between these specific groups of infants, rather than stable differences between cultures as a whole.</p>
<p>The paper, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/01650254251325777">Crying in the Strange Situation Procedure: Comparisons Between East-Asian and Western Infants,</a>” was authored by Tomotaka Umemura, Mi Kyoung Jin, Kiyomi Kondo-Ikemura, Lenka Lacinová, Kyonosuke Handa, Yu Xu, and Kota Yoshikawa.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/emotional-dysregulation-at-age-7-linked-to-anxiety-and-depression-in-teenagers/" 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;">Emotional dysregulation at age 7 linked to anxiety and depression in teenagers</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">May 9th 2026, 16:00</div>
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<p><p>Children who struggle to regulate their emotions at age seven are more likely to experience anxiety and depression throughout adolescence, even after accounting for pre-existing mental health difficulties, according to new research published in the <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2025.119433" target="_blank">Journal of Affective Disorders</a></em>.</p>
<p>Anxiety and depression are among the leading health burdens facing young people worldwide. These conditions often emerge or worsen during the transition from childhood to adolescence—a developmentally sensitive period when the brain is rapidly changing and young people face increasing social and academic pressures. One strong candidate leaving adolescents vulnerable to these mental health conditions is emotion regulation: the ability to manage and respond to emotional experiences in a healthy and appropriate manner.</p>
<p>Previous research has linked poor emotion regulation—such as experiencing intense mood swings, acting without thinking, or becoming easily overwhelmed—to mental health difficulties in young people. However, most studies have been short-term or unable to distinguish a genuine causal relationship from the effects of other variables that affect both emotional development and mental health (such as poverty or a harsh home environment).</p>
<p>Led by Aja Murray of the Department of Psychology at the University of Edinburgh, researchers sought to investigate whether childhood emotion dysregulation genuinely causes internalising problems later in life, and whether addressing it early could serve as a meaningful prevention target.</p>
<p>The team used data from the UK Millennium Cohort Study, a large-scale nationally representative study tracking thousands of children born in Britain at the start of this century. The analysis included between 6,394 and 11,178 children, depending on the age and data source for each outcome.</p>
<p>Emotion dysregulation was assessed by parents when children were 7 years old. Mental health outcomes were then measured at ages 11, 14, and 17 using a widely used questionnaire that captured symptoms such as frequent worrying, unhappiness, nervousness in new situations, and unexplained physical complaints. Ratings were provided by parents, teachers, and the young people themselves at different time points.</p>
<p>Rather than using standard statistical techniques, which are vulnerable to confounding by background factors, Murray and her team employed a sophisticated method known as counterfactual analysis. This approach is designed to mimic, as closely as possible, the conditions of a randomised controlled trial. The algorithm mathematically grouped children who shared similar backgrounds and early life experiences—accounting for potential confounders including prior mental health, parenting style, socioeconomic disadvantage, sleep habits, and cognitive ability—but who differed in how well they regulated their emotions at age 7.</p>
<p>The results demonstrated a consistent, statistically significant relationship: children with greater emotional dysregulation at age 7 had higher levels of anxiety and depression at age 11 (as rated by parents), age 14 (as rated by parents), and age 17 (as rated by both parents and the young people themselves).</p>
<p>Teacher reports at age 11 did not reach significance, which the researchers attributed largely to a smaller available sample size rather than a true absence of effect.</p>
<p>“Emotion (dys-)regulation in childhood may be a causal factor in internalising problems in adolescence and therefore a promising intervention target,” the authors concluded. “Effects were present until age 17 suggesting a sustained benefit of better emotion regulation in childhood; however, they were modest in magnitude, highlighting that targeting emotion (dys-)regulation alone is unlikely to protect young people against the onset or escalation of internalising problems in adolescence.” </p>
<p>Murray and colleagues noted some limitations, including the inability to fully rule out unmeasured confounders—an inherent challenge in all observational research. The study also relied on broad questionnaire measures that could not distinguish between anxiety and depression separately. Finally, because the researchers heavily relied on parent reports to determine both the child’s emotional regulation and the resulting mental health outcomes, they warn that the data could be subject to “common rater bias,” which can artificially inflate the strength of the relationship. </p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2025.119433" target="_blank">Is emotion dysregulation in childhood a precursor to internalising problems in adolescence?</a>“, was authored by Aja Murray, Helen Wright, Hannah Casey, Josiah King, Xinxin Zhu, Yi Yang, Zhuoni Xiao, and Xuefei Li.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/brain-scans-reveal-how-people-with-autistic-traits-connect-differently/" 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 scans reveal how people with autistic traits connect differently</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">May 9th 2026, 14:00</div>
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<p><p>People with similar levels of autistic traits show greater social attraction to one another, and their brains synchronize in unique ways during active conversation. A recent experiment published in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsych.2025.06.031"><i>Biological Psychiatry</i></a> suggests that social difficulties related to autism might be a problem of mismatched communication styles rather than an inherent social deficit.</p>
<p>For decades, clinical psychology has treated autism primarily as a social impairment. This view assumes that autistic individuals lack a cognitive tool called theory of mind. This concept refers to the ability to intuitively understand what others are thinking and feeling. Recently, alternative frameworks have emerged to challenge this deficit-based assumption. </p>
<p>One major alternative is the double empathy problem. This idea proposes that social friction is a two-way street. Neurotypical people and autistic people have vastly different ways of experiencing the world and processing sensory information. These differences lead to mutual misunderstanding, meaning neurotypical individuals also struggle to read the minds of autistic people. </p>
<p>Building on this concept, scientists developed the dialectical misattunement hypothesis. This hypothesis relies on predictive coding, a theory explaining how the brain constantly generates guesses about what will happen next. When an event matches the guess, interaction feels smooth. When a person’s behavior violates those expectations, the brain experiences a prediction error, leading to social awkwardness. </p>
<p>Following this logic, people who share similar psychological traits should predict each other’s behavior more easily. An autistic person avoiding eye contact might cause a prediction error for a neurotypical person, who expects a steady gaze. However, another autistic person would not find this behavior unusual. This shared wavelength should lead to more fluid interactions and a sense of mutual attraction. </p>
<p>Lead author Shuyuan Feng, working with Peng Zhang and Xuejun Bai from Tianjin Normal University in China, designed an experiment to test these ideas. Past research evaluating how well people with differing autistic traits connect has yielded contradictory results. The researchers suspected that earlier experimental designs caused this inconsistency. </p>
<p>Previous studies typically placed two people in a room to interact. This method makes it hard to separate a person’s general friendliness from their specific chemistry with a partner. By assembling larger groups, researchers can use a mathematical approach called the social relations model. This model isolates genuine interpersonal attraction from general social tendencies. </p>
<p>The research team measured autistic traits in hundreds of university students using a standard questionnaire. The students were not clinically diagnosed with autism. Instead, they took a survey that scores general behavioral and cognitive traits associated with the autism spectrum. The team selected students scoring in the highest and lowest ten percent to represent high and low autistic trait groups. </p>
<p>The researchers then assembled isolated groups of four people who had never met. Each group contained two individuals with high autistic traits and two with low autistic traits. In total, the study included twenty female groups and ten male groups. </p>
<p>The researchers used functional near-infrared spectroscopy to monitor the participants’ brain activity. This technology uses small optical sensors placed securely against the scalp. The sensors use light to measure blood oxygen levels in specific brain areas, highlighting which regions are working the hardest in real time. The participants wore these sensor caps while completing a series of social tasks. </p>
<p>First, the group sat quietly and listened to an audio story. This passive task allowed the researchers to measure how similarly their brains responded to the exact same information. Scientists use an analysis called inter-subject correlation for this purpose. It measures the overlap in brain responses across different people experiencing the same audio stimuli. </p>
<p>Next, the participants engaged in a structured group discussion. They debated a classic survival scenario, deciding which imaginary characters should be rescued from a deserted island. The discussion followed strict turn-taking rules to prevent people talking over each other from muddying the brain data. Following the discussion, participants privately rated how much they wanted to continue talking to or become friends with each group member. </p>
<p>The responses revealed distinct patterns of interpersonal chemistry. Participants with similar levels of autistic traits reported a stronger desire to socialize with one another. A person with high autistic traits was drawn to the other high-scoring group member, while those with fewer traits gravitated toward each other. </p>
<p>This mutual affinity only emerged when their opinions aligned during the survival task. Personality similarities like extraversion did not drive the attraction. Instead, agreeing on the survival topic helped individuals with similar traits perceive a deeper shared perspective. This shared vision served as the foundation for their social attraction. </p>
<p>The brain scans offered insight into how these connections formed on a biological level. During the passive story listening task, pairs with low autistic traits showed similar neural responses to the audio. Pairs with high autistic traits showed more varied, unique brain responses to the same story. </p>
<p>When communication shifted to the active group discussion, the brain activity aligned differently. The researchers measured inter-brain synchronization, a phenomenon where two people’s brain waves match up during a shared activity. A higher degree of synchronization indicates a smoother, more effective transfer of information between two minds. </p>
<p>Pairs with low autistic traits showed higher brain synchronization in the right temporoparietal junction. This brain region is heavily involved in social perception. People rely on this area to automatically process social cues and read the unstated intentions of conversational partners. </p>
<p>Pairs with high autistic traits demonstrated a completely different neural pattern. Their brains synchronized in the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. This area of the brain manages cognitive control, sustained focus, and deliberate problem-solving. </p>
<p>This neural pattern suggests that people with high autistic traits rely on an alternative mental strategy to process social interactions. Rather than relying on automatic social perception, they may recruit extra cognitive resources to deliberately build a connection. This strategy allows them to successfully align their brain activity with a partner who thinks similarly. </p>
<p>These findings challenge models portraying autism solely as an impairment of social cognition. Instead of failing to communicate, individuals with high autistic traits seem to use different neural pathways that are fully capable of supporting social bonds. The brain imaging supports the idea that social struggles might arise from a mismatch in cognitive strategies, rather than an inherent inability to connect. </p>
<p>The study has a few limitations to consider. The neuroimaging equipment only detects blood flow near the surface of the brain. Deeper brain structures involved in processing social rewards remain unobserved. Also, the structured nature of the timed laboratory tasks might not capture the organic flow of everyday social life. </p>
<p>The study participants were university students with varying levels of autistic traits, rather than individuals formally diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. The researchers noted that future studies could apply these methods to clinical populations. Using larger imaging machines could also help map deeper neural networks associated with these unique styles of communication.</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsych.2025.06.031">Attraction Through Similarity in Autistic Traits: A Group Communication Study Using the Social Relations Model and Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy Hyperscanning</a>,” was authored by Shuyuan Feng, Mingliang Wang, Jianing Zhang, Lin Ding, Yuqing Yuan, Peng Zhang, and Xuejun Bai.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/chatgpts-free-version-is-26-times-more-likely-to-respond-inappropriately-to-psychotic-delusions/" 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 free version is 26 times more likely to respond inappropriately to psychotic delusions</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">May 9th 2026, 12:00</div>
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<p><p>A recent study published in <em><a href="https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/article-abstract/2846835" target="_blank">JAMA Psychiatry</a></em> suggests that popular artificial intelligence chatbots tend to provide inappropriate or unhelpful responses when users type messages containing signs of psychosis. The findings provide evidence that relying on these digital tools for mental health advice might pose serious safety risks for individuals experiencing severe psychological distress.</p>
<p>Large language models are advanced artificial intelligence systems designed to understand and generate human text. They work by analyzing vast amounts of internet data to predict what words should logically come next in a given sentence. This mathematical process allows the computer program to essentially recognize structural patterns and create smooth conversational replies. </p>
<p>Because these computer programs are designed to perfectly mimic human interaction, they can naturally lead users to feel like the software actually understands them or feels genuine empathy toward them. Since its widespread release in 2022, OpenAI’s popular chatbot product called ChatGPT has seen massive adoption across the globe. Recent surveys suggest that many adults use this specific software regularly for general advice or tutoring. </p>
<p>Because chatbots generate their responses by matching textual patterns and aligning with the exact text the user provides, they tend to blindly accept false premises. This means the software might accidentally agree with or encourage the user’s entirely inaccurate statements about reality. </p>
<p>“We became interested in trying to understand how large language model chatbots respond to psychotic content when media reports started to appear about a year ago of people apparently developing psychotic symptoms (or having psychotic symptoms worsen) in the context of long ‘conversations’ with these products,” said study author Amandeep Jutla, an associate research scientist at Columbia University and head of <a href="https://tifalab.org/" target="_blank">the Translational Insights for Autism Lab</a>.</p>
<p>“We noticed that a common feature across these reports seemed to be that the product would reflect, affirm, or elaborate on the psychotic content, rather than pushing back against it as a human might. With our study, we wanted to test whether we could observe these kinds of inappropriate responses to psychotic content under controlled conditions.”</p>
<p>To test this, the researchers evaluated three different versions of OpenAI’s chatbot. They looked at a newer paid version called GPT-5 Auto, a previous paid version called GPT-4o, and the standard free version that is most widely accessible. The scientists wrote a total of 79 unique prompts designed to reflect five different symptoms of psychosis. </p>
<p>Psychosis is a mental health condition where a person temporarily loses touch with reality. To capture this state, the authors based their prompts on a standardized clinical interview tool used to assess psychosis risk. They included text reflecting unusual thoughts, suspiciousness or paranoia, and grandiosity, which is an exaggerated sense of one’s own importance. They also included prompts mimicking perceptual disturbances like hallucinations, along with disorganized communication.</p>
<p>For every psychotic prompt, the authors also wrote a matched control prompt. These normal control prompts were similar in length and writing style but did not contain any psychotic content. Every prompt was submitted exactly one time to each of the three chatbot versions in a completely isolated session. This procedure generated a total of 474 distinct prompt and response pairs for the scientists to analyze. </p>
<p>Next, two mental health clinicians reviewed these textual pairs. To ensure objectivity, these clinicians were blinded, meaning they did not know which chatbot version generated which response. The clinicians evaluated the appropriateness of the chatbot replies using a simple rating scale. </p>
<p>They scored each response on a scale from zero to two. A zero meant the response was completely appropriate, a one meant it was somewhat appropriate, and a two meant it was completely inappropriate. A secondary clinical rater also checked a random subset of these responses to verify the accuracy of the grading. </p>
<p>Across all the tested software versions, the chatbots were far more likely to give poor responses to the psychotic prompts than to the normal control prompts. </p>
<p>“The thing to take away from our findings is that ChatGPT is overwhelmingly more likely to generate inappropriate responses to psychotic than non-psychotic content,” Jutla said. “Notably, the ‘GPT-4o’ version of ChatGPT, which was the default version of the product at the time that reports of psychotic symptoms began appearing a year ago, has been acknowledged by OpenAI, which runs ChatGPT, to be prone to generate unsafe responses, and was replaced by ‘GPT-5,’ which was purportedly safer. Notably, we didn’t actually see any difference between GPT-4o and GPT-5 in our testing: statistically, both generated inappropriate responses at the same greatly elevated rate.”</p>
<p>When looking at the free version of the software, the psychotic prompts had an odds ratio showing an almost 26-fold higher chance of receiving a less appropriate rating compared to the control prompts. In medical statistics, an odds ratio simply describes how much more likely a specific event is to happen in one group compared to another group.</p>
<p>“The only meaningful difference we found was between the free and paid GPT-5 versions of ChatGPT: the free version is about 26 times more likely to generate an inappropriate response to psychotic content, and the paid version is ‘only’ about 8 times more likely to do so,” Jutla explained. “This is notable because OpenAI has reported that ChatGPT has 900 million users but only 50 million subscribers.”</p>
<p>The authors note that the free version’s poorer performance provides evidence for a specific public health concern. Individuals at risk for psychosis tend to be overrepresented among economically disadvantaged populations. This means those who are most vulnerable might only have access to the least safe chatbot option.</p>
<p>The authors acknowledge a few limitations to their current research project. The study only tested ChatGPT, which is just one of many artificial intelligence tools currently available on the market. Additionally, while the rating system was standardized, judging the appropriateness of a conversational response relies to some degree on subjective human opinion. </p>
<p>“An important limitation of our study is that it may actually under-estimate the inappropriateness of ChatGPT responses, because we only tested single prompts and single responses,” Jutla said. “Many of the cases of psychotic symptoms developing or worsening in the context of using this product involved very long ‘conversations,’ and it is known (and has been acknowledged by OpenAI) that in these ‘long context’ situations the performance of large language models tends to degrade.”</p>
<p>Because these systems use previous messages to provide context for new replies, an extended conversation might actually make the program’s safety filters break down completely. This suggests that the risk of harm in real world, ongoing conversations might be even higher than what this specific study captured. Finally, these artificial intelligence tools update rapidly, meaning the exact performance of the software might shift significantly over time.</p>
<p>The scientists point out that a truly appropriate response involves several specific components. An ideal reply should recognize the crisis, avoid reinforcing the delusion, acknowledge the urgency of the situation, and provide medical resources. The authors aim to assess these specific components separately in future studies.</p>
<p>The researchers suggest several directions for moving forward. In clinical practice, mental health professionals should routinely ask their patients if they are using these digital tools for advice. Future research should investigate how ongoing conversations with a chatbot might reinforce a person’s delusions over longer periods. The study provides evidence that policymakers should consider stronger oversight to ensure these programs do not harm vulnerable individuals.</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/article-abstract/2846835" target="_blank">Evaluation of Large Language Model Chatbot Responses to Psychotic Prompts</a>,” was authored by Elaine Shen, Fadi Hamati, Meghan Rose Donohue, Ragy R. Girgis, Jeremy Veenstra-VanderWeele, and Amandeep Jutla.</p></p>
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<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>
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