The Conversation

Harnessing mindfulness and virtual reality simulations to maximize sports performance

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Ath­letes at the very high­est lev­el of their sport face the chal­lenge of per­form­ing con­sis­tent­ly under pres­sure amid many poten­tial dis­trac­tions, includ­ing per­for­mance anx­i­ety, crowd behav­iour, their own and oth­ers’ expec­ta­tions, and the respons­es of their opponents.

The per­for­mance of play­ers in the 2023 Aus­tralian Open, for exam­ple, demon­strat­ed the psy­cho­log­i­cal fac­tors need­ed to suc­ceed at elite-lev­el ten­nis. [Read more…] about Har­ness­ing mind­ful­ness and vir­tu­al real­i­ty sim­u­la­tions to max­i­mize sports performance

Ballroom dancing can reduce aging-related brain atrophy in the hippocampus (and, more than treadmill walking!)

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Social ball­room danc­ing can improve cog­ni­tive func­tions and reduce brain atro­phy in old­er adults who are at increased risk for Alzheimer’s dis­ease and oth­er forms of demen­tia. That’s the key find­ing of my team’s recent­ly pub­lished study in the Jour­nal of Aging and Phys­i­cal Activity.

In our study, we enrolled 25 adults over 65 years of age in either six months of twice-week­ly ball­room danc­ing class­es or six months of twice-week­ly tread­mill walk­ing class­es. None of them were engaged in for­mal danc­ing or oth­er exer­cise pro­grams. [Read more…] about Ball­room danc­ing can reduce aging-relat­ed brain atro­phy in the hip­pocam­pus (and, more than tread­mill walking!)

Study identifies cognitive benefits of ketamine in patients with treatment-resistant depression

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Ket­a­mine mol­e­cules attach them­selves to NMDA neu­ronal recep­tors, which play an impor­tant role in brain plas­tic­i­ty and pre­dic­tive pro­cess­ing. C22H31NO2, CC BY-SA

Which fac­tors deter­mine what we believe about our world, our­selves, our past, and our future? Cog­ni­tive neu­ro­science sug­gests that our beliefs are depen­dent on brain activ­i­ty, specif­i­cal­ly on the way our brains process sen­so­ry infor­ma­tion in order to make sense of our environment.

These beliefs (defined as prob­a­bil­i­ty esti­mates) are cen­tral to our brain’s pre­dic­tive pro­cess­ing func­tion, which enables it to pre­dict the prob­a­bilis­tic struc­ture of the world around us. These pre­dic­tions could even be the fun­da­men­tal build­ing blocks of men­tal states, such as per­cep­tions and emotions.

Many psy­chi­atric dis­or­ders, such as depres­sion and schiz­o­phre­nia, are char­ac­terised by irreg­u­lar beliefs whose ori­gins we still don’t ful­ly under­stand. But if we can iden­ti­fy the cere­bral sys­tems gov­ern­ing them, we could tar­get those very areas in a bid to alle­vi­ate the pain asso­ci­at­ed to these ill­ness­es. [Read more…] about Study iden­ti­fies cog­ni­tive ben­e­fits of ket­a­mine in patients with treat­ment-resis­tant depression

Debunking the “chemical imbalance” theory yet not throwing out the antidepressant baby with the bathwater

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A recent study found incon­sis­tent evi­dence link­ing the neu­ro­trans­mit­ter sero­tonin to depres­sion. In an arti­cle for The Con­ver­sa­tion, the authors of the study con­clud­ed that it is impos­si­ble to say that tak­ing SSRI anti­de­pres­sants is worth­while. But is it safe to con­clude that sero­tonin is not involved in depres­sion or that mod­ern anti­de­pres­sants aren’t help­ful in treat­ing the con­di­tion? [Read more…] about Debunk­ing the “chem­i­cal imbal­ance” the­o­ry yet not throw­ing out the anti­de­pres­sant baby with the bathwater

Large neuroimaging study finds social isolation to be an early indicator of increased dementia risk

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Why do we get a buzz from being in large groups at fes­ti­vals, jubilees and oth­er pub­lic events? Accord­ing to the social brain hypoth­e­sis, it’s because the human brain specif­i­cal­ly evolved to sup­port social inter­ac­tions. Stud­ies have shown that belong­ing to a group can lead to improved well­be­ing and increased sat­is­fac­tion with life.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly though, many peo­ple are lone­ly or social­ly iso­lat­ed. [Read more…] about Large neu­roimag­ing study finds social iso­la­tion to be an ear­ly indi­ca­tor of increased demen­tia risk

Dos and Don’ts of Therapy on the Go: Navigating the use of apps for mental health care

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It might be sur­pris­ing to think about brows­ing for ther­a­pists and order­ing up men­tal health care the way you can peruse a menu on Grub­hub or sum­mon a car on Lyft.

But over the last decade, dig­i­tal access to ther­a­py has become increas­ing­ly com­mon, in some cas­es replac­ing the tra­di­tion­al mod­el of in-per­son week­ly ses­sions between a ther­a­pist and client.

Apps for men­tal health and well­ness range from mood track­ers, med­i­ta­tion tools and jour­nals to ther­a­py apps that match users to a licensed pro­fes­sion­al. My team’s research focus­es on ther­a­py apps that work by match­ing clients to a licensed pro­fes­sion­al. [Read more…] about Dos and Don’ts of Ther­a­py on the Go: Nav­i­gat­ing the use of apps for men­tal health care