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

By The Conversation | December 8, 2022

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…

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Thanksgiving works: Gratitude journaling seen to lower stress and negative cognitive processes

By Greater Good Science Center | November 21, 2022

Dur­ing the ear­ly days of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, many peo­ple suf­fered extreme stress. Peo­ple couldn’t work and faced finan­cial anx­i­ety, they felt lone­ly and iso­lat­ed, they wor­ried about catch­ing a dead­ly dis­ease or giv­ing it to some­one they loved, and their men­tal health suf­fered. For researcher Erin Fekete, of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Indi­anapo­lis, the unfolding…

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

By The Conversation | August 3, 2022

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…

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Digital mental health intervention by the World Health Organization (WHO) found to lower anxiety and depression, with improvements maintained at 3‑month follow-up

By SharpBrains | July 5, 2022

WHO dig­i­tal men­tal health inter­ven­tion effec­tive in reduc­ing depres­sion among Syr­i­an refugees in Lebanon (press release): A new dig­i­tal men­tal health inter­ven­tion, Step-by-Step, devel­oped by the World Health Orga­ni­za­tion (WHO) with the Nation­al Men­tal Health Pro­gramme (NMHP) at the Min­istry of Pub­lic Health Lebanon and oth­er part­ners, was effec­tive in reduc­ing depres­sion among Syr­i­an refugees…

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Update: Playing videogames may be more cognitively beneficial than other forms of screentime like social media, watching videos/ TV

By SharpBrains | June 30, 2022

Wel­come to a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing time­ly brain & men­tal health news and a fun brain teas­er to put your tem­po­ral lobes to good use :-) #1. Study finds that play­ing videogames may be more cog­ni­tive­ly ben­e­fi­cial for chil­dren than oth­er forms of screen­time (social media, watch­ing videos/ TV) “Here, we esti­mat­ed the impact…

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

By The Conversation | June 13, 2022

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…

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