http://medicalxpress.com/ en-us Medical Xpress internet news portal provides the latest news on Health and Medicine. Compulsive gamblers suffer from an optimism bias that modifies their subjective representation of probability and affects their decisions in situations involving high-risk monetary wagers. This is the conclusion drawn by Jean-Claude Dreher's research team at the CNC (Centre de Neurosciences Cognitives, CNRS / Université Claude Bernard Lyon). These findings, published in the May print edition of Psychological Medicine, could help explain and anticipate certain individuals' vulnerability to gambling, and could lead to new therapeutic approaches. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-04-pathological-gambling-excessive-optimism.html Psychology & Psychiatry Tue, 30 Apr 2013 09:25:49 EST news286532741 (Medical Xpress)—Monitoring heart rate patterns can help identify risk and treat people who are dependent on alcohol by predicting their craving levels, researchers at the University of Sydney have shown. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-04-heart-alcohol.html Addiction Mon, 22 Apr 2013 07:57:35 EST news285836249 (HealthDay)—Eugene King ran away from home at the age of 16, the start of a lifelong pattern of drug abuse, crime and incarceration. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-04-mental-illness-frequent-cell-bars.html Psychology & Psychiatry Fri, 05 Apr 2013 11:50:01 EST news284380431 (Medical Xpress)—Despite the well known inaccuracies of polygraph lie detectors, they remain in widespread, if selective, use by the criminal justice system. While they are far from truth machines, if the person who is interviewed believes that they have caught in a lie, the prosecutorial sector can turn the thumbscrews so to speak. Predicting future arrest, however, is not something a polygraph can address—if the parolee doesn't even know if he or she might re-offend, how can a yes/no classifier? A study published yesterday in PNAS is the latest in a series of efforts to use fMRI to assign risk to the possibility of repeat offense. They do not claim to have found the repeat offense area of the brain, but rather determine this risk by proxy, namely a measure of impulsivity. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-03-brain-scans.html Neuroscience Tue, 26 Mar 2013 09:57:55 EST news283509709 Psychologists have traditionally characterized compulsive gambling as an "impulse control disorder," and treated it by addressing the patient's obsessive tendencies. But according to Prof. Pinhas Dannon of Tel Aviv University's Sackler Faculty of Medicine and the Beer Yaakov Mental Health Center, not all pathological gamblers fit the same profile. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-03-knowledge-game-advantage-sports-gambling.html Psychology & Psychiatry Tue, 19 Mar 2013 10:38:56 EST news282908265 Poor impulse control contributes to one's inability to control the consumption of rewarding substances, like food, alcohol, and other drugs. This can lead to the development of addiction. FDA-approved medications for alcoholism, like naltrexone (Revia) and disulfiram (Antabuse), are thought to reduce alcohol consumption by curbing cravings and creating unpleasant reactions to alcohol, effects which reduce the desire to drink alcohol. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-02-impulsive-modafinil.html Psychology & Psychiatry Fri, 01 Feb 2013 12:20:15 EST news278943602 New research at the University of Chicago and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill shows that children begin to show signs of higher-level thinking skills as young as age 4 ½. Researchers have previously attributed higher-order thinking development to knowledge acquisition and better schooling, but the new longitudinal study shows that other skills, not always connected with knowledge, play a role in the ability of children to reason analytically. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-01-children-complex-skills-school.html Psychology & Psychiatry Wed, 23 Jan 2013 16:17:31 EST news278180242 Psychiatric disorders are prevalent among current and former inmates of correctional institutions, but what has been less clear is whether incarceration causes these disorders or, alternatively, whether inmates have these problems before they enter prison. A study co-authored by Jason Schnittker, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Pennsylvania, shows that many of the most common psychiatric disorders found among former inmates, including impulse control disorders, emerge in childhood and adolescence and, therefore, predate incarceration. Yet, incarceration seems to lead to some mood related psychiatric disorders, such as major depression, which have important implications for what happens to inmates after their release. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-01-link-incarceration-psychiatric-disorders.html Psychology & Psychiatry Wed, 16 Jan 2013 09:54:41 EST news277552475 Parkinson's disease itself does not increase the risk of impulse control problems such as compulsive gambling and shopping that have been seen in people taking certain drugs for Parkinson's disease, according to new research published in the January 8, 2013, print issue of Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-01-parkinson-disease-gambling-addiction.html Neuroscience Mon, 07 Jan 2013 16:00:08 EST news276771550 (Medical Xpress)—Social practices and cultural beliefs of modern life are preventing healthy brain and emotional development in children, according to an interdisciplinary body of research presented recently at a symposium at the University of Notre Dame. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-01-modern-parenting-hinder-brain.html Psychology & Psychiatry Mon, 07 Jan 2013 06:23:31 EST news276762196 (Medical Xpress)—You're waiting in the reception area of your doctor's office. The magazines are uninteresting. The pictures on the wall are dull. The second hand on the wall clock moves so excruciatingly slowly that you're sure it must be broken. You feel depleted and irritated about being stuck in this seemingly endless moment. You want to be engaged by something—anything—when a thought, so familiar from childhood, comes to mind: "I'm bored!" http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-09-im-boredresearch-attention-unengaged-mind.html Psychology & Psychiatry Wed, 26 Sep 2012 15:16:28 EST news267891382 People with psychopathic tendencies have an impaired sense of smell, which points to inefficient processing in the front part of the brain. These findings by Mehmet Mahmut and Richard Stevenson, from Macquarie University in Australia, are published online in Springer's journal Chemosensory Perception. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-09-poor-marker-psychopathic-traits.html Psychology & Psychiatry Thu, 20 Sep 2012 11:26:28 EST news267359139 (Medical Xpress)—A University of Western Sydney researcher has developed a new computational model, which will improve our understanding of how Parkinson's disease (PD) medications affect the brain and cognition. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-09-medications-parkinson.html Parkinson's & Movement disorders Tue, 11 Sep 2012 07:23:13 EST news266566970 (Medical Xpress)—Scientists investigate whether food addiction should be classed as a mental disorder. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-09-food-addiction-similar-terms-drug.html Psychology & Psychiatry Fri, 07 Sep 2012 07:53:52 EST news266223221 Concussions and even lesser head impacts may speed up the brain's natural aging process by causing signaling pathways in the brain to break down more quickly than they would in someone who has never suffered a brain injury or concussion. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-07-concussions-impacts-brain-aging.html Neuroscience Tue, 31 Jul 2012 15:01:42 EST news262965696 Scientists at Queen Mary, University of London have shown that zebrafish could be used to study the underlying causes of psychiatric disorders. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-05-zebrafish-key-psychiatric-disorders.html Neuroscience Thu, 17 May 2012 10:20:02 EST news256467189 Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute have found clinical evidence that the drug gabapentin, currently on the market to treat neuropathic pain and epilepsy, helps people to quit smoking marijuana (cannabis). Unlike traditional addiction treatments, gabapentin targets stress systems in the brain that are activated by drug withdrawal. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-04-scientists-anticonvulsant-drug-marijuana-smokers.html Addiction Tue, 24 Apr 2012 10:37:38 EST news254482631 Some Parkinson's Disease patients can suddenly become creative when they take dopamine therapy, producing pictures, sculptures, novels and poetry. But their new-found interests can become so overwhelming that they ignore other aspects of their everyday life, such as daily chores and social activities, according to research published in the March issue of the European Journal of Neurology. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-02-parkinson-disease-patients-creative-dopamine.html Parkinson's & Movement disorders Thu, 23 Feb 2012 10:04:23 EST news249213844 (Medical Xpress) -- Researchers funded by the Medical Research Council (MRC) at the University of Cambridge have identified a brain abnormality which is found in drug-dependent individuals as well as their siblings who have had no history of drug addiction. The brain abnormality identified by the researchers makes it more difficult for individuals to exercise self-control. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-02-brains-addicts-inherently-abnormal.html Neuroscience Thu, 02 Feb 2012 17:15:46 EST news247425336 Internet addiction disorder may be associated with abnormal white matter structure in the brain, as reported in the Jan. 11 issue of the online journal PLoS ONE. These structural features may be linked to behavioral impairments, and may also provide a method to study and treat the disorder. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-01-internet-addiction-disorder-characterized-abnormal.html Psychology & Psychiatry Wed, 11 Jan 2012 17:50:09 EST news245526598 Women alcoholics suffer damage to the part of their brain that controls moods, impulses and sleep three times faster than their male counterparts, a Swedish study showed Wednesday. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-11-women-quicker-brain-alcohol-abuse.html Psychology & Psychiatry Wed, 09 Nov 2011 10:22:19 EST news240056528 A study of more than 400 children diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder has found a link between the children's routine play settings and the severity of their symptoms, researchers report. Those who regularly play in outdoor settings with lots of green (grass and trees, for example) have milder ADHD symptoms than those who play indoors or in built outdoor environments, the researchers found. The association holds even when the researchers controlled for income and other variables. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-09-kids-adhd-regular-green-linked.html Attention deficit disorders Thu, 15 Sep 2011 11:33:33 EST news235305196 How the brain controls impulsive behavior may be significantly different than psychologists have thought for the last 40 years. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-08-insight-impulse.html Neuroscience Tue, 30 Aug 2011 17:44:52 EST news233945073 A study using mice provides insight into how a specific receptor subtype in the brain could play a role in increasing a person's risk for attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). The research, conducted by the Intramural Research Program (IRP) at the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), part of the National Institutes of Health, could also help explain how stimulants work to treat symptoms of ADHD. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-08-scientists-gene-variant-linked-adhd.html Attention deficit disorders Tue, 16 Aug 2011 17:03:45 EST news232732982 Alcohol and impulsivity are a dangerous mix: People with current drinking problems and poor impulse control are more likely to die in the next 15 years, a new study suggests. However, they could get by with a little help from their friends: The study also found that a strong social support network buffers the toxic effects of impulsivity. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-08-impulsive-alcoholics-die-sooner.html Health Mon, 15 Aug 2011 08:43:40 EST news232616612 Preliminary results from the first four brains donated to the Canadian Sports Concussion Project at the Krembil Neuroscience Centre, TorontoWesternHospital, reveal that two of the four former Canadian Football League (CFL) players suffered from a brain disease known as Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE), while two did not show signs of CTE. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-07-brain-autopsies-football-players-reveal.html Health Tue, 26 Jul 2011 11:39:38 EST news230899167 Although most teens have the knowledge and reasoning ability to make decisions as rationally as adults, their tendency to make much riskier choices suggests that they still lack some key component of wise decision making. Why is this so? Because adolescents may not bother to use those thinking skills before they act. That's the finding of a new study by researchers at Temple University that appears in the journal Child Development. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-06-teens.html Psychology & Psychiatry Fri, 17 Jun 2011 03:54:47 EST news227501669