A study in a virtual reality bar setting assessed the effects of being subjected to painful heat on alcohol consumption. Results showed that men decreased intervals between sips of the alcoholic drink, but did not drink more in each sip....
Addiction can be extremely detrimental to an individual in many different domains, including brain functioning. A new study published in Alcohol and Alcoholism provides hope by suggesting that alcohol detox can greatly improve cognitive impairments within weeks.
A longitudinal study found that the addictive use of Facebook can increase depression severity among people diagnosed with depression. The findings suggest that overuse of Facebook can diminish a person’s sense of self-worth. The study was published in Computers in Human...
Many people love to play video games, but for some people, it can become an addiction. This raises the question; how can we tell if someone’s at-risk for their video game consumption to become a problem? A study published in...
A new study analyzed medical data of patients who were addicted to smoking cigarettes at the time they suffered injuries to specific regions of the brain and reported that certain brain injuries resulted in the addiction disappearing.
New research published in Frontiers in Psychology found a connection between alcohol consumption in college and adverse experiences in childhood. The study revealed that as scores on a measure of adverse childhood experiences increased, so did the likelihood that the...
A study using functional magnetic resonant imaging (fMRI) compared brain activities of persons suffering from smartphone addiction (excessive smartphone use) and those who use their smartphones in a less intrusive way. It reported systematic differences in brain activity during rest...
A medication known as spironolactone may aid the treatment of alcohol use disorder, according to a new study published in Molecular Psychiatry. The research was led by scientists at the U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) and the National...
Published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, researchers found that problematic smartphone use is linked with low self-esteem as well as negative cognitive outcomes.
Can being an impulsive early adolescent be a slippery slope leading to more serious problems in the later teenage years? A study published in the Journal of Adolescent Health explores the relationships between impulsivity, antisocial behavior, and alcohol use through...
An online survey of university student gamblers reported that people who gamble and are prone to lying, cheating and callous behavior (primary psychopathy) were much more likely to fall into gambling-related problems and much less likely to use strategies to...
A recent survey of students in Italy found that smartphone addiction and online compulsive buying are related. Additionally, the mental activities a person uses to regulate his/her mood strengthen that link. Flow experiences, i.e. cognitive states of total absorption in...
"This, together with other rodent work, points one towards thinking that psychedelic drugs on their own don’t have any inherent, persistent healing effects, but need something further for the therapeutic effects, which in human trials of course most likely is...
Alcohol can reduce our reactivity to stress, and a new experiment suggests that this effect is stronger for particular types of stressful situations. The findings, published in the journal Clinical Psychological Science, revealed that alcohol more strongly alleviates reactivity when stressors...
A systematic review published in the journal Psychopharmacology found elevated brain reactivity to cannabis cues among regular cannabis users, in specific brain regions. The study also uncovered preliminary evidence that this increased brain function may trigger cannabis cravings.