Mental Health

A new study reveals how dopamine and insulin receptors interact in the brain's emotional center to regulate compulsive eating. These findings offer biological clues to the strong link between food addiction and metabolic diseases like diabetes.

A meta-analysis of 121,728 participants finds that problematic pornography use is most strongly linked to craving and sexual shame, with smaller links to depression and loneliness. How strong these links appear may depend on the measure used.

A recent brain imaging study reveals that the reward system is hyper-connected to other social networks in autistic individuals. This heightened integration correlates with social communication differences and overlaps with specific genetic and chemical markers.

A new study suggests that curious people build more "cognitive reserve" through higher education and mentally stimulating hobbies. However, this curiosity didn't translate into higher scores on cognitive tests among the healthy adults studied.

New research challenges the idea that loneliness acts as a helpful alarm bell. A 6-year study found that feeling lonely does not motivate isolated children to reconnect, and both issues independently harm future mental health and career prospects.

A new AI tool that analyzes MRI scans in fine detail reveals that the human brain does not age evenly. Some regions appear to age faster than others, with these differences becoming more pronounced in people with Alzheimer’s disease.

Among Dutch adults with depression or anxiety, those who experienced more childhood trauma were more likely to report recent suicidal thoughts and past suicide attempts. Aggression, insomnia, and low social support partly accounted for this link.

Artificial intelligence can accurately identify migraine sufferers by analyzing general health data like sleep and neck pain, completely ignoring headache symptoms. The findings suggest migraines consist of several distinct biological subtypes that could require different medical treatments.

A recent study using the end of post-war UK food rationing suggests that restricting sugar from conception to age two is linked to a significantly lower risk of developing anxiety and depression in adulthood.

Psychiatric symptoms alone do not explain why some people with mental illness enter the criminal justice system. A new study reveals that standard criminal risk factors, like antisocial attitudes and social environments, closely mirror their legal involvement.

Losing deep belly fat rather than just overall body weight is linked to slower brain aging and better memory years later. New research suggests targeting visceral fat might protect cognitive function by improving long-term blood sugar control.

Waking up out of sync with your internal clock can cause social anxiety. A new psychological study finds this temporal misalignment makes people prefer being evaluated by artificial intelligence over human beings.

A single 20-minute session of alpha-frequency brain stimulation modestly reduced anxiety after a stressful task in healthy middle-aged and older adults.

A study in rats suggests MDMA can prevent the rise in alcohol intake that follows trauma-like stress, but only in animals genetically predisposed to drink heavily. The effect did not appear to depend on changes in fear.