Babies cry less with to skin-to-skin contact, says behavioral psychologist

Credit: CC0 Public Domain It appears beneficial for mothers and babies to have one hour of skin-to-skin contact per day in the first five weeks after birth. Mothers who do…

Poetry can help people cope with loneliness or isolation, shows research

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain Reading, writing and sharing poetry can help people cope with loneliness or isolation and reduce feelings of anxiety and depression, a new study shows. Research by…

Kink communities can help people build connections and improve their body images

Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain In recent years, the world of kink lifestyles and subcultures has gained increasing attention. Kink is a general term that includes various expressions of unconventional or…

Medical exceptions to abortion bans often exclude mental health conditions

Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain More than a dozen states now have near-total abortion bans following the overturning of Roe v. Wade, with limited medical exceptions meant to protect the patient’s…

Study unveils a cortico-amygdala neural substrate supporting fear extinction via endocannabinoids

Zooming into fear and endocannabinoids in the brain. Credit: Ozge Gunduz-Cinar and Biorender. Endogenous cannabinoids, or endocannabinoids for short, are lipid-based neurotransmitters known to support various physiological processes. Recent studies…

Consistent lack of sleep related to future depressive symptoms, genetic study finds

Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain Consistently sleeping less than five hours a night might raise the risk of developing depressive symptoms, according to a new genetic study led by UCL (University…

Florida researchers are giving depressed, anxious people psychedelics

Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain A therapy session with Patricia Brown starts like any other. She leads her clients into a peaceful, quiet room, draped in beige and generic, calming artwork.…

Impacts of climate change threaten children’s mental health starting before birth

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain Climate change poses a particular threat to children and youth, starting before birth and potentially derailing the normal development of physiological systems, cognitive abilities and emotional…

Can chatbots be therapists? Only if you want them to be

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain A manager at artificial intelligence firm OpenAI caused consternation recently by writing that she just had “a quite emotional, personal conversation” with her firm’s viral chatbot…

A decade of data describes nationwide youth mental health crisis

Credit: CC0 Public Domain When Tanner Bommersbach, M.D., and a team of Mayo Clinic researchers analyzed national records of pediatric emergency department visits, they provided essential data to describe the…