Aging well
Despite the physical pains that can come with age, older adults often have better mental health than young adults, suggests a study in
Clinical Psychiatry
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. Researchers surveyed 1,546 randomly selected adults in the San Diego area, ages 21 to 100, asking about physical and mental health, and cognitive function. Their comparisons of people in different age groups found improvements in mental health of about one standard deviation over the life span, despite a decline of 1.5 to 2 standard deviations in physical health and cognitive function during that time. The authors say it's not clear why mental health may improve with age, but that it could be that people gain wisdom and become better at dealing with life's stresses over time.
Integrated care
Patients who receive care from integrated physical and mental health care teams fare better than those in traditional care settings, according to a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association opens in new window. The researchers examined 10 years of data from 113,000 primary-care patients of a large health-care system. The researchers found that, among other improvements, patients in integrated-care practices had significantly fewer emergency room visits and hospital admissions, were more likely to follow diabetes care protocols, incurred 3 percent lower costs, and were more likely to have a documented self-care plan to manage chronic health conditions.
Bright daylight, better sleep
Spending time in bright light during the day could mitigate the sleep disturbances caused by blue-light exposure from device screens at night, suggests research published in
Sleep Medicine
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. In a sleep lab, 14 participants were exposed to very bright light—similar to daytime light—for 6.5 hours. Then, half were instructed to read a hard-copy novel and half an e-reader novel for two hours before bed. The researchers then monitored participants' sleep overnight and found no differences—in melatonin levels, sleep duration or sleepiness—between the hard-copy and e-reader participants. They say this suggests that bright daytime light exposure could help mitigate the effects of nighttime blue-screen exposure, though caution that larger studies are needed.
Newborn "language"
Infants born into families that speak tonal languages have more melodically complex cries, according to research published in both the
Journal of Voice
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and
Speech, Language and Hearing
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. The researchers compared the cries of German newborns (under 1 week old) to those of newborns in China and Cameroon, whose mothers spoke tonal languages—those in which the same sound can have a different meaning depending on the pitch at which it's spoken. The researchers found that the crying of Chinese and Cameroonian newborns had more melodic variation and up-and-down, chanting-like tones than the German babies' cries. This is further evidence that language acquisition begins in the womb, the researchers say.
Depression screening
There is little evidence to suggest that widely used depression-screening tools are accurate in children and teens, according to research in the Canadian Journal of Psychiatry opens in new window. The researchers surveyed the scientific literature for studies where results from short depression-screening questionnaires—the type used in primary-care settings—were compared with later diagnostic interviews to find whether the patients actually had depression. The researchers found 17 studies, but concluded that most had faulty methodology, or were too small to determine whether the screening tools worked. The researchers say that invalid screening tests could lead to some children and teens mistakenly being labeled as depressed, and that larger, more carefully designed studies are needed.
Depression treatment
Depression may be both under- and over-treated in the United States, suggests research in JAMA Internal Medicine opens in new window. Researchers looked at data from 46,417 respondents to the 2012 and 2013 U.S. Medical Expenditure Panel Surveys. They found that 8.4 percent of adults screened positive for depression, and only 28.7 percent of those received any treatment. At the same time, among all adults treated for depression, only 29.9 screened positive for depression and 21.8 percent for serious psychological distress. The researchers say that more should be done to ensure clinicians align patients with appropriate treatment.
Humane dinner
Our beliefs about where our food comes from can affect the food's taste, finds a study published in
PLOS ONE
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. In a series of three experiments, researchers offered participants tastes of identical meat products, such as roast beef and beef jerky, but told them that some of the meat was from animals raised on humane farms and some was from animals raised on factory farms. Participants rated the supposedly humane meat as looking, smelling and tasting better than the "factory-farmed" meat, and also ate more of the "humane" samples.
Marriage is sobering
Marriage may cause people to cut back on drinking, suggests a study in the Journal of Family Psychology opens in new window®. Previous research has found that married and cohabitating people drink less than their single peers. But it was difficult to prove causation—it's possible that genetic or environmental factors could predispose some people both to get married and to drink less alcohol. To provide more insight, the new study looked at 2,425 pairs of same-sex twins. The researchers found that despite sharing similar genetic and environmental backgrounds, married twins and those who lived with a partner drank less frequently and consumed fewer alcoholic drinks than their single twins.
Abuse lingers
Women who were abused as children have an increased risk of earlier death as adults, according to research in JAMA Psychiatry opens in new window. The study examined data from 6,285 adults, average age 47, who completed the Survey of Midlife Development in the United States in 1995 and 1996. Twenty years later, 1,091 of the original participants had died (17.4 percent). Women who had reported being emotionally or physically abused as children were significantly more likely to have died during that time than women who had not been abused. The same pattern did not hold true for men.
What color is that?
Distracting visual stimuli can make it harder to recall even basic visual information, according to research in the
Journal of Memory and Language
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. Researchers asked participants to quickly answer easy questions about common objects. Some questions focused on visual properties, such as "Are strawberries red?" while others were nonvisual, like "Are strawberries fruit?" As the participants answered the questions, they sometimes saw a blank computer screen and other times a burst of brightly colored static. The visual static reduced participants' accuracy at answering the visual knowledge questions, but not the nonvisual ones. This suggests that even visual knowledge that seems abstract requires some activation of the visual system to retrieve.
Believing is seeing
Believe in the power of exercise? Then you'll likely see benefits from it, suggests research in the
Journal of Behavioral Medicine
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. Psychologists asked 76 participants to ride a stationary bike for 30 minutes in a lab. Before the exercise session, they asked the participants whether they already believed in the positive benefits of exercise. After the session, they found that the participants who believed that exercise would help them enjoyed the exercise more, saw more improvements in mood and anxiety, and had increased alpha-wave activity (suggesting they were more relaxed) compared with patients who didn't believe that exercise would help them.
Weight and the brain
The brains of overweight people look 10 years older than those of their thinner peers, according to a study in Neurobiology of Aging opens in new window. Researchers used MRI scans to examine the brains of 527 people ages 20 to 87. The volume of white matter—the tissue that connects different parts of the brain—in overweight people was equivalent to that of normal-weight people who were 10 years older. This difference only showed up in middle-aged and older participants; it wasn't apparent in younger adults.
School safety
Feeling unsafe at school can hurt teens' ability to learn by making them less interested and engaged in the classroom, suggests research in the Journal of Adolescent Health opens in new window. The researchers looked at data from 2,120 13-year-olds in the Quebec Longitudinal Study of Child Development. They found that students who felt safer at school also reported being more engaged in the classroom, and reported fewer symptoms of depression as well.
Baby math
The precursors of math ability may show up in babies as young as 6 months, suggests a study in
Psychological Science
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. The researchers showed 63 6- to 13-month-old babies videos of two rotating three-dimensional shapes. Some of the babies looked longer than other babies when the objects were rotated in a novel mirror-image way—a sign that those babies were better able to mentally rotate the shapes. Four years later, the researchers found that the spatially skilled babies (now preschoolers) had a better understanding of basic math concepts than their less-skilled peers, even after accounting for the children's general cognitive abilities.
Here, you do it
People like to make decisions for themselves, but prefer to delegate when they have to make decisions that affect others, suggests research in Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes opens in new window. In one experiment, researchers asked participants to imagine they had to choose a hotel for themselves or for a boss. Participants were more likely to delegate the choice to an office manager when they were choosing the boss's hotel—and even more so when the choice was between unappealing two-star hotels versus five-star hotels. The researchers suggest that people "pass the buck" when they want to avoid feeling responsible or being blamed for a bad choice.
Relationship repair
Want to make up after an argument with your partner? Taking the long view might make it easier to make amends, suggests research in
Social Psychological and Personality Science
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. Researchers asked participants to think about a recent conflict with a romantic partner or a close friend. Half of the participants were asked how they felt about the conflict today; the other half were asked to describe how they would feel about it one year later. Those who were asked to take the long view showed more forgiveness, a more positive view of the conflict and more positivity about their relationship in general.
Brain injury
People who had concussions or other brain injuries in their youth have an increased risk of mental illness and other problems later in life, according to a study in PLOS Medicine opens in new window. The researchers looked at hospital and other data from more than 100,000 Swedish citizens with at least one traumatic brain injury in their youth, as well as their uninjured same-age peers. They found that people with one brain injury during childhood were twice as likely to be admitted to the hospital as a mental health inpatient and 50 percent more likely to use a mental health service than those who didn't have an injury. They were also 60 percent more likely to receive welfare benefits and 70 percent more likely to die before age 41.
Stay busy, stay healthy
Older adults who work and volunteer may stave off some physical disability, suggests research in
The Journals of Gerontology, Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences
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. Researchers examined data from 13,268 people ages 50 to 62 who were interviewed every two years from 1998 to 2012. Participants reported whether they had any chronic diseases such as cancer or diabetes or conditions such as high blood pressure, and whether they were able to do physical tasks, such as walk one block, climb a flight of stairs or carry 10 pounds. People who worked or volunteered had fewer physical limitations than those who didn't, and working and volunteering also lessened the link between chronic disease and physical limitations, the research found.
An intuitive computer
The human brain can consider complicated situations and use probability to make informed decisions, all outside of conscious awareness, according to research published in the Journal of Neuroscience opens in new window. Researchers showed participants a series of busy "safari park" scenes in which groups of 30 to 40 animals, such as zebras, giraffes and elephants, stood in four different colored "zones." The animals varied in which zones they appeared most frequently, although every animal appeared at some point in every zone. Later, the researchers showed the participants a smaller group of one to six animals and asked which zone it most likely came from. Participants answered accurately, on the basis of the overall probabilities of each animal appearing in each zone in the original scenes. The researchers also used fMRI to image participants' brains during the task and found that the orbitofrontal cortex seemed key to tracking the shifting probabilities
