Brain scans are opening new avenues in science, including forensic psychiatry. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is being used to discover new insights into how the brain works and what makes people tick. By studying which areas of the brain “light up” on MRI images, researchers are uncovering differences in how men and women communicate […]
Army Suicides Increase Each Year
The US Army recently released the statistics for 2008 of numbers of army suicides. Since 2004 the numbers have been increasing to now 128 active duty soldiers and 43 non-active duty soldiers. These 2008 numbers correspond to a suicide rate of 20 per 100,000 personnel. If you look at the suicide rate of the US […]
Is Happiness Contagious?
Happiness has the same ripple effect as dropping a pebble in a pond. Its effect radiates outward in ever-greater rings, affecting everyone it touches, brightening each person’s life in turn. Surrounding yourself with happy people, just being near a happy person, even knowing someone who knows a happy person, makes you happier. Happiness is contagious, […]
Fame, Money, Beauty Don’t Bring Happiness
It turns out that those oft sought goals in life — fame, wealth and beauty — don’t bring happiness and can, in fact, make life miserable. That’s the finding of a new study by three researchers at the University of Rochester in New York that was reported this week on ScienceDaily online. “People understand that […]
Depression Medication Linked to Gestational Hypertension
Currently SSRI’s (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors) are commonly prescribed during pregnancy for those who have been previously responsive to SSRI’s and those who have severe depression or anxiety. A March 2009 study in the American Journal of Psychiatry reported increased incidence of gestational hypertension and preeclampsia in women who took SSRI’s during the last trimester […]
June Bride, July Blues
There’s something about June and brides. Surpassed only by Valentine’s Day as America’s most popular wedding date, thousands of brides choose to be married in June. For the typical year it takes to plan a modern American wedding, these women, and often their mothers (and to a slightly lesser extent their intended and both families), […]