Tri-City Psychology Services reports on the latest psychology research, news and gossip

© iStockphoto

My summer vacation is just about to start, even though its a bit late! Regular postings will resume on 22 September, 2008. Till then Ciao!

© iStockphoto

Todays BPS Research Digest highlights research that shows we’re better at recollecting events that occurred during our teens and early twenties than during any other period in our lives - an anomaly that experts call the “reminiscence bump”.

One explanation for the bump, according to Steve Janssen and colleagues, is that our memories work more efficiently during our teens and early adulthood relative to other periods in our lives. Link to read more
Source: BPS Research Digest

Minister for Science and Medical Research Verity Firth and Professor Cindi Shannon Weickert;

Leading schizophrenia researcher, Professor Cyndi Shannon Weickert, has discovered that a brain receptor that normally stimulates growth in adolescence is hampered in people with schizophrenia.

The findings open up new opportunities for treatments for schizophrenia, commencing with a world first, three-year clinical drug trial this month.

Professor Shannon Weickert, who holds Australia’s first Chair of Schizophrenia Research, led the research which has recently been published in Human Molecular Genetics. [click to continue…]

One of the few studies to look at the effects of religious participation on the mental health of minorities suggests that for some of them, religion may actually be contributing to adolescent depression.

Previous research has shown that teens who are active in religious services are depressed less often because it provides these adolescents with social support and a sense of belonging. [click to continue…]

Women whose lives have been touched by the breast cancer experience of a friend or relative are more acutely attuned to their own risk for the disease and are taking action to protect themselves, according to a new national opinion poll by The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center and Prevention magazine. [click to continue…]

© Eric Perrone

From todays New Scientist blog Short Sharp Science

Guys: have you got a hot mom? Chances are your wife will be a looker, too. The same goes for daughters of hunky fathers.

Women tend to date guys that look like their fathers, and sons go for gals that look like their mothers, according to a new study of facial similarities between romantic partners and their parents. The paper is published this week in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B (DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2008.1021).

Link to Hot moms and sexual imprinting
Source: New Scientist
Image: Creative Commons