Depression can spawn a spiral of lethargy and hopelessness, so that the last thing someone wants to do is exercise. But regular, moderate physical activity may lessen depression symptoms as much as some medications.
Exercise Helps Fight Depression — latimes.com
Posted using ShareThis
Brain imaging shows playing Tetris leads to a thicker cortex and may also increase brain efficiency, according to research published in the open access journal BMC Research Notes. A research team based in New Mexico is one of the first to investigate the effects of practice in the brain using two image techniques.
Researchers from Mind Research Network in Albuquerque used brain imaging and Tetris to investigate whether practice makes the brain efficient because it increases gray matter. For 30 minutes a day over a three-month period, 26 adolescent girls played Tetris, a computer game requiring a combination of cognitive skills. The girls completed both structural and functional MRI scans before and after the three-month practice period, as did girls in the control group who did not play Tetris. A structural MRI was used to assess cortical thickness, and a functional MRI was used to assess efficient activity.
The girls who practiced showed greater brain efficiency, consistent with earlier studies. Compared to controls, the girls that practiced also had a thicker cortex, but not in the same brain areas where efficiency occurred
 
The advantage that children get from living in two-parent families may actually be due to family stability more than the fact that their parents are married.
A new study finds that children who who are born and grow up in stable single-parent homes generally do as well as those in married households in terms of academic abilities and behavior problems.
“Many of the studies that show an advantage for children who grow up in married households versus those who grow up with single parents don’t distinguish between family structure and family stability,” said Claire Kamp Dush, author of the study and assistant professor of human development and family science at Ohio State University. [continue reading…]
A Swedish study published in one of the latest issue of Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics discloses new relationships between stress at work and development of rheumatoid arthritis.
Psychosocial work stress, in terms of high psychological demands, low decision latitude or the combination of these stressors (job strain), is associated with an increased risk of several diseases (e.g. cardiovascular disease), but it has not been studied in relation to rheumatoid arthritis (RA). However, research on the relationship between psychosocial work stress and immunological parameters also suggests a possible association with inflammatory conditions, including RA. In order to investigate whether high psychological job demands, low decision latitude and job strain are associated with the risk of developing RA, a group of Swedish investigators used data from EIRA, a large population-based case-control study with incident cases of RA. The study base comprised the population, aged 18–65 years, in middle and southern parts of Sweden during 1996–2003. In total, 1,221 cases and 1,454 controls participated. [continue reading…]
