Behavioral Sciences News

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The latest issue includes lists of titles related to international criminology, police, drugs, and victims.

July is National Anti-Boredom Month. Boredom is defined in the APA Dictionary of Psychology as "a state of weariness or ennui resulting from a lack of engagement with stimuli in the environment." Many psychologists believe that boredom can be a symptom of clinical depression. Moreover, it can be a form of learned helplessness, a phenomenon closely related to depression. Great information on the psychological effects of boredom can be found in PsycEXTRA. Here is an example from a conference paper presented at the American Psychological Association's 111th Annual Convention in 2003: "Boredom Proneness in Anger and Aggression: Effects of Impulsiveness and Sensation Seeking," by Eric R. Dahlen, Ryan C. Martin, Katie Ragan, and Myndki M. Kuhlman. The authors analyzed the role of boredom proneness in anger expression and aggression with a study on impulsiveness and sensation seeking in 224 college student volunteers. The volunteers completed various measures of boredom proneness, impulsiveness, sensation seeking, anger expression, and aggression to enable the authors to determine whether these variables account for relationships between boredom proneness, anger expression, and aggression. The authors' research findings demonstrate that boredom proneness has more pervasive effects on aggression than do the other variables. They used a hierarchical multiple regression analysis model to demonstrate that the relationships between boredom proneness and trait anger, anger expression/control, and aggression persisted even after impulsiveness and sensation seeking were accounted for. PsycEXTRA users will acquire an improved understanding of how boredom proneness is associated with aggression, anger expression, and anger control.

This NIMH-funded research study (Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychopharmacology, June 2008) indicates that the atypical antipsychotic medication risperidone (Risperdal) does not negatively affect cognitive skills of children with autism, and may lead to improvements.

This news release summarizes NIMH-funded research studies that have demonstrated in mice - for the first time - that critical postpartum mothering behaviors and offspring survival also depend on proper functioning of serotonin-secreting neurons.

This NIMH-funded research study (Brain, September 2008) found that childhood bedwetting occurred twice as often in adults with schizophrenia than in their unaffected brothers and sisters,

This NIMH-funded research study (Archives of General Psychiatry, September 2008) found that adolescents with bipolar disorder who received a nine-month course of family-focused therapy (FFT) recovered more quickly from depressive episodes and stayed free of depression for longer periods than a control group.

This NIMH-funded research study (Proceedings of the National Academcy of Sciences, online September 2, 2008) suggests that a gene variant related to the hormone vasopressin appears to be associated with how human males bond with their partners or wives. In voles, a mouse-like animal, the comparable gene has been studied extensively and has long been linked to vole bonding behaviors.

This NIMH-funded research study found that following a night's sleep, emotional components of scenes are remembered at the expense of neutral components. In contrast, memories of both emotional and neutral components decayed equally following 12 hours of wakefulness. Sleep also promoted memory for generality over detail.

This news release and video describes the largest genetic analysis of its kind to date for bipolar disorder, which  has implicated machinery involved in the balance of sodium and calcium in brain cells.