Psychosis in the 21st century looks something like this: You think your every move is being filmed for a reality television show starring you, and that everyone in your life is an actor.
Or you think you are under intense surveillance by an army of spies, whom you refer to as the "www people," as in the World Wide Web, and they wiretap your furniture and appliances.
Or else you refuse to drink water because you fear that another cup drawn from your faucet will, once and for all, deplete the world's water supply.
Those thoughts are from three case studies of what psychiatrists interested in the intersection of mental illness, culture and society are calling, respectively, Truman Show delusion, Internet delusion and climate change delusion; all of them a window, through madness, into the modern world.
Health & Wellness
Daily supplements of omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids -- the kind found in fish oil -- reduced deaths and hospitalizations of people with heart failure, an Italian study found. But a cholesterol-lowering statin drug had no beneficial effect in a parallel heart failure trial.
"This confirms what we've been seeing for a couple of decades in observational studies," Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian, an associate professor of medicine and epidemiology at Harvard Medical School and the Harvard School of Public Health, said of the fish oil trial. "There is a benefit of omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids for heart failure patients."
Both findings were published online Aug. 31 in the journal The Lancet and presented at a meeting of the European Society of Cardiology, in Munich, Germany.
"This confirms what we've been seeing for a couple of decades in observational studies," Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian, an associate professor of medicine and epidemiology at Harvard Medical School and the Harvard School of Public Health, said of the fish oil trial. "There is a benefit of omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids for heart failure patients."
Both findings were published online Aug. 31 in the journal The Lancet and presented at a meeting of the European Society of Cardiology, in Munich, Germany.
The old adage "sticks and stones can break your bones, but words can never hurt you", simply is not true, according to researchers. Psychologists found memories of painful emotional experiences linger far longer than those involving physical pain.
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| ©Georgia Institute of Technology |
| A microscopic image of a 10 mm collagen scaffold containing a uniform distribution of skin cells (blue) seeded on top of a 3-D polylysine gradient (green). |
Engineers at Georgia Tech have used skin cells to create artificial bones that mimic the ability of natural bone to blend into other tissues such as tendons or ligaments. The artificial bones display a gradual change from bone to softer tissue rather than the sudden shift of previously developed artificial tissue, providing better integration with the body and allowing them to handle weight more successfully.
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| ©Associated Press |
| Megan Garvin wears oversize dark glasses and is still groggy after intraocular lens implant surgery. |
Dr. Paul Dougherty delicately slipped a tiny lens inside the right eye of 7-year-old Megan Garvin - a last-ditch shot at saving her sight in that eye.
The California girl became one of a small number of U.S. children to try an experimental surgery to prevent virtual blindness from lazy eye diagnosed too late, or too severe, for standard treatment.
Charleston, West Virgina - It's no coincidence Charleston anesthesiologist Tim Deer was the first physician to implant the world's smallest rechargeable spinal cord stimulator in patients who suffer from chronic pain.
Dr. Deer, a pain medicine specialist with St. Francis Hospital, helped to develop and test the silver-dollar-size medical device over the past five years.
"It's like a pacemaker for the spine," Deer explained. "I have the ideas, the engineers make it work."
Dr. Deer, a pain medicine specialist with St. Francis Hospital, helped to develop and test the silver-dollar-size medical device over the past five years.
"It's like a pacemaker for the spine," Deer explained. "I have the ideas, the engineers make it work."
New research strongly suggests that a mix of preventative agents, such as those found in concentrated black raspberries, may more effectively inhibit cancer development than single agents aimed at shutting down a particular gene.
Researchers at the Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center examined the effect of freeze-dried black raspberries on genes altered by a chemical carcinogen in an animal model of esophageal cancer.
The carcinogen affected the activity of some 2,200 genes in the animals' esophagus in only one week, but 460 of those genes were restored to normal activity in animals that consumed freeze-dried black raspberry powder as part of their diet during the exposure.
Researchers at the Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center examined the effect of freeze-dried black raspberries on genes altered by a chemical carcinogen in an animal model of esophageal cancer.
The carcinogen affected the activity of some 2,200 genes in the animals' esophagus in only one week, but 460 of those genes were restored to normal activity in animals that consumed freeze-dried black raspberry powder as part of their diet during the exposure.
Can a damaged brain change its own structure and learn to replace lost functions? Conventional neuroscience once said no, but pioneers in the field have achieved miraculous transformations. From his investigation of their work, Norman Doidge tells the story of the perpetually falling woman.
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Households located in poor neighborhoods pay more for the same items than people living in wealthy ones, according to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research.
Author Debabrata Talukdar (Columbia University) examines the impact of what has been dubbed the "ghetto tax" on low-income individuals. His study found that the critical factor in how much a household spends on groceries is whether it has access to a car. "Arguably, as the bigger, more cost-efficient stores move out, the poor increasingly are likely to find themselves choosing between traveling farther to purchase nutritious, competitively priced groceries or paying inflated prices for low-quality, processed foods at corner stores," Talukdar writes.
Author Debabrata Talukdar (Columbia University) examines the impact of what has been dubbed the "ghetto tax" on low-income individuals. His study found that the critical factor in how much a household spends on groceries is whether it has access to a car. "Arguably, as the bigger, more cost-efficient stores move out, the poor increasingly are likely to find themselves choosing between traveling farther to purchase nutritious, competitively priced groceries or paying inflated prices for low-quality, processed foods at corner stores," Talukdar writes.
Brain scientists have moved a step closer to understanding why some people may be more prone to depression than others.
Dr Roland Zahn, a clinical neuroscientist in The University of Manchester's School of Psychological Sciences, and his colleagues have identified how the brain links knowledge about social behaviour with moral sentiments, such as pride and guilt.
The study, carried out at the National Institutes of Neurological Disorders and Stroke in the US with Dr Jordan Grafman, chief of the Cognitive Neuroscience Section, and Dr Jorge Moll, now at the LABS-D'Or Center for Neuroscience in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to scan the brains of 29 healthy individuals while they considered certain social behaviours.
Dr Roland Zahn, a clinical neuroscientist in The University of Manchester's School of Psychological Sciences, and his colleagues have identified how the brain links knowledge about social behaviour with moral sentiments, such as pride and guilt.
The study, carried out at the National Institutes of Neurological Disorders and Stroke in the US with Dr Jordan Grafman, chief of the Cognitive Neuroscience Section, and Dr Jorge Moll, now at the LABS-D'Or Center for Neuroscience in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to scan the brains of 29 healthy individuals while they considered certain social behaviours.
