Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee are demanding that FBI Director Kash Patel complete and share the results of an alcohol disorders test following accusations that he has regularly consumed alcohol in excess during his time leading the counterintelligence agency. “These glimpses of your relationship to alcohol would be alarming to see in an FBI… Source link
President Donald Trump holds up a signed executive order in the Oval Office of the White House on Saturday in Washington. Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP hide caption toggle caption Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP President Trump has signed an executive order to make certain psychedelic drugs more available to treat mental health conditions, such as depression and anxiety. He directed $50 million in federal funds to make them more accessible, and ordered the Food and Drug Administration to fast track a review of such drugs as psilocybin and ibogaine. “Can I have some, please?” Trump joked to a laughing audience in the Oval Office. He was joined by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Dr. Mehmet Oz, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Also standing in back of Trump was former Navy SEAL Marcus Luttrell, whose memoir about a deadly mission in Afghanistan was the basis of the film Lone Survivor, and podcast host Joe Rogan. During the announcement, Rogan said he had texted Trump about ibogaine and the president responded, …
Sign up to see the future, today Can’t-miss innovations from the bleeding edge of science and tech Privacy nightmares. Pervert glasses. These are some of the not-so-flattering ways detractors describe Meta’s Ray-Ban AI glasses. Now, we’re nominating another hellish descriptor into that list: dysmorphia accelerator. On Friday, Meta announced a host of new features for the smart spectacles that include the ability to track and give advice on everything a wearer eats — which sounds poised to lead a bunch of people into horrendous eating disorders. In an upcoming update, Meta says users will soon be able to use a voice command or a quick photo to log the food in front of them, and the Meta AI will automatically “extract key nutritional details” and add them to the wearer’s Meta AI app. You can ask the AI questions like “What should I eat to increase my energy?” the announcement states, and it will give an answer informed by the user’s food log and personal goals. “Over time, your food log powers increasingly personalized insights …
Psychodynamic theory asserts that symptoms do not happen by chance; symptoms are determined by contributing forces, including early childhood experiences, repressed sexual and aggressive drives, social, religious, and cultural dictates, and predisposing biological factors. Determining appropriate eating disorder treatment requires careful assessment of each individual’s needs, history, and challenges to select the most effective approach. Adapting to evolving research and expanding theoretical approaches does not eliminate the need to recognize the core challenge: There is no single cause or solution. As health care trends have shifted over time, so too have approaches to eating disorders—driven by evolving knowledge and persistent misconceptions. This underscores the need for treatment to embrace complexity rather than rely on a single theory. To understand these trends, consider the history of eating disorders. In the 14th and 15th centuries, restricted eating among young women in Catholic convents was seen as a form of spiritual devotion and control. In contrast, by the early 20th century, Freudian theories recast anorexia as a symptom of unresolved sexual fantasies—linking food, sex, and purity. Despite Freud’s …
Despite the rising popularity of medical cannabis for mental health and addiction, a new sweeping review shows little proof that these products actually help treat most of these conditions. The comprehensive analysis reveals that while cannabis-based medicines might offer mild relief for a handful of specific issues, they do not improve conditions like depression or anxiety and carry a greater risk of side effects. These findings were recently published in the journal The Lancet Psychiatry. Cannabinoids are the active chemical compounds found in the cannabis plant. The most well-known of these are tetrahydrocannabinol, which produces the high associated with marijuana, and cannabidiol, a non-intoxicating compound often sold as a wellness product. In recent years, an increasing number of people have turned to these substances to manage their mental health. In the United States and Canada, roughly 27 percent of people between the ages of 16 and 65 report using cannabis for medical reasons. About half of those individuals use it specifically to treat mental health struggles. In Australia, prescription approvals for cannabinoid medications have soared, …
Children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder often struggle to automatically track where other people are looking. A recent study published in the Journal of Attention Disorders revealed that this difficulty stems from challenges in processing whole faces, rather than an inability to notice simple eye movements. These results help explain the social difficulties sometimes experienced by children with the disorder and point toward potential support strategies in classrooms. Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder is primarily known for symptoms like impulsivity, hyperactivity, and a general lack of focus. However, individuals with the condition also frequently experience atypical social interactions and struggle to read nonverbal cues. During everyday conversations, people naturally follow the gaze of others. This behavior helps individuals seamlessly understand what is catching a friend or teacher’s interest. Psychologists divide the human attention system into two separate categories. The first is endogenous attention, which is a deliberate, goal-oriented process driven by a person’s own expectations and prior knowledge. The second type is exogenous attention. This is an automatic, reflex-like reaction to something standing out in the environment, like a sudden …
A study of individuals with misophonia found that approximately 65% of them have received at least one other psychological disorder diagnosis. The most common additional diagnoses were depression (49%) and anxiety disorders (47%). The paper was published in Psychiatry Research. Misophonia is a condition characterized by intense emotional and physiological reactions to specific everyday sounds. Common trigger sounds include chewing, breathing, tapping, or repetitive clicking noises. Individuals with misophonia experience anger, disgust, anxiety, or an urge to escape when exposed to these triggers. The reaction is typically immediate and disproportionate to the actual loudness or objective intensity of the sound. Research suggests that misophonia involves heightened connectivity between auditory processing regions and brain areas involved in processing the emotional importance of stimuli and threat detection. Unlike general sound sensitivity, misophonia is usually selective for particular patterns rather than all loud noises. The condition can significantly interfere with social relationships, work, and family life, especially when triggers involve close others. Some researchers conceptualize it as involving atypical emotional conditioning to specific auditory (sound) cues. There is …
Fibromyalgia and chronic pain create a “fertile breeding ground” for self-medication and iatrogenic addiction. . Fibromyalgia involves abnormal pain processing; the brain struggles to turn off pain signals. Many brain pathways involved in fibromyalgia are also involved in addiction. Addiction occurs through a cycle of central sensitization, inadequate relief, and the psychological burden of the condition. People with fibromyalgia (FM), like people with substance use disorders (SUDs), report suffering stigma during healthcare consultations, including feeling invalidated, discouraged, and judged by clinicians. Is FM a valid diagnosis? And do some with FM develop SUDs? Yes to both. Approximately 3 to 6 % of people in the U.S. suffer fromfibromyalgia, many more women than men. Systematic reviews indicate that most physicians (≈ 84%) believe that FM is a clinical condition, not dismissing it entirely. But most find FM difficult to diagnose or treat, struggling to differentiate it from other conditions with overlapping symptoms. Physician uncertainty and diagnostic discomfort may confirm patient perceptions of being misunderstood. Fibromyalgia is not malingering or hypochondriasis, and it is characterized by widespread …
Many young people have the impression that marijuana is a safe and natural drug, but a new study links early use to an increased likelihood of serious mental health problems. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Justin Sullivan/Getty Images As marijuana use among teens has grown in the past decade, researchers have been trying to better understand the health risks of the drug. Now, a new longitudinal study finds that cannabis use among adolescents increases risks of being diagnosed with bipolar and psychotic disorders, as well as anxiety and depression, years later. “This is very, very, very worrying,” says psychiatrist Dr. Ryan Sultan at Columbia University, a cannabis researcher who wasn’t involved in the new study published in the latest JAMA Health Forum. Strong study design Researchers analyzed health data on 460,000 teenagers in the Kaiser Permanente Health System in Northern California. The teens were followed until they were 25 years old. The data included annual screenings for substance use and any mental health diagnoses from the health records. Researchers excluded the adolescents who …
Michaela Nesvarova discusses the impacts of brain disorders and routes to offering less invasive methods to monitor them. Living with a brain disorder often means relying on medication that does not work for everyone and, in some cases, surgery. EU-funded researchers are now investigating whether nanotechnology could one day offer a safer, less invasive alternative. For decades, treating serious brain disorders has often meant making a difficult trade-off. Symptoms could be relieved, but usually at the cost of invasive surgery and implanted electrodes that stay in the body for life. “Having wires in your body isn’t ideal,” said neuroscientist Mavi Sanchez-Vives, head of the Systems Neuroscience group at the IDIBAPS research institute in Barcelona, Spain. “Yet for many patients, it has been the only option.” That paradigm may now be beginning to shift. Sanchez-Vives is leading a three-year EU-funded research initiative called META-BRAIN that runs until December 2026. The team is exploring new ways to interact with the brain by combining nanotechnology, ultrasound and advanced brain monitoring. Bringing together scientists and clinicians from leading research institutions across …
