Articles about 'Department of Psychiatry'

The brains of teenagers with serious antisocial behaviour problems differ significantly in structure to those of their peers, providing the clearest evidence to date that their behaviour stems from changes in brain development in early life, according to new research led by the University of Cambridge and the University of Southampton, in collaboration with the University of Rome “Tor Vergata” in Italy.

The male and female brains have more in common than media reports often suggest, argues Julia Gottwald, a third year PhD student at the Department of Psychiatry. Writing in the student science magazine BlueSci, she explains what we understand about the similarities and differences in our brains and why this is an important area of research.

The importance of friendships and family support in helping prevent depression among teenagers has been highlighted in research from the University of Cambridge. The study, published in the open access journal PLOS ONE, also found that teenagers who had grown up in a difficult family environment were more likely than their peers to be bullied at school.

Ed Bullmore (Department of Psychiatry) and Nicolas Crossley (King's College London) discuss their work trying to find out how sense of self is expressed in the brain.

Overweight people make unhealthier food choices than lean people when presented with real food, even though both make similar selections when presented with hypothetical choices, according to research led by the University of Cambridge and published today in the journal eNeuro.

Hip-hop artists Tupac and Eminem are among the most iconic music artists of the past two decades, and as Dr Akeem Sule and Dr Becky Inkster, co-founders of HIP-HOP-PSYCH, write, their lyrics can provide a valuable insight into the lives of some of the people most at risk of developing mental health issues.

Immigrant groups experience a high incidence of mental illness. Hannah Jongsma (Department of Psychiatry) is looking at data from an international study of the distribution of psychotic disorders. She suggests that ‘psychosocial disempowerment’ might be a powerful contributing factor to raised levels in minority communities.

The discovery of a brain circuit ‘shortcut’ could explain why some addicts unintentionally relapse, and suggests that a shift in focus for therapies might help those who want to stay off drugs.

Adolescence is a dangerous time for the onset of mental health problems. Advances in brain imaging are helping to picture how neural changes in these crucial years can lead to chronic debilitating mental illness.  

People who show compulsive sexual behaviour – sex addiction – are driven to search more for new sexual images than their peers, according to new research led by the University of Cambridge. The findings may be particularly relevant in the context of online porn, which potentially provides an almost endless source of new images.