Articles about 'Valerie Voon'

Deep brain stimulation – implants in the brain that act as a kind of ‘pacemaker’ – has led to clinical improvements in half of the participants with treatment-resistant severe depression in an ‘open label’ trial.

People suffering from severe alcohol and opioid addiction are to be offered a revolutionary new technique involving planting electrodes in the brain to modulate brain activity and cravings and improve self-control.

A type of therapy that involves applying a magnetic field to both sides of the brain has been shown to be effective at rapidly treating depression in patients for whom standard treatments have been ineffective.

COVID-19 and lockdown measures drove some individuals more than others to use alcohol to cope with stress, a new study has revealed. While overall alcohol consumption appeared to fall, a study published in BMJ Open found that more than one in three adults (36%) increased their consumption during the first lockdown.

Is the lockdown leading us to drink more alcohol or spend more time gambling online or watching pornography? Researchers today launch a survey aimed at tracking how our habits have changed in response to our forced isolation.

Valerie Voon (Department of Psychiatry) discusses what makes some people want to base jump off a cliff, while others don’t even enjoy a rollercoaster ride.

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.

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.

Pornography triggers brain activity in people with compulsive sexual behaviour – known commonly as sex addiction – similar to that triggered by drugs in the brains of drug addicts, according to a University of Cambridge study published in the journal PLOS ONE. However, the researchers caution that this does not necessarily mean that pornography itself is addictive.