Cognitive-Bias Modification Therapy Helps Addicts Develop An 'Avoidance Bias'
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Children exposed to family violence show the same pattern of activity in their brains as soldiers exposed to combat, new research has shown. In the first functional MRI brain scan study to investigate the impact of physical abuse and domestic violence on children, scientists at UCL in collaboration with the Anna Freud Centre, found that exposure to family violence was associated with increased brain activity in two specific brain areas (the anterior insula and the amygdala) when children viewed pictures of angry faces.
A Florida State University clinical psychologist has identified factors that could cause some women with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) to have chronic, persistent symptoms while others recover naturally over time. At the conclusion of a two-year study of women from across the nation, Assistant Professor Jesse R. Cougle found that those with PTSD who reported a history of rape or severe childhood physical abuse were more likely to suffer chronic PTSD symptoms.
od maltreatment is associated with reductions in cerebral gray matter volume, and even if adolescents reporting exposure to maltreatment do not have symptoms that meet full criteria for psychiatric disorders, they may have cerebral gray matter changes that place them at risk for behavioral difficulties, according to a report in the December issue of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
Children who witness domestic violence are more likely to be in abusive intimate relationships and experience psychological problems such as post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in adulthood, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A University of Missouri researcher has found that certain protective factors foster resilience and increase the likelihood that the cycle of violence will end for women who, as children, were exposed to their mothers’ battering.
Children who remain in the home after a substantiated report of abuse may have more or less risk of further abuse depending on certain characteristics of their caregivers, according to a report published Online First today by Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. The research was conducted by Suzanne R. Dakil, M.D., and colleagues from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center and Children’s Medical Center, Dallas.
One in 10 women experience depression during pregnancy or shortly after giving birth. Although the problem has received increased attention in recent years, little is known about the causes or early-warning signs of pregnancy-related depression. In a study published in the June 2011 issue of Journal of Women’s Health, researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine offer new clues to help doctors identify at-risk patients and refer them to treatment early on.
New research has shown that children’s risk for learning and behavior problems and obesity rises in correlation to their level of trauma exposure, says the psychiatrist at the Stanford University School of Medicine and Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital who oversaw the study. The findings could encourage physicians to consider diagnosing post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) rather than attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), which has similar symptoms to PTSD but very different treatment.
Men who report having bullied peers in childhood appear to have an increased risk of perpetrating violence against an intimate partner in adulthood, according to a report posted online today by the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. The authors point out, as background information, that roughly one-quarter of women will experience violence from intimate partners, and that prior research suggests up to 40 percent of men have been perpetrators of such violence.
Adults with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and a history of childhood trauma had significantly shorter telomere length than those with PTSD but without childhood trauma in a study by researchers at the San Francisco VA Medical Center and the University of California, San Francisco. The results are published in the online Articles in Press section of Biological Psychiatry.
Queen’s University professor Kate Harkness has found that a history of physical, sexual, or emotional abuse in childhood substantially increases the risk of depression in adolescence by altering a person’s neuroendocrine response to stress. Adolescents with a history of maltreatment and a mild level of depression were found to release much more of the stress hormone cortisol than is normal in response to psychological stressors, such as giving a speech or solving a difficult arithmetic test.
