Psychology & Psychiatry

Depression is a mental health condition that affects 280 million people worldwide. It is twice as common in women than men and this pattern starts to develop during adolescence. Researchers have studied the biological processes that drive depression in adults and have shown a potential role for the kynurenine pathway, but this is the first time it has been investigated in adolescents in relation to biological sex.

Speaking on BBC One’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg, Wes Streeting, the UK health secretary, expressed concerns that some mental health conditions were overdiagnosed. The Conversation asked two experts to comment on Streeting’s claim. Is the health secretary right?

New research out of Michigan State University expands on current understanding of the brain chemical dopamine, finding that it plays a role in reducing the value of memories associated with rewards. The study, published in the journal Communications Biology, opens new avenues for understanding dopamine’s role in the brain.

Teens who report strong, high-quality friendships tend to have better mental health—an influence that appears nearly three times stronger than the link between social media use and mental health challenges, according to a new study published in the Journal of Adolescent Health.

A recent study by the Hector Institute for Translational Brain Research (HITBR) at the Central Institute of Mental Health (CIMH) in Mannheim provides the first detailed cellular insights into how psilocin, the active ingredient in magic mushrooms, promotes the growth and networking of human nerve cells.

Historically, poets have had less to say about pandemics than you might imagine. Hardly any English-language poetry written during successive waves of bubonic plague focused directly on the effects of the disease, for instance, and exceptions often had a purpose external to any we’d normally now ascribe to poetry.

Perinatal interventions guided by reproductive justice principles can have positive effects on the perinatal mental health of Black birthing patients and, perhaps, the mental health development of their infants, states a systematic review published in a special issue of Harvard Review of Psychiatry.

The severity of symptoms in posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) varies greatly across individuals in the first year after trauma and it remains difficult to predict whether someone might worsen, improve, or recover.

Pets have become an integral part of people’s lives, with some having stronger bonds with their pets than with their siblings and other family members. Some feel more empathy toward animals than toward humans.

A smartphone’s glow is often the first and last thing we see as we wake up in the morning and go to sleep at the end of the day. It is increasingly becoming an extension of our body that we struggle to part with. In a recent study in Computers in Human Behavior, scientists observed that staying away from smartphones can even change one’s brain chemistry.