News by Subject Social & Behavior

Middle-aged women are more likely than men to have changes in the brain related to Alzheimer's disease, as detected by imaging, even when there are no differences in thinking and memory. This may be associated with hormonal changes due to menopause, specifically the loss of estrogen, according to a study published in the June 24, 2020, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

A new set of expert consensus-based recommendations lays out how best to study possible neurodevelopmental impacts of pubertal suppression treatment in transgender youth. Developed by a consensus panel of 24 international scientists, the recommendations were published in the journal Transgender Health.

Researcher Judith Lind has studied how staff at fertility clinics view the assessments that childless couples and women undergo in order to access assisted reproduction. It emerges in the interviews that the assessment of the potential parents is based on the child's future welfare and on the responsible use of public resources.

Older men may be at greater risk of contracting COVID-19 because they worry less about catching or dying from it, according to a new study by researchers at Georgia State University. This is a concern because older men are already more at risk of severe or fatal COVID-19 infections, and the study participants who were most worried about COVID-19 were also the most likely to have implemented protective behavior changes.

Center for BrainHealth published findings underscoring differences between men and women's craving or desire to consume cannabis when exposed to a specific situation. Examining differences in neural and subjective craving responses, and measuring the relative contributions of each as it relates to heavy cannabis use, they found that neural activity primarily underlies response to cannabis cues with no differences between male and female users. This is followed by subjective craving, where there are sex-related differences.

Roughly 3 to 5% of children with an aunt or uncle with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) can also be expected to have ASD, compared to about 1.5% of children in the general population, according to a study funded by the National Institutes of Health. The findings call into question the female protective effect, a theory that females have a lower rate of ASD than males because they have greater tolerance of ASD risk factors.

Randomized Control Trial under an NIH grant demonstrates the efficacy of a clinic-based triadic healthcare intervention called 'Families Talking Together' to protect adolescents from sexual health risks such as unwanted pregnancy and HIV/AIDS.

Researchers at Mount Sinai have found that a novel class of genes known as long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) expressed in the brain may play a pivotal role in regulating mood and driving sex-specific susceptibility versus resilience to depression.

Researchers from Michigan State University released a study on 'sextortion' -- a lesser-known internet crime that poses a threat to adults and minors -- that sheds light on the importance of protecting the public from online criminals.