News by Subject Social & Behavior

Researchers in the University of Helsinki have identified two novel anxiety-related genomic regions in German Shepherd dogs. The region associated with fearfulness corresponds with the locus of human chromosome 18, which is associated with various psychiatric disorders, while the region associated with noise sensitivity includes several genes related to human and canine behaviour and mental disorders.

Visualizing your significant other may be just as effective as having them in the room with you when it comes to managing the body's cardiovascular response to stressful situations, according to a University of Arizona study.

A new study on intergenerational transmission of trauma has found evidence that Holocaust survivors suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and their adult offspring exhibit more unhealthy behavior patterns and age less successfully in comparison to survivors with no signs of PTSD or parents who did not experience the Holocaust and their offspring.

In a paper published in the journal Nature Human Behaviour, a research team led by Siqi Zheng, the Samuel Tak Lee Associate Professor in MIT's Department of Urban Studies and Planning and Center for Real Estate, and the Faculty Director of MIT China Future City Lab, reveals that higher levels of pollution are associated with a decrease in people's happiness levels.

In a mouse model of traumatic memory, male mice recall fear-related memories better than female mice, according to a study in Biological Psychiatry.

African-Americans who experienced moderate to high financial stress had an increased risk of developing heart disease compared to those who did not report such stress, according to a longitudinal study performed by researchers from Brigham and Women's Hospital.

Anxiety and depression in young children are hard to detect and often go untreated, potentially leading to anxiety disorders and increased risk of suicide and drug abuse later. In a PLOS ONE study, researchers showed a wearable sensor detected these 'internalizing disorders' in children with 81 percent accuracy, reducing to 20 seconds what would take clinicians months to diagnose, opening the door to inexpensive screening that could be part of routine developmental assessments.