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More than 20% of adults who were exposed to chronic levels of parental domestic violence in childhood develop major depressive disorder at some stage. Researchers from the University of Toronto found that 22.5% of adults who witnessed domestic violence between parents later developed major depressive disorder, compared with 9.1% of those who hadn’t witnessed parental domestic violence as children. [More]

A new study published in Cell Reports looked at early stress-induced impaired brain functioning. “We were trying to figure out how the long-lasting, life-long adverse effects of transient early-life stress on behavioral and endocrine responses to adult stresses come about,” study author Tallie Z. Baram told us. “This is important, because these changes are tied to mental illnesses.” [More]

A new study published in the Journal of Development Economics looked at women’s wellbeing in India during the pandemic and its containment. “Our aim was to study how the pandemic and its containment policies affected women's mental wellbeing and food security, in a low income setting,” study author Gaurav Khanna told us. “We wanted to find out how strongly affected women were as they are particularly vulnerable in such settings.” [More]

A new study published in the American Journal of Psychiatry looked at longitudinal changes in structural connectivity in young people at a high genetic risk for bipolar disorder. “Bipolar disorder is characterized by severe and impairing swings of mood, varying from the chaos and impaired judgment of mania to the slowed thinking and suicidal despair of depression,” study author Philip Mitchell told us. “It is a very strongly genetic condition, with close relatives of someone with this condition having ten times the population risk of developing this.” [More]

A new study published in the Journal of Child Development looked at the effects of napping on preschool children’s learning of letter-sound mappings. The research was carried out by faculty of the Macquarie University in Australia, the University of Oxford, the University of York and the University of Sheffield. “We know that letter-sound learning is essential for early reading acquisition, so we want to explore factors that may help with learning this skill,” study author Dr. Hua-Chen Wang told us. “Sleep has been found to enhance learning. As such, this study looks at whether there's a nap for learning letter-sound associations.” [More]

A new study published in PubMed looked at the association between workplace absenteeism and alcohol use disorder from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health. “The goal of our study was to estimate the relationship between lost work time (missed workdays) and alcohol use disorder among full time workers in the US,” study author Laura Bierut told us. “We used a large nationally representative US database to study this issue.” [More]

Those who have had COVID-19 are at increased risk of mental health problems. A study published in The BMJ found that people who survived COVID-19 had a higher chance of developing problems like anxiety, suicide ideation, depression, opioid use disorder, sleep difficulties and substance abuse. [More]

Being a confident cook isn’t just beneficial for the taste buds but also for mental health. Researchers from Edith Cowan University in Australia found that those who engaged in a 7-week healthy cooking class had improved confidence in the kitchen as well as better general and mental health. [More]

A new study published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health looked at the displacement and isolation of Syrian refugees in Texas. “We initiated a study in the Houston-based Syrian refugee population to examine their post-migratory living conditions, trauma susceptibility and resiliency to gain understanding of their physical and mental well-being,” study author Samina Salim told us. Salim is an associate professor of pharmacology at the University of Houston, College of Pharmacy. [More]

Stress in the United States is at an all time high, according to a poll conducted on behalf of the American Psychological Association (APA). The poll showed that top sources of stress for people in the United States were an increase in prices due to inflation, issues with the supply chain, global uncertainty and Russia invading Ukraine. [More]