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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 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]

Air pollution is associated with depressive symptoms in adolescents. Researchers at the University of Denver found that even in neighbourhoods that met air quality standards, exposure to ozone gas lead to symptoms like sadness, difficulties concentrating and thoughts of suicide in adolescents over time. [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 the Lancet Planetary Health Journal looked at a global survey on climate anxiety in children and young people and their beliefs about government responses to climate change. “We know from smaller studies that young people around the world experience climate anxiety and we also know that young people can feel betrayed by those in power who are failing to act on the climate crisis,” study author Elizabeth Marks told us. “However, large scale research was lacking and we wanted to know how widespread these experiences are.” [More]

A new study published in the Society for Research in Child Development looked at Perceptual Access Reasoning (PAR) in developing a representational theory of mind. “My colleagues and I studied how young children develop a theory of mind, which refers to our common sense understanding that people’s outward behavior is caused by their internal mental states, such as their desires, perceptions, knowledge, memories, and beliefs,” study author William V. Fabricius told us. “Young children have to learn what the different kinds of mental states are, and how they work together to produce people’s behavior. It is so very important for children to understand these connections, because it lays the foundation upon which they learn how to get along with others.” [More]

A new study published in the Journal of Science looked at active learning. “The notion of active learning has been receiving a lot of attention recently,” study author Nesra Yannier told us. "Especially with COVID-19, the importance of engaging students with novel ways of learning has become even more apparent. While schools and teachers are trying to adapt by incorporating new techniques and technologies, quarantine has also been having psychological effects on students such as social isolation, restlessness and attention problems.” [More]

The reason why siblings with the same upbringing and genetics can exhibit such different behavior has long puzzled psychologists, neuroscientists and researchers alike. Now, a team of researchers from the universities of Bath and Southampton in the UK may have an answer as to why some siblings from the same family may develop antisocial behavior when others do not. [More]

Depression is the leading cause of disability worldwide and it is well known that there are strong links between parental and child depression. Understanding this relationship is key to trying to prevent intergenerational transmission. Worldwide, one in five women suffers from postpartum depression. A new study published in BJPsych looked at maternal and paternal depression and child mental health trajectories. “Our study is about tracking mood over time in children of parents who were depressed in pregnancy and/or after birth,” study author, Professor Rebecca Pearson of Manchester Metropolitan University/University of Bristol told us. [More]

A new study published in the Journal of Child Development looked at infant exuberant object play at home. “Researchers have long considered play to be a primary context of infant learning,” study author Catherine Tamis-LeMonda told us. “However, studies of play are confined to laboratory tasks. Our study is about how infants interact with objects spontaneously at home. We wanted to know how much infants interacted with objects outside from the laboratory confines, with the objects that they typically have access to in their everyday environments." [More]