Anxiety tagged posts

Could Brain Scans spot children’s Mood, Attention problems early?

“We’re facing a tremendous epidemic with teen anxiety and depression, and we wanted to find an early marker that predicted the development of anxiety, depression and attentional symptoms,” said the study’s lead author, Susan Whitfield-Gabrieli. She’s a professor of psychology and director of the Northeastern University Biomedical Imaging Center, in Boston.

In a small sample of less than 100 children without known mental health concerns, the research team found that connections in certain areas of the brain seen at age 7 could help predict mental health concerns that developed four years later.

“The study could have great clinical implications,” Whitfield-Gabrieli said...

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How Deep Space Travel could affect the Brain

This shows a graph
Radiation exposure alters the electrophysiological properties of neurons in the hippocampus. The image is credited to Acharya et al., eNeuro 2019.

Radiation exposure impairs learning and memory, causes anxiety. Exposure to chronic, low dose radiation – the conditions present in deep space – causes neural and behavioral impairments in mice, researchers report in eNeuro. These results highlight the pressing need to develop safety measures to protect the brain from radiation during deep space missions as astronauts prepare to travel to Mars.

Radiation is known to disrupt signaling among other processes in the brain. However, previous experiments used short-term, higher dose-rate exposures of radiation, which does not accurately reflect the conditions in space.

To investigate how d...

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Drinking Matcha Tea can Reduce Anxiety

This shows a drawing of a mouse and photo of Matcha extract
Matcha is the finely ground powder of new leaves from shade-grown (90% shade) Camellia sinensis green tea bushes. The image is credited to Kurauchi, Y et al.

Using the ‘elevated plus maze’ test with mice, researchers have shown that Matcha green tea can reduce anxiety. Their experiments revealed that Matcha’s anxiolytic effects are due to the activation of dopamine D1 receptors and certain serotonin receptors. The researchers suggest that adding a little Matcha tea to your diet may improve your health.

Many different countries have a tea culture, and Japanese Matcha tea is growing in popularity around the world. In Japan, Matcha has a long history of being used for various medicinal purposes...

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Magnetic Fields to Alleviate Anxiety

People suffering from a fear of heights experience the anxiety also in virtual reality – even though they are aware that they are not really in a dangerous situation. Credit: VTPlus

People suffering from a fear of heights experience the anxiety also in virtual reality – even though they are aware that they are not really in a dangerous situation. Credit: VTPlus

It is possible to unlearn fears. And this works even better when a specific region of the brain has previously been stimulated magnetically. This has been shown by researchers from the Würzburg University Hospital in a new study. Nearly 1 in 7 Germans suffer from an anxiety disorder. Some panic upon boarding an aircraft, others find it impossible to enter a room with a spider on the wall and again others prefer the staircase over the elevator – even to get to the tenth floor – because riding in elevators elevates their heart rate.

What sounds like funny anecdotes is often debilitating for the sufferers...

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