1. Depression Returns In About Half of Treated Teens
“According to a study that will appear in the March 2011 print issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, depression recurs in almost half of adolescent patients. The greatest predictors of a return to depression included:
* Being female. According to the report even more than half of females experienced a recurrence of depression.
* Being in short-term treatment who did not respond well to treatment.
* Having a co-occurring anxiety disorder (61.9% had a recurrence)
Although most depressed teens who receive treatment do recover from their initial episode of depression (96.4 percent), the high experience of recurrence points to a need for improved therapies. Recurrence often occurred two or more years after the initial experience.”
- “Emotional intelligence is a strong predictor of job performance, according to a new study conducted at Virginia Commonwealth University that helps settle the ongoing debate in a much-disputed area of research.
‘The Relation Between Emotional Intelligence and Job Performance: A Meta-Analysis,’ which has been published online by the Journal of Organizational Behavior and will appear in a future issue of the journal, builds upon years of existing studies in the area of emotional intelligence, which is a measure of someone’s ability to understand the emotions of themselves and others. The resulting analysis indicates that high emotional intelligence does have a relationship to strong job performance — in short, emotionally intelligent people make better workers.”
4. Falling in Love Hits The Brain Like Cocaine Does
- “Falling in love affects intellectual areas of the brain and triggers the same sensation of euphoria experienced by people when they take cocaine, researchers from Syracuse University reveal in an article in Journal of Sexual Medicine. The study, called ‘The Neuroimaging of Love’ found that several euphoria-inducing chemicals, such as vasopression, adrenaline, oxytocin and dopamine are released in 12 areas of the brain that work simultaneously.”
- “General intelligence is not enough. Practical intelligence can mean the difference between entrepreneurial success or failure. Psychologists have identified multiple kinds of intelligence, but a University of Maryland researcher’s study has found one–practical intelligence–to be an indicator of likely entrepreneurial success.
J. Robert Baum, Director of Entrepreneurship Research at the University of Maryland, defines practical intelligence as ‘an experience based accumulation of skills and explicit knowledge as well as the ability to apply that knowledge to solve every day problems,’ he said. In other words, practical intelligence can be referred to as ‘know-how’ or common sense.
Learning orientation has an impact on entrepreneurship success. Some people learn little from their experiences and therefore don’t acquire the practical intelligence necessary to begin a successful business venture, said Baum. Practical intelligence is the result of an experimental hands-on operating style that leads to specific learning. ‘Those with high practical intelligence tend to develop useful knowledge by doing and learning, not by watching or reading,’ he said.”
- “A dog born without eyes is finding his way in life after teaching himself to ‘see’ like a bat – using echolocation. Rowan, a German Spitz, barks and then listens to the echoes to help him tell where he is in relation to his surroundings.”
Editor’s Note: I was surprised when I first heard about humans using echolocation, but now dogs?
- “Who were the top 50 psychiatrists in the U.S. paid by the top seven pharmaceutical companies?
This past week, ProPublica, an independent, non-profit newsroom that produces investigative journalism in the public interest, recently decided to answer that question by compiling a list of 384 physicians and health care providers who earned more than $100,000 total from one or more of the seven companies that have disclosed payments in 2009 and early 2010.
We combed that list and found the top 50 psychiatry earners for the past two years (2009-2010). You can click on any name below to learn more about the physician.”
- “Synesthesia is one of the more highly publicized conditions where neural cross-talk results in ‘cross-sensory percepts;’ an involuntary association of, say, colors to letters, or smells to sounds…
Now for autism. A new report details observations that high functioning autistic spectrum folks who have savant-like talents may be hyper-perceptive — they may have superhuman powers to sense things. But, not all things — just certain things. Perhaps this hyper-perception is really a hyper-wiring connection: like synesthetes.”
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