Adults’ phobias can be correlated with changes in the structure of their brains, a new study finds. What’s more, the neurological differences seen in adults with phobias are more extensive than those observed in people with other forms of anxiety. Phobia is the most common anxiety disorder, affecting more than 12% of people, said the research team led by Kevin Hilbert, a psychology research assistant with the Humboldt University of Berlin in Germany. Unfortunately, there hasn’t been much research directed specifically at phobias, the team said. “Few studies have examined differences in brain structure associated with specific phobia, and those were generally conducted in small samples and targeted isolated regions of interest,” the team wrote. To take a closer look, researchers examined MRI scans from more than 1,400 children and adults with a specific phobia, as well as nearly 3,000 healthy people. The most common phobias were animal phobias (739 participants) and phobias related to blood, injury or injections (182 participants). They found that people with phobias had increased thickness in some parts of the frontal cortex, as well as reduced size in regions like the caudate nucleus, putamen and hippocampus. The altered regions are involved in fear-related brain processes like movement, aversion and emotional processing. However, the size of the amygdala — a central brain regulator of fear and aggression — was not significantly…  read on >  read on >

The U.S. Surgeon General announced Monday that he will push for warning labels on all social media platforms, stating that they may harm teens’ mental health. “The mental health crisis among young people is an emergency — and social media has emerged as an important contributor,” Dr. Vivek Murthy wrote in an essay published Monday in the New York Times. “Adolescents who spend more than three hours a day on social media face double the risk of anxiety and depression symptoms, and the average daily use in this age group, as of the summer of 2023, was 4.8 hours. Additionally, nearly half of adolescents say social media makes them feel worse about their bodies.” “It is time to require a surgeon general’s warning label on social media platforms, stating that social media is associated with significant mental health harms for adolescents,” he added. Still, such warning labels require Congressional approval, and no legislation on the issue has yet been introduced in either chamber. In his essay, Murthy asserted that the dangers of social media are as significant as those seen with road accidents or contaminated food. “Why is it that we have failed to respond to the harms of social media when they are no less urgent or widespread than those posed by unsafe cars, planes or food?” Murthy wrote. “These harms are not a…  read on >  read on >

Nearly 1 in 4 parents struggle to get their child to sleep, a new poll reports. Some of this is related to poor sleep hygiene, but some also is due to dark worries harbored by the kids, researchers report. Parents of sleepless children are less likely to have a bedtime routine, more likely to leave on a video or TV show and more likely to stay with their child until they’re asleep, researchers said. “Establishing a consistent bedtime routine is crucial,” said Sarah Clark, a pediatrician and co-director of the University of Michigan Health C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital National Poll on Children’s Health. “When this transition to bedtime becomes a nightly conflict, some parents may fall into habits that work in the moment but could set them up for more sleep issues down the road,” Clark said in a university news release. However, nearly a quarter of parents say their children’s sleep is often or occasionally delayed because they’re worried or anxious. More than a third of parents say their child tends to wake upset or crying in the night. More than 40% say their child moves to their parents’ bed and about 30% say the kid insists a parent sleep in their room. “Many young children go through stages when they become scared of the dark or worry that something bad might happen, causing…  read on >  read on >

Depression can be sorted into six distinct types using brain scans, a revelation that could improve treatment for many suffering the debilitating mood disorder. Researchers analyzed brain scans to identify six different biological types of depression, based on differences in patterns of brain activity, according to results published June 17 in the journal c. These differences allowed researchers to single out the potentially best treatments for three of the depression types, results show. “To our knowledge, this is the first time we’ve been able to demonstrate that depression can be explained by different disruptions to the functioning of the brain,” said senior researcher Leanne Williams, director of Stanford Medicine’s Center for Precision Mental Health and Wellness. “In essence, it’s a demonstration of a personalized medicine approach for mental health based on objective measures of brain function,” Williams said in a Stanford news release. If these findings hold, people diagnosed with depression could one day undergo a brain scan to reveal the treatment that would best work for them. About 30% of people with depression don’t respond at all to either medication or talk therapy, and as many as two-thirds find that treatment isn’t able to fully quell their depression. That’s in part because up to now there’s been no good way to know which antidepressant or type of therapy would most benefit any particular patient,…  read on >  read on >

Nicotine pouches might be less harmful than smoking or chewing tobacco, but they still pose an addiction risk to users, a new review finds. These pouches are filled with crystallized nicotine, and are placed between the gums and lips, researchers said. They are sold in various flavors and nicotine strengths. The pouches differ from Snus, which are used the same way but contain actual tobacco instead of crystallized nicotine. “Oral nicotine pouches are rapidly increasing in popularity,” said researcher Nargiz Travis, project director for Georgetown University’s Center for the Assessment of Tobacco Regulations. “While they may present a less harmful nicotine alternative for cigarette users, there is considerable concern about them becoming a new form of nicotine dependence, especially in youth who don’t use tobacco or nicotine,” Travis said in a Georgetown news release. For the review, published June 16 in the journal Nicotine and Tobacco Research, researchers analyzed 45 academic and 17 industry-funded studies of nicotine pouches. About 1.5% of children and teens currently use the pouches, and under 2.5% of young people have ever tried them, researchers found. However, as many as 42% of teens and young adults have heard of them, and as many as 21% of non-tobacco-using young people were not opposed to trying them. One U.S. survey of young adults ages 18 to 34 found that among those who’d tried…  read on >  read on >