Recently I attended the annual Behavior Genetics Association (BGA) meeting in Oslo. Having gone every year for the first decade or so of my career, since having children it has been a rarer pleasure, and I was delighted to be there. Before going, some of us had talked about writing…
Professor Dame Sally Davies, Chief Medical Officer of the NHS, has published her eighth annual report to the UK Government. This year’s report is entitled ‘Generation Genome’ and it report outlines Davies’ recommendations for targeting treatments using genomics, as well as advancing technologies and embedding national standards for using genomic information.
Fear (and the accompanying stress and tension) can easily be seen as a wholly negative, futile experience; especially in a developed world where we rarely encounter physical danger. In this blog post I look at the role that fear has played throughout our evolutionary history – looking back to when it…
This blog is a bit different from our usual pieces. It is a review of a new book called “Inside out parenting; how to build strong children from a core of self-esteem”. It is written by a colleague of ours Dr Holan Liang, who after motherhood turned her skills as…
Sometimes you find yourself stumbling across little titbits of surprising information. Those moments that stop and make you go “Huh”. Some of these moments are more surprising than others. So today, for your blog enjoyment, I present you with a carefully curated series of things I learned this week. Things…
In one of my previous blog posts, I discussed the issue of children and adolescents using online social media and the associated risks of cyberbullying. To further explore these issues, I met with Louise Arseneault, Professor in Developmental Psychology, to discuss the impact that bullying can have on young people…
If you’ve ever suffered from problems with your emotions or behaviour, you might have struggled with disturbed sleep, too. But are emotional or behavioural difficulties always associated with poor sleep? Are some types of people with difficulties actually better sleepers than your average person? New research from our team suggests…
I have a mild obsession (well, actually I have several, but only one is pertinent to this piece). Most of us have a thing we spend too much time on given its relative importance – computer games, knitting, running, animal species where the genus and the species are the same…
Data are perceived by some as a kind of currency, a source of boundless knowledge, with the potential to prevent suffering and death. However, taking a closer look at the etymology of the word prompts careful reconsideration of our assumptions about – and uses of – data in the context of psychiatry.
Mannequins in leading high street retailers model clinically underweight female figures. Following a recent eye-opening shopping experience, Ellie discusses the damaging effects of unrealistic body images on female mental health.
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