Nearly one in three students in Germany is suffering from depressive moods. This shows a recent study by the University of Lüneburg were commissioned by the Afrika Korps health insurance, the results presented in Hamburg on Thursday. 24 percent of the study surveyed young people said they “often sit there and nothing to do”. One in ten respondents agreed with the statement “No one understands me”. According to the study are involved in primary and secondary schools as significantly more students in secondary schools.

The proportion of pupils with depressive mood also increased with age. The 18-year-olds, 33 percent expressed accordingly. Many adolescents with depressive moods makes especially to create the school day. Consequently, they suffer significantly more likely than their peers under a strong pressure to perform (43 percent) and school stress (23 percent). They also were twice as often dissatisfied with their services.

For the study, 6000 boys and girls between eleven and 18 years old were interviewed in seven states.

The “Jaws” from James Bond or Patrick Bateman, the protagonist of “American Psycho” – psychopaths have difficulty feeling compassion. Their behavior is similar to that of people here who have suffered a serious injury at the anterior skull. The reports the University of Haifa in a recent press release.

Scientists have studied 17 people who were diagnosed as psychopathic, and 25 other people on a frontal lobe injury. Each of the subjects had to complete a computer-based test, which the system analyzed in emotion recognition in others and the ability to show compassion. The analysis showed that both had the psychopath group and the group of injury-related difficulties to respond, sympathetically. In comparison, individuals had the two control groups who had no mental disorder or no brain injury, no problems with their empathy.

Psychopaths suffer from a severe personality disorder. They behave extremely anti-social, add to other pain and can not feel pity and compassion.

The fact that many psychopaths are skilled manipulators and to come with finesse and guile to their destination, but it shows that they evaluate their behavior and reactions of others may well. Sometimes they even use that knowledge specifically to harm them.

The hope of the brain researchers aimed at new forms of therapy: “When psychopaths behave like people with a brain injury, they could also benefit from the same treatment options,” says study leader Simone Shamay-Tsoory.

Tears are odorless. Still stuck in them, signaling substances that cause weeping women contribute to men less attractive. This is the result of a study, which presents the Israeli Weizmann Institute of Neurobiology in a press release.

For their experiment, the team gathered around Shani Gelstein the tears of women who considered themselves a sad movie. Then the researchers tested whether men were able to sniff out the difference between tears and a saline solution. Conclusion: An olfactory differentiation could not.

was more surprising that the tears haze still had an effect: When the scientists the men submitted faces of women, which they should differ assign attributes evaluated the tear-trial be men, the women depicted although not as sad as under the influence of the salt solution, but as sexually unattractive.

During the experiment, the researchers measured skin temperature, heart rate and hormone levels of the subjects. And I showed that the sexual arousal of men who sniffed in tears, actually decreased. The value of the sex hormone testosterone decreased. On the basis of brain scans, researchers have noticed that also certain brain regions responsible for sexual arousal, were less active under the influence of tears.

This experiment was part of a double-blind study. Neither the researchers nor the subjects knew during the course of who sniffed tears, and who in salty water.

Has long been known that people – perceive many elements in the body fluids, which contain subtle messages to other members of the species – like most animals. That tears also carry a biochemical message in itself, however, new.

The researcher Michael DeDonno answered this question in a study and come to a very remarkable result, which again confirms the strength of our faith. Dr. Rose Shaw, a psychotherapist, sums up his findings:

In one experiment, 4 groups asked DeDonno about to complete an exercise with playing cards in which it came in the shortest possible time through quick decisions as much deserve to (virtual) money. Each participant was 100 allows passages to solve the task. The first group was informed that there is sufficient time allocated to the exercise successfully. The second group was told that the time would probably be short. Each group was then further divided into subgroups that are either actually had enough time to exercise or had to make do with less time.

The results are remarkable: the participants who had not less time actually performed worse than the others, but those who thought they had less time – regardless of how much time you actually was available. This is so far very interesting, as is common in the working world of faith, one must put his team just neatly under time pressure to achieve decent results. But the opposite is probably true, even if one finds such as a boss, that time will be scarce, it is obviously well-advised to give its employees or colleagues a sense: we will not make it. Or as Michael De Donno: “I always tell my students: Make the most of the time you have available. When the time is up, it’s just expired. “

Who has confidence in one’s memory is mentally fitter
If you believe that your memory gets worse with age, it can be a self-fulfilling prophecy. Researchers at North Carolina State University found that seniors who believe that older people should perform worse on memory tests actually showed a much worse performance than seniors who give to these negative stereotypes of aging and the declining memory nothing. In a study published in April 2009 showed the psychology professor Dr. Tom Hess and a team of researchers at NC State, that the memory capacity of older adults in certain situations suffer when negative stereotypes are activated. “For example, older adults during a memory test poorly, if you tell them that older people are not in this particular type of memory test is good,” says Hess. Similarly, the memory suffers when seniors believe they would be “stigmatized” if so look down others because of their age on them.

Stigma and prejudice lead to poorer memory performance
“Such situations for older adults are part of everyday experience,” says Hess, “So, for example, make themselves worried about what to think Job colleague of them, a negative impact on their performance -. And thus may enhance the negative stereotypes” But Hess added: “The positive side of that who are not stigmatized feels or has an environment in which the prevailing positive attitudes to aging, a much better memory performance shows.” In other words, if you are convinced that the aging do not have a devastating effect on your memory, then you will do in tasks in which memory plays a role, well more likely.

The study also showed that the negative effects were strongest among older adults with the highest level of education. “This is consistent with our view that people who assess their ability to remember the highest, most sensitive to the negative conclusions of stereotypes, and thus most likely to show the difficulties associated with the stereotype.”

If these findings confirm, this is basically a comforting message: If I know that they are my own stereotypes affecting my memory, then yes I can do something. I can not just forget …

The treatment of elderly patients with depression can be difficult, for example due to side effects of antidepressants in those people who often have physical complaints anyway. A study shows that cognitive behavior therapy can help older patients with depression.

Cognitive behavior therapy works better than talk therapy
Elderly patients with depression respond well to cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) to, and treatment helps better than talking to someone who is warm and share listens sympathetically. This is the result of a study in the December 2009 issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry published.

Marc Antony Serfaty from University College London and his colleagues examined in the study 204 people aged 65 years or older. Of these, 79.4 per cent women who had a diagnosis of depression. The patients who continued to receive all of their standard treatment were divided randomly into three groups. One group was additionally treated with CBT and a second talk therapy. The third group received no additional treatment.

The researchers evaluated the mental and emotional state of patients for psychological tests from the beginning of the study and after four and ten months of therapy. The results showed that only had to average just over seven therapy sessions, patients in the CBT group improved values for depression more than patients in the talk therapy group.

“Although one can see symptoms of depression as a normal consequence of aging, our results represent the myth of older people questioned who is lonely and just society and an open ear needs,” the authors write. “As previous studies have already shown you can win for the elderly to actively participate in talking therapies. You can be open and benefit from a specific form of treatment such as cognitive behavior therapy for psychological support.”