Read the face right
Symptoms of borderline personality disorder often mimic traits of other psychiatric disorders, complicating diagnosis and treatment. But researchers in Canada say they have identified a characteristic that may be unique to borderline personality disorder: a tendency to misinterpret emotions expressed by the face. “They have difficulty processing facial emotions and will see a negative emotion on a neutral face,” said Anthony Ruocco, a clinical neuropsychologist and assistant professor at the University of Toronto. “This is not seen in bipolar disorder or schizophrenia.” Inaccuracies in recognising anger, sadness, fear and disgust also were noted in Ruocco’s recent study, with greater deficits related to anger and disgust. More research is needed to understand the brain mechanisms involved in these misperceptions.
Teen troubles
About one in five parents think they have little control over whether their teens take up smoking, drinking or illicit drug use, a new US government survey finds. That’s too bad, say experts at the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), since new research shows that parents are actually one of the most influential forces helping to shape their child’s views on these issues. “Surveys of teens repeatedly show that parents can make an enormous difference in influencing their children’s perceptions of tobacco, alcohol, or illicit drug use,” said SAMHSA administrator Pamela Hyde. The new findings are based on the agency’s most recent survey of more than 67,000 Americans ages 12 and older. The survey also found that one in every 10 parents has not talked to their teens about tobacco, alcohol or other drugs.
Watch out for back pain
People who endure chronic migraines or back pain are more likely to attempt suicide, whether or not they also suffer from depression or another psychiatric condition, according to a new study. “Clinicians who are seeing patients with certain pain conditions should be aware they are at increased risk of suicide,” said study co-author Mark Ilgen. “Although undoubtedly psychiatric factors are important, there might be aspects of the pain that in and of themselves increase a person’s risk,” Ilgen said. “There might be something about someone with significant pain that puts them at increased risk.” Researchers identified those suffering from chronic pain and tracked them for the next three years to see if any died from suicide.
Stress reliever
Use of the antidepressant lexapro appears to help prevent a potentially serious stress-related heart condition, a new study finds. The condition is known as “mental stress-induced myocardial ischemia.” Although people with this condition may not develop noticeable symptoms, their heart muscle is not receiving adequate blood supply, according to researchers from Duke University School of Medicine in Durham, NC. However, the researchers found that people taking the antidepressant lexapro (escitalopram) were more than two and a half times less likely to be affected by the condition, which can be spurred by emotional stress.
We love to lie
The human ability to lie to each other has been found to be something that is evolutionary. Researchers from Trinity College Dublin and the University of Edinburgh have shown that the ability to deceive others evolved as a means to extract help from others. The study shows that lying and deceit by humans is owed to our “cooperative nature”.The researchers used evolutionary game theory to examine the scenarios in which the ability to deceive others would evolve. They looked at deception and cooperation in a variety of primates from lemurs to chimpanzees. Deception occurs most often in the primate species. They are also the most cooperative, which suggests that our ability to deceive others evolved as a result of our similar cooperative nature.