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171 news posts in Frontiers in Psychology

Environment

06 Nov 2023

Who will profit when territories of Europe’s predators overlap? Here are five Frontiers articles you won’t want to miss

by Deborah Pirchner, Frontiers science writer Image: Shutterstock.com At Frontiers, we bring some of the world’s best research to a global audience. But with tens of thousands of articles published each year, it’s impossible to cover all of them. Here are just five amazing papers you may have missed. Carnivore territories might soon overlap – and some species profit more than others Some of Europe’s large carnivore populations, including jackals and lynxes, are growing and expanding their territories. The golden jackal, a wolf-like generalist that once occupied only the Balkan area, is currently expanding its territory. At the same time, the Eurasian lynx, a specialized predator previously hunted close to extinction, is slowly recovering. Writing in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, researchers have now modeled jackal and lynx distribution in Europe for current and future scenarios. Currently, it is estimated that the overlap of jackal and lynx territories is 13%. This overlap is likely to increase, given both species’ expansion. The researchers’ findings showed that both predators expanding their territories, leading to a dynamic where they coexist for the first time, may favor one species and threaten the other: Their predictions show an increase in habitat suitability for the golden […]

Featured news

01 Nov 2023

Do mild depressive and anxiety symptoms in fathers predict behavioral and cognitive problems in their children?

by Deborah Pirchner, Frontiers science writer Image: Shutterstock.com Many people experience stress, anxiety, and depressive symptoms in their life. Times of transition, such as pregnancy and children starting school can be significant periods of stress and vulnerability within families. Studies have generally found that high levels of anxiety and depression in parents are linked to poorer behavioral and cognitive outcomes in children. Now, a team of researchers in Canada has examined if self-reported paternal anxious and depressive symptoms are associated with children’s cognitive functioning and behavior. They found that slightly higher, but mild anxious or depressive symptoms in fathers were associated with fewer behavioral difficulties in the first years of elementary school and better scores on a standardized IQ testing in their children. The results need to be confirmed by further studies, the researchers said. While the role of mothers’ stress, anxiety and depression on children’s behavioral and cognitive development is well established, less is known about the connection between fathers’ mental health and children’s development. Now, a team of researchers affiliated to different institutions across Quebec, Canada has examined if paternal anxious and depressive symptoms, measured during their partner’s pregnancy, and again six to eight years later, are associated […]

Featured news

16 Oct 2023

Chronic pain may increase dementia risk: Here are five Frontiers articles you won’t want to miss

by Deborah Pirchner, Frontiers science writer Image: Shutterstock.com At Frontiers, we bring some of the world’s best research to a global audience. But with tens of thousands of articles published each year, it’s impossible to cover all of them. Here are just five amazing papers you may have missed. Chronic pain associated with increased dementia risk Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias (ADRD) make up approximately 80% of the more than 47 million cases of dementia worldwide. Looking into the future, cases are expected to increase sharply in the coming decades. A large percentage of the older population is also affected by chronic pain, a leading cause of disability that shares many risk factors with ADRD. These include advanced age, depressive disorders, diabetes, obesity, social isolation, and a low level of education. Now, researchers in France have assessed the impact of chronic pain on the incidence of ADRD. They published their results in Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience. They found that the presence of chronic pain is associated with a higher incidence and risk of developing ADRD when compared with older adults with no chronic pain. The researchers stressed the importance of prevention, diagnosis, and management of chronic pain to limit resulting […]

Featured news

06 Oct 2023

Our sense of smell changes the colors we see, show scientists

By Mischa Dijkstra, Frontiers science writer Crossmodal associations occur when people make unconscious but stereotypical connections between two or more senses. Here, scientists showed that associations between odors and colors can be particularly strong: powerful enough to distort our perception of colors. Our five senses bombard us with environmental input 24/7. One way our brain makes sense of this abundance of information is by combining information from two or more senses, such as between smells and the smoothness of textures, pitch, color, and musical dimensions. This sensory integration also causes us to associate higher temperatures with warmer colors, lower sound pitches with less elevated positions, and colors with the flavor of particular foods – for example, the taste of oranges with the color of the same name. Now, a study in Frontiers in Psychology has shown experimentally that such unconscious ‘crossmodal’ associations with our sense of smell can affect our perception of colors. “Here we show that the presence of different odors influences how humans perceive color,” said lead author Dr Ryan Ward, a senior lecturer at Liverpool John Moores University in Liverpool, UK. Sensory-deprived room Ward and colleagues tested for the existence and strength of odor-color associations in 24 […]

Environment

18 Sep 2023

Captive pandas could be ‘jet lagged’ if their body clocks don’t match their environment

by Angharad Brewer Gillham, Frontiers science writer Image/Shutterstock Animals’ circadian clocks normally get cues from their environments: light cycles, seasonal food availability, and temperature. If these cues are very different to the ones from the latitudes which they have adapted to, it could disrupt their bodies and behavior, like jet lag in humans. Scientists studying the effect of this possible ‘jet lag’ on giant pandas, which are a vulnerable species and live in zoos worldwide, have shown that pandas housed in different latitudes to their normal range in China are less active, with potentially negative consequences for their welfare. All animals have an internal clock called a circadian clock, which is regulated by cues from their environment — but animals in zoos can be exposed to very different cues from animals in the wild. Since all animals’ circadian clocks are linked to their behavior and physiology, this could be significant to their welfare, which is crucial to maintaining captive populations of animals at high risk of extinction in the wild, like giant pandas. Scientists set out to understand how the ‘jet lag’ of living in latitudes they did not evolve in, and therefore getting cues for their circadian clocks which […]

Featured news

05 Jun 2023

Seeing inside a dying brain: Here are five Frontiers articles you won’t want to miss

By Deborah Pirchner, Frontiers science writer Image: Shutterstock.com At Frontiers, we bring some of the world’s best research to a global audience. But with tens of thousands of articles published each year, it’s impossible to cover all of them. Here are just five amazing papers you may have missed. What happens to the brain when we die? The mystery of what happens in the brain when we die has fascinated humans for centuries. Despite understanding gained from recent studies, there still are open questions – not lastly because obtaining data about the last moments of life is difficult. Researchers largely have to rely on descriptions of near-death-experience survivors. To fill knowledge gaps, these accounts are immensely valuable.   Now, in a review article published in Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience, an international team of researchers has reviewed the current knowledge on what neurophysiological changes occur in the brain during these experiences. They also examined what anatomical correlates to these changes are, and how drugs and metabolic factors are involved. Understanding the underlying neurophysiological changes in the dying human brain could be the only way to decipher the neurophysiology of death, the scientists noted. Descriptions from near-death survivors may be our only […]

Environment

04 May 2023

Ill-fitting gear puts female firefighters at risk: Five Frontiers articles you won’t want to miss

By Deborah Pirchner, Frontiers science writer Image: CAL FIRE_Official/Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) At Frontiers, we bring some of the world’s best research to a global audience. But with tens of thousands of articles published each year, it’s impossible to cover all of them. Here are just five amazing papers you may have missed. Ill-fitting gear increases female firefighters’ risk on the job Over the past years, the number of female firefighters has been rising steadily. As of 2020, women make up 9% of firefighters in the US. Despite this, the gear they are wearing is still made for male bodies. Using 3D body scans of 189 female firefighters, US-based researchers have studied this gear to improve comfort, mobility, and safety for female firefighters. They published their results in Frontiers in Materials. The scientists found that female firefighters are wearing personal protective clothing (PPC) with significant fit issues. This reduces comfort, restricts mobility and increases safety risks on the job, they wrote. Between 15% and 21% of female firefighters were found to intentionally leave off a part of their PPC, mostly pants and coats, at least ‘sometimes,’ if not ‘nearly always’. The researchers also identified where the highest potential for design […]