depression
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FDA approves first oral postpartum depression pill
The FDA approves a new pill for postpartum depression. The drug was developed by Biogen and Sage.The approval is based on research that backs the oral drug's effectiveness.
Apple is reportedly working on mental health monitoring using iPhone data
Sensors and algorithms could help detect depression, anxiety and cognitive decline.
Apple sponsors a three-year UCLA study on depression and anxiety
Apple's latest research project will see the company sponsor a study on depression from UCLA.
App tracks mental health by studying your phone usage
Researchers have built a mobile app that gauges your mental health based on your phone usage.
Google put an anxiety self-assessment in search
With help from the National Alliance on Mental Illness, Google has added a new Search tool to help Americans find out if they need help for their anxiety.
'Sea of Solitude' looks like a brilliant, emotional horror show
Sea of Solitude feels like coming home. Footage of a hulking black monster swimming among the rooftops and balconies of a waterlogged Berlin plays on repeat like a GIF in my psyche, as comforting as it is terrifying. I've been viscerally afraid of giant creatures in deep waters for as long as I can remember -- it probably has something to do with my after-school routine as a kid. My older brother, dressed in steel-toed Docs and long-sleeved black shirts even in the mid-year Arizona sun, would walk me home and we'd plop down in front of the TV. Sometimes it was Baywatch, sometimes it was Terminator 2, but the afternoon our parents told us they were getting a divorce, it was Jaws.
'Selfie harm' and the damage done by social media
With a new project called Selfie Harm, photographer John Rankin Waddell, better known as Rankin, wanted to see the role social media played on self image in young people. He took photos of a group of teens aged 13 to 19, then asked them to spend a few minutes editing the shots using one of the many selfie apps marketed at teens. The result? "People are mimicking their idols, making their eyes bigger, their nose smaller and their skin brighter, and all for social media likes," he said on Instagram.
Study shows that social media limits made people feel less lonely
Humans have a complex relationship with social media platforms. They could be a way to reconnect with old friends and to grow closer to current ones, but they could trigger feelings of loneliness. Now, researchers from the University of Pennsylvania say they've confirmed the "causal link between time spent on [Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat] and decreased well-being." There have been many surveys and studies examining the effects of social media on users' mental health over the years, but according to the researchers, "a causal connection had never been proven" before.
MIT built a health-tracking sensor that can ‘see’ through walls
An MIT professor has built a prototype device that can wirelessly track your health -- even through walls -- using a mix of radio signals and machine learning. Dina Katabi's gadget resembles a WiFi router and is designed to sit in your pad and monitor your breathing, heart rate, sleep, gait, and more as you go about your day. It's already doing that in over 200 homes around the US of both healthy people and those with Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, depression, and pulmonary diseases.
MIT's AI can tell if you're depressed from the way you talk
When it comes to identifying depression, doctors will traditionally ask patients specific questions about mood, mental illness, lifestyle and personal history, and use these answers to make a diagnosis. Now, researchers at MIT have created a model that can detect depression in people without needing responses to these specific questions, based instead on their natural conversational and writing style.
It's time to talk about mental illness in indie development
This is normal. Heart pounding, hands shaking, head packed with static. The absolute inability to process what anyone is saying, let alone respond to it. Sitting alone at home -- lights off because you've been inside all day and the sun set hours ago, but your legs have been glued to the chair for just as long -- computer screen glowing. Wanting to be outside but unable to deal with the idea of people, conversation, smiling, pretending. Feeling worthless. This is normal.
Turning indie horror hit 'Neverending Nightmares' into a manga
She stands in front of you, clutching a teddy bear to her chest. She can't be older than 8, with long, straight black hair and a frilled dress. You don't know her name, but she's smiling warmly. And then, suddenly, she isn't: Her doe eyes widen, white and afraid. Her mouth gapes and blood drips past her lips. You follow her gaze down -- a knife protrudes from her stomach, staining her dress bright red, blood dribbling into her socks and Mary Janes. A knife that your hands are grasping tightly. This is how the video game Neverending Nightmares begins, and it's also the first scene in a manga of the same name that debuted last week. As a game, Neverending Nightmares is a chilling, powerful peek into the darkest thoughts of a person struggling with depression and intrusive thoughts. The protagonist, Thomas, is trapped in a hellscape loop, repeatedly waking up only to realize he's still in a terrible nightmare: Headless corpses are piled against black-and-white walls; bodies hang from meat hooks in a claustrophobic cell; Thomas pulls a vein from his wrist like a stray thread.
Google search uses a medical quiz to help diagnose depression
Only half of Americans who face depression get help for it, and Google is determined to increase that percentage. As of today, it's offering a medically validated, anonymous screening questionnaire for clinical depression if you search for information on the condition. This won't definitively indicate that you're clinically depressed, to be clear, but it will give you useful information you can take to a doctor. And importantly, the very presence of the questionnaire promises to raise awareness and promote treatment beyond what a basic information card would offer.
'Please Knock on My Door' is a digital life of depression
At first, depression doesn't sound like the most thrilling topic to explore in a video game. It's antithetical to the boisterous, action-packed, neon-tinted tone that generally dominates the industry -- but that doesn't mean depression doesn't make for a compelling game. After all, video games are immersive experiences that can open up new worlds to people across the globe, inviting players to feel what life is like in another body, on another planet, in another universe. In another mind.
Gene-altered ants show how animal societies work
How much is societal behavior dictated by genetics? Scientists at Rockefeller University might just find out through ant colonies. They've modified the genes of clonal raider ants (not shown above) to see how the changes affect social behavior, both individually and on a grander scale. Knocking out genes for odorant receptors leads to "lone wolf" ants who wander by themselves for days, for example. The team keeps track of these exceptions by painting the ants in such a way that computers can track them all day, spotting even slight deviations from the norm.
Bad experiences on Facebook have real-world consequences
Researchers at Brown University believe that they have established a link between Facebook use and depression. The study examined 264 people and tracked if, and when, they reported having an NFE: a Negative Facebook Experience. When that data was boiled down, the team concluded that people who reported experiencing NFEs were 3.2 times more likely to risk suffering from the symptoms of depression.
New algorithm finds signs of depression in your Instagram feed
While Instagram data can already be used to guess your age, a new research paper shows how it might also be used to check upon your mental health. Using a set of machine learning tools and several dozen users' Instagram feeds, a team of researchers from Harvard and the University of Vermont have built a model that can accurately spot signs of clinical depression. By reviewing "color analysis, metadata components, and algorithmic face detection," in each user's feed, the model was able to correctly identify which Instagrammers showed symptoms of depression about 70 percent of the time, even before they had been clinically diagnosed.
23andMe data helps find genetic factors behind depression
Genetic samples from 23andMe users have contributed to scientific discoveries before, but never quite like this. Researchers have used gene samples from 307,354 23andMe customers to identify 32 genetic factors (15 genetic loci and 17 nucleotide polymorphisms) linked to major depressive disorder among people of European descent -- the largest-ever study of its type. The data hints that genes responsible for developing neurons may correspond to those triggering this form of depression, and that the genetic areas associated with depression may play a part in other mental disorders, such as schizophrenia.
Scientists identify neurons that help you process emotions
Scientists just got one step closer to understanding the nuts and bolts of how your mind handles emotions. An MIT team has identified two neural connections in the brain's amygdala regions that process positive and negative emotional events. By tagging neuron groups with a light-sensitive protein, they discovered that the neurons form parallel but complex channels that respond differently to given situations. Some neurons within one of those connections will be excited by a feeling, while others will be inhibited -- the combination of those reactions in a given channel may determine the emotion you experience.
Fighting depression in the video game world, one AFK at a time
Matt Hughes took his own life in the fall of 2012. He was a freelance reporter covering the video game industry, and before he committed suicide, he sent emails to some of his editors, noting that he wouldn't be able to turn in more stories for one simple reason: He'd be dead. His suicide surprised nearly everyone who worked with him. Speaking with Kotaku days after Hughes' death, his former editors said things like There weren't any red flags and This was a complete shock. Hughes wasn't the only person in the video game industry to take his own life that year, and as the tragedies piled up, it became impossible to ignore their commonalities. Complete surprise. No one knew. She seemed fine. For Russ Pitts and Susan Arendt, two editors who had worked with Hughes and regularly interacted with dozens of other freelance reporters, these suicides were more than a shock. They were a wakeup call.
