depression
Latest
Virtual reality could help fight depression
A study by University College London (UCL) and the Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies (ICREA) suggests virtual reality could be utilized as a treatment for depression in the future. The pilot study worked with 15 depression patients aged 23 to 61, yielded positive results in 60 percent of subjects.
'Tropes vs. Women in Video Games' is changing a bit
Culture critic Anita Sarkeesian has made some significant waves since launching her wildly successful Tropes vs. Women in Video Games Kickstarter over three years ago. But it wasn't without a heavy cost. In an update to the backers of her crowdfunding campaign, Sarkeesian reveals that she was dealing with a very serious case of burnout that was affecting both her physical and mental health last year after the scope of the project ballooned unexpectedly. Sarkeesian says she's been coping with depression her entire life, but the online harassment at her expense since launching Tropes, combined with the decline in her physical health, amplified it.
'Take This' livestream starts today with video game stars, swag
Take This is a non-profit that educates and supports those with depression, anxiety and other mental health issues, with a focus on the video game community. Starting today at 12PM ET, Take This hits Twitch for a two-day livestream starring BioShock creator Ken Levine, popular gaming critic Jim Sterling, Tom Clancy's son and game developer Thom Clancy, and other famous figures of the industry. Donate during the stream for a chance to win sweet gaming swag, including a signed Octodad poster, an IGN gift pack, a remote-controlled replica of Claptrap from Borderlands or a custom Fallout 4 Xbox One.
Research study tests if smartphones can diagnose depression
Clinical depression is the kind of ailment that can sneak up on you, ruin your attitude, destroy motivation and lead to a multitude of other mental health issues. It can be managed if you're aware of it, but a lot of depression goes undiagnosed. It doesn't have to be that way--researchers think that smartphones could one day serve as an early-warning system by passively monitoring your behavior.
Obama's 2013 'BRAIN' initiative results in remote-controlled mice
The first results to stem from President Barack Obama's 2013 "Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies" initiative are in, Reuters reports. As noted in the journal Neuron, scientists were able to manipulate the brain circuitry of lab mice, making them move, stay still, eat or leave their bowls of food behind. This was accomplished through the use of DREADDs, "designer receptors exclusively activated by designer drugs." The DREADDs system uses genetically engineered brain neurons to create custom receptors that lock into manmade molecules, activating whichever neuron scientists target. The DREADD method is a noninvasive form of behavior control, first introduced about a decade ago as a way to turn neurons on or off -- the newest DREADDs are the first to be able to do both.
Claims that MMOs are a 'threat to public health' are 'exaggerated' says new study
Dr. Rachel Kowert, lead author on the relationship between shyness and online gaming paper that we covered back in October, has just released another study relating to MMOs, this one investigating the psychosocial causes and consequences of online video gameplay. Due to be published in the science journal Computers in Human Behavior in April 2015, the paper seeks to improve on past research that links online video gaming to loneliness, depression, social anxiety, poor self-esteem, and social incompetence. Kowert and her colleagues from the Universities of Muenster and Hohenheim studied 4500 gamers over 1- and 2-year periods to determine whether negative psychological traits are a consequence of engaging in online games like MMOs or simply act to draw people to online games that help them compensate for those negative traits (the "social compensation hypothesis"). MMORPG gamers will be happy to know that the findings suggest that the latter is true; no, your MMOs won't make you depressed or suddenly unable to manage interpersonal communications: The results uncovered here do not support the claims that exposure to, or prolonged engagement within, OVG [online video game] spaces negatively impacts players' psychosocial well-being. In that respect, concerns regarding OVGs being a threat to public health seem to be exaggerated. These findings do, however, provide the empirical evidence for a social compensation model among young adult participants, indicating that OVGs have likely become alternative social outlets for young adult players with [low] social and psychosocial resources, as reflected by lower reported life satisfaction and social competence. In fact, the effect was strongest for young gamers: "For adolescent players, being a member of the online game playing community was found to bolster their reported life-satisfaction." Stay tuned later this month for a full Massively report on Kowert's MMO-related research.
Samaritans pulls its controversial Radar Twitter app
After facing a tidal wave of negative publicity and staying quiet for almost a week, counselling charity Samaritans has decided to suspend its controversial Twitter app. Radar was designed to remotely listen in on Twitter conversations and warn users when a person they follow might need some friendly support. The idea was noble, but its anonymous (and automated) nature and potential to be abused by online trolls led many to call for Samaritans to pull it offline.
Why Samaritans' app to spot depressed tweets does more harm than good
Last week, counselling charity Samaritans launched Radar, a new social media service that remotely listens in on Twitter conversations and warns you when someone you follow might need emotional support. Radar is already tracking over a million Twitter accounts, and while the idea is a virtuous one, the service has sparked a huge online backlash, with many calling for it to be shut down. But why?
Dartmouth's StudentLife app can tell you if your mental health is hurting your grades
Not sure if you're depressed? Your smartphone may be able to clue you in. Researchers at Dartmouth have developed an Android app that keeps tabs on student behavior -- silently logging how long they sleep, the number of conversations they have, how much time they spend in class, at social events or at the gym and even stress levels and eating habits. Using well-known mental health surveys as a benchmark, researchers were able to use the data to determine if students in its test group were depressed, stressed out or lonely, and eventually found correlations between mental health and academic performance.
Neverending Nightmares is horrific, repulsive and true
Caution: Some of the following content contains graphic descriptions of violent thoughts that Gilgenbach has experienced in real life. Those sensitive to such information should read with caution, and contact their nearest mental health care facilities if needed. In the US, the national suicide prevention hotline is 1-800-273-8255. Neverending Nightmares is a "Trojan horse of sorts," independent developer Matt Gilgenbach told Joystiq at PAX Prime. At first glance, the game appears to be a stylized horror game full of genre tropes: creepy little girls, old dolls with dead eyes, haunting visions of gore and violence. However, the truth is that Neverending Nightmares is actually an intensely personal exploration of Gilgenbach's own thoughts, intended to communicate the awful feelings someone with depression might experience. It has the potential to be a tool for empathy as much as it might elicit late-night scares.
Text adventure 'game' offers a taste of what clinical depression is like
Unless you're deep in the throes of it yourself, actual, clinical depression can be incredibly hard to wrap your head around. Sure, you can scroll through the Wikipedia article all you like, but intellectually knowing about and feeling depression are two completely different beasts. Zoe Quinn's Depression Quest (which recently hit Steam after a year floating around on the web) is an experience that sort of straddles the line between the two, and -- in spite of a related mess that's still unfolding -- is still worth checking out.
The US military wants brain implants to treat combat trauma
For soldiers coping with brain injuries and post-traumatic stress, coming home may be tougher than the actual fighting; their conditions can last a lifetime. Long-term relief may be on the horizon for US veterans, though. DARPA is supporting the White House's brain mapping initiative by funding the development of implants (conceptualized below) that alleviate the symptoms of warriors' mental problems, ranging from PTSD to extreme depression. The technology, built by Massachusetts General Hospital, Draper Laboratory and UC San Francisco, will use sensors to watch for unusual neural activity at multiple parts of the brain. If something's wrong, the implants will use deep electrical stimulation to restore healthy activity -- permanently, if possible.
If you've got the SADs, this sunlight-tracking wearable could help cure it
There are wearables to track your exercise activity, food consumption and sleep habits. There are even wearables that want to be smartphones-lite. But never before has there been a portable tracker for daily sunlight exposure. That's a niche GoodLux is looking to fill with its SunSprite, a solar-powered, Bluetooth 4.0 wireless device with a Harvard Medical pedigree that's launching today on Indiegogo. And it's gone everywhere with me this past week in Barcelona as I've raced in and out of conference halls to cover Mobile World Congress.
Actual Sunlight, a game about depression, goes 3D with open beta
Having a good day? Turn that smile upside-down in a hurry with Actual Sunlight, a game about love and depression, which is now available in an open beta, 3D form for Windows, Mac and Linux. The game, which was originally built in 2D using RPG Maker VX ACE, is a potentially disturbing tale that follows the life of would-be writer Evan Winter as he tries to navigate life. A warning on the game's download page reads, "[Actual Sunlight] deals with extremely mature themes, including depression and thoughts of suicide. Similar to other forms of art that tackle these issues, Actual Sunlight can be an extremely powerful emotional experience – before downloading it, please first consider what your reaction to a book, film or piece of music in a similar vein might be." Seriously, and we can't stress this enough, the game is dark. If you should download the game and expect to have an intense reaction, feel free to take note of the numbers and information located at the International Suicide Prevention Wiki.
Storyboard: Sadface
I have, on occasion, joked that all of my roleplaying characters are either looking for a tragedy or recovering from one. It's not an intentional thing, but for whatever reason, an awful lot of my characters tend to have a whole lot of pain and sorrow wrapped up in their heads. My attempts at making a joke character usually derail to the point that said character is even more depressing, like the mage I played who was supposed to be eccentric and wound up being desperately lonely due to her horrendous inability to focus on any one thing for too long. While it's very easy to go into the depressingly morbid side with a tragic character, we're not going into that this week. (Another week -- you know how I roll by now.) No, this week's problem is much simpler. If you're playing a character who's beset on all sides by misfortune, eventually you're just going to wind up with sadness-induced apathy. You're going to get tired of the fact that your character always fails and never wins and that things get worse every time he or she tries to fix problems. In short, you're going to not want to play the character because said character is just plain depressing.
Aussie blogger brings Movember mental health series to WoW blog
From Hollywood celebrities to the guy next door, millions of people have made World of Warcraft a part of their lives. How do you play WoW? We're giving each approach its own 15 Minutes of Fame. Pitched battle in a frantic Battleground feels a little like Armageddon if you're on the wrong side of the wave. Depression can feel the same way to those struggling in its iron coils. Winding together entertaining and informative posts about both is popular blogger Gnomeaggedon, whose WoW blog (which has been tackling PvP topics since the summer of 2008) is working through a special month-long series on depression and mental health for the mustachioed Movember men's health movement. You wouldn't think someone who's struggled with depression himself and mental health issues in his immediate family would be a big fan of the emotional highs and lows of Battlegrounds. It's one of the questions Gnomeaggedon toys with regularly: "Kind of related to your interview with Lady Erinia -- is depression caused by excessive video gaming, or is video gaming 'self-medication' for depression? I know in my case, my depression began when I was a child. I had no idea, and things like that weren't discussed in my family -- so treatment came 20 years 'late.' And where WoW was an escape from the difficulties of life (as alcohol, etc., had been in the past), most people assumed I had a (stereotypical) problem with gaming." With a backlog of years' worth of posts about being a gnome mage, the PvP lifestyle, and scattered plugs for the awareness of mental health issues, Gnomeaggedon has left an indelible imprint in the WoW blogosphere. We had a cozy email conversation with the Aussie player to explore his enthusiastic support for Movember, how many fellow WoW players -- people you play with every day -- are likely to be touched in some way by mental health issues, and how "cleansing the debuff" of mental illness can make such a difference in people's lives.
Magnetic fields shut down speech, permit love songs (video)
You already know the strange powers of Stephin Merritt, but today we're talking about real magnetic fields. Powerful electromagnets, it turns out, can do remarkable things to the brain -- in this case, prevent a volunteer from reciting "Humpty Dumpty." The carefully directed magnets temporarily disrupt the brain's speech centers; the volunteer can still sing the rhyme using different areas of the brain, but simply can't overcome a series of stammers when trying to merely recite it. Of course, it's not all mad scientist applications: the UK team experimenting with transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) thinks it can help us understand and treat migraines (as we've seen before with the Migraine Zapper), depression, and ADHD, among other ailments. But improving physical well-being doesn't make for nearly as entertaining media -- see the British inflict some involuntary quiet time in the video above.
South Korean psychiatrists treating StarCraft 'addiction' with drugs
A study recently conducted by the Department of Psychiatry at South Korea's Chung Ang University has found that StarCraft "addiction" can be treated with Bupropion, an antidepressant and anti-smoking aid. According to Wired, the study found that individuals who took the drug for six weeks saw their average StarCraft playtime decrease by 35.5 percent. Also -- we swear we're not making this up -- MRI scans showed that participant's brains reacted less strongly to pictures of Zerglings after the treatment. Treating someone's obsessive behavior towards a video game with real-life pharmaceuticals is a fairly heavy prescription. Then again, out of the survey's eleven participants, six had dropped out of school for two months due to the amount of time they put into StarCraft every day. Two participants were divorced due to their demanding StarCraft schedules. Isn't it possible these people are suffering from depression because of their obsession with a video game? Or, rather, couldn't they have become obsessed with a video game because they were depressed? In either case, doesn't it kind of make sense to treat them with antidepressants?
Study claims internet addicted teens more likely to suffer depression (sigh)
1,041 Chinese teenagers got a clean bill of health; nine months later, 84 were diagnosed with depression. The cause? Why, internet addiction, of course. Dr. Lawrence Lam of the Sydney School of Medicine points the finger at "pathological use of the internet" as a major risk factor for depression, stating that those teens whose eyeballs were most glued to the screen were 2.5 times more likely to suffer from mental health problems. While Lam did guess the actual injuries were sustained from a lack of sleep due to late-night surfing and the ever-popular scapegoat online gaming rather than the direct effect of Hypnotoad, the good doctor reportedly didn't hesitate to call for school screenings and subsequent treatment for internet overuse as a result. It's perhaps worth noting this study comes from the same man who claimed (in 2009) that internet addicts were twice as likely to maim themselves.
Study: Playing in a guild actually lowers stress
A new study done by researchers at Australia's Queensland University of Technology says that spending time online playing World of Warcraft with others can actually be good for your mental wellbeing -- within moderation of course. Researcher Huon Longman studied WoW players who played alongside guildies in game, and found that players often shared their real-life concerns with their virtual associates, which resulted in lowered levels of "anxiety, depression, and stress." In short, it seems that when you build relationships and share emotions even with people online, it can help you deal with problems in real life as well. That follows what we talked about earlier this week with Dr. Hilarie Cash -- games like WoW can definitely complement real-life relationships and actually help you relax.But only when used in moderation -- Longman also found that 10% of the sample he studied played considerably more World of Warcraft than normal, and that those players not only didn't experience a bigger benefit to their wellbeing, but actually experienced more "negative psychological symptoms." A good balance of virtual and real life can have a lot of benefits, but falling too much into virtual life can actually cause more problems psychologically, according to this researcher's work. Obviously, this is one study of many about how playing these games can affect how we think, but the results are definitely reflected in experience: in-game relationships, used in moderation, can definitely help you deal with the real world in a healthier way.Thanks to everyone who sent this in!
