Author: dispatchtimes news

A small study from South China Normal University suggests our empathic responses to others’ pain are shaped by both physical attractiveness and moral history. While social judgments of character dominate our conscious pity, facial appeal appears to modulate brain activity at several processing stages. Empathy is not a single moment but unfolds in two dimensions: an automatic, emotional resonance, followed by a later, deliberate assessment of the situation. Observers are known to be influenced by cues such as attractiveness and perceived goodness, reinforcing the stereotype that beauty equates with virtue. Lead author Jiangyao Liu and colleagues set out to observe…

A new longitudinal study from Switzerland suggests that emotional disturbances experienced after reducing or stopping antidepressants are more accurately described as withdrawal reactions than relapse, a finding the researchers say could reshape how clinicians approach tapering. The work was led by Michael P. Hengartner of the Kalaidos University of Applied Sciences and tracked 32 adults in primary care as they began to discontinue their medications. The participants had been on antidepressants for an average of 42 months and were in stable remission when they planned to taper. Researchers assessed them just before tapering and again at two, four, six, eight,…

A new meta-analysis linking personality traits and attachment styles to internet pornography use has found that problematic consumption is more common among individuals with higher impulsivity, sexual compulsivity and neuroticism. The study also suggests that traits such as conscientiousness and self-control are associated with lower levels of pornography use overall. Led by Mehdi Akbari, a clinical psychologist at Kharazmi University in Iran, the research synthesised data from dozens of past studies to explore what shapes online viewing habits. The team combined results from studies measuring internet pornography use alongside personality traits or relationship attachment styles, including how people emotionally bond…

Researchers have advanced a technique known as xenocortication, enabling human brain tissue derived from stem cells to grow inside the skulls of newborn mice that have been genetically modified to lack their own cortex and hippocampus. The study, published in Nature, reports that the human grafts expand substantially, form long-distance neural connections, and respond to injuries, offering a living model to observe how human brain circuits develop and react to disease. “The main motivation was a fundamental limitation in studying disorders of the human brain,” senior author Sergiu P. Pașca, the Uytengsu Family Founding Director of the Stanford Brain Organogenesis…

Researchers report that people who see the world as inherently dangerous consistently overestimate the likelihood of everyday threats, from violent crime to animal attacks. In a series of four studies, they also found that this broad worldview colours how individuals judge unfamiliar, neutral faces as less trustworthy and more likely to be aggressive. The work is published in the Journal of Individual Differences. The researchers describe “primal world beliefs” as a framework capturing 26 broad dimensions through which people interpret reality. These beliefs cluster into four overarching categories, one of which concerns whether reality is generally safe or generally dangerous.…

A new analysis suggests that Republican members of Congress back Donald Trump’s agenda not primarily out of fear, but because they share the same voters. The research, published in PS: Political Science & Politics, argues a decades-long geographic realignment has aligned the parties’ presidential and congressional bases, producing unified policy objectives. In the American constitutional system, the president is elected nationally while members of Congress are chosen by states and local districts, creating a built-in rivalry between the branches. Recently, commentators have claimed Congress has abandoned its independent role and surrendered power to Trump; the common explanation is that lawmakers…

A new commentary published in Evolutionary Psychological Science argues that sex differences in overhand throwing cannot be explained by socialisation alone, insisting that biological predispositions and experience work together across development. The authors, Robert O. Deaner and Michael P. Lombardo, frame their argument as an interactionist account rather than a simple nature-versus-nurture debate. Researchers generally reject a binary choice between nature and nurture. Across disciplines including evolutionary biology, behavioural genetics and psychology, behaviour is treated as the product of ongoing interactions among genes, hormones, development, learning and the social environment. Yet explanations that attribute differences between women and men entirely…

A four‑week field experiment conducted on Reddit examined how online toxicity shapes participation in political discussions, revealing that polite environments prompt silent readers to post for the first time, while toxic debates drive the most active users to post more. The study appears in Science Advances and was led by Lisa Oswald of the Max Planck Institute for Human Development, with colleagues William Small Schulz and Philipp Lorenz‑Spreen. Online spaces central to political discourse often show a participation gap: a vocal minority creates most content while the majority observe in silence. Researchers refer to these highly active individuals as power…

A team of scientists from the Institutes of Brain Science at Fudan University has identified a nose-to-brain circuit that links the frequency of nasal airflow to anxiety regulation in mice. The researchers found that slow, rhythmic nasal breathing dampens anxiety by activating a specific neural pathway, while rapid breathing has the opposite effect. The findings, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, also showed that a daily regimen of simulated slow breathing can produce lasting relief from anxiety-like symptoms. To map the effect, the researchers exposed mice to distinct breathing frequencies—two breaths per second as slow, four…

A major Norwegian study has found that carrying excess belly fat in midlife is linked to higher blood levels of an Alzheimer’s biomarker and a significantly increased risk of dementia decades later. The findings, published in Neurology, centre on the work of lead author Ekaterina Zotcheva from the Norwegian National Centre for Ageing and Health, and draw on data from a large population study in Norway. The researchers aimed to understand how weight changes across adulthood relate to the brain’s pathology associated with Alzheimer’s disease. Rather than relying solely on memory tests and behavioural observations, they examined a blood biomarker…