Antidepressants, cognition, and emotional blunting: what’s the evidence?

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Angharad de Cates reviews a recent Danish trial, which finds that escitalopram reduced participants’ reinforcement sensitivity compared to those on placebo. This lower reinforcement sensitivity may be similar to the emotional blunting effect often reported by patients during SSRI treatment.

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Social media use and disordered eating: Australian study finds a link in young teenagers

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Francesca Bentivegna reviews a recent Australian study which finds a significant association between social media use and disordered eating in young adolescents.

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Dog therapy for dementia: can fluffy friends help with thinking and memory problems?

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Clare Dolan and Sarah Gregory summarise a recent systematic review on the effectiveness of dog therapy for people living with dementia, which suggests that animal assisted therapy may be a useful complementary treatment to help with the behavioural and psychological symptoms of dementia.

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Too much of a good thing: the cognitive impact of problematic internet use

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Marissa Kube-Clare reviews a recent meta-analysis on the impact of Problematic Internet Usage on different domains of cognition. The review concluded that Problematic Internet Use was associated with significant cognitive impairment.

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Is too much screen time bad for our children? Perhaps, but how much do we really know?

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David Turgoose explores a systematic review of reviews that looks at the effects of screen time on the health and well-being of children and adolescents. The review found that higher levels of screen time were related to some physical and mental health concerns, such as poor diet, obesity and depression.

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Review of apps and other digital technology to assess cognition in older adults

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Sarah Gregory writes her debut elf blog on a clinical review in the Evidence-Based Mental Health journal about digital technologies for the assessment of cognition.

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Reminiscence therapy for people living with dementia: Cochrane review is inconclusive

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Liz Collier and Solomon Towuru summarise the recently updated Cochrane systematic review on reminiscence therapy for dementia, which includes evidence showing that reminiscence therapy may improve quality of life, cognition, communication and possibly mood in people with dementia in some circumstances, although all the benefits were small.

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Moderate and heavy alcohol consumption: what impact on later life brain and cognition?

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Sally Adams summarises a recent clinical review in Evidence Based Mental Health on the effects of drinking alcohol on late-life brain and cognition.

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Mindfulness in schools: what next?

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Jennifer Hanratty summarises the recent Campbell review on mindfulness-based interventions for improving cognition, academic achievement, behaviour and socioemotional functioning in schools. She considers what school leaders, researchers and policy makers should do next, considering the current uncertainty around mindfulness in schools.

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